#has no one done it because it’s so wildly out of character? can i write it so it still makes in-character sense?

[kayzero]

By the way! I'm curious abt your thoughts on how ztd handled junepei. How would've you done it differently?

Sorry if im being annoying/overwhelming :( I just wanna hear your opinion Dyfdy

there’s a post about the Junpei body parts puzzle and how it was symbolic and cool and how it would have been psychologically devastating for Akane if it were an actual planned Thing instead of just Mira fucking around, which basically encapsulates all of my ztdpei feelings.

ZTD Junpei is not significantly different from 999 Junpei, even though the narrative tells the audience that he really really should be. He spent a year chasing after Akane, he found himself staring at the cesspit of crime, and he’s still sillygoofy, if not a bit dumber than he was in 999.

He’s snarkier and cattier but not actually angry or bitter or frustrated toward Akane—he doesn’t even question things most of the time. He finds himself in another death game and he falls into line. There’s no cynicism, no quiet moments of reflection to showcase inner turmoil and grief, no real edge. They just dressed him in black and painted a scowl over his dopey lovestruck smile.

What would I have done differently? You’ve already seen some of it. He’s philosophically combative, if not argumentative, he’s asking questions and refusing to do anything blind, he tries his best to get a word in during decision-making. He’s still Junpei, so he shouldn’t be a Red Hood vigilante edgelord shooting every problem in the skull, but he has seen the darker parts of humanity, and if there are no other options…

Basically, I wanted a bit more VLR Tenmyouji and a bit less 999 Jumpy, so I did that, and you’ve seen most of what he has to offer in ZWG.

In the last two fragments that have yet to be revealed, he plays more of a supporting role in one, where I can showcase how his character has evolved but not overly diverged from his portrayal in 999.

And then the other one is his Character Fragment.

[shidoukanae]

Paris Valerian but i redesign his dragon form for funsies based on how i see him=. Not sure if I like this design bc im not a fan of bulkier looking dragons but for Paris I think this works??

Some headcanons about this design:

has a bit of a bull-like look bc I associate bulls with persistence and madness and idk that fits Paris well so if Fian has a “fox” motif Paris gets a “bull” one for his dragon form 

His design is based a lot on how a stereotypically evil dragon would look???? Because imo OG!Paris reads as a massive antagonist and I think giving him a look that fits that vibe in his dragon form works!! Especially because he still is an antagonist in a way (though god does he not read that way lmao)

he’s stronger in his dragon form than Fian is and he uses this to his advantage to bully Fian around whenever they playfight as dragons. That said, it seems Paris is surprisingly gentle towards Fian in this form and never hurts him.

he uses this form to intimidate people into getting what he wants. He’s not used to getting retaliated against while in this form and quickly respects anyone who does so (read: Fian, Lyla and Helene)

the silver scales on his body can glow in the same way his eyes do. Typically, he keeps them dull-colored (see above) but if he feels a strong emotion of any sorts they’ll glow brightly without him meaning to (noticeably: they glow constantly whenever Helene is around for obvious reasons~).

[yourlocalxbox]

Totality - Undertronic

Seth and Sine spend time admiring the eclipse. Written in one hour, 832 words.

“Do you know how beautiful your art is?”

Seth stared at the sky with clasped hands. A gentle breeze blew past - Zephyros’ sigh, he supposed. He couldn’t help but wonder who held that God Soul now. Seth had always wanted to meet the wind god; perhaps the two could make a good pair.

What a silly thought.

Golden hair fell into his eyes, yet he never moved. Never took his gaze off of his work. Not a second could be missed. He heard laughter behind him.

“What are you doing?” Sine reached from behind and brushed Seth’s hair out of his face. He couldn’t help but notice how his touch lingered longer than it had to. He couldn’t help but notice how he didn’t mind. “You can hardly see through all of that.”

“Like you would know,” Seth quipped. The skeleton behind him snorted.

“Hey, I can make some guesses.”

Sine crept into the corner of Seth’s vision. He pulled off his hood and craned his neck to match Seth. One hand rested in the pocket of his cloak; the other nearly startled Seth out of his trance when it grazed his fingers.

“I could get us something. Tea. Whiskey. Coffee, extra-strong. On the house. Off the rocks. I could go on.”

Seth grinned. “No, thank you. This is enough.”

“But you don’t have anything?”

Seth held his tongue. This was more than enough.

“Won’t it be too dark?”

Seth paused. The thought did cross his mind, but he was not one to be afraid of the dark. A bit of daytime nightfall wouldn’t bother him - he didn’t know what it would take to make him fear the dark, but this was not it. “Not with you around.” He made a vague gesture to the skeleton’s ears. Their calming light was sufficient to keep the growing shadows at bay. Sine gently scratched at one of Seth’s clasped hands, and he let it fall open. The two looked upwards to Seth’s work of art.

The eclipse neared its totality.

“Do you think,” Sine started, “Do you think…”

Seth cocked his head to the side.

“Nevermind.”

The remaining sunlight faded around them.

“No no, what were you saying? Please.”

The shadows cut deeper.

“It’s silly. It’s just a silly thought.”

Sine’s light danced across his face.

“You know those are my favourite.”

“Do you think we could stay like this forever?”

And the world fell yet darker.

“I don’t want this to end. It’s beautiful. Look at it,” Sine mused.

“There’s nothing to look at.”

“Exactly. You did this. You did this, Seth. Look at what you can do.”

Sine’s grip tightened around his hand. He felt dizzy from how his heart beat so unusually. They both knew it was a silly thought. The planets would pass, life would go on. Every couple decades or so, Seth would sit down and repeat the process, as this soul had done for hundreds of thousands of years. This was nothing special. This was just as the last ten thousand had been. It was the same one, the same sun that had people worshipped long before these souls reached their hosts. This couldn’t last forever. Their tails curled around each other. Maybe not forever.

“...I can make you a compromise.”

Seth couldn’t make it last forever. Not even a minute. The others would notice; planets were not something to be trifled with. The Death Well flashed in his mind. Yes, that was a fate he would prefer to avoid.

But a moment wouldn’t hurt.

He squeezed Sine’s hand back, flesh caressing bone. “I think…”

Sine smiled. “You sure about that one?”

“You- Come on, I lost my train of thought.”

“It’s alright,” said Sine. Seth tore his eyes away from his art to meet his. “I think that I think so too.”

The light began to fade back in around them. Seth quickly turned to hide the flush of his face. If anything, it only made Sine look at him more. “You’re kinda cute when you think you’re being slick, y’know.”

Seth exhaled sharply and turned away. “Come on. These always tire me out,” he lied. As much as he hoped Sine wouldn’t catch on, he knew it was a losing battle.

“Aah, so Mister Destruction needs a nap?”

“Shut-” His words were cut short by his own stammering. Sine cackled behind him. He sighed and made his way back inside.

“C’mon, you know you love me.” 

They both stopped mid-step. The daytime betrayed both of their expressions. They simply stared at each other in silence.

“I…” The words caught in Seth’s throat. He knew what he wanted to say. He knew what he needed to say.

I think…

No.

I know…

He put his hand back into Sine’s. His gaze softened. Perhaps not everything had to be said.

It didn’t matter how dark it had gotten; Seth could still see one thing clearly. His work could never compare to the art that had stood beside him.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?

I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.

The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!

Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:

[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]

A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)

This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.

This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.

If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:

Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious

Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic

Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed

Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character

Makes Adrien narratively important

MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT

Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists

Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.

I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.

I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:

I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.

If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!

Spoilers below:

I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.

While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.

The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.

That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.

That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.

I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.

[the-modern-typewriter]

Hi

It's been brought to my attention that there are people out there who are sadly plagiarising my work again.

1. This is not okay.

To clarify, while I'm very happy for people to take inspiration from my stories (in the same way you might any book you read from a bookshop), I don't want my work used or reposted without credit.

I'm not going to go into lengths on why it is wrong to plagiarise someone else's writing. I don't think my tumblr post is magically going to change anyone's mind, especially as if you've followed me long enough you know we've done this rodeo before.

So.

2. How to tell when writing is plagiarised

It can be very difficult to tell when something is plagiarised, especially if we have never come across the original work before and have no reason to recognise it.

I don't think it's realistic for everyone to vet everything they come across online for plagiarism, but it's also something I don't see talked about a lot for fiction.

These questions to ask yourself are not foolproof and not applicable to everything. But I think they can be a start.

If the writer has posted more than one story, is there a similarity across them? While writing style can change across an author's different pieces, there is still usually going to be a similar feel across stories if they came from the same person. Writers have voices and quirks and little things that are specific to them. If every piece feels wildly different then it might be coming from different places. This is probably going to come down to gut reaction and instinct in the first instance. But that's okay. Because that gut reaction is just there to make you think twice and maybe investigate more thoroughly.

How much are they posting? Can people churn an extraordinary amount of words out? Yes, sometimes. But...as a general ballpark, no. Writing takes time and effort. If someone is coming out with enormous amounts of writing every day or week or month or whatever, then this can be a hint to look a little closer.

Do you ever see hints of their writing process? Can the writer talk about their characters or what they want out of the story or anything like that? Do they ever post a story organically in response to a request or whatever? Not all writers know in-depth everything about their story or characters or plot, but the main point here is that the finished product is the tip of the iceberg. If someone is a writer than there is more going on beneath the surface of the posted stories.

I hope this helps!

[mania-sama]

A Look into Mental Health: Jujutsu Kaisen Analysis

"Being a child is not a sin." (Nanami Kento, Jujutsu Kaisen)

With the release of Chapter 251, I've seen many horrible takes from dudebros saying that Megumi has "sold" the team. This makes me unreasonably angry because of course it does, so obviously my next plan of action is to take all of my hour-long rants about the mental health of JJK characters and put it here, where said dudebros will never see my (correct) analysis in their entire life. Oh well.

One thing Gege is really, really good at is creating believable, undeniably human, and complex characters. Every character has a different set of motivations, beliefs, ideals, and especially mental states. The constant theme of Jujutsu Kiasen has been "Strength vs Weakness". While the clearest interpretation can be seen through the physical attributes of the characters (Gojo being the strongest sorcerer of his time due to his abilities, and Miwa being one of the weakest, again, due to her abilities), it is also directly applied to the mental strength of characters. No two characters are able to withstand the same trauma and come out the exact same, just as no two real people can process the same trauma. Not only is it a result of nature, as people are genetically different and therefore process information differently, but a product of nurture - in other words, character motivation and environment.

This is where we come to the current state of the manga, Chapter 251. The fated Yuuji vs Megumi debate. I keep seeing people wildly misunderstanding these two, and why it's so important that Megumi isn't standing up to fight, why he isn't able to handle his trauma, when Yuuji can.

Gege writes phenomenal characters. And I want to express just how well done they are, making Jujutsu Kaisen actually kind of deserve its popularity, because some people only care about power scaling. I'm going to touch on Megumi last, because understanding all of the other characters' makes his visible struggle that much more impactful.

1. Geto Suguru

I want to start this mental health analysis with Geto. He is the best representation of depression I've ever seen in Shonen. It doesn't take a hundred chapters to showcase a character's downfall. It doesn't take a hundred significant events to cause a character to break down. Gege shows the best, realistic mental breakdown using only a handful of chapters, and still makes it slow and painful.

