#for being territorial i mean like. having extreme opinions on a lot of things within a fandom

[b3ndy]

Hey question. Has anyone ever like. Been territorial over media (source especially if fictionfolk) and found a way to get over it. If you have I'd really, really like advice. Even if you haven't but have things to say I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Elaboration in tags, I suppose.

[bro3256]

The Console Paradox

If you've been following me on social media for the past several months, you've probably noticed quite a bit of complaining on my end regarding the mix up between the Famicom and NES. At first I had a minor annoyance with it, such as when YouTubers mention that the NES released in 1983 when in reality that's the year the Family Computer or Famicom came out, the NES wouldn't release until a test launch in New York in 1985. It seems like a ton of people get this wrong due to being unaware of what the Famicom even is. Soon though, I've grown to have a very strong opinion regarding this.

But why should this even matter? Isn't the Famicom just a Japanese NES? If we're going by that logic than the NES is just an American Famicom, cause the more you start to think about this you start to realize that we have quite a problem on our hands regarding what we even call a platform like this overall. Unlike with modern consoles that are identical globally no matter where you live, consoles from a few decades ago not only look different but have separate identities that only exist in the territories they were released in. Despite that however, most of the internet seems to be happy with mixing everything up into things we're familiar with, but I believe that has resulted in tons of confusion and misinformation regarding older video games.

Now before I can really get into the topic at hand, I need to establish some definitions just so we're on the same page. Terms like console and platform are thrown together interchangeably whenever used in discussion but for this post I will be treating both terms as meaning different things.

Console: A computer designed to play software made for it.

Platform: An ecosystem that encompasses the games designed for specific consoles.

These aren't perfect definitions but my aim is to illustrate that different consoles can exist but still fall under the same general platform. So lets take the Famicom and NES again, both would be separate consoles but fall under the same platform. Now ask yourself this, what would you call this platform?

If your immediate answer is the NES then congratulations this is the reality we live in at this very moment. Of course this isn't a problem exclusively to these consoles, there are plenty of other examples you can point to with this exact dilemma such as with the Super Famicom and SNES, the PC-Engine and TurboGrafx-16, the Mega Drive and Genesis, just to name a few. Currently we do not have a neutral term to call these video game platforms, and it seems like we are content with keeping it this way for the foreseeable future which is really bad in the context of video game preservation.

(Wikipedia is the closest thing we have to a general site documenting video games in general)

Documentation regarding video games is already sparse on the internet, and this mix up certainly does not help whatsoever. That's not to discount the many projects currently in operation, my point is that we currently do not have good easy to access documentation regarding video games, anything remotely obscure is extremely difficult to find information for let alone in your native language. The tools in place can absolutely be improved and I believe clearing this console paradox up would be beneficial to everyone.

Think of it this way, consoles such as the Famicom and NES are in their own lanes. The Famicom side has its own set of things going for it and so does the NES side but the road itself is what holds the two together. If you attempt to drive on the Famicom lane and hastily merge within the NES lane you'll get into an accident and that accident is either misinformation or getting a false misunderstood narrative. Weird analogy at first but this is the best visual I can give whenever information regarding one console is applied to another.

Now before I wrap things up, I want to make it clear that a lot of this is my own opinion, that being said I am open for discussion whether you think a line needs to be drawn somewhere or that separating consoles like this is unnecessary.

(Note: I mainly used the Famicom and NES as examples in this post but as stated before this also applies to other consoles with this general platform issue.)

[fadebolt]

To add my two cents here:

I don't believe that a little paranoia is completely unjustified, because we have seen that the Rain World devs like to keep a close touch with their community, and it is absolutely undeniable that the fanbase has had and will have an enormous influence on the past and the future of the game (just to put this into perspective, the 'slugcat' creature name was literally made up by a fan).

I am amongst the people who believe that the lack of romantic relationships in the source material is not a detriment, but is something that works in favor of the stories that it's trying to tell. And so I think that it is a good thing overall that the rise of RW shipping has not influenced the canon lore at all, and I would prefer it to stay that way, unless the writers really know what they're doing.

With that being said, if you allow these opinions and mild concerns to act as motivation to openly antagonize (and in some worse cases, harass) completely innocent parts of the community, then to put it simply, something is very wrong with you.

Yes, I understand that shipping fandoms have had a history of negatively impacting media, but that doesn't mean you get a free pass to preemptively say bad stuff towards the RW shipping community in an anticipation of an extremely unlikely downfall of the game.

And why? Because it's not our responsibility to make sure that the writers and developers make the right choices. If they do end up botching the game in a lazy attempt to do fan service for the shippers, then the blame is on the developers, and the developers only. Figuring out what is worth taking from the fandom is an important part of their job, and they have been doing that extremely well so far. So trying to get rid of everything that shouldn't be used by the developers is not just outright impossible, but also simply asinine.

Also, something important to note about fandoms in general is that everyone is there to have fun in their own way, and everyone does indeed deserve to have fun in their own way, as long as it's not reaching extremely uncomfortable territories (so y know, no NSFW or pedo, or any other nasty stuff).

Not everything that happens within a fandom is going to be something that you enjoy, which is why nobody is going to be overly insistent on their stuff to the point that they're pushing it onto you. And I know this, because I have openly stated that I do not ship Artificer and Hunter in spaces where artihunter shippers can see it, and I have suffered absolutely no consequences for it.

And just so you know, there's many shippers out there who build their ships specifically to complement the game's themes and ideas, so the whole "shippers water down characters and ruin the game's themes" argument applies to fewer people than you'd think, and doesn't really serve as valid criticism for the overall shipping community.

So I really don't see how shippers could make anybody's experience in the fandom worse in any way, that would unironically be considered to be their fault.

Sorry for going overly long with this, I just had a lot of points that I really wanted to get out of my head. This topic is quite deep, and I hope my perspective could be of help :)

man im so tired of the shipping community in this fandom being treated like garbage

“you’re ruining the games themes” “stop watering down characters to shipping” noone is though. just because not everything is canon all the damn time and not everything caters to YOU doesnt mean the fandoms being ruined. let people have fun. let people do what they want. theres plenty of people and shippers who enjoy the canon lore as much as you do. i would know. im one of them.

if people want to make two characters hold hands, let them. leave people be. stop intruding everyones fun because you dont like it. we’re chilling. leave us alone.

[la-princessaa]

This is kind of a "probably better as an actual diary entry" post, but for some reason I write better when I'm posting on social media? I don't lose steam as fast, lol. So, if this sees the light of day, ayo. If not, then I hope that this can be a turning point. I hope I look back at this and am reminded that I am... Thought of and loved in ways my brain may choose to ignore too often.

I have not been doing well lately, I think that's just been my general statement for the last... Year and a half. Big life changes, general growing, current circumstances, etc etc. I've lost a tremendous amount of confidence in myself. I have not been treating myself well. Lately, it has been awful. I was better for a couple of months, and then I wasn't. I was okay. And then I got sick and couldn't really eat. And then I relapsed. I don't feel particularly like spelling it out, but I'm sure the jist is there. And now I can only really go a couple of weeks of feeling better.

I do not have confidence. Everything I do isn't for me, it's for people around me. I need to please my boyfriend so I can keep him, in many different contexts, or else. Which, is extremely untrue, as a disclaimer. He's told me many, many, many times that this is not the case. It's just hard trying to unlearn previous relationships where no matter what I did, I was never enough. Couple that in with learning that some things are just so easy to do now! and you've got yourself a one-way ticket to fucking up a lot of things. And it's been bad lately. I tell myself I have to try and get better, so I can be a better person for those who care about me because I love them and they don't deserve to be treated this way. They deserve to have things they tell me remembered, to have a functioning conversation partner, to have someone that won't internally cling to the ceiling at the words "where do you wanna eat?" or intentionally him and haw about where to eat in the hopes that they'll just pick something so i don't have to because I don't want to be a monetary inconvenience or have to figure out what I want to eat, which is two paths. Yadda yadda. To have someone that isn't afraid to take up space emotionally. I'm petrified of taking up space. Of inconveniencing people. Of having an outward opinion. Of being a person.

Lately, it has been bad. A few days of being better, and then I go back. "Nobody cares" thoughts are creeping in. Within the last week, I've bawled my eyes out 4-5 times because it's all just been so much and I don't care if this kills me, maybe it's better it does. I see the people who are supposed to care about me and I shrug them off. People make innocent comments and suddenly I'm arched and hissing like a cat, how dare you say that? Are you saying I'm not this thing? You're saying you'd like me to change, is that it? And then I'm meek and crying. Of course they're saying that, that's what they want me to be. Okay. Okay. I can do that for you. Just don't leave. Please. I'm so sensitive, it's awful, even for me because I know they don't mean comments like that. I don't want them to feel like they have to carefully watch every single word they say, but suddenly I'm exploding and hurting and they don't even know why. They couldn't even have prevented it.

I don't know how to ask for help. I don't know how to say help, I want to be nothing so people will love me. Help, I don't know how to have an opinion anymore. Help, I'll put up with anything. Help, I want to be a skeleton. Like, I thought about it the other day and I realized that I'm a prime target to be abused. I'm so grateful I'm with the man I am right now because holy shit. I'd be in dangerous territory if I wasn't. It's still a terrifying thought.

Anyway. This is half the point of this word salad. I needed to get everything I'm too afraid to say to people into the world because if I'm too quiet, I will die. Either metaphorically, or I will be leaving the people I love most with holes in their hearts. I've never typed that out, or said it. But now I'm finally really thinking about it, and I know I don't want to do that. I do not want to leave my sister, my boyfriend, my parents, my friends, my family, with one of the saddest stories in the world to tell. I do not want to be an "I had" person. Some days I think I do. But I realize that I don't want that, deep down. I don't want my sister to have to say "I had a sister, but she's gone now" or "when my sister was alive". I don't want that for her. I don't want to promise a future with my boyfriend and then be like, haha, sike. I don't want my parents to have to bury their daughter.

All because my sister bought me a cinnamoroll lip gloss. All because my cousin bought me the zero sugar strawberries and cream Dr Pepper. Because my boyfriend told me on Friday "do you want ice cream? I just wanna take you out somewhere" and a ton of other nice things alongside listening to me when I brought something up to him. It's the way my sister hugs me and the way I see her now. How beautiful and happy she looks. I don't want to steal that from her. It's the note that I put up from my best friend that tells me I'm loved. It's the crown on my shelf from my other best friend because she "thought I deserved one". It's the Christmas gifts from my long gone great grandma that all say "love you" on them and one calls me darling. It's the way my dad calls me by my special nickname and asks me if I wanna eat with him and my mom. It's the way my mom tells me about the movies she watches.

I want this to mark recovery. I want this to mark getting better. Currently, I'm not doing super great still. I'd like to do something unsavory because I still have this nagging thought that I should just make life easy for everyone else and be a prop in their lives. Either someone who does nothing but upkeeps the house, takes care of the dogs and then lays in their room and rots in their free time, or someone that'll make sex easy. You can do whatever you want, it's fine! I'll just weep and harm myself about it later. But it's fine if I hurt if you're happy. (Hard opposite of what the person I have sex with wants, disclaimer.)

I want to upend my entire life, right now. I want to lay and wallow and waste away. But I don't want my loved ones to be hurt more. And I just gotta keep that going until I'm on more even footing and can do things for me. I hope that after today, that voice will be a little bit quieter. I hope that I'll look at my lip gloss, and his stupid, sweet little cinnamoroll face and know that my sister saw him and thought of me. I don't want to make him a painful memory. He's too cute for that.

[howtofightwrite]

What’s the best way to come up with a backstory for nigh-irredeemable villain and hate sink without getting into Unfortunate Implications territory? I’m specifically worried about ableism - making him a sociopath or giving him a traumatic backstory both imply things I don’t want to about mental illness and trauma. I thought about giving him a privileged background with parents who never told him “no” and shielded him from consequences of his actions, but I feel like that takes too much agency away from him and shifts too much blame to his parents.

This is one of those situations where there really isn't a single, “best,” solution.

One of the first things that comes to mind is, don't try to make your audience feel sorry for your villain.  This is a personal opinion, so you're free to disagree, but if you're trying to build up your villain, presenting a tearjerker backstory undercuts that. It diminishes your villain. Sort of like characterizing Batman as, “a rich boy with daddy issues,” really shortcuts the whole, “Dark Knight,” mystique.

Digging into a villain's backstory can be quite perilous. Especially if you're trying to show the adversity that shaped them into the baby eating monstrosity we see in the present. Under the best possible circumstances, you can potentially make the character a deeper and richer individual as a result, but this comes with a severe risk of accidentally turning them into a whiny, entitled, and petulant while robbing them of whatever genuine threat they'd managed to build up.

In fact, a villain who actively conceals elements of their past, (or throws out small fictions about their origins) can be far more threatening, and also build up that mystique by depriving the audience of information about how they became who they are. For a moment, consider the sheer volume of speculation about the backstory of Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, sparked from his erratic and inconsistent explanations for how he came to be (and how none of those stories really line up with his behavior.) Especially the part where his constantly erratic and chaotic persona slides right over a shockingly methodical approach to violence that keeps the character compelling. You don't know who he is, and he's constantly trolling everyone who tries to get a better understanding of him.

One situation where you can start digging into their backstory is if their villainous plan actually has a solid philosophical foundation. This can get into some pretty disturbing territory, as your villain may literally be a terrorist, but if they're trying to put an end to an unjust social order, stop some greater evil, or are even just out for revenge against a group that has wronged them in the past, you can get a legitimately sophisticated villain that could be downright sympathetic, while also being a complete monster. Somewhat obviously, this is going to be a lot harder to balance, but the option is there.

These kinds of villains can actually play against narrative expectations, and what we tend to expect from stories. In the vast majority of cases, the hero in a story is seeking to maintain, or restore, the status quo, while the villain seeks to disrupt or alter it. This can become a point of reference to quickly identify who is the hero, and who is the villain. This also means you can have a story where the villain is, legitimately, trying to create a better world (and not just in the vague and intimidating, creating an evil world they can rule over, but legitimately seeking to improve it), and is opposed by a hero who is trying to maintain an unjust, or even oppressive, status quo. Within that, the more extreme the villain's methods, the more complicated the calculus becomes. (Especially if they can avoid crossing a threshold where they're simply sowing misery indiscriminately, and their, “brighter future,” starts to sound like empty platitudes.)

Again, there isn't one right answer, but if you want an irredeemable villain, you probably shouldn't try to redeem them by delving into their backstory.

