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masterhandss · 3 years ago

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Who do you think katarina will end up with?

Anonymous asked: Who do you ship katarina the most with ?

I got these two questions consecutively, I'm assuming they are coming from the same person so I'll combine them to a single reply, if that's okay.

People who have been following me since the first season can probably tell that I really like Geordo x Katarina (GeoKata) the most out of all ships. At first it was mostly just because I have an unintentional biases towards characters with blonde hair, which is why favorites were GeoKata and MariaKata, but then when I slowly got into the series more, my biases permanently shifted to the G-boy.

I'm not really a fan of laying out why I like certain ships through test to be honest. I usually get super frustrated when zine mods ask contributors to explain why they like a character or ship for contributor spotlight graphics because I can never really say everything I feel correctly hgdsjsdgfj, which is a good thing someone had already asked me a similar question before so I'll just copy paste my response here if that's okay :DD

TLDR; I ship Katarina with Geordo (Maria, Sora and Cezar behind him), and I think Katarina will end up with Geordo :))

You didn't really ask why but I'll give it anyways :)) -> major light novel spoilers, by the way <-

I'm not really the most deep person, if a ship has the bare minimum of something that I like (a trope or a hair color combination) then I stan it hard. That's why I used to be so equally adoring to both Maria and Geordo, because hurrdurr blonde hair hurrdurr. But the more I read the books and got into the community, I eventually liked him more than Maria. I didn't understand how or why at first, since Geordo and Maria are undergoing a very similar character arc: both characters wants to become better people in order to become worthy of Katarina (Geordo emotionally, and Maria physically? magically? in terms of her position/social status? I can't think of a right word but you get it). Again, Maria and Geordo's struggles are similarly written but one of them is more compelling to me. I feel like Maria's problems are easier to solve (her inability to rely on people, her attention seeking and her desire to be more magically powerful) imo, since she's already a well-liked figure in the Ministry and she's already a high-level magic user. Geordo's though; the series doesn't put too much attention on it, but despite the fact that Katarina gave his life color, he still somewhat sees the world in a desaturated light even post-childhood according to the novels and his lack of empathy still prevents him from completely absorbing all the colors. He's still learning how to see and he is happy that Katarina is always there to help him learn how.

I just love the irony that Katarina sees Geordo as a Perfect Prince and feels that she is inferior and unworthy of him, but then Geordo also seems himself as flawed, inferior and unworthy of Katarina and sees her as someone perfect. Geordo constantly wants to be better for Katarina (and for the people around him), and in time, maybe he could become a motivation for Katarina to be better too (on Katarina's side though, because on Geordo's she doesn't have to because she's already perfect the way she is). Geordo, while being self-centered and aggressive in his pursuits, isn't always selfish and thinks about what Katarina wants too. He'd fight tooth and nail for her and will do whatever he can so that Katarina will love him in the same way, but that doesn't mean he wont respect her decision if she falls in love with someone else, he just wont lose without a fight that's all (and fight, he'll give that's for sure).

Geordo is crazy in love with her; wants to protect her happiness, keep her safe whenever he can, and is even willing to both fight to become king and throw away the life he currently knows if it means he can live a life where he and Katarina can be together wherever she is most content and happy. He wouldn't lock her up in the castle like a caged bird like what Keith and some fans of the series thinks, whenever he does have thoughts like that like in Volume 6, its his internal response to the lack time they can have together alone, rather than being indicative of how he wants to treat her (like in his desire in Book of Desires, he conjured up a literal honeymoon because a honeymoon is the only time where he can spend it with her alone without someone butting in! It's weird and exaggerated, but his desire is simply to just be able to spend a day with her and be able to pursue her romantically without the threat of people like Keith and Mary).

Katarina sees him for himself, and she extends her hand of friendship to him despite all her fears of her bad ends involving him. She knows he's a "sadistic prince" but doesn't always tie him to that title. Out of everyone, Katarina has just as bad, if not worse, initial impression of Geordo compared to almost everyone around him (Others sees him as a Perfect Prince while she sees him as a Sadistic Prince and Future Murderer), and yet she accepts him and wants to learn more about him. She supports him and wants him to find happiness in love with Maria, even if it means she'll get exiled to another country or to a far off farm! (i'll edit this with citations later)

I can't help but want that for him, someone who there for you through thick and thin, who supports him despite everything she knows about her future involving him. Katarina is everything he would ever want in a partner: someone who isn't disturbed by his past, can see through his fake smiles, constantly cares for him, sees him beyond his princely façade, is one of his first friends who has helped him create friendships with other as well that prevented him to wallow in isolation and hate of the version of himself that society created for him, is genuinely interested in him as a person, is endlessly fun to be around and unpredictable, and is overall beautiful inside and out.

Again, a lot of Maria and Geordo's struggles are very similar to each other, but I'm more interested in Geordo's side. I find it more compelling. Geordo's scenes always almost provides something new, we get to see him angry, flustered & embarrassed, scheming/conniving, possessive, grateful, sad & frustrated and so much more. Maria has that too (we get to see her sad and thankful), but this might be my own perspective of reading the novels, but Maria's scenes kinda feel the same to me. It almost always starts with Katarina helping her and her realizing time and time again how much she loves her and become more motivated to be a better version of herself. I mean its unfair to say that they are all the same but that might just be me. (Maria: wow I'm so grateful for everything Katarina has given me, I want to be with her forever (rinse and repeat for the next 5 books))

Yes I know it's beautiful to see Maria falling deeper and deeper in love with Maria, but I'd rather see moments of someone who is trying to advance on those feelings rather than someone who is still trying to understand what they feel. Declarations and descriptions of love are beautiful in literary works and it always gets my heart fluttering, but I can read fanfics if I want to see that be written in 8 or more ways. Give me some action, some internal conflict!

It also doesn't help that it makes me really really happy for Geordo that he's made a dent in Katarina's baka shield? Katarina's heart skipped and fluttered for a second when Geordo was patting her head, and it makes me want to root for him even more! (Yes, go break the bubble! You can do it!!)

It's not even the same doki-doki as when she gets charmed at how pretty Maria is, to me its different in a way that my small vocabulary can't explain.

And besides, it really is just a battle between the protagonist that almost ruined her life (Maria) and the love interest that almost ruined her life (Geordo). Keith is part of that equation too, but he was never a threat after they became close (narratively, its seriously just Maria vs Geordo vs Keith, ignoring the changes to that narrative by FL2). It's always about Geordo (and Maria), everything she's doing in the Fortune Lover 1 Arc is because of Geordo (and arguably, Maria & Keith too) and the consequences of where he decides her future to would lead to.

It has to be Geordo, in my opinion, to show her that things aren't the same as the game (and he already kinda has, just a dent though) (If not Geordo, it should be Maria). He, who she feared and yet cared for so much

(I know Fortune Lover 2 basically removes that importance of Geordo and Maria specifically to Katarina's narrative by making her an active problem in all routes, finally becoming loyal to the title "All Routes Lead to Doom", but its not like the story is digging into Katarina's brain that she's sword training for the purpose of fighting back against all the boys, its still just Geordo, so idk I still count that in my shipper brain)

It also also helps that Geordo is basically the poor bullied animal in the hamefura community's eyes, regardless of how far he is into the battle (like in the reddit discord lmao). Yeah he has the best chances which is why many people both in and out of the series find it so fun to drag him under because of his unfair advantage, which is fair, but just like how you feel when you see a small wounded animal, you can't help but want to help someone who has the whole world against him (there's literally a canon manga page with that joke lmao), which is how I eventually felt over time. He's so misunderstood and bullied by people despite the authors dedication to flesh him out more beyond being a possessive prince fiancé of Katarina because of the anime's adaption, so I'd rather give my biases to someone who needs (and deserves it) rather than other contenders who are already overflowing with love and support. Also who doesn't love a perfect guy who breaks when his beloved is harm/who opens up to the person he cares about most?

I know people will read this and find it unfair that Katarina is giving so much to Geordo, but he isn't really giving anything to her. One thing I'll agree that Maria has over Geordo is that Maria makes Katarina want to try and work hard. Seeing Maria improve her magic wants Katarina to do the same, and whether or not it's from motivation or fear of getting left out depends on the reader. So far we don't really have anything like that for Katarina with Geordo because most things involving Geordo intimidates her, compared to Maria who is surrounded by mysteries and adventure (though arguably it's Katarina and not her lmao, but Kat doesn't know that).

Katarina is already the most well-adjusted character in the story even as a child so the only thing to really explore from her is mostly just her relationships and skewed sense of reality. That's why I hope that Geordo will not only help her realize that she can be loved by her peers romantically despite her self-perceived position/role, but also be one of the persons to make her completely realize that she isn't living inside a game. I mean like I said a few paragraphs ago, he's already kinda doing it by constantly confessing his feelings to her, reminding her that he is a person with his own feelings and not a character programmed to fall for a heroine.

So yeah, I ship Katarina with Geordo for those reasons and believe they should end up together for those reasons.

If you ask me who I think would she end up with objectively, I'd still say Geordo. The author's focus jumps between Geordo and Maria so that really depends on who you're asking. It also doesn't help that Geordo is always in the marketing with Katarina in the books and games, which pretty much cements his Male Lead status to Katarina's Female Lead status lmao

Thank you for the ask lmao, I'll be updating this with more thoughts and possibly citations later :))

#mh ask #hamefura #my next life as a villainess all routes lead to doom #my next life as a villainess #geokata #geordo stuart #katarina claes #i want to add more but i'll do it later :))#I just copy pasted this so i'm srry for the typos ;;w;;#bakarina #destruction flag otome

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izzyizumi · 4 years ago

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Digimon Adventures ~ Japanese version featuring DUO/SHIP: Yamato Ishida (Yamato “Matt” Ishida in US) x Sora Takenouchi {SORATO} ~ MOMENTS & INTERACTIONS + IMPORTANT DIALOGUES / QUOTES + SMALL MOMENTS

{Do Not Repost or Reproduce my Image Captures without my Permission} {Do Not Remove Caption} (Please ASK to Use)

OPs commentary: Every time someone in this fandom tries to tell me Sorato “never interacted” or “never had moments where they talked to/supported each other” I’m going to show them this compilation and tell them “Please recognize the US dub was drastically altered from the original (+heavily Americanized in general) and just because you try to claim that incessantly, it doesn’t mean these moments and interactions weren’t there.”

BONUS:

{Jou may have been here [and equally important!] in this scene too but Yamato’s presence specifically was significant for Sora as well.}

{Gomamon grabs specifically Yamato’s doll; Sora immediately throws it without hesitation, fully and completely / intentionally near-sacrificing HER OWN LIFE to save everyone which, yes, includes Yamato himself.}

{Taichi is the one asking if it’s “homemade”. In Japan, it is often considered significant if someone makes homemade sweets/food for their crush/partner, usually because more emphasis overall is placed on homemade food given as gifts to romantic partners, for “confessions”, etc. For example, on Valentines Day in Japan, girls may give “obligation chocolates” to boys they’re on more casual or friendly terms with as a customary gift, and “honmei choco” [‘True Feelings’ chocolate] to romantic partners. Such would often given to husbands, boyfriends, and desired partners. Honmei chocolate is usually higher-quality and more expensive than giri choco (the "obligation chocolate"), which is given to male coworkers and other men the woman has no romantic attachment to.} [^some information via Wikipedia articles ‘giri choco’ and ‘honmei choco’] and though the above scene isn’t referencing Valentines Day, the significance of giving homemade food/sweets is still important, because {Note: the above regarding Valentines’ is also still relevant to them in a certain drama CD [that takes place on Valentines] referenced below.}

regarding Christmas in Japan: Encouraged by commerce, the “secular” (not-religious) celebration of Christmas is popular in Japan, though Christmas is not a national holiday. Gifts are sometimes exchanged. Christmas parties are held around Christmas Day; Christmas Eve {December 24} has become a holiday for couples to spend time together and exchange gifts. - via Wiki article “Observance of Christmas by country” {under ‘Japan’} [the above scene and below one happens on December 24th.]

{Jun Motomiya [who had been crushing on Yamato]-vision (her physical vision as she was there at the concert reacting immediately after this) complete with lighthearted music and “sparkly” sound effect in the Japanese version.} [The resulting effect is also Jun giving up on Yamato.] {not long after this Jun immediately becomes interested in Shuu Kido, Jou’s oldest brother of the two Kido brothers.}

{Physical contact / arms around the shoulder.}

{if it wasn’t obvious here he was very clearly asking Sora to come see his concert.}

{She then frets anxiously about trying to attend what she’s invited to.}

{Sora very casually speaking for Yamato. Mimi jokingly [not seriously] calls him “tsundere” in turn.} [Note: I’m aware this scene contains other characters. It’s still relevant for Sora & Yamato’s relationship too. Also, it’d be nice if you could consider the rest of this entire post too.]

{Sora is the first to stand up in response to Yamato’s firm words.}

{the full scene is a bit too long and plot-spoilery to include here so I’ll probably make a separate post for it soon, but it’s right after Yamato & Sora talk and also attempt on both ends to provide comfort to each other in the final Tri movie “Bokura no Mirai” / “Our Future”.}

{Yamato is the one to mention Sora and bring up her career goals.} (Kizuna)

gifs by @izzyizumi, {DO NOT REPOST} {DO NOT REMOVE CAPTION} {OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE BLOCKED} {usage of gifs may be allowed if permission is asked / or if credit is given. However, read my about & FAQ pages first. Please do NOT use / ask if you match anything in my “Do Not Interact” sections.}

{Additional note: this post is mainly intended AS SHIP. please remember + RESPECT this when interacting please tag only as the ship name and DO NOT tag as only “brotp” or the like only*, thank you!} (*It is ok if you tag as “friendship” or the like along with the ship!!) {Failure to acknowledge rules will result in a block}

[Note: commenting/tagging positively/respectfully is ok!] (Please AGREE TO BANNERS BEFORE interacting) (Note: click on the banners to enlarge!)

Mini-FAQ & clarifications (for this post):

Why did you make this compilation?

a) Because I am tired of various others in this fandom [+usually they are White and/or American/U.K./Western fans] (completely seriously!) trying to tell me these two “never interacted” when I can point out pretty much any and every instance (small or significant) where they have, in fact, interacted. I also have the entire Japanese version of Adventures on hand, which certainly helps in making such a compilation and pointing out these things. b) because those issues aside, it can be a genuinely useful reference for both myself, my mutuals (if they ship these two or not), and anyone else who could use it when trying to reference canonical lines and interactions. But in all honesty I really just made this for me. Because I like to use such posts as references. c) Because I wanted to. d) There were various other scattered meta / analysis posts from over the years that pointed out many of these scenes and lines and their contexts in the original version much better than I can describe on my own (despite making a slight attempt here), but these moments can still often be overlooked a lot, {especially by Western fans} so I decided to collect everything I was able to (+fit) into a reference post. This post only covers the Adventures anime. They’ve also had blatant references to them “dating” in the {yes, canonical} drama CD Michi e no Armor Shinka / Armor Evolution to the Unknown, where Yamato quite literally yells “SORA I LOVE YOU” during a battle moment. (...Like, look, I’m literally just pointing out the canon here.)

{someone who often bashes other Adventures characters, especially if Sora herself, or other Adventure Chosen ships/ship fandoms}: Can I interact with this post {+if I intend to debate you}?

NO. Unless you’re genuinely willing to consider these things, I’d rather you not. Please leave. & I am Not here to “explain” this ship further to you Seriously if you ignore this and try to force-interact anyway I will block I BET you’re just some Sorato Stan TM who is turning their nose down on other ships with them by daring to make this post / contents for them! {legit actual thing I’ve had implied at me once because people never read my FAQ nor noticed contents I’ve MADE AND, others I’ve SUPPORTED for various other such ships} - Please actually read my linked FAQ, my ship list, and also my sidebar. Because the sidebar also mentions most of my other top ships and OTPs. (If you haven’t done this it is Not my fault.)