Depression can start because of a big event, but it doesn't take more for it to worsen. Untreated, depression runs a vicious course that eats a person through slowly but effectively. It isn't one screaming session, hands clutched over the head and cursing God and the world. It's everything piled onto each other. It's coming to the end of that pile and realizing that nothing will ever change.

This is Geto Suguru's story. He has a big event: the fight with Toji and the failure to save Riko. But his mental health journey was fated to decline, even without the fight and failure. The root issue of his depression came from his ability: Cursed Spirit Manipulation. As long as he kept devouring the embodiment of every vile, human emotion, the more he would lose himself to that vileness. He wasn't changing anything; he couldn't help but continue to swim in negativity because that's all he could do.

Gege wasn't making a commentary on Geto's ability. He was talking about people, as they are, and how staying in a bad situation will not always make you stronger. It can, and most likely will, make you worse. A direct comparison to the sixteen-year-old Geto would be a sixteen-year-old at school, surrounded by people who bully and pick on them with harsh words. The kid will eventually consume all of that bullying, all of that negativity, into their being, because there is simply nowhere else to go. School is mandatory; they can't just leave. They eventually feel isolated, with all that vileness piled on. Even if they have friends, those people could never understand what it's like to put up with humiliation and cruelty day after day.

It's not rational to push away a support system, but who said human beings are always rational? People make mistakes. They don't make the right decisions. Geto didn't. He saw someone offer him a chance at change, a possible light at the top of his pile and twisted it to match his overwhelming negativity. He left and swore to destroy the world that made him the way he is, just as that bullied child may turn away from school and society in whatever form that may take.

I want to touch on the physical aspects of Geto's depression, too. I noted this in a previous analysis I did on him (his character is just that amazing, what can I say?), but Gege knew that the mind can't be affected alone. Geto was drawn with deep eyebags, a nod to an inability to sleep or needing to sleep all the time. Depression makes you tired all the time. Everything becomes difficult. He sits with his back hunched, resting his weight on his knees, like sitting upright is too hard. When someone speaks to him, he blinks and takes a second too long to look over or respond, like speaking takes too much energy. To me, it even looked like he was becoming thinner. It's extremely difficult to maintain a schedule of exercise and mealtimes when your mind is fighting an active war against itself.

Again, a beautiful representation of depression. Geto means a lot to me in this aspect.

2. Gojo Satoru

In comparison to Geto, Gojo's horrible mental health is a lot subtler. Depression isn't the correct term, but you don't have to be depressed to be sad. Sadness is his stagnant state; he has moments of bliss, goals to work towards, a reason to keep going, to continue living, to continue chasing the sun over the horizon, but he does return to the same place he is always at when the lights turn off and he's painfully reminded of this one fact: he is isolated.

All of Gojo's problems start and end with isolation. From the moment he was born, everyone knew he was different. He knew he was different. Through glimpses of his childhood and honestly reading between the lines, it's obvious he never played with kids his age. People don't just develop a superiority complex with their only drive to be better than literally everyone else for no other reason than to get better. It comes from somewhere, and in Gojo's case, it's from his young childhood. It seriously messed him up; even now, he can't shake the lesson that "Strength is the only way to success and happiness".

This is what made Geto so important. Geto was somebody who could share the burden of being the strongest. Geto was someone his age who understood him in a way Shoko could not, though they both were able to see Gojo beyond his capabilities as a Jujutsu sorcerer. Gojo then had somebody to base his moral principles on. Because he couldn't connect with anybody else, he had no basis other than strength. Geto taught him why it was important for the strong to protect the weak.

Then everything went wrong. Gojo became isolated again in his strength and lost the only person who could plausibly stand with him. "Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?" Gojo was young, then, and fresh-faced into his newfound godhood. He didn't kill Geto in that moment because he wanted to deny the claim that he is nothing without his strength, that he isn't as shallow as he was raised to be.

But he knew better. He grew older, he killed his best friend, and he realized that he was nothing without his strength. He never got over Geto. In order to cope with the guilt of being unable to save him when he left, he adopted a whole kid, thinking that if he wasn't strong enough to save Geto, maybe he could save Megumi. But there it is all over again - he never broke from the cycle of strength defining his worth. Saving Megumi would define his strength, right? It would prove Geto wrong, right? He raised Megumi under the same logic (that the only way to save his sister is to be strong), only ridding the boy of the crushing isolation.

In this way, Gojo isn't mentally weak. He didn't abandon society and everyone who loved him, instead choosing to hone the trauma of his isolated childhood into a weapon and teach the next generation to be better than himself. He isn't depressed, but he isn't happy. You can't be happy if you're alone all of the time. He hoped Megumi could be someone to stand by him, but in the end, he failed to save Megumi. His strength couldn't save him, just as it couldn't save Geto.

He isn't mentally strong. He isn't weak, either. He is horribly, painfully average. He's not weak enough to be saved, but not strong enough to save others. His childhood plagues him, but not to the point where it prevents him from living. He killed Geto but was unable to bury the body. Gojo is everything he never wanted to be.

As it turns out, strength can't buy you happiness. Gojo may have understood that, but he couldn't abandon it, even to the bitter end. Just as a human struggles to shed their conditioning. Not everyone can break the cycle, but we are always trying our best to work with what we've been dealt.

3. Okkotsu Yuuta

I'm putting Yuuta in between Gojo & Geto and Itadori & Megumi because he is, in a way, a bridge between the two. Geto and Gojo have lived their lives; their stories are complete and ended in tragedy. Itadori and Megumi's are not. They are still actively struggling and fighting their physical and mental battles; their stories have yet to be completed.

Yuuta's story isn't technically completed (ignoring everything that happened in the recent chapter with him for the sake of MY mental health), he is still a success story. He is the average protagonist who started from the bottom and ended up at the top. Only he, as Gege has done time and time again, has a slightly stronger focus on mental health than most other Shonen. He is success where Gojo & Geto failed, and the success that Itadori & Megumi are narratively striving for.

At the beginning, Yuuta was depressed and suicidal. He was bullied at school and involuntarily hurting others. Instead of becoming resentful of the world, he pushed all of the vileness inward. His guilt caused him to try to take his life, presumably multiple times, but Rika stopped him before he could succeed. His life was effectively out of his hands; he felt powerless with all of the bodies stacking around him, and he couldn't atone for "his" actions.

His mental health, as it was, was in shambles. Gojo then offered him a way forward. Yuuta's mental health did not improve overnight. It was when he made friends at Jujutsu High, and developed a support system, that he was able to relieve his anxiety and realize that life is not so bad after all. That all of this pain and suffering and loss - it will pass.

The most important thing to acknowledge when it comes to Yuuta is the sheer fact that he was not alone, nor did he allow himself to be alone. Unlike Gojo, who still had Shoko and Nanami after Geto left but refused to connect with them, Yuuta allowed himself to get close to those around him. They didn't know the suffering he'd undergone for so many years. They didn't know what it was like to be him, but that was okay. He knew that they had empathy, that even though they could never experience his life, they could still be there for him now when he falls.

When given the opportunity to surrender, Yuuta stands in the face of one Geto Suguru and swears to protect his friends and fight with Rika. He's so far removed from the boy who tried to kill himself at the beginning of the manga, and that's because he let himself be changed. He did not succumb. He had friends, he knew. People that would miss him if he left, and people whom he would regret leaving.

This stays consistent with his character. He doesn't let himself become isolated in his strength or his experiences. He's much stronger than everyone else in the room, he's a special grade and he knows that, but he still treats everyone like they are equals. Like they are his friends, like they are people who could share this burden of existence with him. This is something that Gojo couldn't accomplish, which lends to the fact that Gojo had a very off-hand teaching method when it came to mentoring Yuuta. Instead of influencing him under this idea of strength conquers all, he let Yuuta develop far away from the ideals of the Japanese Jujutsu Society.

And, in the end, the fact of him being physically strong - a special-grade sorcerer from the get-go - never helped him in his mental health. In fact, it made him miserable until he learned to get a handle on Rika. His winning or losing that fight with Geto wasn't the point of his character, it was reckoning with the fact that he is okay now. That he can embrace the ugly part of him with dignity instead of guilt.

4. Itadori Yuuji

Itadori's entire character is that he has an unbreakable spirit. As the only one who can bear the soul of Sukuna, he started off like Yuuta, only on the opposite end of the mental health spectrum. When we first see him, he's happy, spending his afternoons with the Occult Club and watching movies.

... What happened?

Like Geto, everything piled on very slowly. So slow that I'm not even sure he felt the true effects of everything he experienced up until the fall of Shibuya. It starts with the death of grandfather, whose parting words "Just save as many people as you can" haunt him even now during the final fight with Sukuna. He was never given time to properly grieve his grandfather, just as he never had time to grieve the brother curses, Junpei, Nanami, Nobara, Gojo, Higurama. At the end of it all, when the fighting is over, I have to wonder what will become of the boy that realizes he's lost most of the people he loved.

The one time he did try to process it, when he realized that he couldn't control Sukuna, was when he broke down in Shibuya. Sukuna leveled an entire city. For the boy who never wanted to kill another human being for fear of devaluing life, the weight of his weakness killing thousands was crushing. Then Nanami died. Nobara died (still hanging onto that unknown status but I digress). Both are right in front of him, and powerless to prevent Mahito from disintegrating their bodies. So, obviously, Itadori broke down. The boy with the unshakeable spirit, the only person who could contain the King of Curses, has his psyche completely shattered.

He laid on the ground, and he wouldn't have gotten back up if there wasn't somebody to help him, to be there with him. Todo pulled him back together, stitched back up the broken into somebody who has allies and people to fight for. Itadori has the success that Yuuta had, only Itadori did not come out of it with better mental health.

After the breakdown, his unshakeable spirit was nothing more than the will to keep fighting. He cares little for himself, and he tries to distance himself from people to prevent them from dying from his cursed hands. He is jumping, quickly, down the same rabbit hole that Geto fell down. One big event, and they realize just how tall the pile already is, and that it will never stop growing. Unlike Geto, however, he continues to get overbearing support from those around him. Against his will. He can't push them away, for they refuse to leave his side. Yuuta, Choso, Megumi, even Higurama. They won't let him fall. This makes him better off than someone alone, in a sense. He can withstand his trauma when others may not.

Even so, even so, there is only so much support, the lack of self-isolation, can do when the traumas keep actively repeating. When he says that he will gladly die to defeat Sukuna, it is not said with the same tone that another Shonen protagonist would say it. Take Naruto for example. If he were to go into a battle to protect, say, Sasuke, he would scream, "I'll die to protect him." We understand that his willpower is stronger than his self-preservation, but we don't get the idea that he actively wants to die. He'll die if he has to. Now, Itadori says the same thing, but about saving Megumi. He says, "I'll gladly die." There is something different. His willpower is leaps and bounds stronger than his self-preservation, but that's not only it. There is an undercurrent of severe suicidal ideation prevalent in Itadori's tone. It's not that he will die to win, it's that a part of him wants for this to be his final fight. For it all to be over. To save Megumi, then atone for the sin of being too weak to save Shibuya, or being unable to stop the Culling Games, or letting Megumi get hurt when all he wanted was to keep him safe.