-Starke

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[wolfsrainrules]

About Encanto crossover ideas. The arcobalenos being similar to the madrigal in the sense that they receive magical powers and have to use them to help the community. Skull is the only one who doesn't have any power and the others look down on him because of that but after, like, A Whole Adventure™ it's revealed that he does have a power, and a very powerful one at that, it's just that he saw the others being extremely pressured by the weight of their powers and their "duty" to help and oh boy was he NOT up for that. When people think you're weak they don't expect anything from you so you're free to do what you want right?? So he decided to be underestimated because he has the Cloud Thing™ for Freedom.

ah, this must be the anon that sent in the other ask XDD I DO so love bamf Skull. And the idea of him being from Columbia is really interesting too. It changes a lot of things. From his clothing choices, little habits, beliefs... He runs much better with the 'magical flames' things in this verse too. Also also- he develops the thought that the Candle is lit by a Mist Flame and it has created a "Territory" within, that is hidden, and 'gifts' those how are within the Family that spawned it abilities to protect that territory. Perhaps layers the thought that they must take care of it into their minds. No Mist Flame wants to be put out at any time after all. Especially not the last dying will of one who sacrificed himself to ensure the safety of his family (That's right I'm gonna run with the idea that Pedro was the provider of that Flame I am already of the opinion that Casita's spirit is Pedro's, this just expands on it) It's interesting. It also means outside the encanto, the abilities of the family are....less. Possibly still present, if it's just a manifestation of their inborn Flames being brought to the surface- (Luisa, a lightning, Isabela a Sun etc) but not as strong outside the Encanto- because they've never trained with it. Skull? Skull doesn't mind helping his community- thats his and he takes care of what is his. But being chained to it? No, no he's not going to allow that. Let's say he was Bruno's son and his gift is something like....pausing time? That seems very powerful. And I could possibly relate it back to Cloud Flames, if I framed it as 'stretching the space between moments" so it's like he pauses it, and no one knows he can do that, cause he never brings people with him in his frozen moments. No one but Bruno. Who would not subject his boy to this pressure, this weight, that his mother expected them to carry, their children to carry.

So Skull hides it.

Hides it until the house- their home, their Casita- begins to collapse, and he has to buy the time they need to figure out why and stop it. Fighting a collapsing Mist Territory the entire way.

[just-ray]

Okay, so first, a VERY BREIF and BARELY ACCURATE history.

England occupies Ireland, and we're like nah man we're dome with this. That causes a lot of stuff that leads to a lot of other stuff, all of which is immensely important and will get its own post.

In Ireland we have three parties that I will refer to the most

Fianna Fáil or FF

Fine Gael or FG

Sinn Féin or SF or "The Shinners"

So, Ireland wants its independence, and Britain is like, "Why are you not hip and down with the kids >:(" and acts as if nothing will really come of it, until things do come of it. A VERY long story for another post short, we're looking like we're going to have the dáil in Westminster (england territory), but the shinners, and in fairness fair play to them, are NOT having that, and thus Westminster Dáil was done and gone.

Years into the future, and here we are now, so let's get down to it. Keep in mind this will be an ELI5 (explain like I'm five) because tbh thats what I needed when i was first getting into politics.

The lingo

Dáil= the new york of Leinster House. Gossip central if you follow politics. The place where they come up with things. The lower house. The arguably more central/relevant house but everyone follows different things

Seánad= the Cornwall of Leinster House. Chilled out enough and eveyone gets on for the most part. The place where they discuss and approve or turn down the things that they came up with in the dáil. The higher house.

TD (Teachta Dála): dáil homie

Senator : seanad homie

President = mostly ceremonial. The big guy. Unlike an American president, which would be the equivalent of a taoiseach, the Irish president just kind of chills and signs things and occasionally dissolves the dáil (dissolves meaning he gives them permission to hold another general. More on that later.) The president is the highest house.

Oireachtas/Houses Of The Oireachtas = a collective term for all three "houses" (groups) within irish politics. The Dáil, The Seanad, and The President.

Taoiseach = the big guy

Tánaiste = the smaller big guy

Opposition leader = the big woman representing the side that isn't really keen on the two big guys

Ceann Comhairle = Makes sure no TD goes over their given time limit to speak. Controls excess conflict. The Dáils Babysitter, and in my opinion, the nicest man you will ever meet.

Leas Ceann Comhairle = deputy ceann comhairle, and the dáils favourite auntie.

Cathoirle = ceann comhairle for the seanad.

Minister for [___] = Member of government appointed by the Taoisieach that manages a specific department and area.

Department = Other word for a place where they do things. Eg: department of health = place where the minister for health + a load of other people who know about health do politics stuff related to health.

Constituency: almost like a county but does not conform to current counties. Basically a county in the world of politics. Usually, constituencies are divided and changed based on the number of people in the area. Eg: Dublin is broken into Dublin Southwest, Dublin west, Dublin South Central ect because of how many people are in Dublin

How Do Elections Work?

How do parties work?

You want to get elected? Bam. Okay. Do you like any of the parties? No? Okay then you can run independently. TDs that don't follow a party are called "independants".

So why isn't eveyone an independent? Simple.

It is extremely difficult, in fact almost impossible to get into government without being in a party. The price we pay to be in government is individual expression, which is why its REALLY IMPORTANT to choose a party you agree with.

Okay- so now we go as so-

How much do you want to be in government? And how much are you willing to sacrifice your political liberty for that?

I just want to express 100% my own opinion, and im okay with not being in government = independent

I want to have a chance to be in government and am willing to work and fight HARD to get it while still expressing my opinions even if it may not happen in my lifetime = People Before Profit, Rabharta

I want to mostly express my opinion even if I have to conform a little, but also want to be in government to have a chance to make change = Labour, Socdems

I want to get into government and do nothing = greens

I hate the taoiseach = sinn féin

I hate women = aontu probably

Really want to be in government and am willing to commit to owning and recognising my parties past mistakes and improving= probably FF or FG, depending on whether you're more inclined to culchie kerry or trinity collage core Kimmage.

---

And now, (almost) inaccurate representation of parties with 6 words or less.

Sinn fein = ex ra. Okay party leader.

FF = FG but culchie

FG = FF if they drank earl grey

Rabharta = communists

Pbp = socialists

Socdems = socialists that REALLY want government years

Aontu = hates abortion. Salutes irish flag.

Irish Freedom Party = hates abortion....and gays....and women....

Renua = ??? Progressive pro lifers?? Somehow???? Idfk...

Greens = Google "eamon ryan sleeping dáil"

Labour = white slice pan as a party

Ind = good actions/ideas. Never both.

The healy raes = bad theory, flawless execution.

Ming = gets his own category.

But what about elections????

So basically there are four ish (five in my oppinon) elections in ireland.

Locals, to select who represents us on a constituency (local) level to the council, Generals, to select who represents our consituency and country on a national level in the Dáil, Presidentials, to select the president, Europeans, to select who represents Ireland on a European level, and the ceann comhairle election done by secret ballot. Only voted for by members of Dáil Éireann to my knowledge, aka TD's. Not voted for by the public.

We are only going to focus on locals and generals, the two main elections. Usually people run for locals earlier in their career, then for generals, and then they either become a senator (eg Michael McDowell), run for Europeans (eg Ming Flannagan) or become nominated for the position or Ceann Comhairle (eg Seán Ó Fearghaíl.)

So if you run for locals and get elected, you become a Coincillor. That means your job is to represent your area and bring its issues to the council.

If you run for generals and get elected, you're a TD. That means your job is to do all sorts of gobshite and you cna probably guess the half of it.

Locals are pretty simple- the nuance lies in generals.

How do general electiosn work?

Basically it works a bit different for independents and people who've joined a party.

If you're running independently you just run and you get smacked on the ballot in your area.

If you run with a party, the party has to TELL you you can run, and you must be nominated to run. This is because the party doesn't want to split the vote too much and wants their party to get a lot of votes, meaning they have to only run their best members.

Right so the elections are done, and your party gets enough votes to get into government. It can choose to go into coalition with another party that did good that it cooperates well with. The largest party with the most votes that doesn't get in is called the opposition party, and the leader of that party is called the opposition leader.

As for the nomination of taoiseach, parties will nominate their own leader, and the leader will have to receive the most yes votes from the dáil or something along the lines of that.

Irish politics is also interesting because it's important to remember that it breaks the traditional idea that the higher position has more career security.

What i mean is, the people don't work for tds, and tds doesn't work for the taoiseach...in fact it's rather the other way around. The taoiseach had responsibility to Dáil Éireann, meaning they can literally kick him (simon harris) out at any time if he looses the support of the majority of the dáil, in the form of a no confidence vote. Likewise, Tds depend on people voting them in for their jobs. This doesn't ELIMINATE corruption, of course, but it reduces it. The Taoiseach has power over the dáil, but Likewise this balances out, as the dáil decides whether or not the taoiseach gets to keep that power and, additionally can revoke it pretty much at any time.

So in practical dáil, the opposition gets to basically grill the government about what they're doing, and since it HAS to be broadcasted publicly pretty much all the time, the government has to answer not only to the opposing party, but to the people as well.

A piece about my favourite political role, the role of the Ceann Comhairle.

The role of the Ceann Comhairle, to me, has always been one of the most beautiful roles in the Oireachtas. Moreso than the Taoiseach, who I believe often holds an air of exuberance, and occasionally defensive nearsightedness, the Ceann Comhairle is a calmer and kinder presence in the dáil.

Sometimes, I speak about political hope and I realise before I can justify my possession of it with anyone, I must realise my source of it. A source which cannot be pinpointed to one particular moment or credited to one time, but can only be summarised.

"I am going to break with tradition."

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2024-06-25/speech/11/

Leaders questions, 25th of june, 2024.

The ceann comhairle is trusted by the dáil to uphold it in a democratic manner, and so, one in that position must make a sacrifice.

The Ceann Comhairle can not show bias in the house.

Nor debate in the house for the most part.

The Ceann Comhairle can not vote in the house, unless to break a tie.

And as such

The ceann comhairle makes a sacrifice in order to uplift the voices of others.

Like a politician

Should.

---

Amy questions at all DO NOT HESITATE! Hope this explains it a little, and keep in mind this is dubiously accurate at best.

please yap about irish politics im so fucking uninformed

Gonna take a while to answer because there's a lot but I WILL ANSWER

[tg-headcanons]

Tokyo Ghoul Meta: Where The Plot Could Have Gone

There’s a lot to say about Tokyo Ghoul and all the ways it went sideways, specifically, the point completely changing. I’ll get right into it with this: the moral of Tokyo Ghoul was built up so well, then entirely reduced to nothing, and I want to talk about what it could have been.

First off, we start with the blueprint for an intricate world consisting of ghouls who must eat humans to survive, and humans who have made a government organization to kill ghouls in retaliation. Within these opposing sides are even more subgroups that sprouted up in response to the way the world works. Humans who love ghouls and humans who go to extremes to hurt them. Ghouls who support one another and ghouls who militarize to gain territory. It’s set up plain and clear, neither side is intrinsically evil, the villain is the systems that they were born into and those who run them. They’re people, some with the need to eat human flesh, but people nonetheless

Throughout the first part of the story, nonviolent ghouls and loving humans are put in good light. Look at Yoriko, Kimi, and Hide, who are either in love or at least close friends with ghouls, and knowingly or not make their lives better. These are unquestionably good characters. Look at Nishiki, Touka, and Yoshimura. They all love humans, and are unquestionably, despite moral dilemmas of balancing necessary murder with love, heroes. What way is there to interpret this besides the plot being set up to favor humans and ghouls coming together?

Now we move on to the villains. There’s both humans and ghouls portrayed as evil, but they have something in common: status. The CCG is an institution. They’re well funded, opulent, and operating as a well oiled machine with all the resources and support they could possibly want while exploiting their workers and indoctrinating children to train with them. The Washuus are ghouls who breed people like animals and sell out their entire species to preserve themselves and this system that benefits them. The ghouls at the auction house and restaurant are rich. They have personal wealth fueling hedonistic meals and sadistic shows. What way is there to interpret this besides the plot being set up to portray those who use money and power to exploit others as villains?

What way is there to approach this aside from loving and hating both humans and ghouls? How could anyone possibly absorb this narrative without it being abundantly clear that it’s not really average humans or ghouls at fault for the violence, but rather they’re victims of someone else’s game?

This doesn’t end here, as there was so many other hints to the way the show was heading. There were other times when characters in a sympathetic light were so close to getting it. Kaneki lived in both ghoul and human worlds and was able to see both perspectives. Yoshimura had done awful things and wanted to atone in a way where no one else had to die meaninglessly. Amon was so close to understanding that ghouls were not the things making the world wrong. Hide and Kimi were protecting their ghouls while knowing full well what they are. And (in my opinion the most blatant example,) Ginshi breaking down over Nutcracker.

He killed this woman who forced him to confront what he’s been doing. With her dying breath, he realized that she was a real person, and one in such a similar situation to him. He, in a human mirror of the way ghoul characters have starved themselves when they were disgusted by what it means to eat human flesh, couldn’t bring himself to use her corpse as a weapon. Ginshi and Fura’s talk sold it. For the first time, we see investigators truly understand that these are people, and what they do is not noble.

Changing Kaneki’s character so erratically, burning anteiku, dumping the friendly humans, tossing Amon aside and killing Ginshi were coward moves. Ishida really seemed to care more about the Edginess Level Ups over the most clear and well rounded narrative

The way it was initially set up left a massive, obvious, and amazing route open, one that would have made the show top tier. This route would be shifting the focus from Humans vs Ghouls to The Exploited vs The Exploiters. It was never species that was the problem, it was the people running their world.

Let’s imagine an alternate approach, one where plans and characters and every little detail wasn’t tossed aside for the sake of making Kaneki edgier. Let’s imagine if the human partners weren’t left behind, if Amon had stayed with the CCG, if Anteiku had stayed together and most importantly, Ginshi wasn’t killed off in a coward’s move to end a narrative that was better than whatever the hell the dragon was supposed to mean.

Think of Kaneki returning to Anteiku after Jason’s torture, and he tells them that he’s ready to be a ghoul, but understands that they are not monsters so much as people so hurt and so trapped by their bodies that they have no choice but to fight. Think of Touka and Yoshimura agreeing, and deciding to do whatever they can to change the world into one they can live in. Think of the human partners spreading support and learning about ghouls. Think of Amon slowly losing the will to kill ghouls and instead asking questions that tug at his heart more and more

Think of Ginshi reflecting on the nutcracker and having a realization: “I have more in common with struggling ghouls than I ever will with wealthy humans”

Because that’s where it should have gone

Everything was there for that to be the point. That yes, ghouls and CCG employees have been caught into this bloody and vicious cycle, but that wheel is being spun by someone else. That both humans and ghouls are profiting off of both humans and ghouls dying in the conflict. That they can work past physical limitations and multigenerational horror even if it’s tough because they owe it to themselves to have at least a moment of peace for the first time in their lives. That this conflict is paid for and profited off of by a handful of ghouls and humans, and who needs guillotines when you have quinque and kagune working in tandem?

In all, Tokyo Ghoul’s biggest tragedy was the loss of an amazing plot. With all the set up and symbolism, it could have been a story about the extent of personal responsibility in a no win situation, of hurt people overcoming incomparable horrors to end a system of violence and blame, because that is what made sense for the plot, and quite is frankly what fans of the story deserved

[cantillat-moved]

It wasn’t like Shirou was particularly interested in Sonia’s cousin or the way he coped – the guy was important to Sonia, it was a good thing the three cousins got along fine and could support each other when it comes to the pressure of dealing with the royal family. As much the adventurer would always offer an shoulder and his ears so she could express herself it was something that no-one could relate but someone in her own circle. Shirou could offer an informed opinion and sometimes to see it outside the box, but even so his advice could have serious limitations. For some people it could be hard to feel sympathy to those born in privilege and haven’t endured hunger or hardships that may ordinary individuals had – but they do have their own challenges and troubles that comes with their position and it wasn’t so simple as “redistribute the health” or “eat the rich” or,  in an extreme case “anarchy for the win”. The world is far more complicated and complex than any individual can possibly hope to understand.