You only like this ship BECAUSE [x reason asker personally finds insignificant for some reason]! I have a tag you should read in general if you’re new to my blog. There’s some posts there like this, this and this. {and yes the posts linked are relevant to this ship.}

{FINAL NOTE: I’m pretty sure I got most major moments here but there’s still some scattered other small-but-notable moments I’ll probably make other posts for in the future. -TO PEOPLE WHO INTERACT/REBLOG: Please regard all the information/rules listed on this post. This includes if you reblog positively.}

#digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #sorato #yamato x sora #sora takenouchi #yamato ishida #ishida yamato #takenouchi sora #sorato edits #izzyizumi posts #izzyizumi gifs #izzyizumi sorato gifs #izzyizumi gifsets #otp: let her cry #sorato gifs #sorato refs #sorato tls #adv refs #adv tls #(Look what ELSE I compiled yesterday because let's be honest it was long overdue)#(SERIOUSLY REGARD THE RULES OR I WILL BLOCK YOU WITHOUT MERCY)#(I am NOT here to debate you and I WILL block you if you attempt it so like don't even bother trying)#(there's probably a handful more scattered lines and small moments I missed but I may just save them for another 'small moments' post)#(because quite honestly this post is overloaded and took me FOREVER to cram all these gifs in like please acknowledge these take HOURS)#(FYI if you are going to see this post and vague over it maybe DON'T DO THAT either because Protip I notice this and you are Not Subtle)#(I will almost definitely block you across all social media if I notice this as well so yeah maybe Don't and yes I do have twitter too)#(seriously like it costs 0 cents to BE RESPECTFUL and anyhow if you comment respectfully you'll be fine!!!)#digimon adventure tri #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #(by the way if you all can be cool about this I'll be making more ship compilations later INCLUDING for most other ships that contain them)

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dahniwitchoflight · 4 years ago

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KH: The Foreteller’s Animal Masks

This is half fun facts / half theory but basically it’s a list of which Sins/Foretellers are associated with which animals AND where the inspirations for the animal associations came from, since there’s actually a few different sources!

The first would be the Ancrene Wisse, which was a sort of field guidebook for Anchoresses (Female Abbesses/Monks/Nuns basically) containing rules of conduct and behavior

https://www.hermitary.com/articles/ancrene.html

This goes into many things that honestly have cool thematic ties with symbolism for stuff in Kingdom Hearts, which I could honestly make a whole post in it’s own for tbh, but for here were focusing on one passage:

“The wilderness is the solitary life of the anchoress's dwelling, for just as in the wilderness there are all the wild beasts, and they will not endure men coming near but flee when they hear them, so should anchorites, above all other women, be wild in this way, and then they will be desirable, above other women, to Our Lord.

In this wilderness are many evil beasts: the lion of pride, the snake of poisonous envy, the unicorn of anger, the bear of dead sloth, the fox of covetousness, the sow of gluttony, the scorpion with the tail of stinging lechery, that is, lust.”

So, we start out with a nice base for some of the Sin/Foretellers:

Ira - Wrath - Unicorn - Unicornis

Avaritia - Greed - Fox - Vulpes

Acedia - Sloth - Bear - Ursus

Invidia - Envy - Snake - Anguis

but then wait, here Gula/Gluttony is a Sow, a Pig, but in KH it’s a Leopard

As well as recently in KH, they’ve made it clear that Luxu/Luxuria is a Goat, not a Scorpion (As cool as a Scorpion would have been for Luxu’s emblem, but a bit too on the nose I suppose haha)

Well, interestingly enough, did you know that back when the 7 deadly sins was actually more like the 8 Evil Things once? And that they were also grouped into a Trio of their own?

(Despair as Tristitia being the 8th one, because it’s essentially the sin of falling to sorrow/sadness or giving up, of blinding yourself to other’s troubles and causing sorrow in return or being too sorrowful to act, later it was folded into Sloth as a lack of diligence)

But the 3 Major sin groupings was essentially the three Reasons that people would sin the deadly sins

Incontinence: Doing wrong because they couldn't help it. Or sinning from a lack of moderation or self-control.

Violence: Doing wrong because of anger, revenge or retaliation. Or sinning from by trying to force your will externally

Fraud/Corruption: Doing wrong on purpose in order to hurt other's. Or sinning from betrayal, lies and manipulation.

These three things form a sort of Unholy Trinity in opposition with the Divine trinity of Father-Son-Holy Spirit

And, very famously, Dante’s Inferno links these three groupings to three creatures from a famous bible verse describing the destruction of humanity via it's own nature:

Jeremiah 5:6 - “Therefore a lion from the forest shall slay them, and a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities, every one who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.”

A Lion, A Leopard and A Wolf.

Now based on Dante’s actual writing which grouping with which animal and which sins is often debated, but usually it’s roughly as follows:

Leopard of Incontinence: Gluttony, Greed, Luxuria (from Immoderation, Extravagance, Wastefulness)

Lion of Violence: Wrath, Pride (from Murder, Suicide, Squandering, Blasphemy)

Wolf of Fraud/Corruption: Envy, Sloth, Sorrow/Despair (Tristitia) (from Corruption, Thievery, Falsifier, Betrayal) (yeah... old timey people did indeed view what was essentially depression as a “willful” sin aka something people did on purpose to hurt themselves, like they drown in their sorrows willingly because of a refusal to heal themselves or as a willing corruption of their soul, nowadays if it existed would definitely be thought of a Leopard sin I’d think)

So here it’s very easy to see where Leopardos and Gula get tied together, because in KH the sin of Gluttony is lifted above the other’s in the group, which makes sense because being gluttonous for money is greed, being gluttonous for luxuries was Luxuria (or sex for lust)

And here also, the Sin of Pride/Superbia is again associated with the Lion as it is in the Ancrene Wisse (though it’s also associated with Wrath strongly as well, so no wonder MoM chose Ira to be the next leader after he was gone)

So in all likelihood, this means that the symbol of the Master of Masters is most likely a Lion of Pride, Superbia (and if he had his own union, it might be something like Leo or Panthera)

But honestly the biggest thing that definitely makes MoM the Lion of Pride is the passage in the Ancrene Wisse that elaborates upon the Lion of Pride, describing it as having “many cubs”:

“But the author continues the animal analogies, enumerating a classification of the sins. "The lion of pride has very many cubs," he states, and enumerates them: vainglory, indignation, hypocrisy, presumption, disobedience, loquacity, blasphemy, impatience, contumacy, contention, "airs and graces." “

Reminds me of both MoM’s many apprentices or Master Xehanort’s collection in the organization

Though the REAL reason is also because did you know when KH was still being thought of and designed, Nomura actually wanted to make Sora a Half-Lion Chainsaw Wielder and we all know Sora is secretly the MoM right lol

But anyway, that explains Gula being a Leopard

So then where did all this talk of Luxu being a Goat come from?

Well one reason could be that later on as the deadly sins got solidified as just the seven of them, and as their meanings changed from umbrella terms to more specific sins, their animal interpretations also started to differ:

Avarice/Greed = Toad/Frog

Invidia/Envy = Snake

Ira/Wrath = Lion

Acedia/Sloth = Snail

Gula/Gluttony = Pig

Luxuria/Lust = Goat

Superbia/Pride = Peacock

Also Ira with a Lion mask would be cool but can you imagine a Snail Aced or a Froggy Ava? lol

But it IS Cool to think that these “Modernized” animals could then become the emblems of the Union Leaders that inherited Ava’s legacy, since they are the newer versions of those Unions, obviously there’s no one to Inherit MoM’s legacy

But you could easily think of Ventus as the “Traitor” aka the scapeGoated 6th for the new group, leaving Frogs, Snakes, Lions, Snails and Pigs for the other five

(I wonder who I’d put with who... Ephemer, Skuld, Lauriam, Strelitzia and Brain... the only sin associated with Death would be Wrath (As Suicide) and the “Ira” position appears to be the one who inherits the leader, and it’s theorized Strelitzia was the circled name supposed to get the Book of Prophecies

So Strelitzia = Lion/Wrath

Ephemer and Ava always seemed to be the closest and he was the one who seemed to inherit her Legacy the most so he can get Frogs/Greed

Brain is similar to Gula in how they calmly investigate issues and try to uncover the truth and got extra information than the others, so Pigs/Gluttony for him

Lauriam was the poster boy for temptation into darkness, which is what Darkness was intended when his sister Strelitzia was killed, for him to be the first to fall to rage and grief, nice Aced parallel as the one everyone suspected of falling to darkness first so he gets Snails/Sloth, fitting for the flower elemental lol

and that leave Skuld and Invi which also makes sense as the parallel for the person who tries to intervene in conflicts and mediate for the group, so Skuld gets Snake/Envy

Neat!

But anyway back to Luxu, I think Luxu is represented by the Goat not just because of the above modern listings, but also because of the special place of evil that Christian religions tend to place on Goat itself

If the Lamb is the most common symbol of Jesus Christ, the Goat has always been a symbol of the Evil of Lucifer. Sheep and Goats, despite being so similar, have always been seen as this symbolic duo. Sheep and Lambs being submissive, complacent, docile, while Goats are crazy, willful, destructive and etc likely because since they are so close in nature, they are basically seen as the Good and Evil version of the same animal, a Goat is essentially a heretical false Lamb

They are very commonly associated with the Devil/Lucifer himself and goats have always gotten the short end of stick, all the way back to the old tradition of using goats as well, scape-goats literally. The practice of singling out a particular creature or person and placing all the sin and blame onto it, and then driving it away

Luxu is singled out from the group, likely given the role of “Traitor” amongst the six of them and then is forced into essentially exile to the future by MoM where he can do nothing but watch and wait, never able to interfere or meddle with anything

And this reasoning of the Goat fits Luxu above all others.

So there we have it, finally at the end:

Ira/Wrath - Unicorn/Unicornis

Avaritia/Greed - Fox/Vulpes

Acedia/Sloth - Bear/Ursus

Invidia/Envy - Snake/Anguis

Gula/Gluttony - Leopard/Leopardus

and if Luxu and MoM had union names, (which seem to be just be taken from the genus of the animal directly) they’d likely be:

Luxuria/Lust - Goat/Caprini

Superbia/Pride - Lion/Panthera

But I think the Most Interesting Thing to glean from all of this, is going back to the 3 Groupings for the 8 evil things, can you imagine if KH ever decides to give MoM a little backstory, and a figure based on the Wolf of Fraud/Corruption, emblem of Despair came into the picture somewhere?

Something that might look a little like this?

Hey that’s interesting, isn’t this the special secret boss Dark Hide from Aqua’s Fragmentary Passage? Y’know, that journey all about Aqua falling into the pits of Despair where she then ends up fighting The First Real Pureblood Heartless she ever faces in the Realm of Darkness? Something that Aqua felt was Willfully and Intentionally Stalking her through the depths, instead of mindlessly attacking her?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQGONhqs0mU

Isn’t that interesting how all of things, they give this boss the opportunity for the player to see through it’s eyes, something very unique, and how it initially appears as a formless Darkness

And isn’t Darkness itself, given a will and a personality, now a figure in KHUX Dark Road, that has specific ties to the MoM, as Luxu describes as being a fellow student and/or old friend of MoM?

Could the Will of Despair manifested from darkness come to be a secret 8th apprentice of MoM?

Who knows, but it’s interesting how that symbolism lines up isn’t it?

#KH #Kingdom Hearts #KHUX #KHUXDR #Darkness

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violethowler · 4 years ago

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The Heroine’s Journey of Sora

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing out my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts and the way the series follows the framework of the Heroine’s Journey. Rather than a bunch of drabbles or a single long-winded post, I’ve decided to break up my explanations of the Heroine’s Journey and the way Kingdom Hearts fits into it as a series of ten essays posted weekly. I will put up a masterpost once all of them are finished, and in the meantime I will have all of them on my blog under the tag ‘Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine’s Journey.’

Due to the length of this essay, I will be putting the full thing under a cut.

What many Kingdom Hearts fans do not realize is that while Tetsuya Nomura does sometimes make up the details as he goes when it comes to the writing of Kingdom Hearts, he does do things with a plan.

In the KH3 Ultimania [1], he talked about how he’d had the conclusion of the Dark Seeker Saga outlined by the end of Kingdom Hearts II’s development. In an April 2012 interview [2] with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, he indicated that he’d had a general framework up to Kingdom Hearts II planned out when the original game was first announced. And in a 2004 interview after the original Chain of Memories was released on GameBoy Advance, he mentioned that he’d already come up with the “last scene” that would serve as the definitive ending of the entire series[3].

So while some details may be hard to predict because Nomura comes up with lore and backstory details as he goes, he does have a plan in mind where the overall story is going. And the central arc of the series is entirely predictable once you understand the framework that the story fits into.

Since the late 1800s, scholars have been studying the common patterns that repeat in stories, legends, and myths across different cultures around the world. One of the most well known templates developed from such research is the Hero’s Journey. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, literature professor Joseph Campbell published a 17 step formula of storytelling. Campbell held up this framework as the monomyth, an ultimate narrative archetype from which all other stories are derived, and in discussion of his work expressed his view of The Hero’s Journey as a universal framework that showed how people grow from youth into adulthood.

However in the 1980s, Maureen Murdock began work on her own narrative framework. Believing that Campbell’s view on the universality of the Hero’s Journey did not encompass the experiences of every identity like he claimed, Murdock developed what she called The Heroine’s Journey as a critique and response to Campbell’s monomyth. Other authors have shared their own variations of the Heroine’s Journey, but for the purposes of this analysis, I will be focusing on Murdock’s model. Hers is both the oldest one I know of, and the one that I personally have the most familiarity with. Though originally conceived as a therapy tool, the core concepts of Murdock’s template have resulted in its use in storytelling for narratives about protagonists overcoming the ingrained biases and preconceptions of society.

Some notable examples of stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey template, albeit most with different formulas, include

Beauty and the Beast

The Hunger Games trilogy

The Princess and the Frog

Tangled

Howl’s Moving Castle

Labyrinth

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy*

Voltron: Legendary Defender*

*Note: Voltron: Legendary Defender and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy are examples of 3-act narratives that followed the Heroine’s Journey framework in the first 2 acts only for behind-the-scenes conflicts to result in the formula being abandoned in the final act.

Despite the name, it is possible in theory to have a male protagonist follow the Heroine’s Journey, much like how you can have a female protagonist in a Hero’s Journey. While nearly every story I know that follows the Heroine’s Journey template has a female protagonist in the lead role, Kingdom Hearts is the first example that I’ve discovered of a male protagonist following this formula. Sora’s arc across the series follows Murdock’s framework so precisely that I was able to correctly predict the broad strokes of how Re:Mind would go three months before the DLC was released.

Part I: The Beginning

While the Heroine’s Journey mimics the Hero’s Journey in its early stages, it ultimately goes in its own direction. I plan to go into further detail about the differences between the two in a later essay, but for now I will say that while Campbell’s monomyth describes physical plot points and the themes they represent, the Heroine’s Journey formula focuses on the emotional conflict of the narrative and the psychological development of its main characters. The pattern of the Hero’s Journey is fluid and doesn’t have a fixed central theme, while the core element of the Heroine’s Journey is a protagonist coming of age in a society that consciously or not regards them as lesser because they do not fit in with the expectations of the dominant social group.

I know that some people who decide to read further will be put off by the fact that the names and descriptions of the Heroine’s Journey feature gendered language and focus on discussions of masculinity and femininity, so allow me to explain. The reason for this is that in a Heroine’s Journey, the protagonist is attempting to conform to a set of traits that the audience’s culture values. In pursuing this external validation, the main character has to suppress a vital part of who they are, cutting themselves off from achieving their full potential. The traits they are suppressing are the ones which are often regarded as feminine, while the ones they are trying to conform to are typically associated with masculinity. We see this pattern frequently in movies where the female lead tries to succeed in a male-dominated career field, only to feel lonely and unfulfilled when she finally gets what she wants because she sacrificed the parts of herself that made her who she is along the way.

Now that I’ve given you a relatively brief summary of the Heroine’s Journey, I can get down to business and walk people through the steps to this template and how it fits with the story of Kingdom Hearts. Note that this is only a basic rundown of the steps of the Heroine’s Journey and how it relates to these games, and I will be posting additional essays shortly which go into greater detail on the themes, character archetypes, and other different layers of the framework that are present in the series.

Murdock’s version of the Heroine’s Journey begins with the “Separation from the Feminine”. This is the stage where, as mentioned, the protagonist suppresses a core part of themselves in pursuit of external validation. It often takes the form of the protagonist sacrificing their emotional strengths and focuses exclusively on proving themselves in the physical sphere. Sora has demonstrated again and again that his greatest strength is his empathy and his willingness to make connections with others. It makes him a strong unifying force because of how well it complements the people around him. But because this isn’t something tangible in the same way that physical strength is, he doesn’t see the value of it, believing that without the strength of his friends he’s nothing.

From the way the other kids on Destiny Islands talk about their competitions, Sora’s focus is on trying to prove that he’s just as strong and capable as Riku is. But he’s so focused on proving himself in physical challenges that he doesn’t notice the signs of Riku’s jealousy that lead his friend into the arms of Maleficent. And we see through Anti Form and Rage Form that Sora is still repressing his own negative emotions in Kingdom Hearts III. His narrow focus on external skills has cut him off from achieving the full potential of his internal ones.