I'd call it more along the lines of passive suicidal ideation. He doesn't plan to kill himself, but what would it mean for him to go into dangerous situations without protection? What would it mean for him to succumb to his wounds after he wakes Megumi's soul and kills Sukuna? To not even try to seek medical attention? He's guilty. He believes everything that happened in Shibuya and after is his fault. When faced with the executioner's sword, he was ready to die for his sins, if not for the goal of ending the Games. There is a fine line between willing to die for those you love versus wanting to die for those you love.

Right now, Itadori is fighting to save one person, like his grandfather said. He is not fighting to survive. And that's what people fail to understand about Itadori when they compare him to the other members of the cast. These power-scaling dudebros don't understand that their favorite OP main character has fallen apart at the seams, that his unshakeable spirit to save people doesn't include himself.

5. Fushiguro Megumi

Here we finally come to the question: Why can Itadori take it when Megumi can't? There is a very similar quote that you probably think of whenever you hear this question asked. It's from The Outsiders: "Dally is tougher than I am. Why can I take it when Dally can't?" The answer to this question that Ponyboy gives is the same we can attribute to Megumi. "And then I knew. Johnny was the only thing Dally loved. And now Johnny was gone."

The entire reason Megumi became a Jujutsu sorcerer was to protect his sister. When he was five years old and probably too young to understand most of the words Gojo said, he accepted the offer of training to become a sorcerer in exchange for Tsumiki's happiness. Every day, he fought to protect her. He only had one goal in entering the Culling Games: to prevent Tsumiki from having to participate.

It's easy to attribute Megumi's constant attempts at summoning Mahoraga to a lack of will to live - suicidal ideation, the same that Itadori now experiences. On one hand, I do understand that he has a fundamental lack of care for his own life, but on the other, I don't think that he intends to throw it all away every single time. He just didn't know any better. Ignorance can lead to death as easily as intentionally seeking it out. That's why he changes his habit after Gojo gives him a lesson in risking death versus dying to win; Megumi still has someone to live for, after all.

Megumi's mental health was already rocky from the start. Not that it was in shambles like Yuuta, but he wasn't fully stable. Like a lot of teenagers, he's moody, somewhat reclusive, and only really likes one or two people maximum. Teenagers aren't known for their sunshine mental health anyway.

Megumi was given time to grieve Itadori after he first died. This trauma of losing him in front of his eyes stuck with him, but he was allowed a grace period of two months to grieve with Nobara. He experienced Shibuya, too, but he still had that one important person to protect. His mental health was alright at this point, all things considered. As long as his sister was alive, he would be fine.

Sukuna knew this. So Sukuna killed Tsumiki using only the Ten Shadows Teqchnique. The one person Megumi spent his whole life dedicated to, was killed by his own cursed technique, his own failure to suppress Sukuna.

In the void of his soul, Megumi was alone. Truly, utterly alone. The only person nearby was Sukuna, the murderer of his sister, the murderer of thousands upon thousands of people. He drowned in the ceremonial bath of crushed curses to hold his soul down in the depths of despair, literally drenched in all of the vileness the world has to offer. Sukuna killed Gojo using Mahoraga's adaption ability, and before that, Megumi was forced to take several of Gojo's mind-altering domain expansions.

Already, he had given up. He gave up when his sister died, but the rest ground a pointed spur into his neck. When Itadori shakes his soul, Megumi is repeating, "That's enough." He was at the end of his rope a long time ago. What more is there to keep living for? He doesn't want to live with the blood of his sister, the blood of the man who practically raised him, and the blood of countless others drenching his hands.

Sukuna killed all of these people, not Megumi. But then, Sukuna killed of those people in Shibuya, not Itadori. Why can Itadori take it? Why can he keep fighting when Megumi lays broken on the ground? Itadori wasn't alone. And Megumi has never been known for his unshakeable spirit. That is the one thing that Itadori can hold over everybody else, the one trait that everyone admires. He was born to shoulder the burden of the world. Megumi wasn't. Megumi wants to die. He is not passively suicidal, for he has no goals left to complete, a plan to die within the body no longer inhabited alone. He is suicidal. He would drive a stake through his heart if it meant relieving his pain. He doesn't want to do it anymore. He's had enough.

And Itadori was in this position once, too? Perhaps not as directly, but he was there. Here is the moment that the protagonist gives the motivating speech to will someone to keep fighting, that life is worth living. I realized today that this is not something Itadori has done yet. He hasn't had a grand speech that's not been about his own willpower. He's never encouraged someone else to keep living in the way that you would expect from the main character. This is his moment, I suppose. He needs to be the person for Megumi that Todo was for him. He has to show Megumi that he isn't alone.

He needs to save Megumi when, all those years ago, Gojo couldn't save Geto.

I don't think some of this fanbase understands how horrible Gege has to be at writing if he just. Let Megumi get up to fight in Chapter 251. All this time, he has shown how Megumi has been defeated. He showed him crumbled on the ground, unmoving. It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the measures Sukuna took to ensnare Megumi's soul worked. Megumi is suicidal after the people he loves have all died because of his technique. God forbid a sixteen-year-old is unable to cope with his trauma alone.

Honorable Mentions:

There are a lot more characters in this story that represent/show mental illness that I didn't go into depth on but are worth mentioning. It was easier to only talk about the major characters since we spend so much time with them and I can fully flesh out everything that should/can be said about them. Anyway, here are a few more that are notably well-written in their mental struggles:

Yoshino Junpei. His story arc follows very similarly to Geto, except he is the bullied student I was making a reference to. Depressed, alone with a mother whose habits he can't stand, he turned to someone he thought could provide him a better life. Interestingly, he is a good representation of the type of children that tend to be groomed. That's surely what happened to him. Mahito used him, then discarded him for his own gains.

Ieiri Shoko. Her main struggle can be seen through her smoking habits. She's been through a lot, lost so many people, and has to keep healing sorcerers only for them to die. Eventually, she was able to come to terms with this. She kicked her smoking habit at the same time she kicked the vicious mental cycle of caring too much about the patient on her table. It's no wonder she picked up a cigarette, for the first time in a while, when Geto led the phantom parade.

Zenin Maki. She works as a very good contrast to Megumi. They both lost their sisters, the people they loved the most, but she turned all of her grief to killing the Zenin clan and gaining Heavenly Restriction. But this, this is because she could do so. There is simply nothing Megumi can do as a soul trapped in his own body. Her grief made her stronger, while for most, it made them weaker.

Inumaki Toge. He isn't seen a lot, but his story is ultimately quite compelling. A boy who hurt many when he was young. He turned his guilt into kindness, a will to protect. He tends a garden to raise plants healthily, for God's sake. He's one of the examples that shows Yuuta that your past actions don't define you, but instead, what you choose to do going forward.

I am not proofreading any of this before I post it. Sorry if it is borderline unreadable with spelling / grammatical errors.

[vidavalor]

I've had to disconnect from my dash because of all the negativity; I honestly do not get why people are acting like a semblance of justice+a movie is the worst thing in the world?

I'm mourning for the full six-episode season we lost because ng couldn't pass the utmost basic sub-zero bar for not acting like scum and of course I wish amazon had kicked him out and then sprung for it anyway (and honestly, as long as you're blaming the right person, I think it's fine to feel upset? We deserved better, the cast and crew deserved, Terry deserved better, and this one guy ruins it for everyone because the bar was buried six feet deep beneath the ground and he still managed to go lower, and that does suck, and it is miserable and unfair, so take a moment if you need it 🤷‍♀️) but let's face it, we got off lucky. Arguably, considering this was a standalone novel from the nineties, that then got made, in one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen, into a limited standalone tv miniseries (and, again, emphasising the standalone here, so even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, we'll still always have S1 and the book; people have been ignoring the Jurassic Park sequels for nearly three decades), and then got a surprise sequel, we were pretty lucky the whole way through.

And regarding the whole what if it's bad thing, I was always going to be worried: I was anxious long before this shit went down, and I was anxious before S2 and even S1, as well. It's not like we ever had any guarantee it was going to be good beforehand either, and at this point, knowing what we do now, I'm not at all sure I'd have trusted ng to write this anyways. So while, yeah sure, I'm maybe a little more anxious now, I trust Michael and David with these characters and I trust Rob and Rhianna with Terry's legacy and story and that they wouldn't have fought so hard for this ending unless they planned to keep fighting and thought they could pull it off. Isn't the problem with this kind of thing normally that what happnes is the creator who cares deeply about the work gets pulled in favour of someone out-of-touch who cares not a jot about the story and needs to leave their own grubby fingerprints all over it? More the other way around here, no?

Anyway, what I also wanted to say was that I really appreciated your 'think of it as the final two episodes of season two' (and all your takes on this situation so far, very level-headed and optimistic, thank you). I mean, you're right, and it's hardly wildly out-there for a series to finish on a feature-length special, and although the filler material in S2 and the compression of S3 maybe means it doesn't exactly resemble what the second book would have been, it was only ever meant to be two books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed S2 and was very glad to get it, even though I am a book/S1 fan and also had the most fun in that time fandom pre/post/around the time of the S1 release, but why does it exist? Ego? You can't tell me you couldn't have fit the important parts of S2 into one season with the S3 plotline.)

Basically, I'm grieving the could-have-beens (imagine if he'd been exposed way earlier and the TP estate had had control of this whole production from the very start!) and I'm a little worried that that hurt'll stick around no matter how good S3 is - which I need to fix, because that's more power over my favourite show and what it means to me that I want to give anyone, let alone someone like that - but at the end of day, I do think it definitely can be done with what we have, and I'm choosing to be hopeful it'll be done well, because, well, why wouldn't I?

(I will say this hasn't been great for my faith in humanity, because I really want to believe not all men are shit and some of them are making it very difficult right now, but that's an entirely different problem and so far believing most people are mostly good has always prevailed in the end so. y'know. we'll get there. might reread discworld, that's always good for that.)

Sorry for venting all this at you! I just kinda felt the need to write it all down once to get it off my chest... have a snack on me? I'm partial to cherry tomatoes, green melon and mandarines at the moment (I stop eating salads in winter, which means I default to eating even more fruit) but I can also offer homemade baked goodies fresh from this morning? 🥧

Hi there. 💕 You are welcome to vent away & thank you for the delicious-sounding snacks and kind words. I'm glad my posts on the movie boosted your spirits about it. I agree with and can relate to almost everything that you said here so assume that anything that I don't address just has a 'yes, absolutely' nod happening. 🙂‍↕️

The one thing I want to touch on here is S2 and this idea of it being "filler" that you mentioned that I think might not be quite accurate. I think you (and anyone else who reads this) might feel more enthused about the idea of a good ending in 90 minutes after reading this so hopefully this'll be another way that I can help?

On why S2 is really the whole story and actually had a lot more going on in every way than S1...

Ok, I'm going to explain something that drives writers like myself bonkers 😂 and that is how some readers or viewers of fictional stories mix up plot and story.

Nothing grinds our gears than reading things like "filler" and "unnecessary subplots" because, while everyone is within their rights to have an opinion on written works, 95% of the time, the person who says phrases like this isn't talking about the quality of the work but of its very existence. They're saying "why did we have to read/watch this? it didn't connect to anything" and that's where they are very, very, very... argh, just tell them, Crowley...