❝ I know you, Sonia. I’m sure you’ll be a splendid queen. ❞ his words were honest as they come ❝ Changes are never easy and there might be some resentment at some point, or even some ruffled feathers. People don’t like to see things being different, it is easy to keep focusing on not rocking the boat as long it is comfortable. There will be a delicate act of doing the changes and not losing the support of either the population and those in power, but I’m sure if anyone can pull that off, that will be you.  ❞ Shirou had never been someone to sugarcoat or spew white lies, so he would rather to voice things in a realistic viewpoint – or even with a tinge of pessimism. Still, Sonia managed to be the Ultimate Princess, the epitome of what a princess should be and represent in her entire generation and perhaps in a somewhat long time, a beacon of hope that inspires those around her. It is certainly a rather daunting title that puts a lot of pressure in her shoulders, that’s why Shirou avoids directly mentioning it, yet it signifies that Sonia is more than just a princess, she is a special type of ruler… However, the title is only a fraction of who she truly is and what she can accomplish. The girl can be a genius in her area yet Shirou admires her kindness the most. ❝ I don’t know how I would be of any use, but I’ll always be at your service both as your friend and, if you need it, to offer my services. As long I’m not all messed up, it is. ❞ he made a snide commentary about his own sorry state.

❝ I don’t say you should bring magecraft to Novoselic. ❞ he put it bluntly ❝ However, many mages are rich and affluent, with stocks in companies and enterprises around the world. Some Middle-Eastern magi actually have oil companies, for example. Mages have a rather skewed mindset, they are taught to be inhumane and treat non-magi as cattle – which makes them dangerous businessmen. They might want to establish their companies or have branches in Novosonian territories, or even have business with the government itself. Think of it as a way to recognize possible signs and use it in your favor during meetings. ❞ it was a good thing that her country had expelled mages a long time ago, in fact the belief in magic is so limited in the area that most families would think it is unappealing for them to make their territory within the borders of Novoselic. ❝ And, of course, I know how much you do enjoy occult so indulging in your curiosity isn’t a bad thing. ❞

❝ Ah, I see. You are enticing me with books ? Do I look like a bookworm to you ? ❞ there was a playful frown, ❝ Perhaps I should keep my hobbies close to the heart, otherwise it will be hard for me to leave. At this point I might apply for citizenship already.  ❞ the thought actually had crossed his mind before. Unfortunately, Japanese citizens are only allowed to have two citizenship, meaning only one another other than Japanese. Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea – it would give him an European citizenship and it would make much easier to go to see Sonia. Besides, sometimes he does get some odd jobs with the Novosonian secret service (poor Maurice decided that if you can’t beat them, better join them).  ❝ Emiya Shirou : mage, Hero of Justice and book keeper extraordinaire. One of them isn’t like the others. ❞

Yes, he called himself a “Hero of Justice” without a hint of irony. There was even a little hint of pride.

❝ Wait, since when I have become “Shirou-san” ? ❞ he held back his urge to laugh otherwise it could be a painful experience. Instead he merely tilted his head, giving her a smirk ❝  You’ve always been a trendsetter, it isn’t the first time you fall asleep wearing my clothes after all.  ❞ he did recall vividly that night in which she wore a mash up of his and Sakura’s pajamas – and that was the occasion the boy realized how attractive Sonia could be, how nice her curves are. ❝ And we also spent some nights up talking until both of us got too tired to stay awake. If you believe yourself to be a terrible host, then I’m a disaster of a host. Perhaps I’m the one who should ask for your forgiveness.  ❞

Cope they did: Liam’s way was to throw himself into hedonism whenever possible, Sam was consumed by his art and his plane, and Sonia…well, she simply worked. Some chocolate here and a short holiday there, but she mostly did everything asked of her and more. If just for the fact that one day she would be the one in charge: of her country, of her cousins. Or their happiness at least.

Not that she wanted to talk about them right now, in particular. Sonia hadn’t wanted to admit it, but it was starting to be a little disconcerting for her: how much Shirou seemed to take an interest in them. Considering what little she knew of his inclinations, there was always the possibility that he preferred men to begin with. That wasn’t the problem: the problem was how, deep down, she hoped Liam wouldn’t turn the head of yet another man she dared have an interest in. Particularly one she’d known for years, one she’d held in the highest esteem for years and living with the guilt she felt for doing so. He hadn’t deserved it then, the burden of how she really felt about him. He didn’t deserve it now, either: he had his own life, and she had hers, and even with the offer of an open door (or open library), Shirou was under no obligation to ever come back if he so chose.

“I won’t,” She interjected, referring to his warning regarding her ideals. She couldn’t promise him she wouldn’t use her own coping methods when she needed them: she was only human, something that she struggled to convey to others. Sonia Nevermind was no 100% pure princess in a 100% pure castle: every day tested her kindness, her politeness, her patience with the world. And some days, she lost. “Lose sight, that is. Of what I want to change for this country. There will certainly be changes someday, and the people of this nation must meet them when they occur. I just hope my legacy will not be one of resentment.”

That was already easier said than done: Sonia had already dared to be born a girl in an unbroken line of kings for the past 500 years. Every country had their own superstitions, with one of Novoselic’s being a woman monarch would lead to the nation’s downfall. Sonia sighed, leaning back in her chair: she preferred the occult to superstition. Demonic possession was far easier to enjoy and understand than the doubt passed from generation to generation about a woman in power. “Very well, very well,” Sonia sighed, probably far louder than she should as she waved her hand in dismissal. “I will not tell anyone, not even Nanami-san. Though I am under the impression that I am allowed to discuss such things with the likes of Tohsaka-san and Hilda. As you stated, I should be able to trust the Tohsaka and Edelfelt families. Still, with how much Novoselic is seemingly lacking in magecraft, I am not sure how such information would help me. Entertain me yes, but as an ordinary human princess, I cannot see what value I would have to mages if they already disregard normal humans in the first place.” Mostly, Sonia now wondered just how off the mark her occult interests were in comparison to legitimate magecraft. As a child, she’d been desperate to prove that the lore behind various occult artifacts and practices were rooted in real magic, real spirits, and real demonic presences. Even in her mid-twenties, magecraft being proven as otherwise would still break her heart a little.

“So as I understand it, it is a much less risky option to provide entertainment with books as opposed to asking you too many questions about mages and their craft,” She smiled, albeit a bit mischievously at him. She’d taken his words to heart, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t tease him. Did it? “All right then, if having books here gives you reason to return, then I am in full support of it. I shall ensure that there is available space on the shelves for as many books as you can carry!”

She chuckled, now fully ignoring the movie playing in favor of imagining him lugging several dozen hardback books without the use of magecraft and there she would be, eagerly helping him arrange them on the shelves, bare and waiting for him to make his mark in Boudry House. The mental image, and the warmth of the conjured coat, had Sonia feeling more at ease than she had in quite some time. Still, her eyebrows raised in surprise as Shirou continued his projections, this time making a pair of large slippers appear out of thin air. “For me?” She smiled playfully at him, giving him a wink as she got to her feet. “Oh, how did you know that my feet would be chilly as well? You should not have!”

Cinderella, she wasn’t. There was no hesitation on Sonia’s part to slip her feet into both slippers and, draped in the overly large coat and shoes many sizes too big, she struck her best red carpet pose for him: the sort she always gave for film premieres, or state dinners, or in the reception line for a ball. A modest wave, a sparkling smile that reached her eyes, and shoulders back and square and confident, no matter how she felt inside. “What do you think, Shirou-san?” She asked. “I think the oversized look may soon be on trend. But really…if you are not careful, I am in danger of falling asleep in your clothes. What a terrible host I have been! You should be resting and yet here you are, advising me and conjuring me something warm and comfortable to wear. Can you forgive me for keeping you from properly resting?”

[shihalyfie]

Adventure, 02, pragmatism, and humanism (morality of fighting, conflict resolution, the importance of personal choice, etc.)

Adventure and 02 are naturally very idealistic series, but despite being idealistic, there are times when they can get rather pragmatic -- even uncomfortably pragmatic in ways that seem a bit unusual for a kids’ show. The entire last quarter of Adventure and almost all of 02 dealt so heavily with the topic of “is it okay to fight, even if it means incurring deaths?" to the point it’s pretty hard to miss, but both series have an approach towards the morality of fighting, the possibility of potentially having to kill enemies (including former friends that have turned antagonistic), the approach to dispute resolution, and the meanings of “moving forward positively” and “not getting hung up on needless negativity” that are surprisingly nuanced. At times, there’s even a strong message that warns against getting hung up on preachy principles that sound noble on their face but actually don’t get anywhere in practice.

This is a handful of topics, and it’s to the point where it may seem a bit strange to condense all of these under one meta instead of dedicating separate posts to it, but I decided to on the grounds of the fact that they’re all very tied to each other in the course of Adventure’s narrative. Overall, both series are very kind to the feelings and mentalities and thoughts of the young children involved, having the characters not only be kind towards each other but also encouraging the audience to understand their feelings. This is an approach towards understanding oneself and others that happens to be very applicable to life in general, even for adults; both series float a balance of being pragmatic and yet humanistic, kind to the struggles and internal thoughts of all of the characters within, and have a surprisingly nuanced look at what it means to take part in conflict and what the “best thing to do” in such a case is.

As said above, this is a long and complicated meta, and it’s to the point where I’ve considered separating it into multiple parts or posts, but in the end could never bring myself to because of how interrelated all of these topics keep ending up with each other. So, to spare those of you who are intimidated by the sheer length and winding-topic nature of this, here are the main points:

One who is not emotionally ready to fight, or is unwilling to fight, should not be forced to fight. On top of it being inhumane, emotional exhaustion is treated much in a way similar to physical exhaustion; especially in a world where fighting strength is linked to emotional will, one whose heart is not in it will not even be able to effectively fight in the first place. Even when joining the fight is the obvious ideal solution, one who needs to sit out should not be blamed or scorned for it. A choice to fight is exactly that, a choice, not an obligation; the world is messy and imperfect, and the most you can do is try to do whatever you can within the best of your ability. If you do, there is no reason you should be scorned for it.

There are many meaningful ways to contribute to the overall fight that don’t necessarily involve direct physical violence; those ways are still valuable and necessary, and those more attuned to those roles should embrace those roles if it makes them more comfortable to do it that way.

If an extreme result -- such as killing the enemy -- is reached, it needs to be done with the first and foremost priority being to protect people and prevent casualties. A diligent effort should still be made to preserve as many lives as possible (which means this isn’t something where you get to go all “knight templar” and beeline for a violent solution) -- but sometimes, there will be times when push comes to shove and that most extreme solution will have to be reached, even if that “enemy” was originally a friend, because inaction will very obviously lead to more people being hurt.

When a dispute about important points like the above is reached, everyone’s feelings must be acknowledged. This is not to be confused with philandering around with a “both sides have a point!” compromise; in fact, Adventure and 02 both make very firm stances on the above issues. Rather, it makes it clear that said points need to be made while not invalidating the other person for having those feelings -- that is to say, there’s a huge difference between “your opinion is wrong” and “you are stupid and unreasonable for having that wrong opinion.” Dispute resolution and understandings can only be reached when you properly understand why the other person came to that conclusion, and treat them with proper empathy and compassion while you try to work it out. You don’t have to acknowledge their point, but you have to acknowledge their feelings. (For those of you who have seen Appmon: Shinkai Haru is a master at this technique, and there are multiple times during the series where he will very assertively make his case against others while still appealing to the other person’s feelings and never denying their right to have them. This is also an extremely useful technique for dispute resolution in general, and I recommend that those reading this consider employing it more often, at least assuming you’re dealing with someone who’s open to listening.) Likewise, to truly reach out to someone and support them also requires understanding their feelings -- you can’t truly “support” them unless you’re capable of doing so.

There is a certain limitation in which adhering too closely to “moral principles” ends up becoming impractical, and don’t end up contributing to anything in the long run -- fixating over things like grudges, revenge, “punishing” people, and even the concept of forgiveness can quickly turn into platitudes. The best way to move forward is to not fixate on those principles or get hung up on the past, and rather think “now that we’re at this point at the current moment, what’s the best way to move forward in a way that helps others the most and minimizes harm?”

Adventure and the morality of fighting, and the necessity of personal choice

Believe it or not, the question of how feasible pacifiism is was first brought up as early as Adventure episode 12, when Takeru states that he has no intention of fighting Devimon. Elecmon calls this mindset out for the naivete of thinking they can just waltz up to Devimon and ask for answers instead of him trying to murder them on the spot -- and, in fact, he is completely right, because Devimon is not someone who can be reasoned with and indeed immediately tries to murder everyone on the spot one episode later, which results in Angemon’s death and Takeru trading out this very idealistic, naive mindset for the no-compromise, strict anti-darkness stance he takes in 02.

So there are two things to get out of this. The first is that, while Adventure and 02 are certainly very idealistic series, they are absolutely not naive. There are bad actors out there like Devimon who can’t be reasoned with whatsoever. Already off the bat, we have a clear statement from Adventure that an “everyone should stop fighting and get along!” mindset, when applied ad absurdum, is not going to get anyone very far.

The second is that none of the Adventure (or 02) kids like fighting. Takeru’s reaction here is certainly as extreme as it is because the idea of “fighting” presumably triggers his trauma from his parents’ divorce and the resulting split, but there’s no actual indication that any of these kids are necessarily fond of it. Certain ones like Taichi might get a little cocky midway through the battle when they’ve gotten it in the bag and are on an adrenaline high, but there’s also no indication that they’re interested in beating stuff up for the sake of it. Note that all of the fighting in Adventure episodes 1-10 was done out of sheer self-defense, and no Digimon was killed in any of the resulting battles (we’ll assume that the giant Bakemon in episode 11 doesn’t count mainly because it’s already dead) -- it was always fighting to the minimal amount to chase the attacking Digimon away or get them off their back. And, in File Island, that was possible -- but starting from the Server Continent and after, the hostile Digimon were actively out to kill them instead of just being territorial wild Digimon, forcing the Chosen Children to up the ante in order to survive.

The issue of “whether fighting in itself is the right thing to do” is brought back in the Dark Masters arc, and this is also where we start getting a discussion about the disparity between “the right thing to do” and “whether one is capable of doing said right thing to do”. Mimi, the most emotionally sensitive of the group, starts having an emotional breakdown over whether they should keep fighting and potentially drag in more casualties -- especially because the Digimon that had died had all done it for their sake in order to continue the fight, and therefore the Chosen Children are indirectly responsible for their deaths. Yamato thus explains the difficulty of the situation: he himself agrees that Taichi’s evaluation of the need to push forward and continue the fight is the right thing to do, but it’s inhumane to not consider the stress and and emotional toll this is causing and force everyone to continue in spite of that.

In addition, Taichi’s reasoning for why they should continue is “revenge” -- a very negative, spiteful reason very tied to “fighting for the sake of it”. It’s understandable for Taichi to have these feelings, but he’s going at it from the wrong direction, and he’s overall being very insensitive in this scene. Later, in Adventure episode 45, he says that he’s doing it for the sake of honoring the Digimon who died for them. In other words, a lot of the reason Taichi’s methodology isn’t working is that he’s hung up on “the principle of things”, and not the more pragmatic reasons one should fight.

