#heres mine can you tell i like JRPGs?

[that-guy-from-skyhold]

cant remember where the original post of this is from or what the fuck "guilty pleasure" is supposed to mean but here's mine by the way i fucking hate anno 1800 i dont really have any game series with more than 2 games so anno was the best i could think of also FUCK subnautica below zero i have a whole essay if you want to know why i think its worse

here's a blank slate if you guys want to do it

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Kobolds

I started playing d&d during 3rd edition, which presented kobolds as a trap happy gaggle of dragon obsessives who were counted as the weakest but smartest of the traditional dungeonfodder humanoids. Other than being lizardy they were presented near identically to goblins, both being petty and cruel and resentful over their small stature and the place it meant they occupied in the world. This overlap is actually one of the reasons I haven't gotten to kobolds before now, as I kinda felt like I covered most of it in my writeup for goblins a couple years ago.

Since Kobolds are a reoccuring request however I eventually decided I was going to give the people what they wanted. My plan was to talk about d&d dragonsimp kobolds vs. warcraft candleloving kobolds vs. jrpg dogpeople kobolds, and how all of these relate back to creature's mythological origin but hey wait a minute the official forgotten realms wiki says WHAT ?

Huh, that sounds like a weird sort of projection from a man who's super insecure about his height. I wonder if the original dragon magazine listed as a source here has anything more to.. Oh.... OH-NO

Living space, huh? Extinction of weaker peoples, eh? A religion based around survival, insularity, obedience, and the defeat of stronger enemies through attrition, yadon'tsay? Man, the canine kobolds might be on to something because there's an ORCHESTRA of dogwhistles going on here.

Friends, there's a lot to unpack here, so like a kobold with a pickax lets dig in

Where it started: the connection between kobolds and goblins and gnomes predates d&d back to mythological roots, as all are names shared by the european folklore character of "weird little guy who lives under the hill and plays tricks on us". Kobolds have an even more delightful bit of etymology attached, as miners blamed them for magically transforming valuable silver for (at the time) worthless cobalt. Originally my rehash of kobalds was going to centre on them as tinkerers/engineers for this reason, as alchemical cobalt batteries sound rad as hell.

Kobolds are in this way also part of the greater traditions of "mine spirits", Knackers, tommyknockers, and the like. Who play tricks on miners, and are just as likely to cause disaster when displeased as they are to warn of it when befriended.

Then the d&d authors did what they always do, they pilfered the name of folkloric creatures for the game while ignoring actual mythology, drawing hard and fast lines and making up rigid catagories as they went.

What's wrong: Given their proclivity for traps, sneak attacks, and guerilla tactics you end up getting a LOT of comparisons between Kobolds and the Viet Cong… which I find very telling.  So many of the original d&d antagonists were vessels for middle aged geeks of the 70s and 80s to hit back at their insecurities ( whether it be challenges to their masculinity, sexuality, or something more existential) it doesn’t surprise me at all that d&d has an enemy that let american boomers rehash their nation’s at the time biggest military debacle. 

Kobolds are so weak and undeserving you understand, they’ve only survived because they’re tricky, but this time we’ll get them, if we come in with enough firepower and hirelings to get through the meatgrinder we can finally hit them where they live and deal with them for good. 

D&D worldbuilding imagines kobolds as “the other” from an occupier’s lens: resentful of their rightful displacement, nursing their hatreds in the shadows, emerging only to attack or to steal and despoil what they’ve been denied. They have no ambition, no culture, no wants beyond being a threat for the new dominant power. They’re cowards for using traps and poison and tactics on those here to plunder their homes. 

What’s worth Salvaging:  While the 3e revision of kobolds as dracomaniacs is a welcome change from their old lore I’m not especially fond of it. Overuse of dragons is one of the things that most turns me off general fantasy media. Any group of sapient creatures serving a dragon is just as likely to form a dragoncult, it doesn’t make kobolds special. 

That said, if you did want to double down on kobold dragon worship you might consider spicing in a few elements from my revamped version of Tiamat, painting their reverence not just as ego and overcompensation but as a desire to emulate and become…certian kobold enclaves possibly using sorcery or alchemy to transform a chosen among their people into a fully fledged wyrm. 

While we’ve mostly tossed alignment to the curb where it belongs,to distinguish kobolds from goblins it might be worth leaning into their lawful aspects; Underfoot foremen and notaries and  work crews addressing things with a utilitarian collective effort before scurrying out of sight when the shift change occurs.  Where as goblins are screwball and slapstick onto the verge of cartoonishness, perhaps kobolds are practical and industrious to the point of causing problems: They dam a river to access a sacred cave heedless of the disruption and flooding it’d cause, they tear down, occupying and restoring a derelict mill and restoring it to function regardless of who owns it, undermining the foundations of the duke’s palace following a vein of copper in the nearby hills. 

This efficiency-focused attitude also helps thematically define mechanically minded kobolds against gnomes and dwarves as the game’s other tinkerers:  They share the practicality of dwarven artisans and the inventiveness of gnomish artificers, but lack the sentiment the other two place on what they make.  Kobold craft is often regarded as lower quality, but that’s because resource efficiency and easy replaceability are primary metrics upon which they judge something. 

Artsource

[monsterblogging]

How Pacific Rim 2013 is about killing the gods, and why we need to accept this

After years of researching the development of Pacific Rim, and learning more about its creators, I've reached a conclusion.

You cannot truly understand the narrative of Pacific Rim until you can wrap your head around the idea the kaiju are divine beings, their creators are functionally gods, and (at least sometimes), gods need to be killed.

This sentiment can be traced all the way back to Travis Beacham's draft script, where the Precursors were explicitly revealed as the creators of our universe, who made it so they could move here from their own dying universe. The script very deliberately codes them as gods, as evidenced in these quotes:

RALEIGH There’s things you just can’t fight. Acts of God or whatever. Like you see a hurricane coming, you just have to get out of the way, you know? But when you’re in a Jaeger, suddenly you can draw a line in the sand. You can fight the hurricane -- and you can win.

CZERNY Because I had to be quarantined. I looked into the abyss. I’d been infected with the truth -- that this is the end of us. We are the vermin of the gods. There’s no point in putting up a fight...