When Sora awakens in Traverse Town after the destruction of Destiny Islands, we come to the second stage of the Heroine’s Journey, “Identification with the Masculine and Gathering of Allies”. This is where the main character chooses to align with the traits and roles that the dominant social group sees as desirable in order to achieve their goal, and where they acquire the allies who will help them in their quest. With the adults around him focusing on his ability to destroy the Heartless, Sora latches onto the Chosen One status that implicitly comes with having a Keyblade. His interactions with Phil and his disappointment with the status of Junior Hero in subsequent games paint Sora as being focused on heroism in the sense of overcoming obstacles with force. Even Donald and Goofy, in the beginning, are focused on Sora’s value as a Keyblade Wielder in terms of how their fight against the Heartless can lead them to King Mickey’s location.

By setting off with Donald, and Goofy, Sora embarks on the “Road of Trials” stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This is one of the few points of similarity between the Heroine’s Journey and the Hero’s, corresponding to Campbell’s “Tests, Allies, and Enemies” stage. This is where the main character faces the initial obstacles and challenges of their quest. In the first few Kingdom Hearts games we have Sora face off against Maleficent, Ansem, and the Organization, before reuniting with Riku and Kairi in The World That Never Was. The final stages of Kingdom Hearts II correspond to the “Finding the Boon of Success” stage of both the Hero and Heroine’s Journeys.

Part II: Interlude

In a Hero’s Journey, the Boon of Success is the end of the story. They slay the dragon, save the princess, and go home to live happily ever after. I suspect this is one reason why a lot of gamers in the KH fanbase tend to think of Kingdom Hearts 2 as the best game of the series - because in their minds Sora’s quest had been completed now that he had found Riku and Kairi like he set out to do in the first game. His journey, as far as they were concerned, was done.

(This may also have an affect on how some fans reacted to Kingdom Hearts III, expecting it to be a grand epic finale that wrapped everything up with a bow and left a completely blank slate for the future of the series)

But in a Heroine’s Journey, the Boon of Success is not the end of the main character’s story. They have achieved their external goal, but they have not addressed their internal motivations for seeking that goal in the first place. And as their story continues, they find themselves facing challenges that their attitude thus far has failed to prepare them for. Finding The Boon of Success typically occurs early during the second act of the story. Usually it is achieved in the second half of Act II, but can sometimes happen as early as the end of the first act. For Sora, this was of course finding Riku and Kairi so that they could all go home to the Destiny Islands together.

But because the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey has not addressed the underlying insecurities which set them on their current path, they “Awaken to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity”.

They begin to learn that the conflict they find themselves involved in is not as clear cut as they previously believed, and the challenges that come with this new knowledge are ones that their current way of doing things has failed to prepare them for. They may have found their boon of success, but things quickly begin to go wrong until they are ultimately forced to sacrifice their reward.

The first game already showed through Riku and Mickey that Sora was not the only person able to wield a Keyblade, but because of his heroic deeds the story still framed him as the Keyblade Master and treated him as having a more significant role to play in important events than anyone else. It’s only after he hears from Mickey of the Keyblade Wielders who came before him that it begins to sink in for him that being a Keyblade Master is not a special Chosen One status. He thinks that because of all that he’s accomplished, he doesn’t need the recognition that comes with the official title, and because of that he’s careless and almost gets himself Norted at the end of DDD.

His failure in the exam is a blow to his self confidence and shows that despite what he had said at the start of the test, deep down he really does want that kind of external validation. His insecurities and doubts continue to eat at him over the course of KH3, culminating in his breakdown at the Keyblade Graveyard. Outside of battle, we see him bottle up his doubts and other negative emotions because his friends (Except for Riku. More on him later) brush his concerns and problems aside. It is very much like Joy from Inside Out doing everything to keep Rylee happy and refusing to let Sadness take the controls.

When their current way of doing things ultimately costs them their boon, the protagonist tries to go back to the way things used to be. To return to a simpler time and avoid the pain of the present. When literally going back to where their journey began isn’t possible, a Heroine’s Journey story will use this stage symbolically. The main character will cling to a person, object, or relationship that they associate with a simpler time. But as comfortable as the sense of familiarity they get from that is, it ultimately cannot truly address their inner pain in the long run.

This is reflected in the Re:Mind DLC, where Sora goes back in time in order to find the pieces of Kairi’s heart and bring her back. One of Kairi’s most consistent character traits is her fear of change and desire for things to remain the way they were.

At the end of the DLC, Sora compares his connection with Kairi to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy, a friendship explicitly strained by distance, time, and Ven’s amnesia. In an interview at E3 2018 [4], Nomura commented about Kingdom Hearts III tying into a theme of childhood friendships changing as one gets older, a plotline that Merlin calls attention to after Sora’s visit to the 100 Acre Wood. And in a 2006 book titled Character’s Report Vol. 1, Nomura specifically calls attention to Kairi’s anxiety about growing apart from Sora and Riku as they get older. [5] All of these details combined frame Sora’s quest to save Kairi as an attempt to symbolically recover the innocence he lost when he began his journey.

But while he is able to find a way to renew his connection to Kairi, it can never be the same as it was before, and attempting to go back to how things used to be is ultimately doomed to failure. By the time he brings her to The Final World at the end of Re:Mind, Sora has realized that he and Kairi cannot stay on the same plan of existence anymore as a consequence of his actions. So he takes her on a tour of the worlds to re-establish their connection before fading away at the end of KH3. Thus, we come to the final act of the Kingdom Hearts narrative.

Part III: The Future Story

It is at this point that the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey begins the “Initiation and Descent to the Goddess” stage. Having failed to achieve meaningful success through their old way of doing things, they must look inward and examine the cause of their insecurities and accept that in order to move forward they need to heal themselves. In this step, the main character travels to either a dream world or a physical location that is closed off and forbidden to them, like the West Wing of Beast’s Castle in Beauty and the Beast. In Jungian psychology, this metaphorical dark cave represents the main character’s subconscious, and entering it triggers a dark night of the soul for our protagonist as they are forced to confront the parts of themselves they’ve been keeping locked away.

While Sora knows in his head that darkness is not inherently bad, he continues to rely entirely exclusively on light, on his connections to others, and has not properly accepted it in his heart. In order to truly finish his coming of age narrative, Sora must learn to balance his inner light and darkness the same way that Riku has. And to do that, he needs to look inside himself and figure out why he feels so badly that he needs his connections to others in order to be strong. And in order to achieve that level of understanding of himself, he needs to understand his Animus.

Derived from the psychological theories of Carl Jung, the Animus in a Heroine’s Journey is an external representation of the protagonist’s masculine-coded traits in physical form. While not every Heroine’s Journey features an Animus, many of the stories I’ve seen that follow the formula do. Usually the Animus appears in the form of a deuteragonist who often functions as the protagonist’s Shadow, an archetypal character that embodies the aspects of the main character’s personality that due to their immaturity they either aren’t aware or don’t want to acknowledge that they have.

In order to complete their character arc, the protagonist must symbolically integrate with their Shadow by learning to embrace the parts of their psyche that the Shadow represents. In many stories the protagonist has more than one Shadow figure, all of whom challenge the protagonist by forcing them to become faster or smarter to stay one step ahead, giving their interactions with the main character a push-and-pull dynamic as they drive the main character to grow. Shadow figures who fill the role of the Animus also challenge the protagonist to look inside themselves and examine their own emotional needs. With an Animus, the push to grow runs in both directions, with the main character motivating their Animus’ growth just as much as the other way around.

In these types of stories, every aspect of the character is tailored to make the Animus and the protagonist fit together like Yin and Yang. In visual stories such as film, television, and video games, the Animus’ entire look is designed to complement the main character and they are framed in the narrative as the protagonist’s equal physically, intellectually, and spiritually. This serves to emphasize that despite their surface differences, much of the conflict between the protagonist and their Animus comes from the ways in which they are fundamentally similar. While their circumstances may have led them to drastically different lives, the characters are ultimately two sides of the same coin, and their character development is driven by learning to balance their contrasting traits.

And within the structure of the Kingdom Hearts series, there is only one character who fulfills all of these qualities in relation to Sora’s journey.

The same character who Testuya Nomura said in the KH1 Ultimania was designed to balance Sora; [6]

Who series producer Shinji Hasimoto said was part of the core of the series alongside Sora [7], as has been repeatedly emphasized by the number of games where he is given a major focus and is a playable character alongside Sora.

[Image Description: Riku walking towards a door to light in the opening of Kingdom Hearts III. End Description]

While Sora and Riku have addressed some of the latter’s behavior in the first game during their conversation on the dark beach at the end of Kingdom Hearts II, they have yet to truly dig deep into why Riku felt the way he did in the first game. Riku has not told Sora about how he felt like he was being left behind and forgotten. And since that conversation, Riku has gone to the opposite extreme, dealing with his emotional problems on his own instead of lashing out at others like he had done at the start. Likewise while Sora has accepted that darkness is not inherently evil he has yet to apply this to his own negative emotions, as seen in Kingdom Hearts III. Neither character has truly achieved an ideal balance yet, and they cannot until Sora completes his journey.

After the protagonist returns from their spiritual journey, they experience an “Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine.” As the main character recovers from their period of soul searching, they embrace the parts of themselves that they had neglected in their pursuit of outside approval. Their Descent allowed them to recognize their value as a person and an individual outside of their ability to fulfill the role that they were expected to fill. Following this realization, they go about “Healing the Mother/Daughter split”. Reclaiming the aspects of their personality they’ve been repressing gives the protagonist the clarity necessary to gain a different perspective on their old way of thinking. This new understanding is what will allow them to find the inner balance needed to truly complete their journey.

The Japanese version of the “My friends are my power” mantra often repeated across the series is “Connected hearts are my power.” For Sora, who has long relied on his connections to others as a source of strength, he should come to realize that these connections go both ways: that his friends draw strength from him just as much as he draws strength from them. This should help him come to accept that he is still strong and worthy all by himself. Ven’s version of the mantra from the English version of BBS summarizes it best: “My friends are my power. And I am theirs.” After he accepts this, Sora will finally be able to use the full extent of his emotional abilities.

After achieving that new perspective, the protagonist’s next step is “Healing the Wounded Masculine Within”. This is the stage of the Heroine’s Journey where the main character, having come to understand themselves, reconciles with their Animus, thereby symbolically integrating the aspects of their psyche that the Animus represents and permanently healing the rift between the two characters. This will be where Sora and Riku need to have a longer, more in-depth conversation than the one they had on the Dark Magin at the end of KH2. Where they talk about why Riku acted the way he did and finally address the underlying reason for why he was so jealous of Sora in the original game.

The final stage of the Heroine’s Journey is the “Integration of Masculine and Feminine”. This is the point at which the main character and their Animus finally achieve a perfect balance between them. They are united both internally and externally. There are no more secrets between them, and they are now free to move forward and overcome the main antagonist together.

Part IV: Conclusion:

While there’s too many different possibilities to completely predict every twist and turn of the series’ lore in future games, once you understand how Kingdom Hearts fits into the framework of the Heroine’s Journey, the broad strokes of how the story will go in terms of Sora’s growth and character development are entirely predictable. When Re:Mind first released and the rest of the fandom was reacting on Twitter, I was sitting back with a smug smile on my face thinking:

[Image Description: Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi sitting aboard the Death Star II with the caption ‘Good, Good. Everything is going according to plan.’ End Description.]

While I didn’t expect the precise mechanics of how Sora went about saving Kairi, Re:Mind was exactly what I expected it to be in terms of themes and its place in the Heroine’s Journey framework, and then the Secret Episode came along to reinforce that the next game is going to be Sora’s Descent.

While there isn’t a complete guarantee that the series will continue to follow the formula, I find it extremely unlikely that it won’t. Kingdom Hearts follows the stages of this framework too precisely for me to ever believe it happened by accident. So as long as there is no corporate interference from Disney like what happened to Voltron, I’m confident that Nomura’s plan for the finale of the series will be exactly what the Heroine’s Journey predicts it should be, no matter how unexpected future additions to the lore may be.

Special thanks to @dragonofyang and the rest of Team Purple Lion for everything I know about the Heroine’s Journey. I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about analyzing the story of Kingdom Hearts if they hadn’t taught me the vocabulary to realize the kind of story that Nomura has been telling right under my nose for the last 18 years.

Sources:

[1] “Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania interview with Tetsuya Nomura”; March 12, 2019

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Kingdom-Hearts-3-Ultimania-Main-Nomura-Interview-Translated-14763

[2] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 3: Square’s Intentions”; April 2012.

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/2

[3] “2004 GMR Nomura Interview 2004!”; Translation by Kingdom Hearts Insider posted May 5, 2012.

https://www.khinsider.com/news/GMR-Nomura-Interview-2004-2563

[4] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story

[5] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014

https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/\

[6] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;

https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519

[7] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players.” September 24, 2013

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players

[X] “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces”; June 13, 2019;

https://www.teampurplelion.com/heroine-with-a-thousand-faces/

[X] Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. 1990.

[X] “Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey Arc”. The Heroine Journeys Project. https://heroinejourneys.com/heroines-journey/

#kingdom hearts meta #kh analysis #meta analysis #kh sora #kingdom hearts and the heroine's journey

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 4 years ago

Note

Hibiki and Kanade reacting to their s/o accidentally killing the other twin? Thank you!

THANK YOU for allowing me to get my ch3 feels out with this :))))))))

...........

Hibiki

"Well, you all certainly knocked this one out of the park. But you’re correct, the one who killed Kanade Otonokoji is [y/n]!” Monocrow declared.

“On accident, of course..” You added, sighing in slight relief as the dreaded voting finally ended. It was all over after what seemed like an eternity of twists and turns. “But...I-”

“But what?!! Y-You still didn’t answer me!!!”

You looked over, your heart breaking as you saw Hibiki sobbing at her podium. “Hibiki..”

“If..y-you knew Kanade was gonna m-make me kill Setsuka from th-the start....then...then w-why didn’t you talk any sense into her?!!” She shouted, tears pouring down her face. “You’re always the peacekeeper! You n-never think violence is the answer-!”

“Maybe...[y/n]’s habit of being the peacekeeper was all an act...” Yuki muttered solemnly. “...an act to cover up their identity as a-”

“Sorry, but..I’m not with Void at all.”

“..huh?” The lucky student blinked.

“I'm sure it’d be easier for everyone if that was the case. But..I think I’d rather let this recording speak for itself..” You took a device out of your pocket, holding it up for everyone to see before pressing the play button.

The recording contained a conversation between you and Kanade, where you did in fact try talking her out of committing a murder after witnessing her drug Iroha’s coffee. But after you mentioned your girlfriend’s name, her tone of voice changed to something much more...sinister.

It revealed her deep, dark obsession with her sister--and how you and Setsuka were just “getting in the way” like “everyone else” in Hibiki’s life. Then she let out this evil, insane laugh as she attacked you.

You stopped the recording abruptly, though every listener seemed to be unnerved by the contents--especially Hibiki, who never saw this side of her sister until now.

Even more unsettling was the “everyone else” Kanade mentioned, implying this wasn’t her first attempted murder plot.

Your testimony was further solidified when you asked Monocrow to show Hibiki’s unfinished video instead of yours, having a hunch that the final piece would help her understand your motivations more clearly.

He complied--and all she could do was scream in horror at the fate of her parents: being slaughtered by the hands of none other than her twin sister.

“Damn it...” You closed your eyes and looked away from the screen. “But you see now? This is the truth: I didn’t kill for Void, nor my motive video. Kanade was planning a murder with two culprits, herself and Hibiki. Even if they won, I doubt she would’ve stopped her murderous spree. Someone like that around is just too dangerous-”

However you were cut off when you felt someone run into you, nearly knocking you off your feet. At first you thought Hibiki was attacking you, but instead you looked down to see her bawling into your chest. “Biki..?” You hugged her tightly.

“Y-You..did all of that to save me...b-but..I don’t want you to go!!! Don’t leave me here!!” She wailed hysterically.

“I don’t wanna leave you either, sweetheart..but..it’ll be okay..” You smiled despite the tears in your eyes, happy to know that she was finally free from her sister’s torment. “Suka will take care of you, alright?”

“Y-Yeah..” The billiards player managed to choke out, trying not to cry herself. “I made them a promise.”

Monocrow’s patience was wearing thin, as he announced it was time for your execution.

But you weren’t even afraid of that anymore--you didn’t care about it during your last few moments with your beloved vocalist.

As long as she lived on...that’s all that matters.

...........

Kanade

“Hah...ahahaha..I knew it was you from the start.”

“Huh?” Letting go of the lever after the vote was done, you stared at Kanade in confusion. “Y-You knew? But..aren’t you angry with me? I-It was a complete accident-”

“I know. It was a shock to see sis’s corpse there on display, at first. But the despair etched into her frozen expression.......is just so adorable~!! AHAHAHA~!!” She began laughing hysterically, holding her face. “I just couldn’t look away~! I can only imagine what she must’ve felt in her final moments~!”

You were horrified--this wasn’t how you expected her to react at all.