In Adventure episode 45, the kids finally meet the entity who chose them in the first place, who self-identifies as “the one who wishes for stability” -- the novels name them “Homeostasis”. Note the name -- it refers to the maintenance of internal balance within a living system, and Homeostasis themself starts their long infodump with their motive: it’s not that they want to eliminate all darkness from the world entirely, but that the powers of evil are upsetting the balance so badly that everything will be consumed if something isn’t done. It’s not like they’re insistent on violence either -- it’s just that they have a world to protect. The novels give us a particular amount of extra information on this entity, namely that it is not an omnipotent god by any shake of the imagination (in fact, there’s even an implication that there are higher powers that they themself don’t understand), and rather just a mere security system that observed that things were going south and used its rather limited methods of communication (via the Agents) to help make preparations.

Regardless, back to the episode -- we learn that the reason this entity recruited human children into all of this was because of the Hikarigaoka incident in 1995, which displayed to them and the Agents that a bond between children and Digimon could allow Digimon to evolve spontaneously, something that’s not possible with Digimon in the Digital World alone. Oh, and also, that they’ve been wanting to talk to them since File Island, and this entire thing about being cryptic with information was because they literally had no body and there was a massive amount of information loss after the Dark Masters blew up the Agents’ base and killed everyone except Gennai. In other words, just like with all of the actions the Chosen Children had been taking up until this point, everything Homeostasis and the Agents did was out of desperation because they were running out of other options to save their world, and during their brief time of being able to speak with the children, Homeostasis dumps pretty much everything they need to know and speaks to them using the extremely deferential sonkeigo form, meaning that they consider everything the kids are doing to be a massive favor to them. (Contrary to common belief, their possession of Hikari’s body does not seem to be non-consensual, given that they spend multiple episodes trying to contact her, and are clearly depicted having a proper conversation with her before temporarily borrowing her body.)

Most importantly, at the end of their speech, Taichi asks them what to do next, and the response is effectively: “We don’t know, but we trust you to make the best decision.” So, again: fighting as a Chosen Child is not an obligation, but something done because they want to do it and can. They were handed the tools to get this done by Homeostasis and the Agents, who believed in their potential to create miracles and be virtuous people and do something to save their world beyond what the native Digimon could do alone out of desperation and a lack of other options, and they are not hovering over the Chosen Children to see if they’ve “succeeded” or “failed” (note that they seem to have no sense of grudge or disappointment over Taichi’s SkullGreymon stunt in Adventure episode 16, explaining it very neutrally as an example of a risk), but more “we believe you were the best people who were able to do it and we trust your ability to help us.” (This is especially because, while it’s made clear they’d been wanting to contact them for a while, their most direct intervention comes right after Yamato had questioned why they were chosen in the first place -- presumably, they felt that the kids deserved an answer.)

At the end of Adventure episode 45, Mimi, considering the fighting they’re doing to be responsible for all of the fallouts and the sacrifices, decides that she won’t participate anymore, and Jou decides to stay with her in order to convince her to come back (although the novel also reveals that he himself is having doubts, too). Very importantly: nobody begrudges Mimi for being emotionally overwhelmed and sitting out, and nobody even begrudges Jou for choosing to stay with her. This is smack in the middle of the Dark Masters arc when everyone needs all the support they can get -- but after everything that had just happened, it’s inhumane to force either of them forward in this condition.

Despite his doubts, however, Jou himself is already coming to understand the limits of “pacifism” at a time like this:

What he wanted to tell her was this: that he didn’t see any likelihood of co-existing with the Dark Masters, and that they had no other choice but to fight them. Even a neutral country like Switzerland had a military. They would be invaded by enemy countries without one. It would be nice and ideal if they used the nonviolent resistance approach as Ghandi did. But that didn’t mean it was okay to just be killed without lifting a finger… But not even he could find a good answer.

Again: Adventure and 02 are an idealistic series, but they are not naive. It would be nice if the fighting could all stop and everyone would be happy, but there are malicious bad actors who will take advantage of you sitting there and doing nothing.

And so, Leomon dies in Adventure episode 47, and Mimi and Jou learn the hard way: if they do nothing, people will still die. Mimi had witnessed all of the Digimon sacrificing themselves for the Chosen Children’s sake, and thus had followed the logic that their friends would stop dying for them if they stopped fighting, but now that they’ve stopped fighting, said malicious forces (in this case, MetalEtemon) went ahead and killed their friends anyway -- and they’ve gone and destroyed the Village of Beginnings to boot, preventing any of them from being reborn. So in other words, if the intent is to “prevent casualties”, as it turns out, inaction didn’t actually prevent casualties.

Nevertheless, Mimi does not like fighting. In fact, Jou doesn’t like fighting either. Both of them now understand that it’s the best thing to do in this situation, but is it really the best thing to do to force them into embracing violence because of this? Instead, Jou determines in Adventure episode 50 that the overall fight doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone has to jump in and get violent -- the likeable and friendly Mimi has started to cultivate a skill in getting other people to rally behind her, and Jou is starting to consider that he may have a future in treating the wounded and supporting people before they become casualties. Those are still valuable ways they can contribute without forcing them into doing things they can’t bring themselves to do -- and, indeed, Mimi’s rallied army ends up saving everyone’s rears in Adventure episode 52.

While Taichi is not there to personally witness this discussion, Adventure episode 50 has him make a slightly less reckless tactical plan, and he explains (directly citing what happened with Yamato, Mimi, and Jou as his rationale) that he’s learned that he needs to take into account the potential for there being collateral damage. Recall that, earlier, his motive for doing things had been on a sheer principle level, with a lot of negative emotions of spite and revenge. But now, he’s come to understand that the most important thing he needs to do is to “prevent sacrifices”, and that’s the reason they still need to fight. Hence, why Taichi makes a proper plan for doing it instead of just doing the first and most aggressive thing that comes to mind, since he’s a soccer captain and has the potential for being a bird’s eye tactician, after all -- this time, he just needs to channel it in a way that prioritizes the lives of people around them.

And in Adventure episode 51, when reaching out to Sora (who’s cracking under all of her self-imposed expectations and sense of duty to others), Yamato and Jou take what they learned from Homeostasis six episodes prior and apply it -- Sora is working under the mentality that they have an “obligation” to get this done and that they are impending “failures” if they don’t (and, to be fair, if they don’t make it, the world is going to end, which is pretty unambiguously terrible). But what Yamato and Jou do is reframe it to fall more closely under the philosophy of what Adventure is saying here -- the fact they can do something about it is already absolutely incredible. (I mean, not to sugarcoat the fact that the world is still going to end if they pull it off, but the stress, self-hatred, and self-blame of “we’re failures for not pulling it off” is definitely not going to help.) They are doing everything they can right now, within their reasonable abilities. If they end up not being able to do it, that’s not something that should be considered a sin or a failure on their part; they are here because they can and want to and are doing it and are here to make the best possible use of that.

It’s one of the many times Adventure and 02 will make this statement, indirectly or directly: despite the title of “Chosen Child”, the Chosen Children do everything they do because of their own choices, and because they want to, not because they have to.

We finally meet Apocalymon in Adventure episode 53, and we learn that he(?)’s a combined spirit made up of all of the Digimon that were “eliminated” and failed during the evolution process, and is deciding to take out its anger and spite at the world out on everyone else by “denying evolution” (this is clarified in the novel to also be the reason it subtly influenced the prior enemies to destroy everything and especially the Village of Beginnings, because it functionally would put an end to the Digital World’s evolution by reducing it to nothing). So, in the end, we have a contrast between Apocalymon, who’s fighting for the sake of self-centered spite (including wanting to take down everything with it in Adventure episode 54 even when its demise is already clear), and the Chosen Children, who are fighting to protect their loved ones.

Incidentally, we also learn in Adventure episode 53 that there were Chosen Children who put an incomplete seal on Apocalymon prior to the ones in 1999. (Kizuna also introduces Menoa Bellucci, who became a Chosen Child in 1997, and assuming you’re following Adventure’s background doubling-every-year lore, at the time of 1999, there were a whole eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi’s group in existence.) The novels make it clear that the time dilation and distortion was going all the way up until the defeat of Apocalymon, long enough that the partners of those older Chosen were able to evolve to the Holy Beasts (and possibly enough for said older Chosen to get really faded through Digital World history to the point even Gennai doesn’t know about them). So the point here is that in the grand scope of the entirety of Digital World history, Taichi and his friends are not particularly singular existences -- there are people who saved the world before them, and 02 will introduce people all over the world who are going on their own adventures (including the main 02 kids in Tokyo), and, of course, by the time of the 02 epilogue, everyone’s going to have a Digimon partner. Koushirou later observes in Two-and-a-Half Break that there’s nothing special about having a partner in itself.

Does that make Taichi and his friends’ adventure of self-growth and saving a whole two worlds somehow insignificant, just because it’s not particularly unique? No. Because, again, they did this all not because of whether Homeostasis chose them or not, but because all of it was operated by their own will and strength and desire to protect others, all within the restraints of what they could feasibly do and handle, and they are amazing people for pulling that off.

02 and the importance of mutual understanding (and, also, more about the morality of fighting)

Before we proceed onto the 02 analysis, I think it’s important to establish a bit of important context about how 02′s lead protagonist, Daisuke, approaches things, and how it relates to the recurring debates on the morality of fighting throughout the series. In 02 episode 14, we learn that Daisuke was captured at Big Sight during the Odaiba Fog incident, and therefore witnessed, firsthand, the threat of Vamdemon’s lackeys attacking innocent civilians (something that Miyako, who witnessed the self-contained Omegamon vs. Diablomon battle on the Internet, and Iori, who only happened to be on a grounded plane after the Vamdemon fight had already ended, did not quite have anything on the par of). Spring 2003 and the Adventure novels elucidate what was going on in his head at the time: he was frustrated at his inability to protect his loved ones, and wished to have the power to fight the “bad guys” who were threatening everyone.

Remember this for later.

Moving onto 02 itself. 02 is a series about relationships, but, more significantly, it’s a series about the sheer amount of work it takes to maintain relationships, and especially the principle that “maintaining a relationship to another person requires being properly aware and understanding of the other person’s feelings.” One thing that often frustrates me about a lot of media (both kids’ shows and non-kids’ shows) and, well, to be honest, a lot of people in general, is the preaching of supposedly “positive” platitudes that actually go straight into what’s called “toxic positivity” for good reason -- because while it’s ostensibly “positive”, it also denies other people’s feelings, waving away everything negative and going “yeah, well, positivity!” and “optimism!” and “power of friendship!” and all sorts of stuff that are actually dismissive because they’re not showing any real effort to properly understand the other party and acknowledge why they feel this way. Like, sure, you may be telling someone to cheer up, but it also carries an (accidental or otherwise) implication of “you’re irrational and stupid for being upset and you should be smiling all of the time because ~positivity~.”

There is a lot of conflict in 02 -- especially because the theme of the morality of fighting is even more relevant, particularly in the case of the added question of “when the enemy in question is not an unambiguously evil sadist but a former friend in trouble”, and later the question of how someone who’s done horrible things in the past but is clearly making an active effort to make up for it should be treated. Daisuke, 02′s lead protagonist and carrier of a lot of its main themes, is ostensibly a simple-minded idealist, but even his theory of “positivity” and “always moving forward” has a lot of nuance beyond what you would usually see in this kind of anime lingo.

Context is also very important here. Adventure and 02′s stance being about “doing the best you reasonably can in a given situation”, it also means that what might be the best thing to do will change depending on context. 02′s starting circumstances are very different from Adventure’s, because it starts off without the threat necessarily being immediately world-threatening -- certainly, they need to stop the Kaiser, but this is in the form of a long-term territory war with an enemy who (at the time) doesn’t appear at night, and it’s unclear just how long it’ll take. This means that when the threat is not immediately world-ending, none of the kids are ever given grief for prioritizing their own personal obligations in lieu of fighting.

Iori and Jou do choose to ditch their kendo lesson and prep school exam (respectively), but they make it clear that they did this out of personal choice, and in fact this conversation opens with Armadimon apologizing to Iori for giving him grief for not coming, because he thinks Iori is perfectly within his rights to have stuck with the lesson! Perhaps, if the world were to end in a few hours, it would certainly be pretty idiotic to insist on sticking with a kendo lesson or prep school, because those things aren’t going to exist anymore if the world ends, but this is a very long and drawn-out territory war with no known end, and it’s understandable that these kids need to maintain their life necessities while straddling the balance between the war and their lives as a whole.

Again, they’re doing the best they can, and being a Chosen Child is about doing things because they want to, not because they have to.

This is especially because the Kaiser himself attempts to exploit the meaning of a Chosen Child in 02 episode 3 -- again, being a “Chosen Child” means being trusted to do the right thing with what you’re given, but the Kaiser basically betrayed that trust, and nobody was able to stop him from exploiting it and attempting a takeover with it. And Ken takes that title of “Chosen Child” and interprets it to mean he’s entitled to all of this -- but the other kids are Chosen Children just like him, and (at this point) all of them are simply choosing to do whatever they want with that.

And on the flip side, you have the Adventure seniors, who are a little nerfed by the Dark Towers, but as far as the way the younger 02 kids see them goes, there is no doubt that the 02 kids respect them deeply and are practically reliant on their support and advice, and their experience and maturity in comparison to themselves. The episode that establishes most how in awe the 02 kids are of their seniors is 02 episode 17, where they learn the details of the adventure in 1999, and so it’s not about how much combat power they’re displaying right now but rather how much experience they have in doing such amazing things. Likewise, their seniors are frustrated at their inability to help -- not because they see it as some obligated duty, but because they see their juniors trying their best to deal with an ongoing crisis and want to help, resulting in them providing support roles such as covering for them with a camp trip in 02 episode 18 and allowing them to do a long-term Digital World stakeout. For this, the younger 02 kids adore them and give them all of their respect.

02 episodes 10-11 are significant in juxtaposing the themes of “conflict” and “understanding each other’s feelings” -- at the end of 02 episode 10, we see Yamato punch Taichi, but he holds his hand to him right after, indicating that Yamato punched him not out of anger or condescension or scorn over Taichi’s hesitation to fight Agumon, but rather simply to snap him out of it for his own sake, knowing he wouldn’t take it offensively, so in other words, what looked like a “conflict” on its face was actually communication between the two, with neither of them treating each other with scorn.

The conflict at the end of the episode is over whether they should run the risk of killing Agumon in the process of fighting him to get him back from the Kaiser’s Evil Spiral-induced brainwashing (note that this is about the risk, since it’s not necessarily guaranteed they’ll have to kill him, and they still of course need to make a conscientious effort to prevent that outcome). Yamato, however, frames it in terms of very practical matters, and even takes Agumon’s own feelings into it while he’s at it: if they pull back purely for the sake of not running that risk, Agumon will end up being the Kaiser’s slave and killing machine and nothing will be resolved, whereas if they run the risk, the best outcome is that Agumon is saved (which is, fortunately, what happens!), and the worst outcome is that he’s killed, which is still a preferable outcome to him having to remain the Kaiser’s brainwashed slave used to kill other things en masse.