...thank you, dear. Right, so, why is it wrong?

Because what many people who don't write don't understand about subplots and more character-driven story arcs is that the writers sat down and decided to do that stuff for very, very specific story reasons. Readers and viewers mistake plot for story. Plot only exists in service of story and, so, all plots exist for a purpose in the story. They're all relevant. In fact, the stuff people usually label as "filler" in a story is really exactly where they should be looking to figure out what the story is saying. If you're big mad about all this time you spent with Maggie and Nina in S2, I'd say you might not still understand what S2 was about because you won't understand Aziraphale's story without understanding both Maggie and Nina's struggles in S2, for example.

A story is the whole, overall thing. It's the meanings, themes, and messages in the work. It's what's being said. It's the ideas being put forth by the piece. It's what it's about. It's different from plot, which is just the stuff the writers are making the characters do or not do in order to tell the story that they are looking to tell. Story is the art; plot is a tool used to make that art. Fiction writers can come at their story from almost anywhere to convey what it is that they are trying to say so there is meaning in the fact that they are choosing to tell their stories the way that they are telling them. They came up with these ideas for reasons.

When you dismiss stuff as filler, you're saying that it's lesser than more in-your-face and bigger plots (when, often, it's very much not), and you're telling a writer how they should have written their own story-- most of the time, without even fully seeing the ending of that story or giving any consideration to why it is that the writer wanted you to read or watch the stuff you're saying wasn't necessary. I'm not arguing that every story is perfect but you aren't getting anywhere near close to being able to evaluate a story if you're not willing to dive into what you were given and consider why it was that you were given those things and what they might mean.

Until the main question that you're asking about every single aspect of a story is "what is this saying?", you're not really fully engaging with a work. You won't get there by dismissing what the artists are telling you is important.

The secret sauce to interpreting fiction are subplots, actually. They exist to help highlight the themes of the main story, often in a slightly more direct way. If you want to understand Good Omens, starting with Ineffable Bureaucracy is actually one of the best ways to get at the core of the themes of the story. It's far from wasted time in the story.

There's actually a funny nod to the importance of subplots in 1941 when Aziraphale references Sophocles, the playwright who basically created the concept of the supporting character whose story mirrors and parallels the main character(s). The mention of Sophocles shows up in S2, the season that brings Gabriel more fully into his purpose as exactly that.

The reason why S2's plot is centered around the honestly pretty easily solvable mystery as to what's happened to Gabriel is because Gabriel, from the get-go, has been the entire story distilled down.

If you follow nothing but Ineffable Bureaucracy in Good Omens, you're going to be closer to getting what it's about and where it's going and what its end game is than you are if you are dismissing it as wasted time when we only have few episodes left. If you haven't yet seen the secret wisdom in Jim-- not to mention understand that Jim and Gabriel are the same person-- then you're probably wigging out more about the movie.

You likely think that S2 was wasted on stuff like Gabriel, or Maggie and Nina's romance, when they should have been getting to Armageddon and The Second Coming already!

You haven't yet noticed that Armageddon has more than one meaning in the series.

It's not always the literal destruction of Earth but also a person's own life crisis. We are all worlds of our own and those worlds can be put at risk if we don't let others in and take care of ourselves and those around us.

When you realize this, you can start to see that S1 goes hard with a freight train of plot all over the place that is related to Armageddon in a more Biblical, apocalyptic sense while it establishes its universe for us but that, once we know how it all works, we can get something like S2... a time where we can step back and start using Armageddon in the more figurative way that the story is also presenting it.

We need to because the story isn't about Heaven or Hell-- it's about being a person. S2 is emphasizing the deeper aspects of the themes and rolling that out at a pace more in line with a person having a few days of inner crisis. When you see that Aziraphale's crisis is the point then you can see how S1 can be about The Four Horsepeople riding to the end of the world and S2 can show War (inner conflict), Pollution (mental health issues), and Famine (symptoms of the other two; lack of food and pleasure and connection; self-starvation and self-denial) as a mental health crisis.

The point is that if you're thinking these characters need to come together to overthrow Heaven and Hell and get to the South Downs Cottage and there's no time slajdflkfwjlkejlje!?!?, then you aren't realizing that not every revolution involves guns and bombs.

People all over the world can start a love train that's far more effective. You might think a subplot about The Hellhound and The Ginger Cat learning to play nice and that they have a fuckton in common and should maybe bury the hatchet and just become eternal bffs already is filler but Crowley and Gabriel aligning is set up for the end game. It's strength in numbers and finding peace and family. They can't overthrow Heaven/Hell without help and Gabriel is the Supreme Archangel. They literally will never have a South Downs Cottage ending without a plot that helped Crowley and Aziraphale see that Gabriel and Beez are on their side.

This is the revolution in Good Omens:

It will take all the characters coming together to overthrow Heaven/Hell and set up something new for us to get a happy ending and we absolutely will. S2 is Gabriel-centric because Gabriel is the key to all of the characters getting a peaceful ending and because he's a split-directly-down-the-middle mirror of both Crowley and Aziraphale. In a season that is more about Aziraphale's inner Armageddon than about an external threat, Gabriel is vital to telling that story. The plot of S2 is every bit as important to the story as S1. I'd argue that it's even more important because takes the time to go at the themes in a slower, deeper way. It needs to because it's a story of a fall that sets up for a story in S3 of a recovery from one.

Good Omens is the absolute perfect combination of a show that is both very, very detail-oriented and full of depth while also being, secretly, an incredibly simple story. I do not mean simple in a negative way but in a chef's kiss sort of way. Simple in a tight and elegant sort of way. This is something that I think some people might not see when they're theorizing but it's something to keep in mind ahead of the movie. Not just because the movie is shorter-- this would have been relevant if we were having a longer S3, too.

Good Omens has a very engaged fan base that looks for the details, yes. *raises hand* I'm one of them lol. And there will be plenty to pour over in the movie, but... the big thing to keep in mind is that your theory needs to be something that is simple, that can be explained in under a handful of scenes, tops, and that is focused on where Aziraphale's story arc is going above anything and everything else.

If you're beginning with time loops and the birth of a new antichrist baby, I'm telling you from ages of experience reading and writing stories, you're going to be way off. If you are over here composing theories of the story that you are arguing are correct and this theory involves, idk... *makes something up* Crowley is really Elvis and Elvis is really The Bentley and when a rainbow hits Whickber Street at exactly 4 minutes into the new season, Satan will be revealed to really be Jesus, I think maybe you might be missing the point of the details that the show has given already. Like the plot, these details exist to reinforce the themes of the story. Story beats everything else-- it's what this is all about.

And what Good Omens is about? Is best summed up by Michael Sheen, in this single sentence that I really, really agree with and have paraphrased more than once in posts:

Good Omens is about the business of living. It's about the human experience, which is the experience of being a person. Everything related to Heaven and Hell and good and evil and Armageddon and supernatural things is plot that only exists to highlight a story about the complexities of being a person.

The supernatural is human and the human is supernatural.

That is what Good Omens is about.

While Crowley and Aziraphale are built as two halves of a whole and are both main characters, Aziraphale is the main character from a technical, story perspective, because he is the character whose story arc is driving both the plot and story forward. He's heading for a happy ending with Crowley in the South Downs by the end of the film. If you're making theories, start with what kind of plot would truly get him there and still fit with all of the themes of the story.

This 'it's about being a person' business is why if you look at S2 as filler and not as a season that is exploring the continuing themes on a deeper level, you're still worried about things like there being no time in a movie to show the story of a new antichrist kid being born or how they're going to fit the whole Second Coming into the movie. You don't yet see that Aziraphale parallels Adam and that being an antichrist is basically just being a person and that Aziraphale is presently the antichrist in the story. There is no antichrist child yet to be born. They won't be cutting it because it's not the story.

Armageddon since S2 has been Aziraphale's own personal one and the story from the end of S2 on is now how, if all the other characters can't come together to help him, it could also trigger Armageddon of the S1, Earth-destroying kind. It's tying a more literal Armageddon into a more figurative one. Because this story is about being a person so Armageddon is just metaphorical for going through a mental health crisis and shutting people out.

This story's themes include that every person matters and we all have to let others in and look out for one another. That there's strength in numbers. That found family and adopted family is as much family as biological family-- often, even more so. That labelling and categorizing people is bullshit and you should always open the cover and read the first sentences of people and help people whose stories begin with the same letters find one another. That it might be surprising who has things in common. It's about all of Heaven and Hell versus all of humanity, in the sense that ideas of being a perfect angel or being seen as an evil demon are concepts felt by human beings that get in the way of peace and healthy, happy living, but that fighting them is a common, human struggle, regardless of from where you come.

If you are too focused on the religious plot being the center of the film, you haven't yet seen the meaning of why the end of S1 was an eleven year old kid saving the world by telling off the bio-dad that was never there for him. You might be one of the people who thought this a silly, anti-climatic ending to that story, and don't yet realize that this is the entire story in a nutshell.

Adam can only reject Satan and keep the darkness at bay because he is surrounded-- here, literally-- by a family that supports him. He has good people for parents and was lucky enough to grow up with resources that all kids in this world should have. He has an absolutely terrific group of friends. He has this witch lady and her boyfriend and these two gay uncles that just showed up out of nowhere 😂 and his human incarnate self has what it needs to make it through this crisis, in this moment, even if he'll probably have others throughout his life, just like all of us. He's not evil incarnate and he doesn't have to be perfect-- he's just a person.

Aziraphale tells Adam this but struggles to see himself in the same way. That's what S2 is about.

S2 is about that other kid who, like Adam, breaks the season down into a single line of dialogue, David Tennant's apparent favorite from the season:

Jemimah knows who she is and she is happy to claim ownership over her art and contributions to the world. She's living her life with excitement and enthusiasm in a way that gets more complicated as we become traumatized adults. Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this. They have been making a life together on Earth for thousands of years and each struggle, in their own ways, to truly accept that they are people who are allowed to have a life because they struggle to accept that they are people, just like everyone else.

Their story is about getting to a better place with that. That's really all Good Omens fundamentally is. That's why their ending is going to be to go live in a little cottage together that isn't a business that covers up an angelic embassy that covers up a secret love den. It's just their house-- theirs together for the life they're going to live openly together.

If you want some peace with the film, I'd advise throwing over your theories about The Second Coming and Armageddon needing to happen and antichrist kids and how Jesus fits into everything. Jesus in Good Omens is Crowley romancing Aziraphale at the crucifixion and Aziraphale using what Jesus said to Crowley to reject temptation as invitation to fuck him. I thought Jesus in a single scene or less was the most likely thing for S3 and the same holds for the movie. It's not the story. The only time The Second Coming is mentioned in S2 is by the villain and, to get there, Earth would have to first be destroyed. It won't be.

If the story is about being a messy human walking the Earth and we're in the end game now, then the story is about Aziraphale and only Aziraphale. Everything-- everything-- will be in service of Aziraphale's story arc. We already had just a few episodes with S3 and we now have even less time but the way this is going is still the same. The story is Aziraphale's fall and the other characters coming together to challenge Heaven to keep Aziraphale from eternity in Hell. That's how Armageddon is stopped this time around-- overthrowing Heaven with Aziraphale's fate as the motivation to take on The Metatron. It's nothing to do with Jesus. It's everything to do with Aziraphale.