TAKADA I don't have it... We all know it's a siege. What can I say they don't already know? We call the enemy the Precursors... I may as well tellthe world the gods want us dead.

NEWT (CONT’D) I don't care if they are the creators of the universe. I like the universe. She leans her head on the seat and watches him with a pining look in her eyes. He turns to add with a chuckle -- NEWT (CONT’D) And I'm not a creationist.

The draft script is not fucking around. The Precursors are gods, and they must be slain.

The final movie retains the "acts of God" line, but the Precursors are never explicitly called "gods" like this. However - the subtext is still there. For example, Hannibal Chau tells us what the kaiju cultists believe:

HANNIBAL CHAU Look at 'em. They believe the Kaiju are sent from heaven. That the gods are expressing their displeasure with our behavior. The silly bastards.

The film also shows us kaiju sisters, who are very clearly meant to evoke Catholic sisters with their cornettes. And of course, we can't forget the kaiju church building.

And then there's the Precursors themselves, whom we only get a brief, blurry glance at. But their design had intention behind it, as we learn in Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters (emphasis mine):

"When I was a kid," says del Toro, "we used to catch these bugs in the pool. They had a translucent, hard shell and you could see their organs. I wanted the design to evoke that. Wayne Barlowe and Keith Thompson worked the final design. We gave the Precursors elements of ecclesiastical royalty, dividing them into cardinals and bishops."

For anyone who doesn't know, del Toro is an ex-Catholic whose grandmother tried to exorcise him over his interest in monsters, and made him wear bottlecaps in the bottoms of his shoes as penance for his perceived sins. And Guillermo del Toro isn't shy about expressing anti-authoritarian sentiments. (Pan's Labyrinth and Pinocchio are very strongly anti-authoritarian films.)

Pacific Rim is using the godkilling trope the exact same way a lot of Japanese media does it: personifying corrupting ideologies and corrupt institutions as malefic gods that humanity must rise up against and destroy. (If you want to learn more about this, Moon Channel's video Why Do You Always Kill Gods In JRPGs? goes into this in detail.)

Where other western media that involves killing gods often aims to avoid controversy by reassuring its audiences that the god or gods being killed are false gods, or by targeting gods largely considered discredited (such as actual pagan gods, or fictional gods modeled on them), Pacific Rim refuses to pander to western Christian sensibilities in this way.

Had Guillermo del Toro had his way, this would have gone on to resemble the Japanese usage of this trope even more, where said divinities often are former humans, or are the product of human activity. He'd planned to reveal that the Precursors were humanity from the future:

And then we found out that the precursors are us thousands of years in the future. They’re trying to terraform, trying to re-harvest the earth to survive. (Source.)

Unfortunately, this didn't happen. The sequel to Pacific Rim was handed off to another director, and the Precursors were re-coded as demonic. All of the socio-political criticism embedded in the first movie were gutted - and I don't think it's any coincidence that the uberconservative weirdos I've been seeing in this fandom focus on it more than the first movie. (And if they aren't focused on Uprising, they're focused on The Black, which is even worse. I will suffice it here to say that The Black was practically tailor-made to attract young chuds. And while not everyone I've met who actually likes it was a chud, every one of them had extremely low media literacy.)

You see, when you remove Beacham and del Toro's careful symbolism and coding, the Precursors become nothing more than a vague enemy that you can project anyone onto. Hyperconservatives are free to compare the Precursors to whatever boogyman they've decided threatens Christianity and/or Western civilization, and engage in fantasies of using militaristic force to destroy them.

Failing to recognize or choosing to ignore how Pacific Rim uses the godkilling trope to criticize authoritarian religious institutions and late-stage capitalism is how a film directed by two anti-fascist creators gets twisted into a fascism-affirming narrative. And that, I think most of us can agree, is a problem.

[metaphorwritings]

HIHIHIIII!! I saw you are taking a request on metaphor refantazio and I was thinking maybe you can write an imagine how the reader is isekai in metaphor and meets up with Will. But Will witnessing the reader get murdered in front of their eyes and by the next day he sees the reader alive and well again. (Kind of like returned by death in rezero.)

"Is this truly a fantasy?"

Author's note : I've never watched ReZero, but I know a little bit of it, so let's just roll with it and see where we end up lol I might spread this out into many parts, I hope you don't mine

Pairing : Metaphor ReFantazio x GN!Isekaid!Reader Pt.1 (Angst, gore, violence, AU)

Synopsis : What would happen if you were to enter a world your thought was merely a fantasy... And then wished you were never brought here?

"Oh, come on!"

Those were the words that left your mouth as you stared at the 'Fantasy Is Dead' screen. That's the eighth loss in a row against a fish with human legs on hard mode, and by this point, you were beginning to question if this was worth it as the voice of the narrator spoke those familiar lines.

"Will your tale end here?"

"More, if you say that one more time, I swear to god!"

You sighed as you rubbed your temple with your fingers as you looked down at the controller, remembering how your friend recommended this game to you, and being the good friend you were, you decided to buy the game and give it a try, little did you know at the time that your overconfidence in your JRPG skills would be the vein of you.

Because not only did you plan on completing the game on hard mode, but you also made a bet with your friend that you could beat it on hard mode.

You were a fool, your own worst enemy.

However, your thoughts were interrupted by the growling of your own stomach, now realising you've been absorbed into beating this dungeon for hours all night. So, you got up from your spot on the floor and decided to throw on your coat and shoes, promptly leaving the house with your phone and keys.

Cooking food seemed too much of a hassle, and you didn't particularly want to go out to eat with your sour mood and lack of money.

So you go to the one place that could bring mankind solace in these trying times.

The one safe haven that provided a holy grail to quench one's thirst and alleviate one of hunger with a wide array of morsels.

That place being....

A convenience store.

The only beacon of light that seemed to shine in the colder air and frigid, thin layers of snow and frost across these streets...

Which was also across from your apartment building, which meant there was no long walk either in the cold weather that nipped your nose.

Convenient, just like in the name.

Upon entering, the sound of the music playing on the speakers was soft, as per usual, and there was a nice clean smell in the air, the scent of fresh lemon invading your senses. And of course, the tired employee sitting at the cash register, bored out of their mind with the lack of people present during the night shift.