02 episode 11 further explores the theme of conflict in the face of “understanding each other’s feelings”, as it starts off with a fight between Daisuke and Takeru on the grounds of whether it’s okay to risk killing Agumon. Takeru’s stance is to side with Taichi’s decision, even if he doesn’t like it (again: just because some of these kids are able to make these decisions doesn’t mean they like it, and they’re doing it not because they’re callous but because they’ve thought hard about it and have decided it’s the best option they have!). Daisuke, being a bleeding heart, is appalled that Takeru could so easily endorse killing Taichi’s partner, and the two fight.

Note that the series does not “both-sides” this issue -- Taichi and Takeru’s stance is basically treated as the optimal course of action here -- but it also doesn’t invalidate Daisuke’s feelings of understandably being very shocked and appalled by this! Taichi and Yamato, in what initially seems like a violation of common sense, encourage them to be allowed to continue fighting, saying that it was essential to their friendship, and that confuses everyone present at the time -- but the meaning becomes clear by the end of the episode, when Takeru’s own Patamon is momentarily taken by the Kaiser and put at risk of himself becoming an Evil Spiral slave. Takeru blows up at Daisuke for hesitating (remember, this is one of his triggers), and eventually runs the exact same risk he’d advocated for Agumon with his own partner.

Remember what I said about “toxic positivity”? If everyone had just forced Takeru and Daisuke to shut up for the sake of “not fighting”, both of them might have remained angry at each other and stewing in silence, but because of the conflict, Daisuke himself personally witnessed Takeru run that risk for his own partner, presumably for the same reason (as much as the potential of Patamon being killed hurts him, the idea of Patamon being used as a killing machine is even more panic-inducing for him). With that, he understands that Taichi and Takeru made the decision to go ahead with this not out of callousness or cruelty, but because they sincerely felt they had to, no matter how much it pained them. Daisuke rails on himself for not understanding Takeru’s feelings better, and considering that he and Takeru never get in this vicious of a fight again, the point is: it wasn’t about whether they should form a friendship by fighting or not fighting in itself, it was about the fact that the two of them were able to get their feelings on the table, and that Daisuke was able to understand why Takeru endorsed what he did. (And this, too, is what it means for why Taichi and Yamato are friends now because they fought so much in the past -- back in Adventure, those fights ended up having them bare some very raw feelings to each other.)

While in the series itself, they’re successfully able to save Agumon anyway, Hurricane Touchdown presents a more unfortunate outcome of the “friendly fire” debate, in which Daisuke learns that the hostile Digimon kidnapping their seniors (and, later, a lot of other people) is Wallace’s own partner. Daisuke is so emotionally overwhelmed by this that he breaks down crying at the possibility of having to kill someone’s partner, knowing that he’d never be able to do something like this if it were V-mon, and Wallace gets him on board with an attempt to appeal to Chocomon without fighting.

This stance is not unreasonable, Wallace and Daisuke cannot be blamed for being hopeful, and, in the end, it’s admirable that they did make a conscientious effort to solve this with pacifism (again, this kind of attempt should be made, and it’s not good to beeline to the most violent solution for no reason). But unfortunately, once they meet Chocomon in the flower field, it turns out that not only is Chocomon beyond reason, he himself is also clearly out of his right mind and suffering through all of this, and Wallace finally relents and asks Daisuke to assist him in the fight (after having stayed in denial for half a movie about wanting to avoid this). Daisuke, witnessing all of this himself, agrees without hesitation, and eventually, it turns out that this decision for the best when Chocomon himself begs Gumimon and Magnamon to put him out of his misery, and them obliging (albeit hesitantly) allows him to have peace in death instead of suffering in life.

Hurricane Touchdown’s sequel drama CD, The Door to Summer, presents Daisuke with yet another dilemma with Nat-chan, who is also clearly suffering in quite a similar vein (the parallel is directly drawn). In the end, the same conclusion is reached -- Nat-chan is unfortunately killed, but is able to find release.

02 episode 16 presents an argument about the limits of ethical principles instead of approaching things practically, when Iori considers himself a horrible person for having told a lie to get Jou out of an important exam. This is mainly just about a lie, but in terms of Iori’s character arc and its relevance to 02′s themes as a whole, the point here is that there is a certain point where being too stuck on “the moral principle” of things instead of thinking practically is actually selfish in some sense. If Iori hadn’t lied, he’d get maybe one more point of moral integrity, and then everyone would have suffocated to death -- compared to lying and therefore everyone for the most part benefiting (Jou’s very happy to help his juniors and save them from, well, literally suffocating, after all). This topic becomes very important later when it turns out to be generally applicable to the wider morality of fighting that the kids later face in the series’s final cour.

The disparity between “moral principles” and “what actually happens in practice” also shows up in 02 episode 19, when Takeru loses his composure and starts punching out the Kaiser. Is the Kaiser a horrible person (at this point) who totally deserves this? Absolutely! Are we as the audience getting a lot of catharsis seeing his face punched out? Probably! But at the same time, railing at the Kaiser with unbridled anger is also...not actually accomplishing anything! Instead, Takeru’s just getting a few moments to stew in some really unhealthy emotions and uselessly punching out the Kaiser while nothing productive is getting done, and it’s also contributing heavily to his emotional isolation from Iori (and the rest of the group) because he’s not coping with it in a healthy way at all. Takeru’s feelings are certainly understandable (again: the episode is absolutely framing this in such a way that you’re inclined to take his side), but at the same time, being malicious about this is not actually practically making any headway.

One of the major reasons I’m covering all of these seemingly unrelated topics in one post is that all of them end up having a massive combined amount of relevance to the narrative behind Ken discarding the Kaiser persona, and how he comes to integrate himself with the group. On the surface, the storyline seems to be simply that Ken learned the error of his ways and tried to stop drowning in regrets, and Daisuke’s idealistic personality reached out to him and helped him heal. That said, there’s quite a bit more going on than just that.

A theme going on behind Ken’s character arc for the second half of 02 is one that probably seems a bit unusual for an idealistic kids’ show, but the point that ends up being made quite often is that whether Ken should be “forgiven” for his actions is a rather immaterial question. 02 episode 23 has a bunch of Baby Digimon rail on him, and remind him that he will never be able to take that back. There is nothing in either world that will erase those actions or make them retroactively justified or pushed under the bridge. The only thing he can do is accept the fact that it happened, whether he likes it or not, and determine what to do from here in terms of taking responsibility and making things right.

And this ends up having an influence in how Daisuke advocates for him, and how the rest of the group reaches out to him...

First of all, Daisuke being the most open-minded about Ken was not blind optimism. There’s no evidence that he was actually all that emotionally receptive to Ken or interested in being his friend before 02 episode 25. However, Daisuke also does not advocate for “punishing” Ken or kicking him while he’s down -- because that won’t accomplish anything, and Ken is clearly not in a state to be wreaking more havoc right now. Daisuke remembers the footage of Ken’s parents crying on screen, and determines what would be the first course of action to fix this situation -- and thus, he tells Ken to “go home”, because whatever Ken did in the past and no matter how much the team resents him right now, they are in this situation, with a boy who’s clearly not going to cause any more trouble right now and a family that’s hurting by his absence, and the very least he can do is do something productive from here on out.

Hence, at the end of 02 episode 24, when it turns out that Ken’s back and saved them from Thunderballmon, Daisuke decides to be optimistic about him and start the process of emotionally reaching out, but, again, it’s not blind optimism -- he sees what Ken did and takes this to mean “okay, clearly he’s not going to do bad things anymore, so regardless of whatever he did in the past, he’s helping out now, so we should check in with how he’s doing and let him help out.”

This is, of course, enhanced by the fact that Daisuke had communicated with the Crest of Kindness in 02 episode 20, but there’s also another layer to this: the major point of dispute between him and Miyako in 02 episode 25 (with both of them generally being rather open-minded about Ken otherwise) is in regards to the fact Ken and Stingmon were responsible for killing Thunderballmon in the prior episode. Come the climax of 02 episode 25, it is made clear that if Golemon successfully destroys the dam, the results will be absolutely disastrous, and there will probably be an incredible amount of casualties. Here, Daisuke himself is the first person to realize that killing Golemon may become a requirement (Ken is not actually a part of his initial comment) -- that is to say, most likely, the reason he’s willing to give Ken the benefit of the doubt about Thunderballmon is that he himself is understanding of that potential mindset (especially since 02 episode 43 does indeed establish Daisuke as being the first to accept it).

Recall that, between Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori, Daisuke was personally involved three years prior in a large incident with an unambiguously malicious Digimon that was about to claim a ton of victims -- he’s a bleeding heart, sure, but he’s also a bleeding heart for the potential victims, and the one thing that ate at him during the time of the Vamdemon incident was that he couldn’t do anything to protect everyone. Therefore, he’s the most receptive to this potential conclusion because he doesn’t want to see victims like that again. Not only that, Takeru and Hikari (having witnessed similar conclusions back in Adventure) are also very quick to point out that this might be an inevitability -- it’s just Miyako (who, in her emotional passion, is desperate to find a way out and clinging onto the hope that they won’t have to) and Iori (who considers doing such an act “no better than him” -- again, see the fixation on “moral principle” and “being above him”) who are so vehemently against it.

In the end, it turns out that Golemon is a Dark Tower Digimon (and therefore not sentient), and everyone’s left off the hook for now, but the reason this is still important is that through this, Miyako learns that Ken -- someone whom everyone was side-eyeing for potentially lapsing back into his cold, callous ways after supposedly having given up the Kaiser mantle -- was not out to kill (and, indeed, when the first kill inevitably happens in 02 episode 43, Ken is just as shaken about it as Miyako and Iori). The important part is that Miyako, and later the other kids, accepted Ken not out of some principle of optimism or forgiveness, but because they came to understand his position and feelings. All of the kids accepted Ken on their own terms after understanding his feelings and position better via interacting with him and hearing his own testimony -- they came to understand his mindset, what he’s been through and what he’s planning to do from here on out, and, most importantly, that he needs support really, really badly right now.

Which extends not just to Ken, but also everyone’s relationships here in general. Daisuke broke through to Ken and kicked off their first Jogress in 02 episode 26 because he proactively listened to everything Ken was saying and what he wanted to do, and correctly identified that Ken very desperately wants to take responsibility, so he talks him out of a reckless suicide mission by pointing out that all of his attempts to not make his family sad and to make up for everything he’s done are going to amount to nothing if he just throws his life away like this. In 02 episode 31, Miyako listens to Hikari’s troubles and her compulsion to not speak out for herself and reaches out to her successfully via promising to be there for her so she doesn’t have to slink into passive resignation. And in 02 episodes 34-36, Iori makes an active effort to understand Takeru’s mentality and why he has the drastic personality shifts he does, and communicates to Takeru that he wants to understand him better. So the point is: the 02 kids were able to successfully connect with each other and become deeper friends because they made an active attempt to listen to each other’s troubles and address the core of what they needed. They were only able to become “supportive” once they understood everything.

(02 episode 36 also has a moment where Iori’s about to rail off at everyone for not taking the fight seriously, before Armadimon reminds him that he’s starving -- again, it is very inhumane to ignore other needs and force everyone to keep fighting endlessly just because they theoretically can.)

We do meet the representative who claims credit for choosing Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori as Chosen Children in 02 episode 37 (Qinglongmon, representative of the Holy Beasts), and he explains the process of why they sent the kids what they did in order to retrieve Ken from the deep end. Notably, Qinglongmon admits that even the Holy Beasts were blindsided by a few things and adapted the situation as they saw fit (they didn’t originally expect the kids to be able to use multiple Digimentals at first). More importantly, this was, again, all a bit of a desperation move, because this was about as much as the Holy Beasts could manage, being sealed and drained of power and all.

Also, while retrieving Ken from the deep end was on the list of things the Holy Beasts set out to do, “everyone becoming Ken’s friend” was not necessarily on that agenda. Again: that was something that these kids chose to do on their own, by observing Ken’s actions and feelings and choosing to connect with him.

The episode ends with BlackWarGreymon going off on a journey of angst, and: note that the kids decide to drop the issue for the time being. Again, they’re operating not on a philosophy of grudge or whether one should get retribution for their actions, but what the likelihood of bad things continuing to happen is from here on out, and at this point in time, it doesn’t seem very likely, so there’s no point in pushing the issue or pursuing him.

Nevertheless, the morality debate over killing still remains looming over everyone’s heads, with Iori also realizing in 02 episode 29 that there are such things as Digimon that just want wanton destruction and cannot be negotiated with. The fact that the Adventure kids were put in world-threatening situations three years prior and are already far past this question is directly acknowledged in 02 episode 43, with Taichi advising Hikari that this harsh truth is going to hit the other four sooner or later, before it does eventually happen at the end of the episode. (Hikari visibly winces during her conversation with Taichi; again, none of the Adventure kids ever liked this.) And, in the end, predictably, Iori, Miyako, and Ken take it hard -- but Daisuke is the first to point out what would have happened if they didn’t do it. Namely, that the victims would have far outnumbered the Digimon they just killed.

It is, of course, good to be conscientious and not beeline for the most violent solution, and, again, context is important here -- in the situation provided, SkullSatamon was holding up a bus and split seconds away from murdering everyone in it. Had everyone refrained for the sake of morality, just like how Iori refraining from lying back in 02 episode 16 would have actually been selfish in a sense, here, the only claim you get to say after refraining is “well, I wasn’t the one who caused the harm.” Inaction would have caused the deaths of all of the young children in the bus; there would have been casualties either way.

Miyako and Iori are forced to face this truth again in 02 episode 44, with both of them being emotionally compromised by the reality of what they just did. In both cases, Hikari and Takeru step in to remind them what they’re doing this for, by pointing out the victims that would have been killed had they done nothing. Miyako and Iori are not at fault for being emotionally compromised or doing their best to prevent it -- it’s just that there’s only so much they can blame themselves for when they’re now directly faced with the potential victims in front of them.

Iori had already been grappling with this potential for several episodes now, so while he still takes it hard, more attention is given to Miyako’s reaction -- especially since she herself was the victim who was about to be murdered by LadyDevimon had Silphymon not done the kill. The voice acting and lack of Tailmon’s presence in Silphymon’s apology to Miyako implies very heavily that it was the Aquilamon side who took over and did it in a last-ditch effort to save Miyako’s life -- and he’s emotionally destroyed by it himself too, because he did it out of love for Miyako, and yet betrayed her request to not go for the kill. In the end, Miyako is forced to confront the fact that this was done out of love and a desire to protect, not a callous and malicious intent to murder, and comes to terms with it.

However, again: the series continues to reiterate that people who are not emotionally up for it should not be obligated to force themselves to do it. The beginning of 02 episode 45 has Takeru directly advise Iori that he shouldn’t do this out of obligation if he isn’t up for it -- remember that Takeru will only be able to fight with Shakkoumon if Iori is present, meaning that he’s perfectly willing to give up his ability to fight effectively because it’s not fair to force Iori to do it. This is not a series that advertises that everyone embrace the spirit of killing things and numb themselves to it. This entire situation sucks.

However, Iori makes it clear: he understands everything, and has decided to do it himself, because he understands the stakes and what it’s going to take to actually protect people.

Which is also reiterated in 02 episode 48 -- after witnessing the deaths of Archnemon and Mummymon at the hands of BelialVamdemon, everyone is shaken to the core. It should be established that the kids didn’t have much reason to sympathize with or like the two of them at this point, because everything we learned about them was from the audience’s point of view -- as far as the kids knew them, they were just two really rude and cruel Digimon who wanted wanton destruction. Yet even they are emotionally pained to see them die in such a cruel manner, and it causes everyone to hesitate -- even Daisuke, who does push forward because he knows what’s at stake, but still has to take a moment to collect himself.