“G-Get a grip on yer girlfriend, [y/n]!” Teruya stammered. “She’s gone off the rails!”

“I..I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” You shook your head, frowning at the guitarist. “Kanade, don’t you understand? I accidentally killed your sister..the only family you have..she’s not coming back.”

“I told you I already know!!” Suddenly her mood shifted into a frightening scowl, though she sighed and approached you, her voice calm. “But I know deep down, you were probably thinking that if Hibiki was gone...then you’d have me allllll to yourself~”

“N-No..that’s not what-”

“Fufu..you’re so funny, [y/n]~ It’s okay, though. I know that feeling all-too-well....the desire to eliminate any “competition”. Seems some of my personality has rubbed off on you..so I’m not even mad.”

“Don’t..you dare fucking compare us! I’m nothing like you.” Gritting your teeth, you tried to bite back tears. “I thought I dated a sweet guitarist who was done with all the bullshit she did years ago!!! You promised me you'd stop!!"

“What?” Sora blinked in confusion. “[Y/n]..what has Kanade done in the past?”

You were about to explain, but Kanade decided to speak up and tell everyone all about her evil deeds--ones she committed for her sister who she dearly loved. She even confessed to wanting to carry out her own murder plots against people who’ve been close to either you or her sister..

That is...until you accidentally killed Hibiki while trying to snap her out of her hysterical state after the motive videos came out.

As expected, everyone was mortified--and understandably outraged--that you knew what Kanade was truly like, yet you’ve kept silent about it.

But you insisted that you always believed in giving others second chances...no matter what heinous acts they’ve done.

Though it seems your time was up as Monocrow announced your punishment.

But as you turned to him, not wanting to look Kanade in the eyes anymore, you were confused as to why your classmates were frantically shouting--

Until you felt a knife pierce your back.

“Wh-What...?”

As the weapon was ripped out of you, you collapsed to the ground, finding yourself in the arms of your girlfriend--who held a malicious grin, tears streaking down her face and small hearts in her wide eyes.

“K-Kanade...why-?” You coughed. “Y-You-”

“With you and big sis gone...life’s not worth living anymore.” She sighed, stroking your cheek with a bloodstained hand before kissing you. “So I want this last moment to be full of despair~! Let that dumb crow do what he wants to me...either way we’re together to the end. Isn’t that what you promised~?”

Indeed, she got what she wanted in the end: the despair of betrayal in your eyes as you died on her terms, not Monocrow’s. She was still laughing even when being dragged to her execution--up until her last dying breath.

Now you, her, and Big Sis would be together forever.

#clanask #anonymous #sdra2 x reader #hibiki otonokoji #hibiki otonokoji x reader #kanade otonokoji #kanade otonokoji x reader #tw blood #tw death #sdra2 spoilers #danganronpa spoilers

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snowflake-of-destruction · 4 years ago

Text

And I would love to tell you. @spiiderbiites

Fun fact: It does have a name, Deep Seas and High Stakes, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be tagged on both blogs as Mermaid AU That Needs a Name forever, because there were a lot of posts made with that tag, and even though tag replacer is a thing, so is laziness. Also, SOMEONE keeps forgetting the name. It’s me. I am someone, even though I came up with the name. I blame the fact that the title does not reference anything and isn’t a joke. It’s just “what sounds like a swashbuckling adventure romance mermaid and pirate au title?” title. The AU’s real name is Bless the Woodpecker anyway. Don’t ask.

Once Upon a Time, Eraqus and Xehanort ruled the Kingdom Below, comprised of the seas surrounding the Destiny Islands, together, the wisdom and magic of both rulers renown even in far off seas . Then there was a big, gay, magical, underwater divorce a falling out. The stories say it was over King Xehanort's dabbling in dark arts, though other legends place the blame on King Eraqus's xenophobia and King Xehanort's belief that the denizens of the surface world could be easily manipulated negotiated with. This argument took a darker turn when the trident that they shared (a single conduit of unmatched strength that represented the harmony of their rule and their bond) was shattered, and with it, a large portion of both Mer-kings' power was lost.

Eraqus retained rule and loyalty of their subjects and Xehanort was banished to deep trenches to nurse his grudges and seek still more twisted ways to rebuild his power. Good King Eraqus himself, suffering from broken heart and diminished strength, survived not long after (in mer terms) but it was not his wasting that killed him, but human menaces, cementing the lesson that the most dangerous creature of all in the mind of the young princess now queen, Aqua.

Hatchmates Sora, Vanitas, Roxas, and Xion were eggs when the big, gay, magical, underwater divorce falling out happened and small fry when Eraqus passed, but they have heard far too many versions of the story. We don't talk about how the royal siblings came to be. We just don't. Don't ask. Magic was involved. IDK. "I Will Do Anything for Love but I Won't Do That" will start playing in the background if you start talking about seahorses and try to lock down details.

Anyway. Fast forward to the hatchmates grown.

Vanitas has always been an outsider among his siblings, or at least he's always felt it. He's drawn to different currents, and his siblings don't understand, citing their own restlessness and desire to explore and to lead less sheltered lives when he tries to explain how his purpose lies elsewhere. He seeks out the only other family that he might have a connection with, Xehanort, and ends up staying with him to become his apprentice. Queen Aqua and his other siblings do try and go after him at different times but they are thoroughly discouraged by Vanitas himself.

Kairi, princess of a different sea kingdom, comes to live with our royal family. She's a gift--a description Kairi herself highly resents--a future wife for one of the princes, part of an arrangement made long ago. The marriage isn't to happen for a long time; she is allowed to get to know the princes and they her, and see what personality suits, but that is far as the freedom goes as Kairi's kingdom needs the alliance and the young Queen Aqua is regrettably convinced she cannot dissolve or alter the contract without incident. Kairi and Sora do hit it off immediately, so the choice would seem easy, but they are both still far from enthusiastic about the forced aspect of it all.

Life under the sea is really shaken up though when rebellious Prince Roxas, long time sneaky boat chaser, meets a sailor named Axel and is struck dumb in love. He starts disappearing more and more often and it doesn't escape notice. Even worse, this "human madness" spreads, Prince Sora and Princess Kairi both independently becoming obsessed with Axel's crewmate aboard the Dawnfire, Riku. Xion does not feel the same kind of bolt but she is convinced of Axel and Riku's good intentions and to keep this "hatchmate secret" from Aqua.

Ventus, a dreamer who was first to start weaving tales of mermaids even though he's not met any, and, the solid, reliable Terra, who Axel and Riku don't dare tell about their liaisons with the deep for fear of being laughed at in the best case and put in an asylum at the next port at worst, round out the crew of the Dawnfire.

Xion finds what she thinks is a match of her own when she follows the music of a "land siren" one day and meets Demyx. Unfortunately, Demyx and Xion are not as sneaky or as lucky as some others, and Demyx runs with a rougher crew than Axel and Riku. Xion's Land Siren proves as dangerous as his nickname implies when Xion finds herself caught in a trap of the infamous Thirteen ( a pirate crew that is admittedly down a few numbers from what their name implies, which we blame on frequent mutinies) and then used in turn as bait for a bigger catch after Demyx is caught meeting with Xion by Xigbar and bullied into betraying her trust.

Why do they want the mermaids? Sell off mermaid scales as having magical and medicinal use when used as potion ingredients. Harvest mermaid tears. Sell the mermaids themselves to a sideshow. All valid reasons even if you discount that some larger plot may be at play.

What happens next? That's spoilers for one day when writing cute, funny scenes about Sora and Riku breaking down the language barrier or drawing Axel and Roxas snuggling isn't more pressing.

The mermaids aren't the only prisoners aboard the Thirteen's vessel though. There is also the fair Namine, a nobleman's daughter kidnapped for the ransom, though she is treated with far more accommodation.

Just put tagged/mermaid au that needs a name in my or Shaky’s blog for more, or ask more questions if you want.

#mermaid au that needs a name #mermaid au stories #spiiderbiites #akuroku #xehaqus #sorikai #soriku #rikai #sokai #demixi

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a-student-out-of-time · 4 years ago

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April Fools Special Review: Part 5

Twisted Metal

Of course, Session 2 hasn’t ended but even this session had a lot of growth for Hibiki. While she has more or less accepted the true nature of her sister, and has decided to payback the kindness and support she got into helping others, there is still doubt and regret within her mind. Though Hibiki’s career is currently over, she still wants to get back into music eventually once things die down but now on her terms and not what Kanade decided, and there is still a part of Hibiki that loves Kanade like a sister. We also see that people who brush off music like a certain 11037, earn her ire as seeing him low key seeing music as a ‘easy route’ irritated her enough to confront the Future Ultimate Baseball Star himself on the matter. Despite the serious risk of exposure that she could have had, Hibiki might have been wearing a disguise at the time but there was already a scare in Session 1 when a date between her and Hajime was interrupted by a /r/niceguy fan, Leon wouldn’t have been into Hibiki’s genre of music so he didn’t realise he was actually talking to Hibiki Otonokoji. However, he was appreciative of Hibiki’s advice on the matter, and given that Sayaka would be in his class, someone who Hibiki has great respect for, she would be able to set him straight on the matter. When Hajime and co go back to school for their second semester, Hibiki, living alone in Hajime’s house decides to make an announcement on Twitter.com that she is still alive and is busy trying to sort her life out, but will go back into music eventually. The response she got was overwhelming positive as all her fans are pleased to see her alive, some apologising to her for any mean comments they might have made about her in the past, and others said they were worried that Kanade might have killed her. This brought Hibiki to tears as it’s not just the love she gets from her friends and lovers, she’s also got support from her fanbase. Her new emotional maturity is put to the test when Hajime loses his second life because a certain controversial Neurologist decides to test his time travel theory by killing him and Umeko, and of course the pain and trauma that comes from seeing a beloved friend’s dead body and himself getting stabbed. I don’t think the old Hibiki would have been able to comfort Hajime but this new and improved Hibiki was definitely able to comfort and calm him down. She’s not 100% mature yet as at one point she offers to lose her virginity to him, and despite certain lemony Anons wanting to see some spicy action, Hajime was like ‘No, just no’ and stated that no sexual matters will take place until they become 18, which in Japan is the legal age of sexual consent, and protection will be used.

Hibiki’s new fighting prowess had two intense trials throughout Session 2. The first is in Hide and Seek when she had to fight against Monaca’s robots. While she had the option of either joining Chiaki’s group in stopping Monaca from aging herself to death, or joining Hajime’s group in taking down Genocider Syo, she decided that she didn’t want to take on another serial killer, especially after being told that unlike her sister, Genocider Syo actually has some teeth to her and not just that one sprite of hers, and besides, Monaca is hellbent on making herself a adult and given her prowess in robotics, the likelihood of Team Monaca having to fend off robots are high and that group didn’t have a lot of fighters on them. She was able to seriously do a number on the robots, seeing as Chiaki and Emma get seriously injured at various points, Sora is more or less nullified due to the Anti A.I. Black boxes and Kyoji isn’t really a fighter, making her the main fighter on the team. Though like everyone, she is angry that they failed and Monaca is now a biological teenager, though thankfully not that deformed or dead, and that Emma’s and Chiaki’s injuries were for nothing. This again also showed how much she matured as while angry about it, especially about the fact that the aged-up Monaca is again taller than her, cursing her to always be the shortest female, she didn’t get too angry about it as Monaca clearly regrets her decisions and it’s a product of being in a very unhealthy environment and now that she is under Kyoji’s care, it’s not going to happen anymore.

But of course, the biggest test for her was in Twisted Sister, when Kanade was released from prison by Juu and via the aid of a mysterious person who might be a time traveller but one with darker goals then Hajime and co, was giving serious weaponry, technology and combat prowess. With this she was able to tear a bloody path through the Hope’s Peak halls and decimate any Hope’s Peak people who gets in her way. Upon finding out that her sister has broken free from prison and is on her way to ‘reclaim’ her, Hibiki’s first thoughts was to get some armour and then charge in to attack Kanade and just in time as she managed to incapacitate a grief stricken and enraged Nikei, and had just recharged herself with some Red Bull X. Not only is Kanade her own twin sister who she has zigzagged between being utterly terrified of to blaming herself for the monster she turned out to be, but thanks to the upgrades she became an equal match to Hibiki. In addition, this also says a lot about Hibiki herself because Kanade had advanced weaponry, dosed up on an addictive that could kill sleep for a week, advanced armour AND was able to defeat Sonia, Akane, Nekomaru AND Peko who all ganged on her with little to no effort, and yes she had been weakened by Nikei beforehand but said addictive rendered most of his attacks moot point, and despite ALL of that, Hibiki was able to equal with her and eventually with the help of Hajime, finally defeat her. And I didn’t mention the ‘puppet state’ because she never not even once regressed back into that, more or less confirming that is dead. Then again, the ‘puppet state’ may have not that hard to break as Kanade’s main motive for killing Setsuka in SDRA2 is that she could have reversed all the damage that Kanade had done to Hibiki and years of hard work, gone within a few weeks or so. And our lovely ronin sword-wielding vocalist had about 3 months to break the ‘puppet state’. While Kanade’s rampage was eradicated thanks to the third reset, the first one done on purpose, even in the current timeline when Kanade gets beaten deathless, Hibiki was able to knock a gun from Kanade’s hand, throw tear gas in to blind her and direct the rest of Class 77-B, and Juzo, into piling on Kanade and knocking her out, this being the last time we see old Kanade.

But despite all the carnage and pain that Kanade dealt her, there is still a part of Hibiki that cares for her like a sister and wishes for the Kanade she thought she knew back. And she got her chance when Yasuke offered to mindwipe Kanade and turn her into a gentlehearted girl. While the QC were deeply divided on the issue, when Hibiki was offered her input, she said that she was conflicted. Part of her wanted her sister back and Yasuke could quite literally grant her deepest desire at that point, but she is also aware that this is a form of execution, as while physically Kanade is still alive the Kanade that had existed prior to this is dead and never coming back, hopefully. As she isn’t a thinker like some of the QC members and understands the deep moral and ethical divides between them, she decides to hold a vote and whatever wins is the one they go for. Of course, the readers voted for Kanade to be mindwiped, and thus Yasuke got to work remaking Kanade while Hibiki helped to round up the other criminals that got out. I’m not dwelling too much on this as we’ve seen Hibiki’s greatest physical feat already and if she could take out swabs of armed headmen to some traffickers, escaped convicts shouldn’t be hard to deal with. Once the carnage dies down and we move into the Twisted Sister Aftermath Arc, Hibiki is hit with immense guilt. While she is grateful for that the sister she thought she had is back, she also knows what had to be done to ensure this occurs. But now that Kanade is back, she could make amendments as she was a rotten sister to Kanade beforehand and now she could try to reconnect with her, preventing her monstrous self from resurfacing itself. Of course, she has to juggle being with Kanade with also being a member of the Cuddle Puddle and general hero work, but life is never dull when you are with the Quantum Crew.

#a student out of time #submission

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fizzingwizard · 4 years ago

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I was curious if rewatching Kizuna after not having seen it since it released in late February would change my opinion of it any. It has a little bit. Not a lot, but a little. Spoiler warning!

To recap, I didn’t hate it or anything, it just didn’t amaze me. As far as grown up nostalgia movies based off anime go, it’s pretty solid, I think.

I felt that I enjoyed it more this time around, and I think there are a couple reasons why: first, I’m having a good day, whereas when I saw it in the theater I was in the worst mood ever. :P So there’s that factor that’s totally unrelated to anyone to but me.

Second, we’re now so distant from both Tri and Kizuna that I’m not so inclined to compare them. They really shouldn’t be compared anyway for billions of reasons, but before Kizuna came out it was a natural thing to be doing. There was lots of weird hearsay about Kizuna on the net before the release too, like that a long time Digimon producer had walked on the project etc...

(I guess if you waited till the DVD release/overseas release, it hasn’t been out that long for you... but for those of us who saw it last spring, we’ve got some distance now xP)

So here's how I feel about it now:

I still just don’t enjoy the whole “you grow up and lose your endless potential so your partner disappears” thing. And it’s not even like it doesn’t make sense. In the Adventure universe, what’s always been clear is that wishes, strong belief, passion, are the energy that fuels creation. It was a fun kid’s concept that has grown a lot and reaches I suppose its inevitable grown up meaning in Kizuna. If your view of the future narrows and becomes something like “I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing as an adult,” it’s easy to see how that would result in a decrease of that energy. And it CAN be renewed. They explain the entire movie in that one blurb at the very beginning (which I actually missed the first time since I got to the theater late) that talks about how change is inevitable and there’s always a new adventure.

It’s a fleshed out idea. Much more well-rounded than those old fanfics that treated Digimon like parental replacements and their disappearance in adulthood was synonymous with growth. I always hated that idea because, like, I get that some fans only really like the kids, but I always loved the Digimon. I think probably the majority of us do? And reducing them like that... it just takes away the fun and the emotional impact of the story. I hate to be hit over the head with metaphor, especially when the metaphor is grossly obvious.