Immediately, your hungry stomach irks you to look through the isles for something delicious, perhaps something new to try? But no, your mind and eyes and stomach always go to that one spicy ramen pack that you put extra cheese in that makes your taste buds cry on isle three, and yet you have never found the ability to stop eating it.

'So much for wanting to try the rice balls today...'

You take the ramen and practically rush to the cashier to pay for it and get home before your freezing.

But you notice something, you've never seen this employee here before, perhaps they are new.

From the tired look in their light blue eyes to the light blue, almost white, hair tossed up in a messy bun, you could tell they probably hadn't gotten much sleep. You also took notices how they were pretty short.

'Maybe they're a student' you thought to yourself

"That'll be 100 yen, please" The cashier spoke, pulling you out of your thoughts.

You reached into your pocket and got out the correct amount of money, putting it in the cashier's hand, and as your fingers brushed against their palm, you felt this weird headache

'What the-!?' you thought as you clutched your head, maybe you were playing on the game for too long and it's finally caught up with you???

"Is everything alright?" The cashier asked, with a somewhat worried look on their face, but you waved it off. "Yeah, I'm okay... It's probably nothing..."

Trying to ignore, the pain in your head, you walk outside with your ramen cup, wanting to go back to the comforts of your own home while you eat this, but after taking a few steps, the sound of your feet crunching the snow beneath your feet, the pain in your head only seems to get worse.

'The hell is going on...?! I was just fine when I came here...' you thought.

'Am I coming down with something...?'

'... I should hurry back and take some meds...'

You staggered in the ice and frost, your head throbbing with each step until a sharp pain shot through your head as you stood at the crosswalk.

Then...

... You hear it...

"O lodestar..."

.

.

...'What!? Now I'm hearing voices!?'

"O thou anguished traveller..."

The booming pulse in your head only increased as the voice got louder. This wasn't just a headache now, this felt like your head was turning inside out, you clutched your head and lost your footing, grunting and gasping in agony, you felt your world spinning.

The city lights were blinding.

The noises were like screams around you.

And before you knew it, you had stumbled back on the ice and bright light was coming towards you.

.

.

.

Before you knew it, the world around you was black. You felt like you were asleep, but like your body was burning.

All there was... Was nothing. Just black, spaceless void.

It felt like you were suffocating... No, drowning, and somehow, you felt no pain, no discomfort, it was like drowning in a sea of blankets and pillows and your body was going numb.

.

.

.

And then light crept in, somehow it made you open your eyes when they hadn't even closed.

.

.

.

{To be continued...}

[revelale]

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is. Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing! Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together. Credits to Neffi.

Name: lilly!

Pronouns: they/them.

Birthday (no year): april 4th.

Where are you from? What is your time zone? pst (gmt-8).

How long is your roleplay experience? well, i started when i was eight, so twenty? years now? embarrassing for me.

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? neopets, LMFAO.

How were you introduced to TOA? i'd just finished up the gd route for 3h when chuu, an old member, posted about a fe group on twitter. so, i dmed her and then asked about it and then delusionally manifested a blog and url in like roughly 8 hours. fun fact: prior to that, i'd only ever played one canon, lol!

Do you have any pets? yes, my awful little dog.

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) wiiiiinter. it rains the most and i can just get jackets to be warm if it's too cold.

What is your IRL occupation? used to be a journalist, now i'm? in product development for stationery, lol.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? mostly handicraft stuff? i like building lego sets, assembling dioramas, doing puzzles. i started learning how to crochet yesterday! i'm very bad at it!

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? mostly jrpgs, but lots of puzzle-y indie games. i started playing sea of stars reeeecently, but haven't gotten very far on it. a metric ton of otomes, lmao.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: dragon, and dragonite! close runners up are bewear and ludicolo, lmfao.

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! i jokingly mumble "i'm thinking miku miku oo ee oo" when i'm struggling, but so my brother took that as "i really like hatsune miku" and now i have four figurines of miku just spread out in my room. i fear every time he goes to round one because i will just have another one.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? an old friend of mine told me to give awakening a try because she thought i'd like that i could date people, lmfao. it worked. NJKLRENGJKLRGR.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? eeeeverything post-awakening, short of three hopes. i also gave sacred stones a try and then got intensely mad when tana kept dying, so i stopped.

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: awakening, then rrrr. i haven't touched one in a while, so i actually couldn't really say.

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! inigo, fogado, hubert (toa pilled)—this is where i admit i don't actually have any favorites in game, but i do in toa, lmao.

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! sobbing, i don't have any. I'M A SHAM.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 naur, but i one day wish to experience chasing the high everyone else does.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: chrom by curse, but olivia. - Fates: inigo. PARDON ME, LAZZY. tttheeen, idk. kaze. lmao. - Three Houses: claude...... and sylvain now. i love a man that's all red flags. it's a parade, not a warning! - Engage: pandreo................. still pandreo.

Favorite Fire Emblem class? PEGAKNIGHT SUPREMACY.

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? in my greatest delusions, i'd be an armored tank unit, but the reality is i'm probably the villager hiding in their house after you swung by to let me know something was coming to murk me/us.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? golden deer, lmao. i just like their vibe.

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? wwww, i actually started doing archery recently and i'm not bad at it, so i think probably something in that vein for a boon ....... i'm also weirdly strong, so maybe gauntlets? lmfao. everything else is what i'd be bad at, rifp. an athletic creature i am not.

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? probably firene. it'd make sense for my name to be lilly, eh.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔t-o-a, lmao.

Current TOA muses: shiro & pandreo!

Past TOA muses? cynthia, shigure, lon-qu, constance, bylad, kiragi, kinu—i forget all the other ones if any, oops.

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? cynthia! and maybe? lmao, she's evolved so much past her baseline in my head that i think it'd actually be quite difficult to pick her up again, but she also has such incredible capacity for interesting relationships.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? clown, usually with depression.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? oooof, really calculating and intellectual types! i'm not very good at it and my style of writing doesn't super lend itself to that because i tend to spell out their every thought, lmao. the only reason i could write constance is because she was simultaneously the smartest and stupidest person in the room at any given time.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? oh, i'm a comedy relief writer first and foremost. any situation where i can put people into a yes-and context is fun for me. but, i am realizing i do really enjoy dramatic scenes too for character study and exploration.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? nnnnnot right now. i find that most of the spiciest moments i recall are ones that just happen by circumstance instead of planning.