When you see that, you can see how feasible that is in 90 minutes, with plenty of time for things like 1941, Part 3 and other flashbacks.

I think, when all is said and done, you might wind up appreciating S2 more after the film but you can get there already if you start looking at it less as meaningless fluff and start asking why it is that we were shown this story, in this way, and what that can tell us about the story we're watching.

[fic-dumpster]

The road so far

Summary: Have you ever wondered what goes through a writer’s mind while she’s trying to complete the stories you like so much? Well! Wonder no more! Here’s a first look into a writer’s unstable mind!

Characters: Bonten against Omi (no x because it’s war)

Word count: 1K

Content Warnings: fighting, slight breaking of the fourth wall, sitcoms, crackfic, it’s a joke. Yes, it can be read as x reader… just pretend. Hostility, a meme, DIH references, other fandoms mentioned.

A.N: TAKEOMI IS NOT OMI. I am Omi. I wrote this in 15 so it’s very rushed. idk… this is me trying to portray my internal struggles while I write. I just worked joke of 1000 words… and yes, characters never listen to what we want.

“If you think we’re gonna cooperate with you after leaving us for almost three years, you’re delusional,” Kokonoi crossed his legs once he sat down in front of Omi.

Omi had called a meeting with Bonten in hopes of coming to an agreement. She needed to work on her WIPs but her characters weren’t cooperating.

“As a matter of fact, I am delusional,” Omi answered, sipping from her water bottle, “anyway, I just need to finish the rest of the meetings and we’re done! Swear!”

Around her, the rest of Bonten sat with serious faces. Nobody was happy to be there. After her disappearance a few years ago, things weren’t quite as peaceful between them as they used to be.

“Yeah, yeah. I see how you are. Use us and drop us.” Sanzu sounded bitter and angry. He didn’t take the vanishing so well. He had bonded with her and she just left him. That wasn’t right in his book.

“Ugh, women…” With a sigh, Rindou stretched his long limbs, showing how tired and stressed he was.

“What do you mean ‘ugh? Women?’” Omi harshly questioned Rindou with a frown on her face.

“Nothing…” he replied nonchalantly, sitting up straight once again.

“Forget that! You clearly have preferences for certain members.” As she heard that voice her skin began to crawl. Hair standing on end, Omi slowly turned towards the source— once she saw his obnoxious face, only irritation was left behind.

“Oh, shut up, Ran! I wrote your story with your brother first! Why are you complaining?” She quickly replied, raising her hand in protest.

“Because he’s one of those,” added Mochi in a whisper.

So much of a whisper that was… half the men present burst out laughing which caused Ran to sigh in frustration. He was done. So many years and he still didn’t know what the hell that meant.

“We can't just hop back in,” Takeomi’s voice raised above the hysterical laughter of his peers.

Omi deflated at his words. She dreaded the worst… Was this how things were going to end?

“Please, I’ll do anything! I can’t leave the story like that!” Her eyes began to water as desperation crept in.

“Well, too bad! You left!” Sanzu’s bitterness didn’t falter, not even at the sight of unshed tears in her eyes.

“I said I was sorry! And I was busy with life, you know?”

“Yeah? Life? Then who are those guys? Rhysand? Sylus? Jinshi?” Sanzu spoke each name with disdain.

“Yeah! Who’s Umemiya? And some dude named Hoshina?” Rindou backed him up.

“More? I only heard about Sanji—” Kakucho suddenly intervened but was cut off by Omi.

“Okay! Stop! Oh my gosh!! Stoop!” Omi’s face had changed three different types of red in the last few seconds, “That… has nothing to—“

“Bullshit! I call bullshit! You created a different blog for the Stylus guy!” Sanzu was not dropping the subject.

“Oh my gosh! Let it go! And his name is Sylus!”

“AHAA!” Pink hairs wildly flew everywhere as Sanzu stood up and pointed an accusatory finger at Omi.

“Just… just help me write the few chapters I’m missing and the end. That’s all I’m asking… I lost the WIPs and I can’t by myself…” she pleaded. Internally praying they understood her dire situation.

“What do we get in return?” Mikey finally spoke after observing the back and forth between his men and Omi.

That sentence perked her up. A ray of hope finally came in between the stormy clouds.

“What-what would you want?” She asked with bright eyes and a new determination ignited.

“We can discuss that later,” Mikey waved his hand dismissively.

Omi nodded eagerly in return. Finally! Some progress. “Okay, fine… that’s good…”

After Mikey’s short exchange of words, they decided to end the meeting. It was time to move forward and begin working. Everyone stood up and began to leave the room.

They saw Omi move to the side with Takeomi and they started to talk amicably, with smiles and very friendly hand gestures. It was like time had never passed for them. She didn’t treat him differently and Takeomi seemed comfortable with her.

“Why does she like the old man…” Kakucho wondered out loud.

“It’s the daddy issues, I bet,” Sanzu was seething as he kept watching the scene play in front of him.

“What did you say?!” You turned your head like the exorcist once you heard those words leave Sanzu’s lips.

“Does she have superhuman hearing? How the hell did she hear you?” Ran said with a bit of panic in his voice.

And it began. Omi had been chasing the pink-haired man for a while now…

“I DON'T NEED YOU, SANZU! I CAN FINISH DIH WITHOUT YOU!” But before she could catch him, a pair of hands caught her first, “UGH! KAKUCHO LET ME GO! HE’S DEAD!”

Meanwhile a bit further away from the commotion.

“We have agreed to help her. Was it really necessary to do all the drama?” Questioned Takeomi to Mikey and Mochi. The three men watched the rest battling it out.

“We voted and the majority chose to make drama before agreeing,” Mikey said as his eyes followed Sanzu speeding away from Omi,

“Even Koko?” Mochi was surprised by that information.

“Even Koko.” Mumbled the short man.

“RAN, YOU TOO! BOTH YOU AND SANZU ARE DEAD!” Omi yelled, still being held by Kakucho who was trying to help diffuse the situation.

“What did I do?”

“YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE!” She kicked her feet in an attempt to be let loose, “I SHOULD HAVE KEPT WRITING FOR HAIKYUU! They wouldn’t treat me like this!”

“Yeah? Well, go and play ball with your sporty boys!” Ran screamed back.

“You’re insufferable!” Omi screamed as she tackled Ran to the ground.

“She became way more violent in the years we didn’t see her,” Mikey commented and the rest of his executive nodded in agreement. Everyone just watched Omi and Ran scuffling on the floor.

Bonus:

Omi: and then you do as it says here *points to the script*

Kakucho: that’s too mean. I don’t want to do that.

Omi: you’re a criminal! How is it mean to push her face down and—

Kakucho: shhh no please *blushing*

Omi: I’m working with amateurs… *throws her stack of paper into the trash*

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

So, I'm not done with Worm yet, so I may be surprised by something, but while I will 100% agree that people who haven't read Worm (and have just read the fanfiction) shouldn't write worm fanfic, I think the degree to which 'the fanfiction gets stuff wrong' is vastly overstated.

Because things like the Wiki exist, and a pretty active fan community, getting the actual basic facts is not hard. Apart from particularly controversial bits of fanon (Aura Theory, for instance) it's rare that a fanfic, even one written by someone who hasn't read Worm, gets fundamental details about basic facts of the setting wrong. (At least as long as the person is making the effort to do that).

Where fic can trip you up is in implications, impressions and errant details regarding the motivations and personalities of secondary characters. That's where I've found the biggest 'that's not what I got from the fanfic'. And while those things can be really big deals and trip you up, I don't know if they're really as big a deal as a lot of people want to nitpick and bitch about.

Because while those things can be wrong, they're not usually wildly out of left field, but rather just - what happens in fanfic and frankly, in any sort of writing that goes on long enough (see TV shows, long running book series, etc) - an exaggeration of what's already there.

To take a recent example - the degree to which Carol Dallon gets portrayed as an abusive parent to Amy can absolutely and has absolutely been overplayed in some fanfics. Especially ones that make her trigger-happy with her magic lightsaber axe. But at the same time, while we don't see a lot of Carol in Worm, what little we do does give various impressions of the character, most of which are pretty fucking negative. The degree to which a fanfic then takes those impressions and then plays with them can start to get absurd and give someone unfamiliar with the source material false impressions, but they are derived from the actual text of Worm.

Like, I don't think Carol actually hates Amy, in the text. But I also think 'Carol hates Amy' is not a huge leap from what's in the text. It is, to paraphrase Buffy Summers, more like you take a few small steps and there you are.

This whole thing is a bit of a roundabout way of saying: That annoying fic trope of the SI into Worm who 'only reads the fanfic' as a way for the fic author to knock those who write worm fanfic without reading Worm is actually pretty stupid. Because in practice, they'd probably get along fine overall.

[alexanderwales]

"Railroaded" is an adversarial roleplaying game for two people, adjudicated by AI. I tried coding a crappy version of it, and it worked poorly enough that I didn't pursue it further, but hey, maybe someday, once the hallucination and attention and persistent memory and jailbreaking problems are all solved.

One player is the Dungeon Master. They can establish things to be true about the world, write dialogue for NPCs, and adjudicate conflict resolution. Anything established cannot be changed unless there's reason for this general knowledge to be found untrue later (e.g. if a village established to exist has been burned down). All these things can also be delegated to the AI, and in fact the Dungeon Master can be played by the AI.

The Dungeon Master's goal is to get the player to do the Quest, which is given to the Dungeon Master at the start of the game.

One player is the Player. They can control their character and establish things to be true about that character, and also attempt actions which are adjudicated by the Game Master. Anything the player establishes to be true remains true, unless changed by the Game Master, and then it still must be true that the Player's character could have thought whatever the Player said was true (e.g. if the Player says their character has a dead brother, the Game Master can say that the brother survived the fall off the cliff somehow). All these things can also be delegated to the AI, and in fact the Player can be played by the AI.

The Player's goal is to not do the Quest.

Generally speaking, I think it's nearly impossible for the Game Master to get the Player to do the Quest, even if the Player has information asymmetry working against him and can only infer the Quest from what the Game Master does.

Because of this, the game runs for some set amount of either in-game or out-of-game time, and after that's done, the AI decides the winner. The winner is decided on the basis of 1) how close the Player came to doing the Quest and 2) how unreasonable each player was.

The scoring criteria is really the sticking point, and one of the reasons that this is a good candidate for using AI. Since the game is adversarial, you need either a third player to play judge, which I don't think would go well, or you need some rigorous scoring system, which I don't think would be feasible for something that's meant to be extremely freeform. With an AI that does not, in my opinion, yet exist, you can have an endlessly patient judge who will at least rule relatively consistently. You can also have the judge give scoring guidance ahead of time, e.g. "If you do that, I will count it as within three degrees of reasonableness out of seven".

The end result is that the Game Master is trying to be subtle about railroading, and the Player is trying to be subtle about getting as far away from the railroad as possible.