But because of that idea that was so popular while I was growing up, I can’t help but clench my teeth through Kizuna’s interpretation of it, even though it’s so much better developed. Kizuna’s concept makes sense and doesn’t diminish the Digimon partners, not really... but I just don’t want it. The underlying theme that it’s up to the Chosen to continue to choose to be Chosen, in their own way, and continue to try to unlock their unending potential as adults, and then presumably they’ll be reunited with their partners... like it’s good, really, I should like it. I just never wanted it and still don’t.

The way the movie focuses so heavily on Taichi and Yamato bothers me less than it did on first viewing. It helps that I like those two characters a lot. I will always wish we got more of everyone, of course. I’m glad Koushirou was still indispensable. Takeru and Hikari got to be really cool in the opening scene. Seeing Angemon and Angewomon fight together rocked. Sora’s abscene was tough, but makes sense with the theme of the movie and her chosen role. All the characters still seemed like themselves. I’m always going to want more, but I’m grateful for that.

Also on initial viewing, I was underwhelmed by the 02 kids’ role, but now I think they got a pretty good slice of the pie, all things considered. Especially Daisuke and Miyako, who were awesome. I’m still whatever about Ken’s part though and wish they’d picked ANY OTHER HAIRSTYLE.

The pace of the movie is really good. It doesn’t feel rushed or jerky the way parts of Tri did. The first 30-45 min I really do think are stellar - it’s starting with the reveal that Menoa is the bad guy (big surprise, not) that I start to be less interested. It leads to the big battle scene, which is elevated by the emotional and mental trauma that powers Menoa and even powers the Chosen Children she abducts. I definitely would not have preferred a standard Big Bad with no relatable motivations. But I still don’t like Menoa, as a person or a villain. I kind of wonder if Menoa is the result of plans for Himekawa in Tri that never made it...

There’s that bit where the other Chosen are brainwashed, and yet not, because it’s their own wish for things to not have to change that powers them... I get it, I do, but I still wish there were less brainwashing. Menoa really had to reach to pull out that wish so that it was at the forefront of their hearts to the point that they’d attack Taichi and Yamato. So it wasn’t really their decision, unless it’s a sin simply to have conflicting desires. I’m not saying I would have preferred Hikari, for example, to have said completely by her own will “I’m with Menoa and I’m going to attack my brother!” because that would be dumb. Rather, I just find the whole child abduction to Neverland concept boring. The long and short of it I guess is I didn’t enjoy the battle scene that much. Regardless of the story around it, it’s still just an anime battle that ends with yet another new evolution.

We could totally have had interesting stuff for the other characters to do if there weren’t such a requirement that there be a big long battle. Some battle? sure. It’s Digimon. But does it have to be that long? Really? Kizuna’s not being shown to eight year olds during Saturday morning cartoons. It was adult fans in the theater after work. For a story that’s all about unlimited potential, I wonder did Kizuna itself really reach the unlimited potential for Digimon stories? lol.

So those are things I just can’t get around. However, at least we got an enjoyable movie out of it.

I still vastly prefer Tri. Kizuna has better animation, steadier pacing, and a more tied up storyline. But to me, Tri is better partly because of the amount of time it had (six movies to one), the huge risks it took, the great character moments everyone got, and the nontraditional plot. Of course, as I said at the start, it really doesn’t make sense to compare Tri and Kizuna for the simple reason that Tri is a series and Kizuna is a movie. That’s not to say a movie can’t kick a series out of the water - it absolutely can, quality over quantity folks - but in this case I’d argue the amount of time makes a difference. Digimon is a show about 8 individual kids who were all nearly equal in terms of how much they mattered in 99 Adventure. That’s why the extreme focus on Taichi and Yamato in the reboot and in Kizuna bugs me. Tri had time to take on all eight and we still complained that we didn’t also get the four from 02. Kizuna has all 12 of the kids in the main cast for just 90 minutes total, that’s it. For fans whose priorities, like mine, are face time with the characters, getting to know them again, see how they change, and enjoy a mix of the familiar and the different, I just don’t think Kizuna can fulfill all that.

Pretty much, if we had Kizuna without Tri, I’d probably hate it for that reason. But because we got Tri before Kizuna, I feel free to enjoy Kizuna for what it is. Which is overall pretty good if just not my personal desire.

lol how come I just can’t write anything short. xP All that being said, there were tons of things in Kizuna that I loved, the art, the snapshots of the adult relationships between characters, esp Taichi/Yamato, Taichi/Koushirou, Takeru/Hikari. And more than anything, the relationships between children and Digimon. Also loved cool spy Yamato of course. And the whistle. I said all this back in Feb so I’m gonna end now but I did just want to sum up my thoughts after they changed a bit.

#kizuna spoilers #digimon adventure #kizuna #digimon

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curewhimsy · 4 years ago

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Shiro-Sora chapter one outline

I can’t believe I actually got this out...

———

Quiet and reserved Uta Utane is going to her first day of Sonare Community College, a primarily music college, one morning. That evening she will relocate to the dorms.

She passes by a person who is lost on campus and needs directions. Uta doesn’t know the campus well, but unlike most people, she is patient and at least tries to help. The person ends up being very grateful to Uta.

The person Uta tried to help was Taya Soune. Taya is soft-spoken, introverted, and doesn’t have many friends. Taya ends up remembering Uta’s kindness for the rest of the day. While Uta was talking to him, Taya wanted her to stay with him longer. When Uta eventually went off on her own after not being able to help with directions, Taya felt a bit wistful.

Uta ends up having an eventful day at school, meeting a lot of zany classmates with weird quirks.

In first period class, Uta meets a girl named Miki who is quite eccentric, is passionate about anime, and acts rather animated herself. At first Miki gives Uta the nickname “Defoko” because she bluntly declares that she seems like such a “default” type of person, but soon realizes Uta is more of a “kuudere”... whatever those terms mean. The nickname “Defoko” still seems to stick around, however.

(The nickname “Defoko” is from the word “default” in Japanese katakana, pronounced as “deforuto,” coupled with “ko,” a common ending in Japanese girls’ names. “Kuudere” is a term meaning “cool on the outside, loving on the inside.” It is taken from the English word “cool,” (“kuuru” in Japanese,) and the Japanese onomatopoeia “deredere,” which means “lovey-dovey.”)

Miki’s best friend, Iroha, appears to be a lover of everything cute and cheerful. Iroha is quite the Hello Kitty enthusiast as well. Iroha often is saying “nyaa” when she’s in a daze, which happens when she comes across anything she finds cute. However, Iroha is insecure and does not find herself cute. Miki constantly reassures Iroha and says she is adorable.

Uta is surprised at first that Miki and Iroha are in college and are still acting like high school girls... or even younger, for that matter.

Anon is a girl who sometimes fights with her sister Kanon, even though they appear to be on the same wavelength... And they’re up to trouble. Anon likes to attempt to get out of trouble by referencing her name. “It wasn’t me... it was anonymous.” In Uta’s second period, the teacher pulls up what’s supposed to be a boring video to introduce the class. But instead, it’s a link to watch Space Jam on a pirated movie website. Anon switched the links when nobody was looking. The professor’s computer freezes from computer viruses and the entire class is forced to watch Space Jam. Anon is also apparently a hobbyist mime.

Kanon is Anon’s sister, and in second period she wouldn’t stop playing Careless Whisper on her kazoo. Apparently she is training to be a real circus clown because she loves making people laugh. In second period, the professor finally was able to exit out of the Space Jam link. “Now, all of you, do NOT press the link.” He says. But what does Kanon do when she’s faced with a button and the command “do not press?” She presses it! Now the next period gets to watch Space Jam too!

Daina is in Uta’s third period class. Uta hails Daina for finally being someone “normal” and trustworthy at first... until she found out about Daina’s eccentric taste in music, dramatic poetry, crazy obsession with foxes, and tendency to howl at the full moon. And that’s not even touching on her close friendship with Dex, a wolf-obsessed guy who howls at the moon with her.

Dex is a rather eccentric guy who is energetic, yet emotional inside. He likes EDM music and despite his eccentricities, is chill and easy to talk to. Uta respects him in a certain way, aside from the other “weirdos” she met that day, Dex seems very wise and thoughtful.

Basically, Daina and Dex are furries. They’re also theater kids, and low-key emo in a way. And they’ve been best friends since second grade.

Teto is in Uta’s fourth period. She immediately latches on to Uta. Teto mentions Uta looking gloomy and wants her to smile. Teto is quite bubbly and friendly, although she is childish and doesn’t like to be teased. Uta does end up teasing Teto a bit. But it is playful and good intentioned. Teto teases Uta back a bit. They seem to develop a friendship of playful teasing for now.

Aku is in Uta’s fourth period. She seems a little lonely. Uta actually goes out of her own way to talk to Aku this time. Aku tells Uta about the sky. It’s pretty, but... it seems so lonely that we can’t fly up and visit it. Aku had always wanted wings and magic. She gives Uta a spiel about what she would do if she had magic. She would use it to cast away negativity and evil, which is ironic, considering her name is pronounced like the Japanese word for evil, “aku.” Aku prefers to be called by a nickname, Akurin. Uta agrees to call her that.

Clara is in Uta’s final fifth period class. She transferred to the United States from Colombia at the start of high school. She is friendly and cheerful. She is quite doting, somehow feeling like both a mother and a little sister at the same time. Clara says hello to everyone in the class and tries to get acquainted with her classmates. Everyone in the class admires Clara’s friendliness. Uta is a bit shy. She stutters saying her name. Clara thinks her name is Utah. Uta is too embarrassed to correct her. Clara also is already giving invites to the entire class for karaoke, claiming “This class is my favorite so far. Everyone has been so friendly!” Uta actually thinks about going...

Ruko is in fifth period too, and makes fast acquaintances with Clara. Ruko is a very tall person, six feet two. She is non-binary. Ruko is outgoing and also very mature. She admires Clara’s strength to push herself out to everyone she meets. The two chat for a bit. Ruko notices Uta looking a little gloomy and invites her to join in the conversation. This is when Uta tells Clara her name. Ruko believes Uta’s name is Yuuta for a while.

After a wild day, Uta concludes that college is officially weirder than high school.

When Uta is moving to her new dorm room after school, she comes across Taya, who she stopped to help that morning, while at the top of a hill with a pretty scenic view... However, Uta doesn’t remember him. But Taya remembers her.

“Um... Hello.” Uta hears a voice calling out to her.

“Yeah? What is it?” Uta responds. Her manner of speech is rather informal.

Taya approaches.

“Um, I just...” He is rather shy. “I wanted to thank you for your kindness from this morning.”

Taya bows formally, even though they’re in the USA...

Uta feels she is involved in a mix-up.

“I’m sorry... I think you‘ve got the wrong person.” She says.

“Oh...” Taya says. “Maybe you don’t remember me. But... I remember you. You helped me with directions. Well... you didn’t really know the way either, but just the thought of stopping to help... Please, tell me how I can repay you!”

Taya gives another deep bow. Uta starts to think Taya is a little strange.

“Um... you really don’t have to do anything, seriously.” Uta says. “Helping people out is human decency. It was nothing, really.”

“Yet I am so grateful...” Taya says again.

“Well then, um...” Uta starts saying. “How about... you tell me your name? Then we can call it even.”

“Oh, my name is Taya.” Taya says. “Taya Soune. What is yours?”

“I’m Uta Utane.” Uta says. “Well, nice to meet you.”

“Ah! Likewise!” Taya says, with a smile. He is still a bit shy, but he feels like he and Uta are no longer strangers to each other.

They get to the dorms together. The manager of the room tells them their designated room numbers and... WHAT? Uta and Taya happen to be roommates!

“Well, what a coincidence!” She says. “You two already know each other. Well I hope you enjoy living together!”

Taya bows... again.

“Sorry for the trouble I’m going to be causing you.” He says.

“Wait, please don’t apologize...” Uta says. “It’s okay... I’m glad my roommate is someone so considerate. Don’t feel like you have to apologize.”

“Okay.” Taya says.

Once they’re in the room, they have their stuff delivered shortly. They unpack clothes and such. Taya’s clothes are all fancy and posh menswear. Uta’s are mostly all casual and somewhat boyish, T-shirts, jeans, hoodies. Uta asks if Taya forgot to pack any casual clothes. Taya answers that this is just how he always dresses.

“Even to sleep?” Uta asks.

“Don’t judge me...” Taya says.

They eventually have a conversation about why they chose to attend Sonare Community College.

Taya is passionate about music. He has played the cello and taken vocal lessons since middle school. He came to Sonare to enrich his skills and continue down his path. He also confesses his interest in musical theatre, but being too shy previously. He thought about starting it once he came to Sonare.

Uta’s major is music and she had been playing the violin since childhood. However, she lost her passion long ago. She only continued playing the violin since she already came so far. She doesn’t feel the desire to disclose her lack of passion to Taya, considering how passionate Taya seems to be about music and theatre. Uta would just put a damper on his spirits, she feels.

Somewhere along the way, Uta learns that Taya is non-binary. Uta has heard of that term before, but hearing Taya explain non-binary gender in more detail makes Uta begin to relate to the idea and slowly start to question her own gender identity.

That night, before they sleep, Taya asks Uta something. He did just meet her, but he already trusts her a lot.

“Um... I’m terribly sorry. I’m so, so terribly sorry, but... I have something I want to ask of you... I’m so sorry!” Taya says.

“Well... you haven’t even told me what it is yet. Quit being sorry and tell me.” Uta says.

“W-Well...” Taya says. “You see... Remember when I wanted to be in musical theatre? It’s... it’s always been my dream... to perform a certain play with everyone... but... I feel I just can’t push myself alone. Uta, I trust you a lot, so... would you join the theatre club with me?”

There is silence.

“Well...” Uta starts saying.

“Ah, I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but... um... I’ve always been shy and timid, but... when I’m with a friend like you, I don’t feel as scared. It would mean so much to me, and I promise I’ll repay you...”

“...You don’t have to repay me.” Uta says.

“Huh?” Taya answers.

“You know, I really don’t really have any interest in theatre but... if you want it that much, I’ll do it, okay?”

“Ah, really?” Taya smiles. “Thank you so much...”

“Yeah...” Uta says. “Maybe it could be fun...”

That night, as Uta is falling asleep, it sinks in that Taya called her a friend. Feeling grateful she made friends with such an earnest person, she hopes their bond will continue to grow.

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seolcs · 5 years ago

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°✧｡× : ( moon gayoung + cis female + she / her ) ─── welcome to roselake village , SEOLA LIM ! oh , well , i suppose you’ve been here for ALL YOUR LIFE , so perhaps you already know your way around the town . well , you are the TWENTY THREE year old LIBRARIAN , though , right ? the harvest sprites told me about you ! they said you DO believe in the harvest goddess . oh , my . well , that explains why they also said you’re quite BEWITCHING and SEDULOUS , but can also be a bit ENIGMATIC and MERCURIAL . either way , you should be a wonderful addition to our island ! i guess i’ll leave you to it now , but if i need you , i suppose i’ll just look for you at THE MAGIC SHOP , yeah ? we hope you love it here as much as we do ! oh , and remember not to go into the tulsy woods ! the distorted hum of opera music just out of reach , dirt caked underneath fingernails , eyes that know more than lips tell ! ✧

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ QUICK STATS !

full name : seola lim .

nickname(s) : lala ( yea like the teletubby ... it was a childhood nickname </3 )

zodiac : pisces sun , virgo moon ( click ! )

sexuality : bisexual .

occupation : librarian & witch .

birthplace : roselake village , maine .

current residence : roselake village , maine .