Favorite TOA-related memories? on chapril, i got the mods and everyone else to change to chad icons when a new member abruptly showed up and i died laughing.

Present or past tense? present! past? i do both. king of tense changes that make no sense.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? no preference. i just use small text because i like lookin' at it.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 if i entertain it for even a second, i will have to make the blog right now and i don't have time for that but god i want to.

[schismusic]

In the shadow of the horns: meditations on Team ICO's works – 1. Shadow of the Colossus

[DISCLAIMER: Since I cannot assume you people are all in the know and have played the game like five times, have gotten every extra item and found every last secret location, got all the achievements on the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game, have taken all seventy-nine steps to enlightenment, and are so obsessed with intersecting points that your bedroom wall looks like a re-enactment of the Pepe Silvia conspiracy theory, I have to tell you that the following article includes HEAVY, HEAVY, OH-SO-HEAVY SPOILERS for Shadow of the Colossus. Reader discretion is warned.]

[DISCLAIMER 2: you can absolutely bask safely in the knowledge that I have not done any of the things listed in the first disclaimer. I mean, I have played the game more than once, the first time on PS4 and the second on PS2. Whatever.]

It has at this point been a good five years or so since I'd last played the Team ICO games, so as I went to dust off my ol' trusty PlayStation 2 Slim I got reminded of how the world is a fucked up place and decay exists as an extant form in life, by way of the PS2 no longer reading discs. I mean, nothing I can't fix with a 1mm x 1mm square of duct tape or some isopropyl alcohol in the best case scenario, but I wonder: for fuck's sake, did it have to be now? At any rate, I decided to bite the bullet and finally download PCSX2 so I can play the games (and I promise, the BIOS and game ISOs are all mine, so no piracy involved this time). Playing these particular games on a PC feels especially weird to me, in that I can see the blocky ass graphics meant to be seen and blend in on a CRT in all of their squared glory, but not even that is immersion-breaking or ruins the aesthetics – which is a testament to the strength of the team's art direction and design philosophy. This is especially true considering I'd only played the PS4 Shadow of the Colossus before.

Since I can already hear the raging crowd under my window, let me clarify before I get drawn and quartered by an angry mob of PS2 purists.

I did, of course, get my first exposure to Shadow of the Colossus when it was but a humble PlayStation 2 technical marvel (and, later, a PS3 remaster of that same PS2 technical marvel). It was, in all likelihood, through an unofficial PlayStation magazine that was published here in Italy – even though the original format was technically bought from a Spanish publisher – by the name of PlayGeneration. I was always one console generation behind the rest of the world around me, so the magazine allowed me to stay in touch with new technological developments and new titles coming out. I ended up remembering the original critical reaction to, I don't know, your Deus Ex: Human Revolution or your Dead Space or even your Yakuza 4 (which was actually my first exposure to the series, about fifteen years before I actually got to play it myself) better than the actual games themselves, in a lot of scenarios. But what this magazine had, especially, was a whole two-page spread in every issue where they re-reviewed a number of PS2 games, usually showcasing relatively hidden gems – one that stuck with me particularly was their review of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, a game that I went on to never play due to my absolute ineptitude at JRPGs. Every issue also included an archive of their older reviews, which for the longest time would reserve a cute little half-page to PlayStation 2 games, with the editors' definitive scores and one-sentence opinions on them. Among these was Shadow of the Colossus, 92 out of 100. I was fascinated by how, well, plain and effective the title was – a non-descript sequence of words that tells you nothing and, as I would later learn, still tells you everything you need to know about the game.

Symbolism of light and shadow, stories that seem to be coming out of children's books (it's always fascinating and, admittedly, quite funny to recall that the original Japanese title of the game is ワンダと巨像, "Wanda to Kyozou" i.e. "Wander and the Colossus"), a unique capability of striking the player in the teeth with a sense of anemoia welling up from somewhere deep within. A friend of mine who's currently playing ICO for the first time mentioned a great emotional response on his part upon revisiting the prison area of the castle – considering exclusively gameplay time, this is a place you're only shown once, about five hours before you come back to it. To better define this feeling for the purposes of this piece, I decided to replicate the closest thing I could achieve: nostalgia. Specifically, I pulled up some old articles I wrote for a gaming blog I helped run between the years of 2020 and 2022, re-read my old impressions of these games, then realized the more I read those (quite pitiful) articles, the more I was thinking "fuck, why don't I just play these again?", which of course led me to what I was saying at the beginning of this article. Running in circles already, aren't I?

One thing I will say: I still believe some of the points I made in those articles to be valid. Specifically, I like the idea of focusing on what the gameplay means. Story and lore analysis of these games is inherently encouraged by the games themselves and their presentation, and therefore way overdone, but I will recommend Leadhead's recent analysis of ICO as a metaphor for escaping an abusive household and Folding Ideas's classic on Shadow of the Colossus as "a game about letting go", as well as admit a certain fondness for the theory of the shared narrative universe as espoused and exposesd by Max Derrat. None of these things will necessarily be central to my own piece, but it's cool to have them, y'know? My main point will have to do with what the games themselves present as their case study. This means analysing and pointing out game mechanics, in and of themselves, as carriers of meaning and implications. As a consequence, for my own ease, I will borrow quite heavily from the old articles (the originals are in Italian, you can find them compiled here, and they are better read in order of release). Lastly, I had originally meant to make this only one article, but it seems to me like there's already enough material for me to stop yapping about methodology and start getting my hands dirty.

God's a short guy, you know, he started in the mail room and, y'know, worked his way up, invested well.