So I did partially code this up with some prompts, with the intention of having the AI at least good enough to play one or both roles, or at least be able to judge, but it just didn't really work. Having these different "layers" of play is already straining what a modern LLM can model, since there's a Player and a player character and different goals for each of them. It only worked a few times, and it was great when it did, but it was wildly inconsistent in a way that I don't think fine-tuning and prompt-engineering are ever going to be able to fix, plus context windows still matter, and this is a game that ideally gets played over a relatively long back-and-forth of text.

There are also a bunch of details to hammer out, like "what are the Quests" and "how much time can the Player spend clarifying the state of the world" and "how much can the Game Master pin down the player's characterization", but that's all downstream of getting the basics in place, which again, I don't think modern AI can do.

Here's some example play:

GM: You're sitting in a tavern when you hear tell of a princess in Cambria who's been kidnapped by rogues. Player: None of my business. I've always been against the monarchy. GM: The king's putting little effort into saving the princess. Rumor is that she's expressed some reform sentiments, up to and including the abolition of the throne. It might even be that these "rogues" are under the king's employ. Player: Ah, but I only look out for myself, I've very selfish like that. GM: Northund is offering a reward for anyone who brings them the princess from Cambria, if they can fight their way through these rogues. It's a hefty price. Player: I took a vow of poverty, actually, to rid myself of material attachments. GM: Unfortunately for you, the king's guards come into the tavern. They're looking for you. Player: Probably my unpaid taxes, nothing that I don't have coin to deal with. GM: Coin? With your vow of poverty? Player: I mean, I still pay taxes, that's only fair. GM: Unfortunately for you, you're being deported. Player: Ah, let me guess, to Cambria?

I have enough skeletal python code and prompting to try getting this running periodically, if the models actually do improve or it seems like there's been some leap forward on the other issues.

[thymejot]

About your meta, I guess the thing is if you believe that Word Of God is canon or not. Jac Schaeffer said that Agatha was thinking she wanted to save Billy and kiss Rio and that she never wanted to bring Nicholas back. For me it’s not canon unless I like what they say 😝 but the fun of reading meta is to see everyone’s sometimes wildly different takes and in the end of the day people can think anything they want because we all bring our preferences, our bias and even our traumas to it

I believe Agatha truly loved Rio, I believe there was considerable time in their lives that they weren’t toxic to each other in any way and I believe that aren’t done, they still have centuries to work out their issues but I know there are plenty of fans that don’t believe in any if that. who’s right, who’s wrong I don’t think anyone can know and as long as everyone is respectful it’s all good. I just hope this fandom continues to be fun for a long time cause we all need the distraction

It is what I love about shows like this. Honestly, I dont think there is a right or wrong way to look at things.

Like you say, everyone has their own bias and will project onto characters. I really enjoy it when people want to have discussions about the things I love. I really appreciate you wanting to talk about this with me.

And the fact that while you may disagree with me on some points, you are not mean about it and are challenging me to look at things from a different perspective. So, thank you.

While I find it interesting to read up on writers intent, I don't ever take it as gospel unless it is there on screen. Between now and a potential next project with these characters, the writers could have evolved their ideas or changed their own interpretation of the characters. So I try not to hold too tightly to what they say.

Instead, I like to take what I have seen on the screen. The characters have shown us who they are with word, action, and deed. Every choice they have made forms who they are. A show not tell approach if you will.

I agree with you, Rio and Agatha love each other deeply. There was a time that it was far less toxic, and there may come a time when that is true once more.

I want to see them in all of their evolutions and iterations.

I want to see Agatha, the mentor. She has never been one to pull her verbal punches, so she won't take any nonsense. Her dynamic with Billy is so good that I would like to see that explored more.

I want to see Billy explore his powers, find his brother, and grow up a little more without being hardened by the world.

I want to see Jen flourish as she reaquaints herself with her power once more. Still snarky but less brittle. If she ever sees Agatha and Teen, have her just turn around and get the fuck away from them. Because they only lead to death.

In the end, though, my opinion is just one in a sea of thousands. I will write some ridiculous fanfics to get this show out of my system. Maybe make them a bit too oc for my own liking. Hopefully, I will learn from that and get better.

I just want to have fun with things. I don't want to hurt anyone with things I post unless it is superficial emotional damage (I eat that shit up). I hope you keep having fun with it, too.

In the end, as much as it pains me to admit it, these are not real people. So why not just go buck wild with our imaginations and throw them in every conceivable scenario. It's not like it will hurt anyone, so why not.

Feel free to chat with me any time

[nenilein]

Hello! Apologies for sending an ask out of the blue but considering your familiarity with localisation differences in persona 4/golden, I was wondering if anything comes to your mind regarding this aspect and how the game depicts queerness and queer themes? Thank you!

Heya! Don't worry, I was thinking people would probably ask stuff like this. After all, I already replied to somebody's tags asking this same thing previously, but I know not many people saw that, so let me use the chance to go into more detail:

Unfortunately, Persona 4's treatment of queer themes is not a result of the translation. The only things that were down to translation choices were small things, such as which pronouns are used in which situation (because Japanese does not at all have the same concept of third person pronouns as English, and the way first person classifiers that mean "I" work is very complex and a lot more vibes-based than actually tied to gender.)

But for the most part, everything is pretty much the same. Kanji's reaction to Chie mumbling about something being "off" about how he interacted with Naoto that first time, the tent scene, Yosuke's extreme insecurity in his own sexuality in addition to everyone else's... I think maybe the only thing that's a biiit better in Japanese is that Teddie is kiiinda genderfluid in Japanese, with the artbook outright stating that he doesn't necessarily consider himself "male" when he's in his bear form, unless it's necessary for a joke.

A lot of this can be traced to the really odd relationship the game's director, Katsura Hashino, has to queer themes. In interviews about Catherine Fullbody (a game which infamously has a rather weirdly handled gay romance route which, however, is notably also the only romance route in the game that cannot possibly result in a bad ending), he talks about how he's always admired queer people for being "strong" and wanted to write queer stories, but couldn't really do it until Fullbody because Atlus higher ups were afraid of backlash from the fans.

Traces of this are actually seen in Persona 4 Vanilla's data, where remnants of a surprisingly well done romance route for YOSUKE, of all people, are still present. That route made it far enough into development to have voiced lines in both, English and Japanese. However, it was dummied out in the final game and its script content was removed. Yosuke STILL has the "girlfriend flag" in the code that all the female romance options also have, but in the finished game it only checks whether you can hug him during his social link or not. Everything else was dummied out. You can still find the voice files on the cutting room floor if you want:

And yes, the "I like you" line is unambiguously romantic in Japanese. His wording is very hard to misinterpret.

However, in the finished game and the rest of the franchise Yosuke's bisexuality was reduced to an in-joke of the developers. It's most poignant in Persona Q (the first one), where if you get the "marriage" scene with Yosuke in the second dungeon, his reactions differ WILDLY depending on which Protagonist you are playing as, far more than other male characters. With Makoto Yuki he acts nonchallant and deadpan about it. With Yu Narukami he acts like a blushy Tsundere and panics constantly. So, yeah.

Okay, so, if the director had interest in writing queer stories since before Persona 4, why is Persona 4 the way it is then?

Well, because - and there's no way around it - he sucks at it.

Katsura Hashino has to be one of the clumsiest "gay activists" I've ever seen in my whole darn life. He finds queer people "cool", but seemingly never had any queer writers or sensitivity readers on his teams and it's caused enormous blunders in how these themes have been handled. For example, when after Persona 3 it was pointed out to him that the writing of the female characters in interaction with the male characters was bad, he immediately hired more female writers and gave them free reign for how to handle the female characters from then on out. But apparently the same thing never happened with his mishandling of queer themes. He wants Catherine's Erica and Rin to be empowering figures for trans women and gay men, but makes a lot of blunders in how he has other characters interact with them to the point it buries his good intentions. Erica's boyfriend having gay panic upon realizing she's trans is treated as "funny and cute", even by Erica herself. Rin technically being a monogender alien really undermines his story of becoming more secure in his sexuality. It goes on and on like that.

The intention with Naoto's story was to point out the extreme sexism in Japanese society and how it forces female nerds to find alternate modes of self-expression, but the clumsy choice of including surgery themes in Naoto's dungeon completely buried that for especially western queer audiences. Most people don't even remember Naoto's dungeon was outright modeled after a Kamen Rider villain hideout. They completely shot themselves in the foot with this one. Additionally, the way Naoto is handled AFTER the dungeon makes her (I'm using that pronoun because she calls herself a "woman" in Japanese in the game) seem more like someone who's on the verge of discovering they are X-gender (the japanese word for "nonbinary") than a repressed girl. Like, right down to how she has Rise help her experiment with clothes in the canonical drama CDs only to realize she really is uncomfortable with skirts and go for an androgynous but less restrictive look going forward. The way she dresses in the Golden epilogue and P4D is pretty X-gender core if you ask me. If they had leaned into that they could have genuinely have had something AMAZING, while also presenting the themes of sexism they wanted to explore, but the lack of queer sensitivity readers kind of ruined it.

Same for Kanji. The way they write him makes it seem like he's bisexual or pansexual, rather than straight, but they kinda shove that part of him aside after his dungeon is done, leaving his actual orientation up in the air and wasting a really good chance for representation. NOW, given what happened to Yosuke's social link, it's quite possible the original intent WAS to explore this more and it got cut, but as it stands, we'll never know. The huge problem of the internalized toxic stereotypes his Shadow presented never being reflected on and put into their right context in the rest of the game, when his social link could've given a great opportunity for that is also a huge shame.

All of this happened because of Atlus being unwilling to let their writers go all out with queer themes in fears of alienating a cishet audience AND because Hashino never sat his writing team down with any actual queer writers to sort this shit out and learn how to get across what the team was ACTUALLY trying to say. Now, given, Persona 4 was far from the only Japanese media property with that exact issue at the time, but it hurts especially much in its case because of the game's themes of exploring the truth to its logical conclusion, as well as psychology. These are issues that a remake REALLY would do well to address and correct. I feel like they actually will HAVE to do that, because sensitivity readers have become the NORM in handling these themes now in Japanese media, rather than the exception. You can thank trail blazing mainstream works like Zombie Land Saga for that.

All in all, Persona 4's handling of queer themes is an exercise in frustration that I hope is corrected soon.

[flight-of-the-sacred-eagle]

So, I’m still yelling about Sonic Prime season 2. It’s. So fucking good?

And not just because someone on the writing team 100% ships Sonadow because, holy crap, so much of that episode feels shippy.

So, full disclosure. Shadow is my favorite Sonic character. Ever since I saw him in Heroes I loved him. As a kid I didn’t notice the real “constantly shifting character” thing. Now, having played almost every major 3d Sonic game (I didn’t play Forces and refused to play Boom), having watched shows like Sonic X and Sonic Prime (again, I stayed away from Boom but I’ve heard it’s amazing), I think it’s obvious that he gets wildly mischaracterized.

He’s angsty, yes. I mean, he watched his child best friend/sister get shot to death in front of him when he was… five (Look, he’s simultaneously Sonic’s age, over 50, and like five- his age is an enigma), that would make anyone angsty. But he’s also genuinely caring, even if he rarely shows it.