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ BACKSTORY ! ( tw : vague mentions of an accident )

she’s a fraternal twin <3 if u read julie’s intro u know , but seola and sora are the daughters of roselake’s mayor ! she was born a whole ten minutes after her sister so she takes pride in not being the hag ... sora is so brave for her sacrifice

so their dad is the mayor ! he’s been roselake’s mayor for a while now , keeps getting reelected bc why fix something that seems to be working right .. aha more about that later ... & their mom is a witch ! only on the down low though , she’s not open about practicing magic & is much better known for and adored for her philanthropy around roselake ! both sora and seola have the ability to use magic , but while the gift seemed to come naturally to sora , seola high key struggled with it /:

their mom was a very patient teacher but that didn’t stop seola from feeling inferior to both her sister as well as her powers in general . she very much felt like a big flop , and as a kid & preteen she struggled a lot with jealousy and frustration and just feeling second best in a sense ? basically she really felt like she was letting everyone down when in reality the only person who was putting pressure on her was herself

in good old 2010 ... 13 year old seola & sora snuck into tulsy woods ( even though their dad always said never to go in there ) to play around with their magic , got into an argument , and that’s when seola accidentally ended up hurting sora really really badly ):

after the accident seola wanted to give up magic forever , but her mom convinced her that the best way for her to get over her fear of ever hurting someone again was to practice . so while sora got closer to their father , who had covered up the accident in the woods and used it to spread his own agenda , seola got much closer with their mom

determined to get better at controlling her abilities and also super terrified that she’d hurt someone like she’d hurt her sister if she didn’t , seola practiced and practiced ... then she practiced some more . while most people her age were going through high school focused on going to college afterwards , seola was counting down the days til she’d be free to do nothing but learn as much as she could about being a witch

it was around this time she also started to get ... suspicious about her dad and his intentions . she was grateful that he didn’t tell the truth about the accident , scared ppl would have viewed her as a monster if they knew what really happened , but the way her dad was acting about tulsy woods was super suspicious especially with everything happening with the harvest goddess and the sprites . basically ... seola suspects he might have something to do with whatever’s going on in the woods ... 👁️👁️

after high school seola stayed in roselake ! she didn’t go to college like sora , much to her dad’s dismay , but she did take some online classes here & there ( mysticism and rituals , alchemy , some history ones , as well as a medieval monsters literature class ... just for fun <3 ) she also snagged a job at subtext as a librarian , mainly for that sneaky access to all the secret garden books

initially she’d just been curious about her own magic , since she knows it doesn’t come from the harvest goddess like a sprite’s magic does , but with everything going on she’s extended her research to include both the goddess & the sprites to see if maybe she can understand whatever her dad is trying to do in roselake

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ PERSONALITY + TIDBITS !

not 2 be cliche but she really is a mysterious girl SJDBWJBDJW since she’s haunted by the idea that she’s essentially always on the brink of losing control and hurting someone again like she did with her sister , she’s got a very elusive personality . she tries her best not to get too close with anyone , but unfortunately for her it’s the kind of cool and detached air about her that usually makes people curious to know her , especially since her twin sister is so seemingly open & very focused on her reputation in roselake . seola’s always tells herself stuff like oh to be a fly on the wall ... 😔 but the reality is she doesn’t want to be invisible to people at all , she’s just traumatized from the accident in tulsy woods /:

so you have her enigmatic persona ... versus her deep desire to be understood and loved despite whatever dangerous and uninhibited thing she’s convinced lurks around inside her . yeah ... she’s not so good at following her own don’t get too close with people rule SJDBWJDJW most of the time what ends up happening is her pushing those who are already close away , only to reach for them again later , only to push them away ... you get it . it’s easy to write her off as a moody rich girl if you’re not in her circle , but it’s deeper than that

she’s got a bad habit of fixating on things and then letting them consume her . sometimes it works to her benefit , like focusing so hard on practicing her magic and finally becoming good at it . most of the time , though , her curiosity morphs into obsession , and it’s very easy for her to get overwhelmed and feel lost

she has a big old soft spot for creepy or spooky things and people , 100% believing that more often than not the stuff we’re afraid of is stuff we just don’t understand . sometimes , though , her attraction to the “ dark ” is a manifestation of her own internalized belief that there’s something wrong with her & that she’s just as capable of bad as she is good ... cannot believe freud just possessed my body like that 😳

if she was an animal she’d for sure be a cat JSBDJWBDJW comes & goes as she pleases ... affectionate & warm on her own terms ... sometimes she brings people weird gifts that are only really gifts in her eyes ... yea <3

high key has a huge guilt complex bc of that juicy unresolved childhood trauma ! that and the fact that she’s pretty sure her family is responsible for hurting so many other’s in roselake ... it’s a lot . so even though she’s not as warm and friendly as sora is , she’s just as kind ... maybe even too kind sometimes , she just feels like she has a lot to prove & make up for yk

voted most likely to dump you & say it’s not you , it’s me ):

big fan of creating ambiance she’s all about turning of the big lights and turning on a lamp ... maybe lighting some candles if she’s feeling crazy idk ...

if you don’t know she’s a witch you probably think seola’s about to drop the hottest skincare line of 2020 because she do be collecting those herbs and oils

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ WANTED CONNECTIONS ! ( all open to all genders )

BEST FRIENDS : technically sora is always gonna be her number one best friend 🥺 but i would really love for seola to have at least one person who really truly knows her , someone she’d drop anything for to help them if they needed & vice versa !

CHILDHOOD / FAMILY FRIENDS : open to muses that grew up in roselake ! maybe their parents are friends , or maybe they were just neighbors or in the same classes in elementary school . i have ... lots of ideas for this trope hehe <3 give me someone who seola pushed off the swings when they were tiny and now they’re still sworn enemies to this day ... childhood friends that stayed close , but after the accident in tulsy woods seola distanced herself , someone who was technically her first love who she probably had a little wedding ceremony with when they were like five with candy rings , childhood friends that grew apart and now it’s sad and awkward , childhood friends that stayed close and have embarrassing stories to tell about each other ... i’ll stop here JSDBJWD

CONFIDANTS : the one person seola keeps finding herself talking to about the things she usually keeps inside & they do the same with her . i think it’d be funny if both of them find it weird to do things like go out to lunch or shop together because that’s not what they’re used to

SUBTEXT : people who know her from the library ! maybe your muse spends a lot of time there so they recognize seola ( or maybe they even go just to see her ) , maybe your muse needed help finding something once and seola helped them out & now they’re kinda pals , or maybe your muse is someone seola’s requited to help her out with her own research with the secret garden books

FRIENDS THAT DATED : maybe things just ended amiably between them , or maybe it’s like an “ everyone told us we should date so we tried it and boy was that the weirdest thing we ever did ” situation . either way the outcome is they’e still friends <3

CAHOOTS : what is this you might ask ? someone seola can be in cahoots with . she has a possibly dangerous idea that no one else is likely to say yes to ? she goes to your muse . your muse has an idea no one in their right mind would say yes to ? they go to seola . these two are in cahoots !

BAD INFLUENCE : i’d love for someone who’s trying to get seola to dabble into darker magic / abandon her quest to figure out what’s going on in the woods and save the harvest goddess . she’s pretty hard to sway if she thinks she’s doing the right thing , so bonus points if your muse is good at manipulation and has a convincing case that’s more than just oooh be bad ;)

SPRITES & MAGICAL BEINGS : sorry human muses ... these are not for you </3 i would love if any of the other witches / wizards helped seola on her journey to practice her magic and get better at it ! maybe someone who knows what really happened with sora in the woods but still decided to help her / not judge her , OR maybe someone who knows what she did and is now scared of her / doesn’t think she should be doing magic still at all . as for sprites i think seola would be super curious about them & the harvest goddess , so maybe some sprites who are willing to talk about their abilities with her and their connection to the goddess with her & are maybe even working with her to try and figure out what’s going on in roselake . then on the reverse of that maybe sprites who think seola’s too nosy for her own good , or who don’t trust her because they’re also starting to get suspicious about the mayor , or maybe they just don’t trust any magic that doesn’t come from the harvest goddess

MAYOR LIM : if you’re trying to get to her father for whatever reason , sora’s definitely the easier ticket in , but maybe your muse is trying to be less obvious about it so they try through seola ! i would also ... really love someone she can sneak off with during town events where her dad is involved when she’s supposed to be with her family promoting that shiny lim reputation hehe

SISTER SISTER : connections through sora ! this is ... always the best part of having a sibling in the same rp you get to make connections through them so give me all sorts of stuff it could be dramatic like your muse hurt sora & now seola hates them or it could be wholesome too ! not 2 be cliche but ... love triangle anyone ... just kidding ... unless ? 🙈

THE BIG EX : seola’s first real relationship , and first real heartbreak . everyone before them had been an unofficial thing , but your muse was the real deal . maybe one or both of them ruined it by being too scared of their feelings to stick around , maybe secrets and insecurities got the best of them , maybe one of them was willing to try but the other wasn’t . either way it ended badly , and whether those feelings are resolved or not ... the world is our oyster baby !

HOOKUPS : friends with benefits and it’s not awkward between them , friends with benefits and it’s super weird between them because they may be crossing over into real feeling territory , one night stands / hookups that were huge mistakes , one night stands or hookups that were or are being kept secret for whatever reason , someone who leads seola on but never gets serious about her , or someone she leads on but she never gets serious about because every time they get close to anything real she’s pushing them away

WILL THEY WON’T THEY : a friendship that always teeters on the line of something romantic ! maybe they’re both oblivious to the chemistry / tension or maybe they’re aware of it because they get jealous when they hear about the other being with someone else … maybe they refuse to do anything about it because they don’t want to complicate things or maybe they purposefully cross lines when they feel that jealousy … could be more angsty or it could be more wholesome depending on which way it goes 😈

i wont lie to u ive been writing this all day ... but we finally made it baby 😭😭😭 im sosososo sorry for the length & the wait ... also i feel like my charas always change a lil once i actually start plotting & writing so sorry again if u see me finally writing as seola on the dash and ur like lit rally who is that ... JSDBWJBDWBDJ please come message me on discord to plot ! @ seulgi ily ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172 maybe ... give this a like if u wanna … do that ? thank u for reading all this ur so brave for that stay sexy stan loona x

#╰ ♡ . 𝒏𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒚 ── ooc !#no words ... intro full </3 #the princess diaries said a queen is never late ... i am not a queen though -__-#wisteria.intro

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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No, Miyako and Iori’s Digimentals were not switched, can we please stop endorsing that

There’s a really common argument that Miyako and Iori’s initial Digimentals should have been “switched” (i.e. give Knowlegde to Miyako and Love to Iori), and accusing the series of trying to pigeonhole Miyako into a “girl” box by giving her the two Crests that originally belonged to her Adventure predecessor girls (Sora and Mimi). While I am not ever going to say that Adventure or 02 were the paragon of feminism, I seriously take issue with this reading, not only because of the fact that I feel it’s a misreading of Miyako and Iori’s characters to consider these Digimentals inappropriate, but also because the “alternative” suggestion of swapping them is an even worse misreading of what said Digimentals are actually about, and would result in an extremely unfitting result.

I would say that the major reasons these misconceptions get drawn a lot are mostly pertinent to the following:

A common misreading of the actual meaning of the “Crest of Knowledge”

The fact that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori’s initial Digimental traits actually kick in the most in the latter half of the series, after they get their second set -- i.e., the secondary Digimentals are actually more obvious than their first set, even though the secondary ones are the ones to get focus episodes. (For a brief example with Daisuke, his “courage” resembled reckless foolhardiness for a lot of the first half, but at the end of the Kaiser arc and the entire second half it became very clear that Daisuke was still standing resolute in the face of what he knew were increasing stakes, which is a much, much more genuine show of courage.)

If you do want to make the argument that Miyako got this treatment “because she’s a girl”, you might as well argue that she was initially built from the ground up as someone who mixes core personality traits from Sora and Mimi. But she was absolutely not “pigeonholed”, and, again, I think it’s a severe misreading of her character to think that she was.

All quoted translations are by Ryuu-Rogue (Adventure) and PositronCannon (02).

The Crest of Knowledge

The Crest of “Knowledge” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s tempting to read it as simply “knowing a lot of information”, but note that there’s nothing really virtuous about that. You could easily be someone who “naturally” has a knack for studying or information, and then takes that information to be a smart-aleck who lords over everyone. Considering that the Crests were normally supposed to be about personal growth and virtues, “knowledge” seems like a very poor and incidental thing to be valuing.

In actuality, Adventure’s episode in relation to Koushirou and the Crest of Knowledge (episode 24) made it very clear that being intellectual had nothing to do with it. The entire episode revolves around Koushirou willingly giving up his “inquisitive heart” to the point where Tentomon considers him basically having thrown out himself. Koushirou spends the duration of the episode blindly accepting pseudoscience until Bubbmon snaps him back to his senses, and the “epiphany” that powers AtlurKabuterimon’s evolution later in the episode is as follows:

Koushirou: Staying ignorant isn’t what makes me, me! Wanting to know everything is part of who I am!...My inquisitive heart...I’m sorry for throwing you away. I want to know. I want to know!

The “actual” meaning of the “Crest of Knowledge” is defined here: it’s not about how much knowledge you currently have, it’s about how much knowledge you want to have -- wanting to not only have more information, but to also understand more. This is what fuels Koushirou’s character throughout all of Adventure -- he’s the one who can’t let something go whenever something interests him, and therefore he becomes the team’s valuable analyst and the one making the most progress in understanding the Digital World.

So when we get to 02 episode 2, and Iori claims the Digimental of Knowledge, Koushirou has this conversation with him to indicate him worthy of it:

Koushirou: Iori-kun, what do you think of the Digital World? Iori: What do I think...I don’t know, I just got here. Koushirou: But you’re thinking something, aren’t you? Iori: Yes...I have my own theories, but new questions keep popping in my mind and I want to know more. Koushirou: You have a really curious mind, as I thought. Iori: A curious mind? Koushirou: If you have any questions, please ask me. We’re your friends, and we’ll always help you out.

Just in case there were any ambiguity, Koushirou clarifies the “actual” meaning of the Crest of Knowledge right then and there: it’s not about having knowledge, it’s about curiosity, and that’s what we’re supposed to be looking out for with Iori’s character for the rest of the series.

Nevertheless, this conversation in episode 2 is a little misleading, and probably comes off as performative to many because Iori doesn’t actually show that much interest in the Digital World for the rest of the series, even though Koushirou had expected him to be like-minded in this regard. But what does happen is that once the Kaiser arc passes, and we reach the second half of 02, Iori starts to entertain some very interesting questions in regards to his stubborn insistence on black-and-white morality.

His first major shake to his frame of morality is episode 29, when he realizes that pacifist principles don’t mix well with a Digimon that professes to having no desire beyond wanton destruction.

In episodes 34-35, upon seeing Takeru gung-ho against BlackWarGreymon and the darkness to levels that disturb even him, he immediately goes up to Yamato to get answers on what’s up with Takeru without hesitation.

In episode 43, he starts to contemplate his stance on pacifism again after the SkullSatamon army ultimately forces the kids’ hands on breaking their anti-kill stance.

He asks his grandfather about his father in episode 47, and, upon coming face-to-face with Oikawa in episode 47, starts actually questioning him about his motives before he learns about Oikawa’s connection with Hiroki. The framing of the scene indicates he is very desperate to understand how Oikawa’s mentality could possibly make sense. Once he learns about the connection between the two, he gets even more desperate to understand how a friend of his father, whom he admired so much, could end up like this.

Eventually, his experiences with Ken and Oikawa lead him to become a defense attorney in the 02 epilogue, which is reiterated in side material (Spring 2003, Character Complete File, etc.) to be representative of his desire to “understand the hearts of criminals”.

Iori is not Koushirou, and his curiosity is not tied to intellectual pursuits or the Digital World, as much as he very much wants to understand morality and other people. He starts off the series with a very black-and-white view of it, but the more his intuition about it starts to crack, the more desperate and interested he gets about getting to the bottom of it. It’s a very unconventional way to see “knowledge” when such a term is usually applied to intellectual knowledge, but when you see it in terms of the Crest’s actual definition of “inquisitiveness and curiosity”, it fits like a glove.

What of Miyako? Well, she’s certainly got a lot of intellectual knowledge in the way Koushirou has, in terms of being good with computers, but...that’s...about it, actually. Unlike Koushirou, she doesn’t seem to be motivated by a drive to learn anything new with it. She can be curious about things, but that’s in the same way that everyone has a least a little of each Crest virtue within themselves to some degree; it’s not a driving part of her personality, and in fact, while she’s certainly not dismissive or callous, she sometimes even has a tendency to shut down at things she doesn’t understand and ask that it be simplified for her. In that light, “inquisitiveness and curiosity” actually feels very unfitting.

In fact, Miyako’s “intellectual” pursuits of being good with computers actually have very little to do with her character or personality. She has it as a peripheral hobby, and she engages in it, but unlike Koushirou, who uses his computer work as a way to gain more information and analyze things further, Miyako’s computer work really seems to be largely in the range of hobbies for her. A lot of her work is portrayed as favors for other people -- she helps fix Iori’s family computer, she helps out Yamato’s band, and she’s helpful to Koushirou as his junior -- in fact, the most pertinence Miyako’s computer abilities have with her actual personality is how much it puts Koushirou in her high esteem. So in actuality, all of that ties more into...

The Crest of Love

The Crest of “Love” is too often conflated with the potential for romantic love, especially because Sora was involved in the franchise’s most infamous love triangle, but the name of the Crest is actually aijou, i.e. “affection”. It’s a pretty neutral word, all things considered, and it has to do with being affectionate with and supportive of those around you.