(Tom Waits, in this commercial for Franks Wild Years, directed by Chris Blum)

You're a short guy, as well: too short for your horse, anyway. You carry a special sword – which you stole – and a bow. There's a dead body bundled up in a big ass heavy blanket and you've got that with you, too. It takes a really long time and some seriously deranged route choices to get there, but what do you know – you're good enough to reach the Forbidden Lands, a land that is, well, forbidden, so you probably shouldn't be there. There's a creature, unseen, shouting orders at you out of a window that physically makes no sense architecturally, in two different voices. You have to destroy the statues on this temple's wall, but you can't do that directly, so you have to repeatedly stab gigantic, half-rock-half-flesh creatures that can and will swat you off their back like a mosquito. Only then you'll be able to bring this girl back to life – despite her cursed fate, and the fact that you're in a place called the fucking FORBIDDEN LANDS, and the fact that it hurts more and more to breathe with every colossus you beat.

Every core mechanic in this game is a display of strength: to hold on, to stab, to eat. As Mono – that is, according to the manual in the PS2 version of the game, the name of the girl whose corpse you brought here – cannot, in all likelihood, want anything anymore, it's safe to assume that all of the actions you, the player, undertake in the game are to be understood as the explicit will of Wander, the protagonist. This is a relevant distinction to make. Wander is not you, you are not Wander: why else would he refuse to jump off cliffs, or hesitate when you push him off of ledges? I've always liked thinking about Team ICO's work as a sort of hyper-stylized version of what games like Another World or the original Prince of Persia for the Apple II (even though Fumito Ueda probably played the Amiga port of the game, all things considered). Seeing it this way, the more evident influence these titles have had on Team ICO's game mechanics lends itself quite well to what I'm trying to say. The Prince and Lester Knight Chaykin are both painstakingly animated, frame by frame, in order to achieve a lifelike quality, but where both Jordan Mechner and Éric Chahi attempted a crude imitation of rotoscoping by frame-advancing VHS recordings of themselves or other models and model figures, Ueda and his team usually turn to hand-animation of their characters (or, in particularly bonkers cases like The Last Guardian, write up an algorithm to calculate feather motion in real time and burn a hole through your PS4). This seems to me like Ueda & Co. might be more interested in lifelike behaviour, as opposed to lifelike movement, and as such may be trying to conjure up a more psychologically driven type of narrative experience. And like all the best character pieces, there's usually very little people to deal with.

Let's look at it, and to do so we have to delve into spoiler territory, so reader's discretion is advised.

Agro, the only conventional living being other than Wander throughout a good 99% of actual game time, is a literal horse. As such, she does right by you, by virtue of you being, for whatever reasons you can think of, crucially important to her. Seriously, somebody else has already pointed it out: why is Agro so much bigger than Wander? Is it perhaps because they just happened to grow together and ended up adapting to one another, in ways more organic than getting a horse assigned to you by height? Judging by literally every single minute of game time, the two of them seem almost telepathically locked into each other's thoughts, and Agro goes so far as to allow herself to get killed (functionally speaking, at least: there's a reason they shot broken-legged horses in Western movies, and that reason is it hurts like a bitch and the horse simply never fully recovers for that, at least not with veterinary techniques from the eighteen-hundreds) in order for Wander to fuck off and turn into Dormin. Speaking of which, Dormin are the only other character who speak to Wander for a good 99% of cutscene time, and their only motivation seems to be coming back to this godforsaken earth to wreak havoc on those who sealed them – Emon and his guards, who also seem to be mostly interested in fucking you up specifically so that Mono does not get resurrected. Then again, who the hell asked Mono what she wants? I'm not exactly in the habit of directly asking questions to the dead.

…okay, I was lying, considering what my last two long-form posts were about. But I guess what I'm saying is: Wander is literally the only person who intentionally refuses to be open about his motives. Sure, he wants to resurrect Mono. But why? Had they ever met before she had to die? Did she openly express to him how she did not want to die? I hate myself for even considering this question, but what if her fate actually is cursed? How did Emon kill her, anyway – actually, did Emon kill her himself? What did Wander even do to steal the sword, since – considering Emon and his men literally rode all the way to a place they themselves have religious prescriptions not to defile – it must have been heavily guarded or kept in a secure area? A good number of the colossi are not aggressive unless provoked, too, so this means Wander intentionally goes out of his way to fuck with extra-planar powers beyond human comprehension. Ultimately: what if, beyond all the ad-catchphrase rhetoric of "how far will you go for love", this guy was just being a self-centered prick?

It's as good a guess as any, really – here's a piece analysing Shadow of the Colossus as a trans allegory, for instance. But since it's as good, it's worth entertaining it. I also don't plan to present it as an inherent stroke of genius: not per se, at least. What I like about considering this game a metaphor about pulling your head out of your own ass is that – in a spectacular demonstration of understanding what the fuck you're talking about, the likes of which are unprecedented (and nigh-unsurpassed, apparently) in the gaming world – the game never hits you with the "YOU SHOULD STOP PLAYING TO WIN" argument. This is Wander's doing, not yours, which is why the guy goes to the Forbidden Lands in the intro cutscene, before you have any agency at all. Now this guy's stuck in this (stunning-looking) pimple in the middle of the planet's buttocks, where a dark supernatural force's physical manifestation has been torn asunder into sixteen rock-and-flesh mechas and it's his ass on the line to give the dark supernatural entity whatever the fuck they want, otherwise the lady won't be reborn and wouldn't that be awful?, but that also means that you are, essentially, just invited to sit in, scream at the screen for a good ten hours or so at this motherfucking idiot climbing moving mountains, and partake in Fumito Ueda and his gang's own study on negative interaction in videogaming.

Negative as opposed to positive, of course – that would be The Last Guardian, which we will be talking about when I can be arsed to open up my PS4, drive the literal soot sprite motherships living amidst its circuitry out of the case, and then play the console-disintegrating performance-tanking game again. I swear I actually like that game, for fuck's sake…

Like I said, the game has mostly actions aimed at offense (admittedly you can, thank fuck, pet Agro both while standing next to her, and when you're on her back and she's standing still, which I think is actually a key mechanic to explain what The Last Guardian would later try to do), and it says a lot about Wander as a character. There is no contextual command near Mono, there is no interaction with any of the other animals in the Forbidden Lands (I think I saw a tortoise in the PS2 version a while back – did I dream it up?) that isn't hurting them or killing them or maiming them for your own personal gain or just as an accident on your journey to the next checkmark on the list or, potentially, just for shits and giggles. Essentially this guy barges in and destroys everything in his wake – including, whether he wants it or not, his sole companion. The immense irony of this is that Agro, essentially, sacrifices herself for some element of affection towards Wander: no special destiny, no sudden understanding of Wander's motives. Literally just the fact that this guy is her favourite human. But the game itself has to be taken to its gory, bloody end, through trials and tribulations, for it to reveal its actual statement on the matter.