Seeing what Daisuke’s about to do, Ken tries to force himself to join Daisuke so that Daisuke will at least not be alone (note that he actually says upfront that he’ll join!) -- but Daisuke notices that Ken’s heart isn’t in it, and actively advises him to sit out. Is the world in immediate crisis? Absolutely! But there is no scorn to be had for people who are emotionally falling apart right now and unable to get themselves to do it -- Daisuke even says himself that they won’t be able to fight effectively with Ken like this.

We close this analysis on a return to the concept of forgiveness and moving forward, and we learn in 02 episode 48 that Ken has two parts to his internal wishes: he wants the Kaiser (himself) to be “punished”, and he wants “forgiveness” from his deceased brother Osamu. Both of those things will certainly make him feel a little better emotionally, but they also won’t accomplish anything -- the “Kaiser” doesn’t exist anymore, so what good will that “punishment” do besides a little catharsis for the victims? And he can continue chasing after this standard of “whether he’s suffered enough” like it’s some numerical tally, but that’s not going to get him anywhere either, and it’s why Wormmon has to chase out even that ostensibly happy image of Osamu. Osamu is long gone, and is not going to return, and the question of whether Ken should be “forgiven” is rather immaterial. It’s not about whatever happened or didn’t happen back then; it’s about what Ken is going to do now.

Actually, what is “forgiveness” anyway? At no point do the 02 kids ever actually say they “forgive” Ken for his actions. In Spring 2003, Iori also says he doesn’t forgive Oikawa for what he’s done, either. There’s nothing that will ever erase what they did or suddenly make those actions retroactively justifiable, and there’s no arbitrary payment that Ken or Oikawa could do to meet some kind of quota of forgiveness. But what the kids do recognize in Ken is that, regardless of whatever he did in the past, at current he is a young boy in intense emotional distress who has gone through a lot, is working very hard to make up for his mistakes, and needs all the emotional support he can get, and there’s no reason to hold a grudge against someone like that instead of continuing to support him and loving him for who he is now. Given that, does it matter whether they “forgive” him or not?

And even if Iori will never forgive Oikawa, he can still lament everything that happened to him and drove him to do everything, and appreciate the meaning of what he did for the Digital World in the end, and use this as a further lesson on what it means to understand people instead of stewing angrily in a grudge that’ll only hurt himself.

Ultimately, that is the theory behind Adventure and 02. The world is messy, imperfect, and doesn’t fit under neat rules of morality and “right” or “not right” that you can cram everything under. Despite that, there’s something to be appreciated in not throwing in the towel and continuing to do the best you reasonably can in every situation. It would be ideal if all of the fighting could stop, or if it were possible to make the “optimal” decision of fighting or not fighting in every situation regardless of human exhaustion or emotional compromise, but that’s just not something that’s possible, and there’s no reason to call oneself a “failure” for not holding yourself to that standard. And in the end, the answer is this: instead of fixating on all of those arbitrary things that don’t actually serve any practical purpose, the way to live your best life is simply to look at where you are now, think about what you can do from here on out (regardless of what happened in the past), and do your best to protect and be kind to yourself and those around you.

Of course, you must be kind to others. But you have to be kind to others by understanding what it takes and everything around it -- and then choose to be kind anyway.

[apostaterevolutionary]

i'm not sure if you've already talked about this but what are ur opinions about anders wanting to give fenris back to danarius and his whole banter w fenris about why he didn't just kill himself when he was a slave (among other very rude banter)? anders was like top 5 favorite characters for me until i found those clips on youtube, it kinda rubbed me the wrong way and now idk how i feel about him..

Hey sorry I never got notified about this ask? Tumblr didn’t want me to see it for some reason so I hope you’re still kicking around anon cause I do have thoughts on this!

First off, I’ll link 2 posts from my masterlist that have talked about this (Anders’ writing is frequently all over the place and this is the worst example, Anders never once compromises his ideals any other time so this is incredibly OOC). But I’m also going to go into a bit more detail myself as it’s been a while since I’ve meta’d and I miss it lmao

So IMO, Anders giving approval here is WILDLY out of character and a case of excessively bad writing. Anders is very much pro freedom and also has a spirit of Justice inside him who, even if you do go with the ‘well Justice was corrupted angle’, was concerned about Ser Pounce-a-lot in Awakening and equated having a pet to slavery. Here’s that banter:

Justice: I see that your feline companion remains with you.

Anders: He seems happy enough. Isn't that right, Ser Pounce-a-lot?

Ser Pounce-a-lot: (Meow!)

Justice: To enslave another creature does not seem just.

Anders: He's not a slave! He's a friend. And he's also a cat.

Justice: A cat that lacks freedom.

Anders: Just ignore him, Ser Pounce-a-lot. They don't have pets in the Fade, apparently.

Ser Pounce-a-lot: (Meow!)

I do not believe for a moment that Anders, even if he’s glad not to deal with Fenris anymore, would approve of that, and I believe Justice would actively and violently try to prevent it. There’s a lot of iffy writing in DA2 across all the characters and I put this in the same category. I’ve seen people say ‘well Anders just doesn’t like Fenris, he’d approve of Fenris going away whether it was to slavery or some sort of paradise’ but I personally put it on bioware’s insistence that these two must have this artificial rivalry that never gets worked out (despite that the two do have more in common than either fully realize - see the first post I linked for more on that)

If that isn’t a satisfactory answer for you, that’s your personal opinion. I follow canon to the point where it makes sense and then when it gets into territory I cannot rationalize, that’s when I either headcanon around it or discard it as bad writing. A lesser example would be how I refuse to believe Anders would not have mentioned Karl to a female Hawke. He straight up says he’s a possessed apostate, you think he’d shy away from the fact that he’s been with a man in a world with minimal demonstrated homophobia? It just doesn’t make sense

Another completely different but related example: misogyny as we know it exists in Thedas, despite this being a world where priests are women and their messiah is a woman who basically plays the role of jesus mixed with joan of arc. I find it hard to believe a world where a church this powerful is run by women, where women have this much political power, would be as patriarchal as it’s portrayed. Again, different issue but the point I’m making here is that the bioware writers are not perfect. They’re human and they have biases just like the rest of us. DA2 was also developed within less than a year, which means it’s got a lot of flaws that might have been polished if not for the short timeline. A few out of character lines and approvals aren’t surprising tbh

As for the asking about suicide thing, that does strike me as in character. It’s uh, maybe not the way to go about that discussion lmao, as Anders is being extremely blunt about a VERY sensitive topic. But I do think Anders was trying to connect with Fenris there. I strongly believe Anders has contemplated suicide (the solitary confinement aka torture for a year is enough in and of itself, not to mention the rest) and he thought, hey, maybe we could find some common ground here. We can understand each other. It doesn’t play out well, obviously, though whether Fenris is really unbothered because suicide is a sin, of course he wouldn’t have, or if he’s just having a very understandable ‘hey person I don’t like, can we not have this very personal discussion right now???’ moment. This one I honestly don’t hold against him because yeah, it’s crossing a line, but I don’t think he had any malicious intent with it. If it still bugs you, well, that’s your choice really. But I really do think it was a genuine if clumsy and insensitive attempt at showing their commonalities

Does Anders say some rude things during his banter? Absolutely he does, and so does Fenris, and Aveline, and Isabela, and pretty much everyone tbh (don’t even get me STARTED about Sebastian wanting to turn in Merrill and Anders to the Templars, that’s literally a banter he has). Do I think some of those things are out of line? Absolutely, though I’m more touchy about the way he is with Merrill as compared to Fenris because Fenris does the same to Anders (and Merrill, but me wishing everyone was nicer to Merrill always is a different topic lmao). Does that mean I love him any less? Nope, not at all, cause tbh most everyone in dragon age is kind of an asshole at some point lmao and I’m not going to hold those little snippets against him

[rosecolouredmind]

Savior

Nicholas Scratch x Reader

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Part One:

The Beginning

Somehow, it felt like the fates didn’t think much of you.

You were lucky enough to be the youngest soul inducted into the Stela Consulate — your untimely death on your home planet was a quiet, humble affair. The fates took you young, by sickness; your family mourned, then moved on. Your parents grieved for longer, but then they too moved on with their lives.

Fate had a larger destiny in store that what Earth could have afforded you; or, at least you thought before...now.

“Stela Treis, I...Earth cannot be my assigned domain.”

The following silence in the room was palpable. Above you was what looked to be a seat made of live stars, gaseous and glowing. The platform below it was an endless black, along with the surrounding room.

You had just seen the stars from this same “chair” slowly spread across the now dark platform, your body seated atop it just moments before. The Stela Council had observed quietly as countless galaxies traversed beneath their feet, beneath your feet. You’d waited for this moment for what you felt, and were told, was your entire existence. You felt as if you were human again, insecurity and discomfort culminating into a massive pit in your stomach. You were convinced that if you could have, you would have shat yourself.

Whenever a new stela sat atop that chair, the fates mapped their destiny...and subsequently, the destiny of their star domain. You felt as if you had become one with the universe, the powers that be imbuing you with strength and purpose.

Your purpose.

Was...Earth?

The pretty blue object before you certainly looked familiar, the green colored earth standing out proudly. This unassuming planet was where you’d come to be, thus your learnings were centered around it’s history. Earth was not yet to the level of requiring an assigned stela as it has not reached the level of interfering with other cosmos; interplanetary travel within their own solar system was still far out of reach, for Fate’s sake! So how could your homely little birthplace have put itself on the map after billions of years of not even being a blip on the radar?

And smack above it was a brilliant green star. The North star had turned green.

“Head Stela Treis. That cannot be a - an unlucky star! Above Earth! How did I even get Earth?! Isn’t the likelihood of being assigned your home planet like one in a -- a -- an impossibility?!”

The blasted woman continued to ignore you, staring fixedly at the North star — Polaris. There were many iterations of the importance of the North star in Earthling history, but they all had the same general concept and meaning for what the star represented:

Home. A Guiding Light.

And such a symbol was currently heralding the dark days.

“Stela (Y/n),” Stela Treis began slowly.

This damned woman actually used your name, your actual name with your title, and your heart finally sunk to the floor. Stela (Y/n). You were Stela (Y/n) of fucking Earth with a goddamn green star hanging above it --

“Stela (Y/n) of Earth. This is your mission,” she continued.

Every eye in the room was on Treis, the massive throng of alarmed voices quieting down. Your heart was nearly beating out of your chest, and you were sure your face was a picture of horror. No new stela had ever taken over a green star before; it signaled the end of days for a domain and was nigh impossible to get rid of. Stelas who have had a history of leading turbulent domains to an unprecedented era of peace are generally reassigned green star domains -- much more seasoned and powerful stelas than you. And even amongst those figures, only a tiny amount across countless systems have actually succeeded in rehabilitating such a star. Darkness wins far more often, enveloping those systems in black holes, stellar explosions and obliteration.

It was a glorious thing to save a green star, but if you failed…

“Earth is in...trouble. I cannot yet tell what of, as the coming ominous lies beyond the domain still. It’s origin star has turned green, but there’s also a few more stars in your domain that concern me.”

Hearing Earth officially called your domain made you want to puncture your own eardrums in annoyance, but the serious look on Treis’ face and the clear discomfort of the councilmembers surrounding her made you swallow your indignation and elect to glare at the floor instead.

You’d spent your entire existence once inducted into the consulate learning the conflicts of Earth - something about learning on home ground and how it prepared you for your own domain some day. And now that day has come, and you learn that you’re going to be stuck in the same exact place?

It may be willful, but you were eager to prove yourself capable like every other accomplished stela. This included establishing yourself and your influence in new territory, your territory. The glory of your domain would rise and fall with you.

You had wanted to prove yourself, but this…

This terrified you.

The moving of the constellations beneath your feet once again snapped you out of your train of thought, the stern voice you’d previously been drowning out floating into your ears once again.

“This particular star seems to have been the beginning of it all. And even more peculiar is what it’s attached to -- or what’s attached to it,”

Treis had brought the map deeper into your star domain, finally stopping on a bright red star.

“Is that a star of misfortune?!” you shriek. Your eyes are wide as saucers, and normally you’d melt under the looks of disapproval you were receiving but right now you were too stunned to care. A bloody star of misfortune was the cause of all of this, one person! That was the brightest red you’d ever seen on a star, and you’d seen the stars of plenty of terrible figures in history.

The deep frown on Treis’ face said it all, the woman walking forward until she stopped right in front of you. She stared you dead in the face, placing her arms behind her back before responding.

“That is the star of Lucifer Morningstar.”

The hall burst into noise once again as voices started to raise and people clamoured over each other. Shouts of dissent rang out as everyone in the room voiced their opinions.

How could this have happened?

She’s not ready!

That entire domain is doomed!

Fate has abandoned them.

Disapproval was clearly the common theme the council had decided on, but you were too distracted with the prior revelation to properly acknowledge it.

Lucifer Morningstar had a fated star.

The fucking Devil.

Every soul was born with a fated star. Your star was fate’s marker on you. The only beings without fated stars were celestial beings and the Others - beings who operated outside of the universe’s workings. How celestials came into existence exactly was a mystery. Stelas generally believed it was the power of faith, though. In even looser, and probably more correct terms: ‘believe, and it certainly exists.’ Faith was a medium that didn’t operate within the confines of fate. Major celestials bore from Earth include any figure that has been immortalized via faith. Once borne of the world, they operate entirely on their own and outside of fate. An extreme example would be the elusive figure the humans frequently call God -- the current most powerful example of a celestial born from faith. These can even influence the fate of those in their domain.

This goes to say, even if Earth was not particularly advanced, a stela would have still been assigned to oversee it. But humans are passionate and complicated and a lot more stubborn than most races, which meant an unusual abundance of celestial beings were born from there. Because they operate outside of fate’s laws, their domains are usually hidden from the Constellation Map. This is the first time since humanity appeared on Earth that the planet has been seen on the map, a momentous occasion.

And it was assigned to a newbie like you.

“How on...earth did Lucifer Morningstar get a star? Shouldn’t that be impossible? He’s a celestial, he doesn’t have a tangible soul,” you exclaim.

“He didn’t.” she corrected. “But now…” she gestured to his star as you stared dumbly at the bright red light between you. After focusing your gaze, you can just make out a dim, faintly flickering light at the corner of it.

“Is that someone’s star?” you ask softly, moving closer. The star was barely visible, as if all the lifeforce had been drained from it. The red light from Lucifer’s star nearly made you overlook the pale white glow this one gave off, the two being infinitely close.

“This is the star of a regular person, isn’t it? Why does it seem attached to Lucifer’s? And its lifeforce seems young but very, very weak…” you trailed off. Something about this star called out to you, intense feelings of pity and nurturing washing over you. Your instincts wished to nurse this star, this person, back to the bright light you just knew it would have been. You can tell a lot about a person through their fated star, and you didn’t need to look too deeply to tell that this one was special. So how did it end up in this position?

“You are going to find that out,” a sharp voice rang out. You didn’t bother finding its source, beyond irritated with the situation already. This was the first time another councilmember had spoken this entire time, and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes back into your skull. They were criticizing your ability only moments before, but now expected you to play detective to a catastrophe caused by an actual celestial being?