Look no further than 06 when he accidentally releases Mephelis because he picks up Rogue to move her away, or when he intercepts Silver so Sonic can go save Elise. He’s actively saved the world three times- SA2, Shadow the Hedgehog, and 06, with him sacrificing his life in his first appearance. And let’s not forget how he genuinely seemed upset in 06 when Sonic died.

Actually, 06 is the best characterization of Shadow since his introduction. And it can basically all be summed up in his own words. “If the whole world chooses to turn against me, then I’ll fight like I always have.”

He’s brooding. He’s harsh. He’s proud and independent. But by god will he fight to the death for what is right. He cares about people, but he uses actions not words.

Now, what does this have to do with Sonic Prime? Well, this is probably the best characterization of Shadow they’ve ever done. He’s still broody and much more reserved, but everything he’s doing is selfless. He’s not beating up Sonic just because.

He’s beating up Sonic because he, rightfully in my mind, sees Sonic as a threat to his world. He isn’t trying to prevent Sonic from saving the world, he’s basically trying to put him in time out for ruining the world.

This is more than proven when he not only realizes that he can’t do something, but he also realizes that the only way to fix everything is to work together. And he actively admit that. Reluctantly, yes, but he says they need to work together.

He’s still angry and is currently furious at Sonic, but… he kind of has the right to be. Interestingly, he actually spoke to Sonic before fighting him (which, side note, was animated amazingly).

And let’s not forget his cockiness. It’s done perfectly. He’s not taking it too far like Sonic tends to do, but him being a smug little shit is great. And I think it really helps to show the dynamic he and Sonic have because he’s just. Not like that around other characters.

Without using words, they managed to show that, despite the fighting that’s happening, there’s a bond between Sonic and Shadow. One that can only be forged by fighting to save the world side by side.

I think it’s also important to mention that Shadow clearly was enjoying his fight with Sonic. Probably because it’s the most normal thing he’s experienced in forever. His friends are gone. Green Hill is gone. The chaos emerald is gone (though I have a suspicion that it’s going to come back at some point. It fell into the void for a reason and that void was shown for a reason. My bet is that they’re going to need to enter the void at some point). He’s trapped in limbo.

Fighting Sonic is a constant. One he desperately needs.

I know I’ve been rambling but for the first time in over a decade, they’ve gotten Shadow’s personality perfectly. Makes me wonder if the writers, or at least some of them, played SA2 growing up. After all… it’s been long enough since he was introduced that the target audience for SA2 when it was released would be old enough to work for the SEGA team.

It also makes me crazy excited for the third Sonic movie. I know they’re different writers, but they have hit the nail on the head with each character, and if a different show can characterize Shadow that well… maybe Sega is relaxing their iron grip on him and allowing him to actively shine.

Also that scene with Shadow falling to the void and Sonic sounding genuinely panicked was amazing. You can tell he was getting SA2 flashbacks. Someone likened the scene to Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man watching MJ fall in No Way Home and catching her when he couldn’t catch Gwen, and yeah. The emotional impact seems to be the same.

Sonic couldn’t save Shadow then, but he can save him now.

Just… go watch Prime if you haven’t. Sonic fans have been treated well these past few years and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

[polyhexian]

Just saw your recent Darius posts and you've managed to put into words exactly how I feel about him. There is clear evidence of his heel turn in canon, and by the end of the series it is very apparent just how much he cares about Hunter. But before that he was Not Nice, he actively contriubuted to the heavy isolation that Hunter was under. You already described why the head chop scene was not as cute as it appeared at face value, but giving him a scroll and telling him to make connectins outside the castle was So Dangerous. He told a kid who was being violently abused to blatantly disgregard his abusers rules.

To be clear I do like Darius' character, he's screwed up badly and made phenominally bad choices, but so did Lilith, so did Gwen. Owl house is good about showing characters making bad mistakes and showing the steps they made to come back from them. With Darius I was looking forward to seeing the development of his and Hunter's bond, to show how damaging Darius' prior bevatior was and showing Darius working hard to make up for it. But then the show just kind of...didn't.

Again, I like Darius' character a lot, but I feel a ball was dropped when it came to writing his and Hunter's relationship.

I agree. Like I know I come across as a hate but I've written! Hundreds of thousands of words! At this point! About Darius and Darius self driven redemption and absolution! I am deeply invested in him! I write Lilith with similar baggage! And I write a WILDLY specific Raine! I'm not a hater. I love Darius. I just also love him knowing his a mean piece of shit who has some extremely serious flaws and actions he needs to apologize and make up for.

Darius and hunters relationship is such an odd one. Most major issues like this are because of season 3 getting shortened, like hunter didn't get his arc finished. Like he basically WAS done, he escaped and we were seeing him bloom away from that control. But then they decided to have the whole possession thing which ITSELF I think was fine and even like a sick ass scene. But also. That starts an entirely new era in his arc. Escaping his abuser did not end his trauma; abusers often reenter your life, or even when dead that trauma can well up within you and poison you later. And I like flapjacks death for FLAPJACKS character arc. But for hunter at that point it becomes messy because. That's the end of that arc basically. They try to... Do something? In for the future with Willow but. That's nothing tbh. We finish with hunter still retraumatized and paranoid and grieving with no... Like... Actually processing it? No end to that arc. So as much as I actually DO like the possession scene- if they couldnt finish that plotline, I don't think they should have started it.

But Darius and hunter??? That's season 2. And Darius was always going to be a puppet until the collector was turned and likely Belos defeated even with a full season. So even with that full season we probably wouldn't have had any more Darius and hunter interactions at all. Like again, the timeline immediately after labyrinth runners with hunter is a little unclear, and I think he was staying with Darius but ????? Who knows dude they don't even say. So like. Season 2 they had all the time they needed to plan out the arc of that relationship and ALSO it was never going to have any more meaningful screentime, so. Uh. Uh? The hell was that

[codenamesazanka]

I need help writing the league of villains for a fan fiction. Like can you give me tips on to write their dialogue and stuff like that

Thanks for the ask! Here are some things that I think would be helpful, but please be aware that it's my approach to writing the League the way I interpret them. I'm sure there's people who finds my fic wildly inaccurate in terms of characterization. Sometimes I go back months later and disagree with my own stuff, given new information or outlook. You'll have different interpretations than me, and that's okay. And thus,

Tip #1: First of all, it’s fanfic, it’s fun, and it’s yours. You can do whatever the heck you want! It does not matter at all what you do with the characters, their dialogue, their personalities, their relationships, etc. I’ve read plenty of AU fanfics where I could not recognize Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko, despite the character having the name, but I still liked the story okay. Really, it’s all up to you and what you want. 

That said, to actually answer your question:

Tip #2: Re-read the manga. Read the scanlations - multiple versions from different scanlation groups. Read the official. No version will be perfect, some are better than others (Viz Official has its issues, but it is done by a professional translator and I tend towards it; Fallen Angels (Chapters 1-150s) was the first to scanlate and iirc they even included translation commentary at the end of their chapters; I found mangastream to be more accurate than Jaimini (Chapters 150-250s)), but having a variety of translations will give you insight into the intention of a dialogue, and different ways of achieving it. Read the original Japanese, if you can. 

Tip #2.5: Best way to figure a character, I find, is to describe the panels they’re in as if you’re writing a very plain, objective, impartial image description. Now you have an overview of their outward behavior, their actions, their dialogue. Using that, you have the basis for developing their motivations and personality. It’s the difference between ‘Shigaraki used gamer lingo a few times here, so he is a gamer... therefore he’s obsessed with games and that’s all he does’ and ‘In the first 100 chapters of the story, despite speaking sometimes like a gamer, Shigaraki is actually seen reading newspapers rather than holding a game console’.

Put another way, don’t assume generalized descriptions or traits for a character and write them based on that. You risk writing a trope or archetype or situation rather than the actual character. 

When a loved one dies suddenly, people will be in shock, before sobbing and weeping uncontrollably. That’s generally true, but the character may manifest grief in a different way. Someone close to Toga is killed - what does she do? You can write her breaking down crying, that’s perfectly reasonable. But if you look at the manga, when Twice is killed, she doesn’t cry right away. She gets angry; she lashes out. She’s deeply hurt by his murder, of course! But the tears she sheds for his passing are few in the immediate aftermath - her grief mostly takes the form of slicing Heroes’ throats.

Tip #3: Read everything else, for inspiration, for background knowledge, for tone, for your own gain outside of fandom.

Just the other day, I read Real, the wheelchair basketball manga by Inoue Takehiko. Its three main characters are marginalized by proper society - two because they’re disabled, one because he’s a high school dropout - and there were moments where I was reminded of the League’s situation. In the first chapter, the high school dropout makes a final visit to school where his teachers didn’t think much of him, and his classmates looked down on him. As he leaves, he thinks to himself that everything he does ends in failure and he’s an idiot, all the while he takes a dump at the school gates as a parting gift.

While I can’t see anyone from the League doing that exactly shot for shot, the spirit of it - being seen as a fuck up, being unwanted, being defiant in face of that, even in a inadvisable way - is similar.

Tip #3.5: Another book I’ve read years ago is Codes of the Underworld: How Criminal Communicate. It was very informative, and I think back to it sometimes when I write for the League. 

Criminals face severe constraints on communication imposed by the action of the law, and, unlike the rest of us, cannot easily develop institutions aimed at circumventing them. This central feature of criminal lives makes communication and above all reliable communication exceptionally hard to sustain. For instance, the same secrecy that protects criminals from the law hinders their opportunities to advertise their goods and qualities… In the underworld, moreover, punishments for mistakes and irrational behavior are harsher than they are elsewhere. In the world of regular business, failures of communication can lead to a loss of business, but in the underworld they can result in years behind bars, or worse.

I don’t follow it exactly, because the League is in a children’s fantasy story, and maybe this was obvious but now that it was written out to me, I know how to give the Villains an “edge” to them that a non-Villain might not have, because as Villains, they do often logically would to be secretive and brutal and cautious. Dabi walking around in broad daylight meant their hideout was discovered and All Might literally took down the wall to the bar; a breakdown in negotiations with Overhaul meant Magne dying and Compress getting his arm blown off. 

Tip #4: Related, let the League be assholes, because sometimes they are. Let them be mean and cruel and problematic. Sometimes they’ll be jerks to each other. Nearly all of them grew up in bad circumstances where they probably were not taught important lessons and details about respect and boundaries and being nice. They are definitely not going to be aware of the intricacies of fandom's (oft-American and oft-terminally-online) consensus about problematic behavior. And that’s fine. 

I remember once receiving an ask about why Shigaraki would pull Twice’s mask off in Chapter 224. Wasn’t that terrible of Shigaraki? Yeah, it was. It was also the quickest, most efficient way to get Twice to quit his arguing with the rest of the League, so Shigaraki can announce that they are going to rescue Giran (what Twice was arguing for). After that, he puts the mask back on for Twice. If you ask me, I’d say Shigaraki thinks this evens out - he does something mean that he knows will freak out Twice for a moment, but it’s because he’s arguing for Twice’s side, and he’s putting on the mask back at the end. 

You and I would likely never do something like that because we know taking away someone’s important assistive aid, even for a moment, hurts them and we don’t want to cause them pain for even a second if we could help it/there’s not ‘evening it out’/it demonstrates a power unbalance that perpetuates ableism/there are other ways to stop someone and grab attention/we know not to touch someone even the slightest without permission/etc. But does the character you’re writing know all this? Does he care? Does he think it’s worth following these rules? Does he have time for it, does he have incentives for it, does he have the lucidity, does he think he’s an exception because of this and that, etc, etc. 