Dormin is banished again in violence, the bridge pylons collapse by magic in on themselves as Emon and the guards make a hasty retreat out into civilised land. Wander is now a bawling, screaming horned baby – the first of his kind, some would argue: like a mark of Cain of sorts. But sure enough, the reborn Mono has no problem picking him up and, if we are to give credit to the special illustration in the Japanese PS3 re-release of the game, helping him grow into a healthy, beloved horned kid. And Agro, despite her broken leg, still finds her way back to the shrine of the cult, and climbs to the secret garden on top of the building, finding a fawn. An animal that means rebirth.

[actualaster]

Hi new followers, this is a "personal" blog aka there's no theme here for what I do or don't post/reblog

I like to shitpost and gush about my blorbos from a 15 year old JRPG that was widely hated by the ENG fandom for, 99% of the time, absolutely bullshit reasons

Views of mine you may wish to know about so you can reconsider following because for some reason people like to take massive exception to these basic, common sense stances include:

"fiction isn't reality and if people explore dark shit in fiction it doesn't automatically mean they endorse it IRL, no matter how ~romanticized~ they present it"

"trans men, masculine, etc. people do in fact face their own unique intersections of bigotry and deserve to discuss these and have words to discuss these specific intersections"

Being trans and being nonbinary are not mutually exclusive and one can be either or both depending on how they feel about their identity

There is no The True Trans Experience and different trans people will have wildly different lived experiences and these being different from your own does not make them "not really trans". Furthermore if you find them talking about their actual lived experiences upsetting or triggering, or if you find their making writing or art that features trans characters or headcanons based on their experiences triggering, that is okay but that is a YOU problem and you should just block them instead of telling them to stop posting things about or based on THEIR lived experience to make you more comfortable and/or calling them "not real trans people"

[maguro13-2]

Darkness Reborn ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Final Chapter Pt.12 ~

Duo Maxwell : Ughhh! I think I managed to survive. Good thing I was able to survive that shock. I can't die if my Soul Data would be gone for sure. Still, I hope the guys of Wing would reunite with me very soon. But without any help from any of the Gundam Pilots, I just thought that we and Lain would appreciate the true kind of Deathscythe, but what's the use of it? Stupid Soul Eater and this stupid Square Enix. Those JRPG assholes are just a bunch of maggots.

Heero : Hey, isn't the time to give up. You still got some hope within us. Maybe it's time that you needed to find the true meaning of friendship in combat.

Duo Maxwell : Not now, Heero. I'm still waiting on something for you...[turns sees the Gundam Wing cast in suits] to return! Heero, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei.

[S3&K Jingle : 1-UP - Howard Drossin]

Duo Maxwell : Guys! You all came back to me. I thought you were...

Heero : Alive? Yes, we were all alive and thanks to the help of that girl you fell in love with, we linked our Gundam's brains to become the robots that we piloted! We were lost in defeat to the hands of Necrodeus and that girl from the movie. Thankfully, we manage to use the ability to link with our robots' computerized brains. We knew it all along to finding out that Deathscythe was controlled by that Wired Girl.

Duo Maxwell : Yeah, that figures. She and I have a lot in common, but it's all good that we're finally back together. Listen, Necrodeus staged the Soul Eater thing, it was all a setup to bring the evil forces from Asura as a diversion for this galactic conquest thing from Demon Vibe. You all heard the thing right?

Quatre : Of course we heard the whole thing. Not just a thing thou, but the "entire" thing. Looks like the Ohkuboverse is was really facade the entire time and Demon Vibe behind all of this! The Real World AU got nothing on them. By the time, it's going to shatter Real World AU very soon.

Wufei : I will get the heartlesses' attention. Will call out our Gundams to distract the darksides and you meet Deathscythe at it's arrival to the city.

Trowa : With that in order, we can all finally have this world's moment of peace at last when the Ohkuboverse meet it's goodbyes. Real World AU won't be bothered by it for good.

Heero : So what do you say max? Need a hand to reunite us, Maxwell?

Duo : ....Yes, I'll give you a hand...for Earth! [shakes hands in agreement]

"REUNITED!"

Trowa : It's good to have you back, Maxwell! Now then, let's go kick some invading butts!

[Deathscythe arrives]

Deathscythe : DUO MAXWELL. I HAVE ARRIVED. LINK NOW TO BE IN BATTLE.

[the four other Gundams arrived]

Heero : Duo! That's our cue! Now's the time to link our souls to the Gundams.

Duo Maxell : Right!

ALL : DATA RESONANCE : GUNDAM LINK!

[The group transfers their bodies into the brains of their Gundams]

[Just Communication plays]

Heero : Aw, Yeaaaah-hahaha! WOOO-HO-HOOOOO! We are back! the Gundam Wing is back and ready to open our wings!

Duo Maxwell : And of course, I will make our revenge to complete option for ourselves!

Heero : And now we all finally knew that you were in engaged with Lain Iwakura at an age like this!

Duo Maxwell : Hey, don't get me starting the engage, you know that's our secret and the people will never know.

"Meanwhile..."

Inky Albarn : This world shall nothing become than a prison of mine. If only Bendy was here to see that...How much that I was going...to be a great mother. A mother that I was going to be proud of...

[images shows of Inky and Bendy on a date in the past]

Inky Albarn : What am I doing? What have I become? Who was I responsible for? This is not the Inky Albarn I know...

[Heart and Soul - Takahito Eguchi]

[a flashback shows Bendy and Inky in the 1930s]

Bendy : Inky. There's something that I needed to tell you this before.

Inky Albarn : Go ahead, my love. I'm ready to hear.

Bendy : Well...Ummm...okay! Here it goes. Inky Albarn, for having the best thing for taking me to a date and I've been waiting for this exact moment for us to be the love of my life. So, ummm, Inky Albarn I've been giving you this from a secret to keep it from those people in society.