Miyako starts off the series as a bit shallow and sometimes self-centered, but the way she interacts with Iori (someone from the same building quite a few years younger with her) already demonstrates that she’s open-minded about making friends and being friendly. On top of that, Miyako immediately demonstrates herself off the bat as being emotionally sensitive (see how she endears herself to Jou and Mimi in episodes 5-6 and has a bit of a mental health crash in episode 10).

Again, episode 2 tends to be a bit misleading, especially when Sora explicitly compares Miyako more to Mimi more than herself when she guides her towards the Digimental of Love. But observing Miyako’s behavior in most of 02′s second half indicates she is actually more than worthy of her title:

Starting as early as episode 3, she brings food for people, and does this a lot. She does this partially because she has privileges when her family runs the i-Mart, but she’s very much doing it to show her affection for all of her new friends -- it’s implied she’s the ringleader behind the “picnic” idea in episode 6 so that everyone can have a bonding session, despite it (at the time) having no relevance to the territory war and the fact that she’d just met everyone. By the time of episode 33, the way she cheerfully keeps in touch with Koushirou during her trip to Kyoto and brings souvenir yatsuhashi home for everyone (Koushirou included) indicates that she’s always got her friends on her mind.

Anytime she likes something or someone, she is perpetually open about her feelings and makes it very clear that she likes such a thing. Again, see how she immediately endears herself to Mimi, and later Michael in episode 14. (14 is interesting in that her “purity” is front and center that episode, because she calls herself out for being too straightforward about her own shallowness, but it’s worth noting that the way she manifests said shallowness is by being openly affectionate.)

Episode 24 has her notice that Daisuke’s feeling left out when Takeru and Hikari walk off on their own, and immediately assign him to nursery care duty where he can have fun and feel a little fulfilled teaching them soccer. This is a very often-overlooked scene, but she had basically no motive to do this except to make Daisuke happy, and the way she looks on the scene fondly indicates she’s very proud of herself for doing so -- she knew exactly what she was doing there, and is actually far more emotionally in touch with others than she’s often given credit for.

She is the second most proactive (behind Daisuke) to bid for Ken’s acceptance into the group, and while she initially seems to take a slightly more passive approach than he does, she immediately goes into given name basis with him (before Daisuke does, even!), takes a personal investment in seeing him become friends with Iori in episode 30, has a stake in reaching out to both Hikari and Ken in episode 31 (and is self-conscious about her running-her-mouth behavior being too insensitive), and Ken’s emotional well-being and welfare is a perpetual thing on her mind for the rest of the series (see: her going out of her way to accommodate his worries in episode 46).

Although Miyako’s propensity for affection is actually quite clear throughout the entire series, I do really think it’s the second half of 02 that brings it out the most, because her way of connecting to otherwise emotionally closed-in characters like Hikari and Ken ultimately demonstrate a lot about how outwardly proactive she is about those feelings, and how integral she is to keeping the group of friends together -- there’s very good reason she’s often referred to by third parties as a “mood maker”, someone there to keep everyone in high spirits.

And what about Iori? It’s hard to argue he doesn’t have love, of course. He has a very deep and passionate love for those around him! But, again, while he does have a propensity for it, that doesn’t mean it’s a trait that necessarily defines him, especially because his stubborn and passionate hatred of certain things ends up making the others have to pull teeth a bit with him at times.

Of course, one could argue that it comes out of his love for the things he wants to protect. But, nevertheless, I would still say it’s rather inaccurate to say that the trait defines him nearly as much as it does Miyako, who is openly and passionately affectionate, actively tries to be open-minded towards new things in her life, and spends a lot of her time doting on others and her hobby work doing favors for her friends.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #miyako inoue #iori hida #inoue miyako #hida iori #shihameta

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winterune · 5 years ago

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Well, that’s one more anime ticked off my 2019 watch list. I still have...I don’t know how many I have left ^^; Maybe I’ll finish those spring leftovers first haha, then maybe I’ll finally watch the part 2 of Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 (for which I would need to rewatch part 1) and Vinland Saga. Well, anyway, let’s get into it.

Hoshiai no Sora - Thoughts and Musings

This anime was...one hell of a ride. Okay, maybe not as much as Beastars was (though, Beastars wasn’t really emotional per se, but rather an anime that tackles really heavy topics), but the emotional roller coaster throughout its 12 episodes was really something to reckon with. Honestly, I wish this was a two-cour anime instead of a one-cour, because the 12-episode run doesn’t give it enough time to really flesh out all their characters and give everyone a satisfying ending.

I mean

As long as he’s alive, we will never be free. I’m ending this.

What kind of ending is that??? *flips table* (beware of spoilers)

In its heart, this is a story about trying to find your place in a world that is trying to box you in. It’s not just your average sports anime about a weak sports club trying to gain its reputation back. It’s more than that. We have this cast of seemingly stereotypical characters, but right from the very first episode, we’re immediately given a tease of a dysfunctional family in our two main leads: Maki with his single mother as a parent and his abusive father still terrorizing them from time to time for money, and Touma who doesn’t have a good relationship with his mother for unknown reasons. And it turns out, the rest of the team member has their own issues to deal with.

Rintaro, being a child born out of teen pregnancy and was then put up for adoption. Though he has loving parents, it still doesn’t erase the confusion and incompetence he had felt because of it. (I kind of have issues with how his parents told him he was adopted when he was still only 10? 11? I think that’s a bit too young for him to know he was adopted. I mean, an elementary school kid is suddenly being told that the parents he has always known has never been his real parents. It would get him thinking: why was he adopted? Why didn’t his mother take him? Was he unwanted? Was he a mistake? Huh, I guess that’s why I can’t do anything right. I’m a failure. I was a mistake. I shouldn’t have been born.)

Itsuki’s mother, in, probably, a bout of depression, poured hot water all over his body when he was only 1 year old.

Shingo, who doesn’t seem to have any problems, lives with a step-mother who is only protective over her daughter while dismissive over him. He doesn’t seem to be overly bothered by it. In fact, he adores his little sister. He’s probably learned to deal with his step-mother’s behavior.

Taiyo’s parents are quite overprotective and overbearing, but at least I don’t think they’re doing any real, permanent damage to him.

Tsubasa, though has wonderful relationship with his brothers, has a father with high expectations and will not settle for less, who won’t try to understand why he dropped soccer and took up soft tennis. Who won’t get off his case, saying that it’s stupid, that it doesn’t do him any good, that you’re better off studying instead of joining such a stupid club. And he actually slaps him, right across the face, causing Tsubasa to fall off the stairs and break his wrist, one month before his big game. And yes he looked shocked at what he had done, but he didn’t do anything; he just stood there, he didn’t even chase after him, as if he was justifying his actions to himself. Like, dammit! Don’t you know what you’re doing to your kid? You’re already hurting him emotionally and you slapped him?! I will say that Tsubasa’s story hurts me the most, because this kid, this happy-go-lucky kid who always smiles and laughs when he’s with his friends, cries as he runs out of the house. And can I just say that Toshii’s voice acting was just...spot on? To the point that I think I cried harder because of Toshii’s voice breaking when Shingo found him outside the house, when the doctor at the hospital asked him if he wasn’t pushed off the stairs, when they were talking in that park and Tsubasa hates how his father kept bragging about his time with his soccer team and never listens to a word he says, never sees him for who he is, because he’s not his brothers and he wanted so badly to play in their game.

But then we have Nao, with that kind of negative overprotective, overbearing, emotionally abusive mother and an indifferent father. It hurts. Hearing his mother talk hurts. Imagining myself in Nao’s shoes hurts. There are the kinds like Maki’s father, who knows they’re a jerk by abusing their own kid. Then there are the kinds like Nao’s mother, who, as Maki said, doesn’t even realize they’re abusing their children, justifying their actions by saying it’s for their kids. She’s blind to Nao’s feelings. All she cares about is what she wants. It doesn’t matter what Nao wants, because I’m her mother and I know what’s best for my son. What she doesn’t know, however, is the permanent damage it’s doing to Nao. Sure at the “conclusion” to Nao’s arc, Nao seems to have find the strength and will in him to shut out his mother’s words, but we also see something different. Nao’s mother is only going to let him off the hook this time. Which means she will probably be worse than she had ever been once Nao comes home from the match.

And finally, one of the most important of all: Yuuta’s arc, where he questions about himself, his gender, the role that is expected of him, and how he feels as if he doesn’t quite fit in with the boxes already laid down by the world. Also his desire to find an answer but also the fear of coming to terms with it, not wanting to disappoint his parents but all the while wanting to find a place he feels like he belongs in. Very realistic. Very relatable. I’m not entirely sure how it is seen in Japan, but in my country, due to strong religious beliefs and traditional values, people with “questionable” gender identities are seen as a sin, a violation, improper behavior - some might even call them a shame to the family. So, I really appreciate the director and his team writing quite a realistic portrayal of the lgbt+. I don’t hold anything against his mother, however, as I understand her feelings exactly, even as I would like Yuuta to have the freedom to learn and discover who he is and what he wants to be.

Even Mitsue, whose family wasn’t shown much, says that her parents don’t approve of her drawing. But that’s what she wants to do. That’s what she wants to be good at. She’s not good at studying. She doesn’t have passion for it. She likes to draw, but even people on the internet says her drawing isn’t good (when in fact it’s quite good). She’s not good with people and her classmates make fun of her. She’s haunted by an inferiority complex, social anxiety, frustration that she doesn’t fit in this world.

This entire show is like a How Not To Be A Parent 101. I do think some are stretching it a bit too far, but I understand what the director’s trying to say. A parental figure is important in a child’s life. Even if you have a crappy life, even if you’re bent on pushing your dreams and expectations to your children, even if your spouse doesn’t appreciate you any longer, that’s no reason or justification to “push the blame on your child”, to abuse them, both emotionally and/or physically.

When you don’t have a good parental figure, a good family environment, it will scar your children for life, and these children will start looking for a place they can belong to outside of their families. Whereas Nao’s mother said that the soft tennis club is a bad influence for Nao, I’d say it’s a good thing Nao found his place inside it. With a mother like that, and a father who doesn’t care much about what happens to him, Nao could have done a lot worse. And yet there’s this sports club made up of misfit children, who are hiding all their pain behind their smile and laughter, because this club is the only place where they can be themselves. Where they don’t have to worry about overbearing/indifferent/abusive parents. In this club of misfits, everyone has everyone else’s backs. When one’s down on the low, someone else will try to lift them up.

This club is their refuge, but in a way, I also think this is their sort of escapism. Because once they’re back in their homes, their lives return to being pressured and trapped under the expectations of their parents. Why I think it is an escape is because, neither of them really grow from it, aside from, I guess, Shingo, Rintaro, Itsuki, and Taiyo. They have either learned to live with their families or showed positive development. Nao’s mother is still a problem, Yuuta’s journey of self-discovery is still long and winding, while Tsubasa still has yet to make amends with his father. Not to mention we have Touma, whose mother just basically told him over the phone that she despises him and is getting a divorce, and Maki, who’s bent on killing his father.

This is not a story of self-healing. This is a slice-of-life story that is trying to tell how bad parenting affects children, especially children in those early adolescence years, when they’re just beginning to learn who they are and what they want to be. It’s not a story of how these children can overcome it. The club acts as their refuge, but not a place of healing. And if their psychosocial development took on a negative turn (see Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development), especially like Maki’s case, well you can imagine what will happen next if he’s not given the proper treatment.

As a final note, I would like to say the sports aspect is a bit weak. The soft tennis matches were too easy, too straightforward, as if the staff didn’t really care what happened in the matches. Well, the main story isn’t in the matches, so there’s that. Also, I would like to say that how they dealt with Maki’s father in episode 5 was also weak. I mean, what’s with Touma yelling at him? To me, it was a bit out of character for Maki to let Touma meet his father (I’d thought he was the type to say, no, that’s all right, I’ll deal with him myself, though I think Touma would have forced himself inside Maki’s house nonetheless). And that spontaneous outbursts about killing him? It was very cringe-worthy when I saw it, but now that I think about it, though it was probably Toma’s heat-of-the-moment outburst then, Maki certainly took it seriously with how he was holding that knife in the end.

#hoshiai no sora #stars align #anime #musings #anime musings #hoshiai no sora musings

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destiny-smasher · 5 years ago

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Always Gotta Don’t Stop (speculating about Smash)

So with Byleth incoming in just a few days, we also got other noteworth announcements that got me pretty excited about the possibilities for what could come to Smash Bros. Ultimate over the next two years. I felt like having some fun and came up with multiple lists using this template by Matthew Lovenzka, and I tried to find a balance between various factors -- perceived popularity (not just with Western Smash fans but that’s part of it), moveset potential (they CAN make a moveset out of anything but Sakurai specifically focuses lately on bringing new mechanics), and also a twist of marketing (since that IS part of it, as Byleth demonstrates).

Long post is LONG, I’m goin’ ham.

First up, just some general predictions for Fighters Pass Volume 2:

Now, I don’t believe we will get Sora AND Geno, but it DOES feel likely we will get another Square character, and those two feel like the most popular picks with people from Square. I could Nintendo trying to get Sora in first and foremost, but if legal complications (or Square just being fussy) got in the way, they might compromise on Geno. I feel like with how big Activision/Blizzard is, they’d want a character in, and if Nintendo likewise WANTED to parley with that, and go for another western-themed pick, Bandicoot makes the most sense. Crash didn’t get into Playstation All-Stars but everyone still inherently associates Crash with the Playstation One, so it’d be a great pick and feel similar to Banjo-Kazooie in a lot of ways. I could see moveset being a little standard but they could probably come up with some fun elements. Given how much emphasis the Crash franchise has put on Coco more recently (made her fully playable in the Crash Trilogy, given her lots of attention in CTR Nitro-Fueled), it would feel in-character and also just be neat if she was added as an alt costume. Capcom: I feel like we’re all expecting a new Capcom rep, and that by no means entails we will get a new Capcom rep, buuut it feels pretty likely. Capcom is on good terms with Nintendo, Ultimate already has plenty of content from them, they even pitched in plenty of new music tracks to Ultimate. The real question is, who would Nintendo want from Capcom, and who would Capcom give their approval on? I would’ve thought Resident Evil a couple months ago, but since we just got RE spirits added, I’m starting to think that if a new Capcom rep got chosen, it must’ve been from somewhere else. (Maybe RE was considered first and they did spirits and all that but then it got cancelled or switched, I dunno). There’s plenty of possibilities, including multiple desired characters who have already been in Marvel vs Capcom. Personally, my money is on a Monster Hunter rep just because the game is so huge in Japan, and recently finally broke through to worldwide popularity. Next, a Bandai/Namco rep. Given that the company works on the series, it’s actually strange to me that B/N costumes from Smash 4 were removed, and we have yet to get anyone new added in. Pac-Man is still the only Bandai-Namco fighter in the game. As for who they’d add, most of the obvious picks might feel redundant (Tekken? Soul Calibur?) but if they went with something like Dark Souls, they could incorporate a stamina managing mechanic, as well as that grim-dark aesthetic (I feel like ONE of these six newcomers will be from a grim-dark game.

A year ago, you wanna know who EVERYONE was expecting to get into Smash? When it was revealed that NINTENDO was deciding the DLC, not Sakurai? Wanna know who everyone expected? ‘The new Fire Emblem protag.’ Which is...exactly what we got. I would say that at this point, we can’t really expect anyone or anything from Smash, but the exception to that rule is to expect a first party, corporate overlords pick. Could be a Gen 8 rep, could be Travis Touchdown to promo NMH3, could be a new Zelda rep to promo BotW2, I dunno, could be a new Splatoon character to promo that series (and whatever is coming next from it) but I feel it in my bones that one of these six will be first party, from a more recent game, basically to just be Nintendo flexing their own brands.

But something we learned over the past year is that they are actively trying to add more franchises and characters via Mii Costumes. So here’s some theories as to what we might get from 1st/3rd party Mii costumes in the couple years to come. It feels like we’ll prolly get more Nintendo themed Mii costumes, and tbh I just feel like with more Pokemon DLC coming, they will want to push that here. Especially if we get a new Pokemon fighter/stage, it would feel natural for them to throw in a trainer-oriented costume.

If we get a new Square rep, which feels likely because Square is just THAT big, then I would suspect we’d get one or two more Square costumes, but I’d expect them to be underwhelming. So, like, bring back the Chocobo hat. Bare minimum, that’s been Square’s creed when it comes to Smash.

While Resident Evil feels like it didn’t make the cut, I could totally see them adding in one or two RE themed costumes as kind of a peace offering for the franchise. Leon/Claire would make sense with the RE2 remake being such a hit, and Leon’s history with Nintendo hardware.

TBH it feels kind of criminal that Chun-Li isn’t in the game in some way outside of a spirit and a music track. At least give that lady a costume, for Din’s sake.