“They are right. For now, this is still your assigned domain, and the fates must have had a reason for it. You are to find the source of this issue, starting with Lucifer. Have a word with him; we will project you to his location.”

“Before my ceremony?!”

“Will will arrange the details of your ceremony later. Until then, we shall deliver you directly to your destination.”

This was not how your domain assignment was supposed to go, you thought bitterly.

It was no secret how shitty you felt about the situation, but the heavy looks of distrust the rest of the council members were sending you as you approached the center of the Constellation Map had you seething. They didn’t believe you could handle it, hell, you didn’t believe you could handle it! But…

You were always a prideful thing.

At the beckoning of Stela Treis, you slowly reached your hand out before you to touch the bright red star in the center of the room. As reality warped around you, you heard warbled words of encouragement leaking through before everything went black.

And then, all you saw was RED.

*

Part Two: The Morningstar will be posted approximately 30 minutes from this one. Stay tuned!

Author’s Note: This story was originally on one of my side blogs, @unaccomplishedwriter. This account was made to post my content with the full site functions available for use unlike the previous blog. The entire story will be reedited, reposted, and continued here.

Please ask if you’d like to be added to the tag list. Thank you!

[eyeballjazz]

First of all I've been binge reading your fics whenever I get some free time so huge kudos to ya <3

Second, I've got a fun lil ask for ya: domestic headcanons for HB/PI and SS/DD :D

how do they share all their houses' chores? We all know HB is probably an amazing cook and DD looks like an organization freak but what about the rest? Does anyone besides HB knows how to cook a proper meal? We need to know!!

Well, hell!

First of all, thank you so much this is so sweet! Absolutely makes my day to know you’re enjoying my work. I hope you get lots more time to read soon, bro!

And second I’m about to go ON so I’ll chop the post here, but I’ve got headcanons old and new cooked up for you:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed I like writing about buildings so I can tell you exactly what everyone’s houses are like. The whole Crew lives across from each other on a block in the center of their territory, Slick and Droog in a Victorian townhouse and Hearts and Clubs in a duplex that’s broken into two railway style spaces. Slick would live shoebox if it was up to him, so thankfully Droog has very opinionated taste and likes spending his husband’s money enough to buy a whole antique for them to live in. 

I don’t have to tell you that cooking is huge for the Crew. They’re a small family of Italian uncles, so cooking is a major factor of their lives. 

As skill goes Droog is the best cook out of anyone. He’s self taught but for the very basics and some old family recipes his mother drilled into him back in Tuscany. And like everything with Droog, he’s someone who grew up dirt poor and now desperately wants to show off taste and affluence by being a highbrow snob. That means his skill for cooking has driven towards very elegant, subtle cuisine, lots of French influence (he says it must have been Italian, originally, but the French got famous for it somehow), and small portion size. Think of the fanciest restaurant you've ever been to and how teeny the serving sizes were and then imagine it was cooked by someone who is ferociously closeted and you’ve got it. 

Despite all that, Droog has not had working taste buds in at least thirty years because he’s smoked two packs a day since he learned to walk. Slick, likewise, had a bad smoking habit and quit for the kids so he’s not swimming in buds either. Add to that the fact that he’s had his nose broken so many times he’s functionally lost his sense of smell and you’ve got a match made in heaven. 

Lucky them, Karkat and Aradia get the spoils of Droog’s great cooking and are the picky eaters their fathers wished they could have been as boys. Droog is very proud to have snotty kids. So it is his great displeasure when, instead of having a single scallop lightly seared in browned butter then dusted with rosemary and thyme, the kids just want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But both happen regularly. 

Hearts is a close second but of a very different school. He learned to cook primarily from his mother, who is a master of Southern cooking and made sure her boy knew how to do for himself before she let him leave her home. The rest he learned as a cook in the army, and then later from Droog after Hearts insisted he learn some real Italian recipes since his father never cooked when Hearts was a boy. Hearts still has a habit for cooking for a literal army and so he often cooks for the whole family. 

His food is mostly soul food/American southern and he seasons hard and often. One might even say it is dangerously flavorful, and everyone agrees it is extremely fortifying. It’s even strong enough to get through to Droog, who can (with the addition of hot sauce) taste it and secretly wishes Hearts would offer to teach him a thing or two.

Too willful to learn, Slick is a very low third place. He doesn’t care about food much and burns most things he tries to cook out of impatience. Plus, he hasn’t needed to learn since he married Droog so why start now?

Pickle Inspector, dead last, can’t so much as fry an egg. He loves food and knows the locations and operating hours of every restaurant and pub and gas station hot bar in the city. But cooking itself eludes him. He does occasionally try to go vegetarian but folds immediately when offered the chance to have a big beautiful meal he didn’t have to cook himself.

This matches up perfectly with Hearts’s master plan, which is to feed Pickle Inspector to within an inch of his life. And Pickle, like a stray cat, loves the attention and knows where the free food is. Hearts insists he’s too skinny and will often say ‘Just have a little,’ and then hand him a plate with half a lasagna on it.

HBPI is a ‘you cook, I clean’ split. Self conscious of his lack of cooking knowledge Pickle does every dish in the house whenever he sneaks in (read: breaks in) to spend time with Hearts and Tavros. And very often when he breaks in he tries to carve out some time to spend playing DnD with Tavros, with an ambition to get him and Hearts in a game so they can show Hearts a more kinetic version of fantasy than having a read a lot of books by nudists from the 60’s.

Because they may or may not be out as a couple to the Crew, Pickle and Hearts don’t get to spend a lot of time out on Hearts’s front porch together, although kicking back on the porch is one of Hearts’s favorite things to do. But, every so often, they take their coffee together out on the porch way before anyone else is awake. They watch the city all in blue together, right before the sunrise.

SSDD and chores are much more complicated.

Droog is fastidious, meticulous, and intense about cleaning. He also uses it to avoid or ignore any emotions he may be feeling so their Victorian is constantly spotless. Droog does all the kitchen chores, all the rewarding dusting of art pieces, mantles, and mirrors, and looks after the kids to make sure they learn how to keep their own spaces clean.

He dumps all the chores where you actually chance getting dirty on Slick. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the cars, touching anything weird, bugs, that’s all Slick.

Slick also looks after their garden, not for any love of plants but because he’s gotten himself into an all out war with a warren of rabbits that want to eat Droog’s spices and tomatoes. The war has been multi-generational for the rabbits and they’re too invested to pull out now. Slick is the only person who really looks after the garden, Droog assumes ownership of the plants but doesn’t care about them beyond having fresh basil to cook with.

Slick’s contempt for the bunnies and ferocity in keeping his husband’s plants alive have made him an unwitting expert on what a good spice garden needs. Like Droog, his feelings for the whole thing aren’t tied to love for the plants but instead pride and anger. Droog, meanwhile, loves seeing Slick do violence in his name and will often watch his tantrums in the backyard whenever one of the tomato plants gets chewed up.

Whew, this got long quick. Since it’s already so long, I’ll leave you with one more hc which is that Pickle Inspector knows how to juggle. Thank you again for the great questions, this was so fun!!!

[gemsofgreece]

random but I find it a bit uncomfortable when we Greeks, especially someone like you who actually knows about history and is educated, calls Scopje "North Macedonia". Just bc they decided to call themselves like that and our dumb, unpatriotic politicians accepted it, I don't see why we should play along. Macedonia is Greek. Alexander the Great was Greek. Period.

If even we Greeks give in and start calling them like this, then we can't expect foreigners not to do so or not to eventually believe the false historical facts spread by that country. And eventually everyone, even Greeks, will believe that Macedonia or Alexander or whatever else were not Greek.

This thought worries me a lot. But since I live overseas myself, I do try educating foreigners about this.

sorry for the lil rant, but it's not the first time I see Greeks (even on tv!) do that and it is disappointing and saddening to me.

like Turks, Germans, French, British or ppl from any other country would never behave the way Greeks do on such a matter.

Really makes me wonder sometimes what it is that makes us Greeks so unpatriotic. it's somehow like being patriotic equals being a fascist for us, and obviously no one wants that so we just accept everyone else running over us, our history and our culture. (generally speaking, not only about that topic and it's definitely not towards you. just an observation of mine)

anyway again sorry for the rant.

I agree, many Greeks have that belief that any slight patriotic sentiment, even without hatred or any feeling of superiority, automatically makes you a fascist. It frustrates me too.

On the topic of our neighbour country, things are very complicated though. It’s not as easy as to say “There’s no other Macedonia - our politicians betrayed us - I try to educate as many people as I can”.

First of all, Skopje is not a correct term to use either. Skopje is their capital city and if I said “there are Pomak populations in Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece and Skopje”, then the average foreigner would misunderstand that sentence. We Greeks simply use that name for the country in lack of any better alternative and because it is not our job to find one for them.

Of course I dislike the name North Macedonia, however I think it is better in comparison to what was being used till the change. Just because we Greeks used the former official name FYROM, it doesn’t mean foreigners did too. It is very sad but it is the truth. In the absence of Greeks, everybody was calling the country Macedonia. The reason is a) the insane propaganda of the neighbours, b) the weirdness of an acronym used as a country’s name and c) the extremely long and complicated name when said in full. Trust me, everyone called them Macedonia and when a Greek showed up and screamed “it’s FYROM”, they were largely ignored or even ridiculed.

Let alone that FYROM is in truth an even more terrible name than North Macedonia. Remember what it means. Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia. What the hell does that mean? That it was formerly (yugo)slavic but now it is not? And that it was or still is THE Republic of Macedonia, the one!!! You get how this was way worse than North Macedonia? North Macedonia suggests that there is another Macedonia too, a South Macedonia. So the average foreigner who doesn’t know much about Greek or Slavic history may be intrigued by that North specification and look up what the “south” Macedonia is and find out about our region and its inhabitants and history. Also the differentiation between North Macedonia and Macedonia (ours, often called Historical or Aegean Macedonia) may intrigue new people to study the issues of the tensions between the two countries and have an educated opinion on it. This was much less probable to happen when foreigners were expected to call the country FYROM and then they were weirded out, so they would be like “oh just call it Macedonia for short” and they would do that without second thought, without knowing someone else condemns this name as appropriation of history and direct land claim.

Of course, the name North Macedonia is mostly inaccurate as only a small part of the far south of the country is part of the actual Ancient Macedonia. The ideal would be a NO Macedonia name but right now it was not realistic. They would not accept it and they were getting deeply under the influence of Turkey. Albania and Bulgaria are deeply influenced by Turkey, Greece felt it was suicide if she destroyed entirely the relations with North Macedonia and was literally surrounded by Turk friends from all sides. I am sure both sides absolutely loathe every single term in this agreement but politics sometimes work differently than our principles. I don’t like it but I have come to a place that I kind of understand. I hate it but it is better than the absolute nothing we had before.

What I can’t come to terms with is giving in for the nationality and language. That really seems as little other than a big fat betrayal. However, if I try hard to be objective about the situation, I believe neighbours are in a worse place than us in the longterm. Huge tensions often arise inside North Macedonia with like 1/3 of “”””””MaCEdoNIAns”””””” being Albanian and Bulgaria claiming the rest 2/3 are actually Bulgarians. And what is factually the truth, that the “Macedonian” language is basically a Bulgarian dialect just must create a situation of chaos within the country. I wouldn’t find it surprising if the nation feels unsafe. And when a nation feels unsafe, the best way to control it, distract it from the identity confusion and give it a purpose is to feed them with a shitload of propaganda, the kind they would LIKE to hear.

When Slavic populations were pushed north and out of Macedonia by the Greeks during the Balkan Wars and then they became part of what was called South Serbia and then part of Yugoslavia and then Yugoslavia collapsed and their population is a blend of Serb Slavs, Bulgarians, Albanians and apparently there must be Greek Slav origins there too, it is no wonder the nation suffers from identity crisis and is susceptible to brainwashing and propaganda. I suppose they hate the guts of all of us surrounding them. So the claim that Macedonian is a separate ethnicity, unrelated to Greeks, and they are the sole descendants, a claim that was only made in 1935 for the first time, was a desperate way to establish an identity against Slavs and Greeks who surrounded them and with whom they felt entirely disconnected and hostile. I mean, at points in time, they were even denying any Slavic heritage. I think lately things aren’t as bad as they were. Of course, their government remains provocative towards Greece even after the agreement but this is no surprise after Greeks agreed on nationality and language. Currently they have tensions on ethnicity and culture mostly with Bulgarians and Albanians so our issue is somewhere in the back. Some of their youth now says they don’t actually believe they are descendants of Alexander the Great and that was an extreme measure to spite Greece. This was one of the terms of the Prespes agreement after all: that they would stop claiming Greek history and culture. Of course extreme and brainwashed nationalists are alive and well (everywhere) but things are better than they were some years ago IMO. I could be wrong though.

Anyway I get why things happened the way they happened. But of course butchering history is not the solution… but as you see they are not very close at solving anything. That was kinda my answer’s point, not sure it came across right. In the meantime, I have to use this geographic term to be understood and it is a little better than any widely understood alternative.

Context for foreigners: Alexander the Great died about 800 years before the first Slav stepped on Macedonia or any other Greek territory. Macedonians and all other Greeks technically stopped being considered as “ancient” half a millennium before the first Slavs showed up.

[that-bi-bitch-writes]

A Cursed Reality- JJK x Male Reader (Ch. 3)

This has a couple time skips. They aren't huge and I didn't know how to format it so I just put little dashes to imply there are time skips.

A lot of this material is taken straight from the manga and adapted a little to fit [Name] and there's a hint to his greater power/purpose in the story as well as his background. Enjoy!!!