Inky Albarn : What did you get for me?

Bendy : Uhhh...[thinking] roses that I gave her, giving a her good meal, and uhh, what was that last part again? [sees Boris behind the bushes]

Boris : [quietly] Go on! do it, man! She's all yours. Answer it and she will be yours!

Bendy : Okay...be brave! Let me show you a little magic. [straining]

*POP*

Bendy : Tada! Inky, will you be the woman that I wanted to be with? [opens a box that contains a wedding ring]

Inky Albarn : [blushes] I...I never been blessed like this before. [giggles] Yes, Bendy. I do.

[flashes back to the present]

Inky Albarn : [sobbing] Bendy...I promised that I would come back to you. I promise that...I wanted to bring everything back the way it was. [starts crying] What have I...What have I done!? Bendy! Please come back to me! Please come back to me! [her dress starts changing from black to white] Why did I let everything go, Why did I have my heart torn to pieces? Evans...I could never forgive you do such a thing! You will pay for everything what you've done! When I do...I will get my hands on that are really something, the hands of you that are red with humanity's blood, I will destroy you for everything, and for making me as a tool for destruction! I will have my revenge! I am going to make you pay for what you've done!

[door opens]

[To the World of Memory - Yutaka Minobe]

Inky Albarn : Hmm? Who's there?

Dr. Stein (?) : My, my. If isn't Inky Albarn. What are you doing here alone in this basilica of Italy, the one they call it the beautiful and famous Santa Maria?

Inky Albarn : How did you know about me that I was here in the Santa Maria and who the heck are you? Are you Inky Evans or are you some kind of trespasser?

Dr.Stein (?) : My, My. What cold receptions await you to have your exact revenge. Now then, don't you tell me you were interested someone. It was I who broke your prison along time ago after those technicolor maggots defeated you to stop your bad behavior. After all you are the mother of the new lord that I planned you to give birth. [takes his off clothes that appears to be a disguise and reveals himself as Sammy Lawrence]

Inky Albarn : [gasped in shock] It can't be...You? You're the one who broke my prison and set me free! Sammy Lawrence!

Sammy Lawrence : So nice of you to see in a fair reunion, I was hoping that I would see your face once again after your imprisonment in the place where I awakened the original Ink demon. Your husband is alive and he would await your return. After all, this is the place where you and him married at many years ago.

Inky Albarn : This is the place where I married Bendy? Many years ago?

[flashback shows Bendy and Inky at the altar, where Bendy is the groom and Inky herself as the bride]

Sammy Lawrence : That's right. Years before you escaped from your imprisonment, you were chosen as the bride to the Demon King's ceremonial marriage, a ceremony situated by the true ruler of his world, the King of all Ink Demons. And of course, you married the lord that was his "son".

[Bendy's Father is shown with Alice Angel and Boris]

Inky Albarn : His "son"? So I was there before I became queen of his world, Bendy's father was there and I knew him as well. So does that make me...

Sammy Lawrence : Yes, it is true. Very true. You are the mother of his "child", you were his spouse. A true heir that serves the royal bloodline of all Ink Demons! For Generations the bloodline has passed throuhout the ages and then when you will become part of that bloodline, an heir will become the part of it as well! The new lord is revealed to be the child you wanted to give birth. That is your wish that you must never forget.

Inky Albarn : My wish. I finally understand what my wish is form. If it means what it means to to be the part of the bloodline, then I will have my revenge, the one who betrayed me from the start and I will make their transgressions pay.

Sammy Lawrence : Hurry now, the door will vanish soon, we must be get going to get you prepared. Let's give them the meaning that anyone is the creator and lover who are traitors. And you Inky is alive and Immortalized.

Inky Albarn : Alive and Immortalized, When there is no vaccine to cure the dirty need, they will build the machine, which they will die tonight! That is what those wishes are for. Inky Eater Evans, you're next!

~ Ninety-First Scene : Inky Redemption ~

[sharyrazade]

Angelic Symbolism, Fallen and Otherwise: A picture essay

Here’s something I’d been meaning to do for some time actually. Ever seen or heard of indices of folk motifs? These things are as old as humanity and have stuck around for a reason. So needless to say, both from as a history/symbolism nerd and a fandom nerd, I’m pretty fascinated by it.

Because not all of them are going to be as obvious as this:

Or as the exact opposite, an exceptionally powerful brown-haired guy with an affinity for light, superhuman feats, and self-sacrifice to save others:

And the kanji comprising his name can literally be read as heaven. And characters in one of the secret movies can literally be seen and heard acknowledging him as their savior in reverent tones. And in case it was too subtle for you, in one of the previous games, his ultimate light spell is literally called Salvation.

Whose nemesis’, as unsettling enough as he is:

 Has a signature weapon that looks like this:

But pay attention to his original armor he wore:

Seems vaguely...avian somehow, no?

And if that weapon wasn’t unsettling-to-the-point-of-looking-demonic enough for you, his second set of armor just does away with any subtlety. Notice the goat motif:

And did I mention that their epic clash to decide the fate of the world(s) takes place in a place that’s literally called Stairway to Heaven in Latin?

Pictured: Sora and Xehanort’s final battle at Scala ad Caelum. No, seriously.

But those are just preliminary, too-obvious comparisons that have been done countless times before. I wanted to review some others which, in hindsight, I didn’t notice, but actually makes a lot of sense. For example:

Take Van “Master Badtouch” Grants of Tales of the Abyss fame/infamy. Probably because he’s a big man with a big sword in a JRPG, the first time I saw him, I didn’t trust the guy, but tried to keep an open mind about him until the sketch, even before a certain incident in a certain mining town, became overwhelming. He does, after all, manipulate the hero’s mancrush on him shamelessly and the manner in which he does it...again, he’s known as Master Badtouch for a reason. While he doesn’t use those exact words, he even tells said hero that he’ll get in trouble if he tells about Van’s master plan to “make him a hero.”