2B is also technically Square, but her creator has been very open about being interested in just...selling her likeness all around. I feel like 2B could be a fighter, of course, like she already is in Soul Calibur 6, but I also feel like if Nintendo was going to aim for a Square character, they’d have their sights set on bigger fish. She would please plenty by appearing as a costume, at least.

OK, so, I have played a Minecraft or two over the years. Hell, I played it WAY back before it was even officially finished/released. I can definitely see the appeal of Minecraft coming to Smash, though more as a stage than as a fighter. I could easily see a Minecraft SOMETHING making its way in, and it is very possible to show up as a fighter, but a Mii Fighter skin feels more likely imo.

So something else that hasn’t officially become a pattern yet but has definitely set up an anticipation is indie games getting their dues with ‘premium’ Mii costumes. So here’s my picks for those. I think three of these are actually still quite possible to be fighters, if IF IF Nintendo is willing to truly throw an indie a bone. But it feels more plausible that that bone would be much smaller, and we’d get popular indie reps in the form of these premium skins with music tracks. I feel like I don’t even need to really explain most of these, but VA11 HALLA is here more because I personally like it a lot, it’s a popular enough visual novel internationally, and it has a banging OST. But tbh if I could decide on a Stardew Valley skin that would’ve gone there instead, just because of how prominent the game is. You could likewise replace Cave Story with Stardew, except I feel like Cave Story was THE indie game that kind of kickstarted this whole ‘indie revolution.’ Tricky part there is the complicated and unfortunate nature of the series’ ownership (essentially taken away from its creator).

The other four, though, I could easily see them as fighters with their own unique gimmicks/mechanics and stages with cool music and aesthetics. The only other indie game/character I could envision more than them is coming up. I feel like if this indie trend continues, one of these is bound to show up.

So Sakurai made a weirdly big deal about the concept of ‘echo fighters’ only to like...add three and call it a day? There’s so much more you could get out of the concept, and as many have discussed, doing an ‘Echo Fighter pass’ (or just piecemeal adding in Echo Fighters) over the course of the next two years would make extra bank, please lots of folks, and not actually take up more resources. The trick is they’d all have to be first party characters from already establishes franchises in Smash, otherwise I just don’t see them happening. To be a proper echo fighter, they would need to be slightly different than another fighter, but different in some way. This usually entails at least one special move being totally different, but it also often entails changing the characters’ properties in some way. To be clear: Tetra - Toon Link, Medusa - Palutena, Octoling - Inkling, Gooigi - Luigi, Impa- Sheik, Dixie - Diddy.

Personally, I think Impa would make the most sense of these to be her own fighter, and she has many forms she could take (pictured above is the Hyrule Warriors version), which tbh could just mean an entirely original, new adaptation, like they’ve already done with Sheik and, arguably, Zelda. But she could totally get away with being a Sheik echo, as well. You can probably imagine differences on your own, but if we were to get more echo fighters added, these are some of the more popular and perhaps plausible picks that might possibly please the higher proportion of people.

So I don’t think any of these feel specifically likely outside of a Monster Hunter rep, and even then, I feel like Byleth essentially got the ‘gimmick’ you’d give to a Hunter fighter (like they got in MvCI), so you could swap the Hunter for a Palico or even a Monster or something, I dunno. I want someone from Monster Hunter, and I want a Monster Hunter stage/music. But I do feel like at this point, anyone feels possible for Smash, so these are picks I would personally DIE OVER, like I did with Mega Man, Lucina, Banjo-Kazooie, and Joker before them. Ones that I personally have great affection for and would main regardless of play style, but which also feel prominent enough and appropriate enough where you imagine them in Smash, imagine many people knowing who they are, etc etc.

ARMS was such a lovingly made game that just didn’t have mechanics deep enough to hold people’s attention in the long run. Which is a shame, because the characters, the world, the aesthetic, it’s all so well done and I adore it. I do feel like we’re bound to get at least one more Ninty rep (probably two or even three depending on how much Nintendo wants to dabble with third parties this go-around), and I feel like ARMS is a franchise worth inspiring interest in. The game did well, it just didn’t do SPLATOON well, and I don’t want Nintendo to abandon it. Give us the four most prominent characters from the game as different skins, use colors to reference the ones who are shaped differently from them, give them a unique mechanic with their arms and the swapping-fists element.

I do think we may very well get an Activision/Blizzard rep, and while I ain’t happy with that company right now, I do think they’re one of the biggest western companies who’s not in the game (Bethesda being another one, who I am also not happy with atm but who has much less defined characters). Tracer would tick many boxes in terms of what I want from a newcomer in Smash. She has lots of personality, she’s a woman (a thing sorely lacking in new Smash characters lately), she has what could be a VERY unique gimmick, and she would help advertise Overwatch 2 and other Blizzard games that have been coming to Switch. Make it so she doesn’t have a Final Smash but has an Ultimate that charges over time (and the Smash Ball just insta-fills it), but make it not as powerful AS a normal Final Smash. Give her Blinks and a Rewind but no traditional recovery, so you have a real intriguing balance between managing her cooldowns to either maximize offense at great risk, or grant very safe recovery but then lack ways to overcome neutral. Tracer’s kit could encapsulate just about everything interesting about competetive Smash gameplay. The only real downside is that Overwatch doesn’t have much in the way of music -- so incorporate other Blizzard stuff to make up the difference. Overwatch already crosses other Blizzard content into it, anyway.

Undertale may have gotten a nod in Smash already, and arguably in the form of one of the most desired characters/tracks added, but I also think the game is big enough of a deal that a full-on fighter/stage as the first indie properly added would feel...I dunno, fulfilling. Appropriate. Not to mention the moveset potential. Whereas Sans is already repped well enough tbh (even the nature of him being a costume FITS his too-lazy-to-actually-show-up-in-person mood), a concept for the actual player character of Undertale has way more potential imo. Not to mention that Sakurai/Nintendo seem much more keen on adding the primary/player character to rep a game before anyone else. Frisk could be played in a dual style: either a hyper defensive passive style that relies on turning the opponent’s strength against them, OR a hyper aggressive rush-down style that is fast and fierce but easily punishable if you make mistakes. The key to creating a truly fitting Undertale rep for Smash would be finding that balance of player choice between peace and violence and working it directly into the character’s kit. HOW you would implement it would be tricky -- ideally, you’d want to reward players for actually committing to ‘Frisk’ style or ‘Chara’ style, and punish them for middling between the two. Not only this, but an Undertale stage would bring with it one of the decade’s most beloved gaming OSTs, and you could probably get people in the gaming world who’d be JUMPING to arrange those tracks for Smash. The stage itself could take many forms but I think one that plays with the various characters and their attack styles would maximize the creativity of the team. If I had to pick one single character/stage to get added to Smash, I’d vouch for this one, probably, and I’d make it either the first of this pass, or the last; it’d have the biggest impact on either end but would be a big deal regardless.

Kat from Gravity Rush is, arguably THE least likely out of everyone here to show up in Smash, mainly because she is a Sony character. Unlike Joker or Crash, she isn’t a third party character who is associated with Sony, she is a Sony-owned character, to my knowledge. But out of every first party Sony character, she makes the most sense to me as a Smash character. She’s cute, cartoony, she has a primary gimmick that a PLATFORMING fighter could take full advantage of (imagine managing a gravity charge to go sideways or underneath the stage for kills, BUT dooming yourself if you mess up), and she would be a real “oh whoa wtf” moment in terms of bringing Sony into the fold. Main problem is, if Sony was to let of their characters in, it would probably be someone else, just because it seems they’ve lost sight of value in this series, unfortunately. Though, tbh, I’d be pretty damn down for Aloy, as well, I just think the stage/moveset wouldn’t be nearly as exciting or new.

Lastly, I want more Splatoon. We all want more Splatoon. I don’t know if the series has gone into hibernation until the next Nintendo hardware, or if a spinoff is coming sooner than we think, or what. But Nintendo knows how big Splatoon is. And the series FEELS big enough over the past decade to warrant more representation. I feel like we’re getting a new Ninty rep or two, anyway, and I’d much rather it be Splatoon than more Pokemon or Fire Emblem or JRPG etc. (nothing against those things, we just HAVE plenty of them). The pop idols of Splatoon have won the hearts of many, and you could definitely come up with a new moveset for them in many ways. It could be a tag-team moveset where the player swaps between them (maybe even on time intervals like a musical performance), it could be music-themed instead of ink-themed, it could be Ice Climbers -esque, I dunno, there’s a lot of possibilities. A Splatfest themed stage with multiple variations could keep things tied to the actual gameplay of Splatoon, as well (or they could do a Salmon Run based one, that mode is INSANE). It would drive up appeal in the brand even further, it would capitalize on the fanservice angle, it would highlight just how much the series has accomplished these past ten years -- for fuck’s sake, there are PHYSICAL CONCERTS YOU CAN GO TO to watch these characters perform. Who the hell else in Nintendo history can you say that for? And these characters are still pretty recent! That speaks a lot. If I had to rally for any first party add, it would be this, honestly. And yet, we already have Splatoon, but I think the brand is fresh enough and fun enough to warrant a whole new fighter.

So that’s my hopes, some predictions, and some shots in the dark.

The past year has been a WILD ride. The next two years will hopefully follow suit.

#super smash bros #smash ultimate #fighters pass #Nintendo #video games

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didsomeonesayventus · 5 years ago

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okay long time spending in gestation but I imagine that someone out of the followers I have wants to know my onion on KH3 is

Overall, good!

so consider wordbarf of very repeated and tired onions no one actually actively asked for below:

Alright so I’ve been trying to figure out how to make these words and what my opinions even are considering this game has been out for almost a year now (KH3 existing is wild imagine it turning a year old) so this will be. mostly bullet points + incoherent and unorganized rambling forgive me

BAD THINGS FIRST lets get the salt out of the way

Literally everything with Kairi was oof. I still feel her relationship with Lea is incredibly rushed given the last time they were interacting in canon he was literally kidnapping her but go off I guess nomura they’re brother/sister friendsy now at least the fandom can sell me on that better than you can. I seethe with rage recalling that they didn’t even try to hide that killing her off was a classic case of fridging (“You lack motivation” FUCK OFF) and I have been angry since the day I was spoiled by leak stuff accidentally. I wouldn’t have minded her getting her ass handed to her if they made it look like she tried and gave us some moments where she did defend herself and get some victories and not conveniently cut away from the actually badly needed training montage (surprise! this is why we have training montages!!!!) and I get she was instrumental in rescuing everyone and the fact she wasn’t THAT bad speaks for how much she improved but it still just. bites that she still feels more like a satellite love interest than ever.

Kairi was bad enough to get her own thing but tbh everyone who isn’t Sora also.. really suffers. The writing is really Sora-centric here and that’s not inherently bad (see good list) but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially since they dog pile the extended cast moments in at the end. There was no big confusion at Ven and Roxas sharing a face, no talks between characters who would have interesting interactions given their histories and circumstances, no obvious sign of development from anyone except maybe sea salt family and Aqua. They’re here to be more one-note than usual and resolve their arcs. Ven in particular (I’m totally not biased clearly /sarcasm) I feel is a big example given he was kinda in a really rough mental state at the end of bbs?? and 3 is exceptionally vague on just how conscious ventus was during his nap so I can’t even answer if he was able to give himself therapy the past 12 years or whatever

Anti Aqua is a damn cool concept but ultimately kinda pointless and I think we could have received it better if it wasn’t spoiled in trailers and wholly out of left field. Plus Sora coming in after what was pretty clearly set up as a Riku moment- while it gave us the incredibly gay press triangle to Sora + use a big keyblade made from ur love moment -was uh! really cheap!!!! and ruined what was clearly set up for being Riku’s thing with an almost nonsensical SIKE ITS SORA (it’s saved from being wholly nonsensical by 0.2′s opening foreshadowing + it still kinda makes sense for sora to at least help but damn if the narrative wasn’t leading us towards a riku moment)

Also everyone was hit really hard with the nerf effect in-narrative so unless you’re the dream team you’re screwed I guess and that. doesn’t quite work since it makes everyone else look... not great. And I think this is kinda a miscommunication on part of Nomura and the fans (IM MAKING ASSUMPTIONS TAKE WITH SALT) in that we kept saying we wanted people “saved” but meant having their arcs resolved in a reasonable way that preserved their agency and power and relationships, but got interpreted literally as “alright Sora comes in and solves every problem, is tough on stains, and makes julienne fries”

And yet there’s also a lot of mean spirited “oh no sora’s dumb and helpless w/out a second braincell” which was kinda funny the first couple times and I failed to pick up on it first go I’ll admit, but honestly? Yeah. they pick on sora too much. Donald and Goofy are the most guilty, and everyone else by virtue of not seeing Sora that much actually in-narrative are off the hook from me because they probably didn’t know how much teasing he’d been getting from his pals, but it felt kinda like they didn’t know what to fall back on between the three besides “oh donald and goofy pick on sora” which is cute once or twice but the amount he gets and how it clearly leads to his breakdown at the end is uhHHHHhhhHH hm.

As always the pacing is pretty awful where the disney worlds are somewhat relevant at best and then the end is 0-1000 but that is a usual KH gripe so its pretty low on the bar

Attraction flow is cute and neat at first but it gets.. really wearing towards the end and in the serious fights at the Keyblade Graveyard BOY are they a mood breaker

the “repeat the plot” worlds- Tangled, Frozen, Pirates -REALLY stick out like a sore, ugly thumb compared to the worlds that went out and did their own creative thing, and Big Hero 6 was.. cute? but kinda maybe too much of a breather.

Frozen also get an extra award for “Audio mixer most in need of firing!” because who the hell allowed the do you want to build a snowman scene.

They did nothing with Scala and I want a refund on that aesthetic if they’re not gonna do anything besides a framing device with it

HEY WAIT THERE WAS GOOD THINGS TOO!

Good news point that may or may not come to pass: Re:Mind DLC might fix some of the above salt! We shall see and probably know by the time this post is a year old sfjhdsakjgh

SORA! Sora was actually a character again!!!! holy cow they pulled up from the utter nose dive that was DDD!! god i love this dork and it was really fantastic to see him back to normal.

The graphical upgrade lost a lot of the squish and stretch that the OG graphics had but you know what? pretty. tastey. good graphics and better at doing more subtle emotions and hey have i mentioned Pirate’s glow up? Pirate’s glow up. The details in Olympus to recreate the swirly aesthetic of the clouds and explosions and lava is a great touch.

Worlds as far as levels go?? really good! They feel legitimately like worlds and explorable and with their own flavors and I LOVE battle and field themes x2 its really great I’m down for less worlds if they keep the quality. Hell we have NPCs!! maybe even too many npcs.

Writing OVER ALL/ON AVERAGE I’d say has improved a lot! It’s still not a literary masterpiece or anything but I found the disney worlds really cute and easier to get invested in even if long term they were less relevant than I hoped they would be. In every world there was at least one scene I found myself actually invested in. Like there was something to the writing that was legitimately more endearing than usual on average, and toy box and monstropolis were strong contenders for really good overall imo

honestly there were moments that- as moments -were incredible. Wayfinder reunion scene will haunt me, and Sea salt’s was good too, final world and rescuing everyone was jaw dropping, getting the LoD Back was also good, Union X, Xigbar exiting left stage pursued by a bear, wayfinder trio making a grave for eraqus, all the gummi ship scenes had great chemistry, beach party ending, hanging out with rapunzel for the first half of Corona is adorable as hell, all the nods to scenes in the movies, the easter eggs, like the game is not consistently amazing but it is peppered with stuff that I feel in a bubble ignoring surrounding context just work really really well

Damn if the end boss rush wasn’t thrilling as hell and honestly??? really good. Hard to parse out first flush but I think this was a good decision and added a lot of blood roaring urgency and wild turns, and even if I want to overhaul a number of things about the endgame I think this can definitely stay

Kingstagram is a beautiful gift man

OST? A fucking banger all around and I love how they’ve made cutscene-specific tracks that play with the leitmotifs throughout KH’s illustrious musical history

Over all there’s some really glaring issues, but overall it’s KH really at its best. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite entry and I’m still really mixed + befuddled on just how exactly I feel and I think a lot of that is I had pretty high expectations and my own ideas of how it would play out since like. 2012. it’s really hard to detach from those feelings and ideas sometimes. But KH3 wasn’t bad! It could’ve really been worse, and the fact that it got out the door in the state that it was is a good deal

now here’s to the wait for Re:Mind and to see if it’s basically the content we’d get in Final Mix that could definitely bump up my opinion

#Katie rambles #long post #((in case this fucks up on mobile which it likely will))#but yeah I'd say 7-8/10 #solid entry did remarkably well for what it needed to do but not really amazing favorite entry ever sort of love #got its pros got its cons. its solid and good and enjoyable for what KH is #anyways obviously this is my opinion and you're not obligated to agree but yeah! KH3.. exists.. its a thing.....

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