Previous // Next

Chapter Three: In hindsight [Name] probably should’ve minded his own business. Actually, NO. He was going to blame everything on Gojo. If Gojo hadn’t sent him on that mission to play dutiful senpai [Name] never would’ve gotten involved with Sukuna’s vessel beyond being his upperclassman. But noooo. Now [Name] actually feels something for Itadori, including an obligation to check on the kid. Yuji would most likely be fine, he was being protected by Gojo, and like [Name]’s favorite Sensei, Yaga seems to at least consider Gojo’s opinion when making decisions. His power is well respected regardless of whether or not the blue-eyed Sorcerer is liked. The problem, in [Name]’s own words, was ‘that damn principal’ who liked to torture some of the more problematic recruits. Yaga of course called it a form of vetting. He didn’t want to enroll any students that would die way too easily or cause more problems than they were worth. With people like Yuji and [Name] the whole vetting process became troublesome. Straightforward but complex. They didn’t hide anything really and didn’t have any secret motives, but there were a lot of unknowns in their lives. Especially about where they came from and how they would act in the heat of the moments. ---------------- “Whoa! It’s in the mountains? Is this really Tokyo?” “This isn;t actually out of the ordinary for a tokyo suburb” “What about Fushiguro?” “He’s fast asleep after receiving jujutsu treatment” -------------------------------- “Fushiguro-kun!” “Hmm” “Fushiguro!” “[Name]-senpai” “Where is Gojo-sensei? Is he back with Yuji yet?” “I’ve been asleep, but Gojo-sensei said he’d leave at 6am” “That was three hours ago” “Yeah” “Good! So they haven’t made it to the principal yet. Sweet dreams Fushiguro-kun” “I’ll come with you” “You’ll need your rest” “But-” “Sleep” and with that [Name] darted out the door hearing Megumi’s body hit the mattress once again. [Name] had to warn Yuji about the principal. Knowing Gojo he’d probably stress the kid out and throw him to the gorilla. Yaga of course being the gorilla. ------------------------------------------- “First thing’s first, Yuji--” Gojo started “You’ve got an interview with the principal.” “The principal?” “If you mess up, you might get rejected for admission, so stay frosty, okay?” “WHAT!? DOES THAT MEAN I CAN GET EXECUTED RIGHT AWAY? Yuji shrieked “What a disappointment... I thought you were the leader… A hierarchy not based purely on strength is boring if you ask me” Sukuna raged on before being slapped into silence. “Sorry Sensei, He comes out sometimes….” “What an interesting body you have now.” Gojo noticed “I owe you a debt, after all” “Not again” Yuji shouted Sukuna ignored Yuji and continued “When I make this Kid’s body mine… You’ll be the first one I kill!” “Silence” “Me a target of the great sukuna? What an honor!” Gojo continued as if nothing had happened Sukuna hadn’t disappeared yet but couldn’t open his mouth. [Name]’s cursed command had a little more strength in it than normal. Gojo may have been immature, unfairly attractive (something that pissed [Name] off for reasons “unrelated” to jealousy) and extremely annoying, but he was the closest thing [Name] had to family. He was there to drag [Name] from out of the wreckage after the accident and he was the first person to welcome [Name] to Jujutsu Tech. So yeah, Sukuna’s threat pissed [Name] off a bit. Yuji finally shook Sukuna off and continued to talk to Gojo. About what [Name] has no clue, the two of them were easily excitable and all over the place. In the meantime he was trying to think of advice to give to Yuji before he was thrown into Gorilla territory. Yaga wouldn’t let [Name] stay for the interview and [Name]’s not exactly sure he’d want to anyway. “Hey Puppy!” “Puppy?” ‘Oh shit’ [Name] thought ‘I totally meant to say Yuji. Okay [Name] just breeze past it’

“You’re going into some dangerous territories/ That old man will be looking for a reason to throw you out. Don’t screw up. Just be yourself... but like the you on ADHD meds” Gojo couldn’t help but snicker and [Name] shot him a look as if to communicate ‘the same can be said about you Satoru’ before walking away. “Thanks [Name]-san!” Yuji called after the retreating boy. He then became incredibly serious “Sensei. You said you’d win. But between [Name] and Sukuna… would he lose?” “I don’t know if he’d win” Gojo said before a pregnant pause “But he wouldn’t die. I know that for sure.” Within Yuji, Sukuna hummed in curiosity. That boy had no trouble overpowering Sukuna. And with one word at that. Of course, right now he had only the strength of one finger, but for the boy not to break a sweat. He couldn’t help but think things were getting interesting. ----------------------- “This is your room, you can do whatever you want with it.” “Whoa it’s huge” “The second- and third-years are out right now. You’ll meet them soon enough. Though there’s not many of them anyway” Yuji whistled, putting up a poster of a woman in a bikini before pausing. “What about [Name]? He asked “Is he out too?" “I actually don’t know. It depends. You see [Name] has a very special relationship with the other second years and sometimes that means trouble for missions, so it’s a 50/50 chance on whether or not he’s still here” Yuji hmmed and Gojo stared at him in silence. “Yuji you don’t need to fight, you know. Fushiguro and I can go and retrieve Sukuna’s fingers. Why don’t you just wait here?” Yuji faced the wall and seemed to be immersed in thought. In all honesty both he and Gojo knew what the answer would be. Only one day was needed to figure out the type of person Yuji was. “No! I said I’d do it didn’t I? But it would be hilarious to see a beaten-up Fushiguro bring the fingers to me while I relax” Both he and gojo thought about it a little. Gojo agreed it would be funny. “Okay! To be honest there’s no way you’re not fighting” “Hey! Was that a test?!” “If they were that easy to find we would’ve found them already! There are some with a large overwhelming presence. Others that keep quiet. And some that have already been consumed by a cursed spirit. “With regard to searching for these things… It’s gonna be a pain. But now we have you. In order to regain its power… The sukuna you consumed will direct you to the whereabouts of the fingers. You’re a vessel as well as a radar. We’re gonna need you in the field” “I don’t think the guy inside me’s that considerate...” “I think we’ll be able to come to a win-win agreement” Gojo concluded “Huh you’re next door? There’re a bunch of empty rooms aren’t there?” “Hey! Fushiguro! You finally look better! And [Name]’s with you” “What kind of an upperclassman would I be if I didn’t check on the first years. It’s my responsibility to make sure you’re all happy and healthy” [Name] said trying to keep up some charade of being a good student. “You woke me up very aggressively” Fushiguro countered “That’s neither here nor there” “I thought it’d be more fun and lively this way. And obviously I was right” Gojo answered Fushiguro’s question pointing to an oblivious Yuji who was looking at [Name] with pure adoration in his eyes. [Name] looked at the pink haired boy with well hidden fondness. If you didn’t already know [Name], you’d think the blank look on his face meant he hated the kid Fushiguro stared at them for a moment before realizing he’d rather argue than let Gojo be right. “Classes and missions are more than enough!” “Anyway… It’s fine!!! More importantly we’re goin’ out tomorrow!!” Both Yuji and Megumi stared at Gojo. Yuji in surprise, Fushiguro in annoyance “We’re going to get the third first-year student. “Count me out” [Name] spoke up reminding everyone that he too was still there “I’ve got somewhere to be” “Ooh [Name] has a daate” “Can it old man. I’m just going somewhere with Toge” “How is that any different from what I just said”

[Name] ignored the teacher and stalked off toward the second year dorms. “See you later puppy, emo kid”

“Wait for me!” Gojo called out chasing after the second year “I’ve got something to talk to you about”

----------

“So who’s Toge?”

“Inumaki-senpai’s a second year and the one of the only people [Name] likes in this school. I can count them all on one hand.”

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

“So,” [Name] paused “What did you want to talk about?”

“Yuji’s at risk. I can tell you kinda care about him and Megumi so I’m going to use that. When I’m gone you have to protect them. Any means necessary. That includes cursed storytelling”

[Name]’s eyes widened at the mention of his technique. The power itself wasn’t as strong as a domain, but in [Name]’s hands it was deadly. Only he and Gojo knew about it, and if Gojo wanted him to use it, he had no choice.”

“Okay”

[dappersheep]

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (3/3)

Ladies and gentlemen, we've arrived at our final destination.

Again before we start, we have our obligatory disclaimers. I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the true history and likely fate of this game. I am entitled to the thoughts and opinions written within this post. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points being made.

This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are in the third and final stretch, and the checkpoint is past the cut.

Community

So... here we are, fellow Master Attendants.

As consumers of this piece of entertainment media, we are free to enjoy it however we wish. Appreciating what is there, creating something new from what exists, playing the game by the meta or however you want to play it (within your means and at your own risk of course). There's no one true and absolute way to experience the game.

However, just as you can enjoy something, doesn't mean you can't also point out flaws or shortcomings of the media in question. As an active veteran player, I've already pointed out the many gameplay design flaws  already. And I'd be pretty dumb to say that Food Fantasy's writing is perfect. Hell, it has a lot of holes from a worldbuilding consistency standpoint. 

And what of things from the community side? Yes, there will be times you'd see content you consider cringe, or something in fanon you don't agree with. Or there happens to be fan theories and fangirling posts you don't like the take of because of X or Y.

And that's fine. If we all happen to play the same way, like the same thing, agree on the same thing and produce the same thing, well, this would be one helluva boring community, wouldn't it?

But what if someone decides the way you're playing the game is wrong and harasses you over it? What happens if someone decides that their interpretation of the game's flavor text and lore is more important than what anyone else thought about it? What happens if someone decides that they're absolutely right, and you and everyone else who disagrees deserves to be bullied out of the fandom?

As much as I want to say we aren't part of the problem why the game is deteriorating, we are unfortunately, part of the reason why the game is as such even if most of the blame is directed towards Funtoy and Elex themselves.

⦁ Whale Authority. Whales will always be part of a gacha game's ecosystem. Without them, the game won't be able to maintain its upkeep costs, moreso  for one that services global regions instead of just one. But when a game decides to cater its decisions of what features should be prioritized and when it should be launched around only its most elite paying players' voices  -even if that influence has since tapered off-, you know there is something wrong with the publisher's management team and priorities.

⦁ Interguild drama. While I did not personally follow any of this, this has certainly been the peak of in-game tension back in the day. Poaching good players from both competitive and smaller guilds, guild mergers that often ended up making the annexed guild/s the equivalent of UK colonized India or Australia, suck-ups chummying up to guild leaders to keep a spot in an active, high ranking guild (for bragging rights!) despite never contributing much to overall damage, and just general dislike of certain players' attitudes. Actions like this have disillusioned many players about their playing experience and the reason why many eventually just lost the motivation to log into FooFan.

⦁ Cheaters. You know very well about the Hacker-teme I've mentioned before, but that was in context of Elex being incompetent with dealing with them. Here, I would like  to point out the players who are desperate to dominate  the playing field for whatever reason to the point that they would resort to cheating the ranks with forceful modifications of the APK. Whether it is to rank high in catacombs weekly, get a top spot in daily disaster damage, or weasel their way into the competitive whale ranks of a major ranking event, these are the people who have no qualms messing with the code to give themselves an easier time with the game. And if they're caught? Some pretend that they've made a mistake, some quickly sell the account to escape the blame, some others just scamper away into the dark and hide in the lower ranks where they can't be found. Others simply don't care and keep cheating until Elex decides to finally ban them... if Elex ever decides their rebates score isn't worth saving the account.

⦁ Ship wars. Ah yes, a staple of drama in any fandom. There doesn't need much explanation to this as we've all had our fair share of running into a battleground in whatever fandom we visit. Someone ships BB52 wholeheartedly? Nope, problematic 'age gaps'. Someone likes Napoleon with Pastel? Someone's bound to misinterpret their bios in order to justify that Napoleon was being abusive. Spaghetti and Borscht? Borscht is minor coded, ship her with Vodka instead. Whiskey and Pizza or Cassata? Cancelled! And I've never heard of the Foe Yay trope or pretend I don't know about it! Rarepairs? Disgusting! No fanon in my canon playground! Turkey and Eggnog? Gasp! How dare you, you pedo-shipper-even-though-you-never-said-you-shipped-them-romantically-but-that-isn't-my-point!

⦁ Character Obsession: Bias. On one hand, you love a character so much. Relate to a character so much. You have thus pulled this character into the folds of your bosom and coo at them like a mother dove and get so minutely triggered if someone so much as makes one disagreeable or joking comment about the character that you fly into an overreactive ballistic rage that would make a Canadian goose honk in fear. You don't care what they are in canon. You don't care about the possibility of mistranslation. What matters is the fanon space you carved out for them to exist in and that's all that matters. The problem with this is when this obsession takes over common sense and social etiquette and it steps into harassment territory. You begin to think: I'm the only one who 'understands' the character. I'm the only one who wishes better for the character, everyone else is out to defame them! Oh wait, you like them too? Do you like them the way *I* like them? No? Maybe if you're my 'friend', I'd let it slide. But to everyone else? No one else has the right to like them as much as I do. No one! Never mind that they're completely fictional- No one hurts my bias because in turn, they're hurting *me*!

⦁ Character Obsession: Anti. On the other hand, you hate a character so much. This character just makes you see so much red. Their smug little smirk just makes your blood boil. Their fictional backstory makes you recoil in disgust. You hate that someone else loves a character you hate so much.  You cannot *believe* that someone could be so daringly stupid to like a problematic character. They must be problematic too then. They must be hiding real life secrets that are problematic! Yes, yes. That's right. That person's a supporter of abuse. That person's into pedophilia. That person is into military lolita fashion that Japan started the trend of but clearly Japan was part of the Axis Powers! And that... that person... that person... is a roleplayer and a yaoi fangirl properly interacting with minors and adults. How dare they...!

⦁ Fan Translations.  Normally it wouldn't be a problem that a group or two or several are translating pieces of the game's lore ahead of the official. But with Elex's very delayed translations and extreme allergic reactions to translating Food Soul bios, people have become dependent on fan-translation groups to get their fix. The problem herein lies... is when the translators get drunk off the power that they are one of a handful in a small community who can magically transcribe the oriental moonrunes into English. The problem starts when the translator starts to have an inclination. The problem starts when the translator loses their professional detachment and start adding in details here and there into the fan translated product that ultimately changes the meaning and direction of the entire story. The problem is also escalated when that translator's embellished product is touted as the truth by their followers. If there was an upcoming character whose backstory is connected to a character they hated (either because of someone or they just don't like the character) and you were hoping to read the fan translation? How would you know that what you get isn't something doctored to the point it's basically fanfiction?

⦁ Social Justice Vigilantism. Sometimes someone does not have a character obsession or need it to be annoying. Sometimes, someone just wants to ring the alarm over something they find 'problematic' in order to police and sanitize the enjoyment of the media for 'everyone'. They no longer really take enjoyment out of a new Food Soul design being leaked, they no longer read the lore just to enjoy what it has to offer. Instead, they nitpick bits and pieces of the design and point it out repeatedly as a reason why the whole thing is bad. They point out bits of the story and inject their interpretations of it without really comprehending what they've read in full and react badly to it. What's worse is that they have no qualms publicly posting their reactions and eagerly and hungrily await those likes and echoes of agreement that they were right.

⦁ Circles of Influence. Everyone has a group they eventually gravitate to in a fandom. It comes with its own pros and cons. Sometimes you join a group because someone you admire is in there, sometimes you join a group because you just want to mingle and see more content. All valid reasons. Arguments can't be avoided in a group, it has to happen... But you have to take care. You have to take care to feel the change in the air of the group. When someone starts pushing people to agree with them. When your most admired people start to feel overly sensitive about certain characters or issues. When you start to feel obligated to spy on other groups outside of this one for 'nonbelievers', 'traitors' and 'heretics' who do not think the way this group does, and that bringing back bits and pieces of gossip as offerings would somehow make you more favored in the eyes of the inner clique or remain inside it. There is a gripping sense of annoyance when that person comes in to complain but you can't do anything about it but nod and agree. There is a pervading sense of fear and apprehension of overstepping an invisible boundary. There is fear that you might be next on the chopping block, after witnessing one of the others being ganged up on and thrown out without a second thought, their name spat upon like they're worth less than dirt. And so reluctant you are to give up what you have with them that when they push you to do something you are reluctant to do, all in the name of 'harmony and justice'... You do it. Even though it would mean offering yourself up to the mob with no salvation, and the stark realization that... [they] never cared about you as a friend.

And we've come to the end of this analysis trilogy. The writing got a little bit strange in this post, but honestly this is the best way I could put it. I'm aware things can and will be more complicated than the bullet points I've written but I'm just one person and I tried very hard to keep details of all the drama that happened in this fandom as vague as possible. Of course, that wouldn't work if you know what I am talking about.

The community is quiet now for the most part, the game is somewhere between limbo and the living plane. Things could be better for us, but I don't really count on it.

I wish I could leave a bit of a moral warning or something. But rather than do that, I just hope this was an entertaining read into one individual's eyes into Food Fantasy and everything that makes it up.