A lot of things, most people often just don’t know until they’re taught to be specifically aware. As an example: When I was younger, I knew broadly that taking things without permission was bad; but what if I took these pair of scissors from my friend’s desk and used it and put it back before the owner knew? The owner is my friend. They once told me it was okay to take it, so it counts even today, right? It was just a pair of scissors, a common household item. My friend did not care; still does not care. But knowing what I do now about things like violations of boundaries, explicit consent, the continuation of these concepts for the most trivial and mundane things even in the deepest of friendship or familial ties - I feel the need to ask to use something. That’s me and what I’ve learned through the years, though. It’s probably not going to be [fictional character].

And sometimes the League are just bad people. Shigaraki tried to kill Toga and Dabi at their first meeting. Mr. Compress is seemingly a-okay with kidnapping and murder despite his ancestor being more of a Robin Hood type. Spinner likely knowingly doomed his family to even worse ostracism and harassment from his fantasy-racist hometown when he ran off to join a group of well-televised terrorists. 

That’s also fine. They’re not real. They’re fictional Villains, and you’re temporarily using them as hand-puppets to tell a story. 

Tip #5. For dialogue, it helps knowing what each character’s voice/speaking style sounds like. Some basics:

Shigaraki: 

“Shigaraki speaks with the normal masculine contracted speech, but with a sinister tone. Surprisingly not very cussy. He likes aggravating other people though.”

Caleb Cook notes that Shigaraki talks like an overgrown kid. (In comparison to ReDestro, who “uses more SAT words, since he’s had a formal education.”)

He can be a sarcastic smartass.

Kurogiri:

“Kurogiri is Extremely Polite”

He only refers to Shigaraki as ‘Shigaraki Tomura’. Always the full name, always just that.

He speaks very formally and respectfully; however, there is also a nastier side to him that comes out when he faces off Heroes: Saying to All Might, “I can't say I like the idea of having blood and guts inside my gate, but… if they're yours, I’ll happily oblige.” (Chapter 18); mocking Eraserhead and Mic when they're being sad over him, “Have you mistaken this place for a confessional of some kind?” (Chapter 254)

Dabi: 

“Dabi is like Shoto but ruder, though not to Bakugo’s extent”

He calls people names: Toga most often, as 'crazy'; he called Spinner 'lizard' once; when he first met Shigaraki, he said 'gross'.

Note that all the examples above are people younger than him; as far as I know, Dabi refrains from name-calling his allies who are older than him: Compress, Twice, Skeptic.

He inexplicably politely calls Ujiko ‘Ujiko-san’.

Compress:

“Compress is kind of like Sero. He’s got that trickster tone to him. Gets rougher when things don’t go his way.”

Likes to call himself an ‘old man’ at age 32; talks like an older gentleman as well. 

Twice: 

Twice contradicts himself a lot. Generally, he says one thing, his alter then says the opposite of that immediately afterwards. 

However, when things are urgent or serious, his alter’s speech fades. See Chapter 148, when he confronts Shigaraki about the Overhaul plan - he spills out his feelings with no contradiction. See Chapter 224, after they find out Giran’s been kidnapped - when arguing with the League about whether to say Giran, he’s completely coherent. 

Twice argues back with the alter sometimes, rather than the alter simply blurting out the opposite of what he says. 

After he gets over his clone trauma, the alter seemed to have…integrated into himself? He still speaks in contradictions, but less so, and it doesn’t seem to be a separate voice speaking out involuntarily

Spinner: 

“Spinner also speaks the normal masculine contracted speech like Kirishima and Kaminari, but he talks like Tokoyami during the Forest Lodge arc because he’s a Stain chuuni.”

An average, normal guy, compared to the rest of the League: not very polite, but not particularly rude; no great wit or affect (after he stops being a Stain fanboy), but not unintelligible; game references infrequently.

Giran: 

“Giran is also like speaks the normal masculine contracted speech similar to Shoto, but he’s a lot more mature.”

He calls Shigaraki “Shigaraki-san”, being polite towards him as a customer. 

He calls Twice by his last name, ‘Bubaigawara’, likely because they seem to be friends beyond just business. 

Toga: 

Toga is a generally polite girl, talks like a teenager. 

She can be bad at explaining herself! Seems to forget the people are lacking context for the things she says. “Hey, my best friend Jin just got killed by a Hero, which makes me sad, as well as worried that I'm going to be cut down like nothing as well, especially because I've been told how abnormal I am, even though I think I'm a normal person just like you, because I have emotions like love and fear, as any regular human does, and that lifetime of repression has hurt me.” -> Whatever she actually says to Uraraka in Chapter 289.

Only Toga uses first names with honorifics with the other League members. This is her being cute and desiring familiarity, but still polite. 

　◦ Twice is ‘Jin-kun’

　◦ Shigaraki is ‘Tomura-kun’

　◦ Dabi is, at first ‘Dabi-kun’; after she finds out he’s Touya, he’s ‘Touya-kun’ 

　◦ Spinner is ‘Spinner-kun’

　◦ However, Mr. Compress is simply ‘Mister’ 

Conversely, only Mr. Compress and Twice call her ‘Toga-chan’. All the 20-somethings dudes call her just ‘Toga’. 

*Note what the League calls each other. They all call each other using Villain names. If the male members of the League are using first names and honorifics for each other, they’ve either gotten extremely close and intimate and weirdly polite, or they’re being possessed by AFO. 

Tip #5.5. Instead of fretting over writing good dialogue right away, just write whatever you need to get a scene over with. You can go back later to change the tone and speaking style of the sentence.

Here’s a line I had for Dabi at first: 

“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for incompetency in background checks.”

Wayyy too formal. Here’s the line after I went back and fixed it:

“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for being shit at background checks.”

Still not my best shot, but better. Sometimes all you need is just to change a word. 

Tip #6. Humor. The League is ridiculous and hilarious. Always try to have fun with their interactions and antics.

[saintsenara]

Hi! I just wanted to ask: what advice would you give someone who wants to start writing fanfiction for the 1st time, without any real writing experience? Have a nice day!

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm always honoured to be identified as someone who might have something meaningful to say about writing - and so i always worry about doing justice to questions like this without coming across as being flippant.

because i don't think its ever worth giving advice on writing style or techniques, because these are so inherently subjective. i am an unabashed plantser - i have a vague idea of how i expect a story to go [and i always skip to the ending first, harry burns style], but i let the muses take me where they will otherwise - and this obviously affects everything else about my writing process: whether i like to stick to a specific posting schedule [no]; where i begin in a scene [dialogue]; whether i prefer short or long pieces [yes]; what sort of themes i want to look at; my attitude towards the source material [i believe in the value of canon coherence, but i'm not drawn towards trying to make my work unclockably canon-compliant]; what i find useful to receive from others during the writing process; and the fact that i like to play with genres, themes, and pairings.

if these things don't apply to you - and there's no reason why they should, even after you've been writing fic for a century - then i don't think i'm qualified to give you any advice on how you should go about putting words on a page.

but i do think i can give you something.

because if you want to start writing fanfiction - as is the case for everything else you will want to start doing in your life - there is only one key principle to bear in mind:

fortune favours the bold

by which i mean, at the most basic level, that the only way to start writing fanfiction is to... start writing fanfiction. the only way that you'll ever know if it's something you enjoy doing - and what it is about it that you like, what you find instinctive, what you don't, what your "voice" is, which characters you find harder than others to bring to life, what techniques you'll use to plan, how your work will be received, how that will make you feel, how your style will change the longer you write, and so on - is to grit your teeth and just take the leap.

but i also think that remembering that fortune favours the bold is a fandom principle which serves us all very well in a context broader than just tapping out fics while hunched over our keyboards.

because boldness is synonymous with courage - and writing something and putting it out into the world does take courage! - but it's a courage which has quite a distinctive style.

boldness is not solemn, quietly-enduring, captain-going-down-with-his-ship bravery. to be bold is to be audacious, daring, cheeky, innovative, and a little bit irreverent. it's not someone saying mournfully over your coffin "she fought bravely to the bitter end" - it's someone looking at you in awe and saying "how the fuck did you pull that off?"

and this matters in fandom. because participating in fandom - whether you end up writing fic or not - takes a hell of a lot of brass neck.

after all, each of us has ended up here because we looked at canon and said "sorry - did you think you were done?"

and then - when canon got flustered and started stammering - each of us has rolled our eyes, rolled up our sleeves, and said "don't worry, hen. you can leave it to me."

to be in fandom is to have the audacity to treat the text as a springboard - rather than something which remains behind glass in a museum. it's deciding to fling the characters we love into genres they don't originally come from and revelling in the chaos which ensues. it's finding missing moments and daring them to be just as important as a canon scene. it's the fun of wildly improbable alternate universes - from dystopian horror to coffee shops. it's cheerfully ignoring that there's a point canon thinks its story ends - whether that's finishing narratives which end unsatisfactorily or just playing with happy-ever-after. it's taking two characters who never interact in canon, winking at the camera, and making them kiss. it's taking two characters who never interact in canon, winking at the camera, and making them fuck. it's having the time of your life becoming a malevolent deity and making a character suffer.

while it might not always feel this way, at its core fandom is fun. and it's fun in a way which is quite unusual in this day-and-age - in that it's something we get to shape for ourselves, rather than having to engage with a product according to the whims of the corporation marketing it. it lets us be indulgent without calling us greedy. it lets us chatter away at each other without calling us unproductive. it lets us be sincere without requiring performative earnestness from us. it lets us engage with the uncomfortable and the lurid without the bland sanitisation of respectability.

and it allows us to be hopeful.

and i have always been struck by just how much about fandom rests on hope.

to believe that the dead can live happily in another universe, to believe that time-travel can fix things, to believe that bad people can get their comeuppance, to believe that good people can be imperfect and it doesn't matter one bit, to believe that those who are hurt can be comforted, to believe that justice can be done, to believe that villains can be redeemed, to believe that an insignificant background character matters just as much as the hero, to believe that things can be better - whether your story is overthrowing a corrupt government or letting two people enjoy themselves uncovering a kink, to believe that the most improbable people can love each other - romantically or not... all of this takes hope.

and hope takes boldness.

so be bold and start writing.

be cheeky. take risks. be your own biggest fan. be irreverent. be cunning. recognise that not taking fandom too seriously is self-protective. be self-indulgent. have some self-awareness. be collegiate. gas up your friends whenever you can. be nice to your commenters and try and give them the benefit of the doubt if they express themselves poorly. be curious. regard disagreement as interesting. be compassionate. be tenacious. be prepared to write stuff that flops. be prepared to write stuff that gets left on the drawing-board. be prepared to write stuff people hate. be prepared to write stuff you hate. be audacious. believe you can do it. be hopeful. be daring. be brave. and be bold.

because i promise you that, even if you've never written a word of fic before, you can write your way into and out of anything - any fic, any trope, any pairing, any characterisation choice, any plot hole, any setting, any premise - and have fun and look good doing it.

if you simply have enough nerve.