But I didn’t really give much thought to him belonging in such an essay until I saw a rather insightful post comparing the experiences of Luke and Cloud in Final Fantasy VII. There was obviously preexisting influence there (such as one of the plot MacGuffins being known as Sephiroth trees; also something completely different, but it’s not important right now) the exact reason why I was skeptical of the benevolence of the big-man-with-a-big-sword figure.

But speaking of the One-Winged Angel, it was only recently that the very last form Van takes in the very last stage of the final battle clicked for me:

It’s not as blatant as some of the other examples presented here, but given his status as Sephiroth’s (spiritual) bastard son, there is definitely fallen angel symbolism with Van. And this makes sense, seeing his very broken pedestal- to say the absolute least- to Luke and that his master plan is to destroy the Score and Lorelei, the incarnation (literally elemental kami of Japanese mythology) of the Seventh Fonon.

And here’s a fun one, I’m sure: I wanted to review some other symbolism which we were told by costume designers was significant. For example:

In her very first scene, we get a look at how Daenerys is framed: A lot of backing light, light-colored clothing choices. Her appearance is literally angelic-looking:

This imagery (at least in the western world and its offspring) is recurring for a reason. Because it is so iconic. Of course, this is to juxtapose all of the fucked-up things happening to her, both at the hands of her brother and her new husband. And even as she’s technically a queen, we can see the squalor reflected in the choice of costume she’s given:

Not very fitting for a queen (or rather, khaleesi), no? We’ll see this pattern again with Daenerys. The very rugged, practical clothing is connected to situations where she’s “fallen to earth,” so to speak. Wandering the wastes of Essos around the Free Cities trying to scrape together an army and being returned to Vaesh Dothrak as Drogo’s widow:

are the cases that come to mind. While it can be justified in-universe on the grounds of practicality, the show runners knew what they were symbolizing, I’m sure.

And another thing that’s just as symbolic and even more important: Squalor and fire in concert are representative as a sort of rebirth for Daenerys:

Burning Mirri Maz Durr on Drogo’s funeral pyre resulted in the hatching of her dragon eggs and subsequent “rebirth” as the Mother of Dragons. Much as later on, when she burns the assembled Dothraki khals, it’s also a “rebirth” of sorts for her:

She’s not just the Mother of Dragons, Drogo’s widow, or any of her other titles anymore. This point is the one where she’s truly being reborn as Aegon’s heir; when she’s preparing to bring her army and three dragons across the Narrow Sea to invade Westeros. But more on this later.

Next, let’s go over to Yunkai where she freed the slaves after burning their masters. One could argue that as another “rebirth” as Mhysa, but it’s not as significant to my argument as the other two cases:

Granted, this scene isn’t even ten years old, but for a lot of people, it has not aged well, as the “white savior”-ism of Daenerys here rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Whatever you may think of the argument, its proponents were onto something with their use of that term. And the show runners knew it. “How do you figure that, Sharyrazade?” You may ask. Well, just listen to one of Daenerys’ themes accompanying the scene, Mhysa:

Listen to it all the way through and tell me, what do you hear? Exactly: About a minute-and-a-half of a literally-angelic chorus, followed by a little over two minutes of ambiguously-ethnic celebratory chanting and drumming, presumably singing Dany’s praises. Compare this to another of her themes, Dracarys, which literally sounds like the legions of hell on the warpath. But anyway, back to the clothing:

According to costume designer Michelle Clapton, Daenerys’ clothing choices and colors are and have always been significant. And she does in fact, have a liking for that sky-blue color. While a tribute to Drogo in-universe, there is in fact, also real-world significance to this general shade of blue. See the second example in this essay. Also I hadn’t really noticed it since it’s been so long since I’d watched it, but other viewers pointed out the scale motif on her blue dress becoming more and more apparent:

But seasons four and five are where the costume choices, in my opinion, become very interesting. Namely, when she actually faces the struggles of starting to actually rule. Remember, even the greatest conqueror in human history was said to have remarked that conquering and ruling are two very different beasts:

Notice the shift in wardrobe to white, as well as the crown braid. We also see the two motifs merge:

And again, I hadn’t noticed this when I watched it first, but when Daenerys decides to lock away Viseryon and Rhaegal, the scales are, rather fittingly, absent from her dress:

And Clapton points out that Daenerys’ shift to favoring a pure, white wardrobe, is symbolic of aloofness. A sort of “untouchability.” Again, I had not noticed this since it’s been so long and you’re probably not going to notice if you’re not explicitly looking for it, but very, very common to her costume at this point in season 5, is one of the most interesting features of her wardrobe, particularly around the arms:

It’s most apparent in the last two pics, but I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that we start to see Daenerys sporting the wing motif at the point in her career when she starts seeing the meaning of their words (namely Fire and Blood) as an increasingly appealing method to dealing with the complex problems that any ruler faces.

Also, take notice of what’s returned as she makes her “I’m going to break the wheel” speech to Tyrion:

If you look closely, you can see that the scales are back: Namely, she’s no longer hesitating about the power that her “children” allow her to harness, whether for good or ill.

Anyway, back to season six: We’ve already established that fire is symbolic of “rebirths” of sorts for Daenerys. But take a look at how her wardrobe changes after she takes control of the wider Dothraki khalassar:

While again justified by practicality and her affinity for her adoptive culture, look at the leather prominent in her costumes. It gives her a sort of rustic, warmongering, Road Warrior-style belligerence.

But upon retaking Mereen, we see something interesting and pivotal for Daenerys with the symbolism of her new dress:

It’s the exact inverse of her season five outfit! The traditional white-hat-black-hat symbolism notwithstanding, this also symbolizes Daenerys overcoming any ephemeral doubts she may have expressed earlier to Jorah. She’s not running from her Targaryen legacy any longer, she’s embracing it completely, exactly as she swore to the merchants of Qarth:

And as for season seven onward...again, Targaryen colors are explicitly being invoked when she starts making good on her promise:

Recall the part about white-hat-black-hat symbolism? And the contrast from her costume when we were first introduced to her? In hindsight, about as subtle as a brick to the face. But there is one costume that bucks this trend, and it’s the one that I really wanted to discuss. Namely, her white coat:

And true, it may seem out of place at first glance, and is deliberately made to contrast against the dark colors common to the practical Northerners. However, we can still see the red (symbolizing half of her family’s motto) under the coat’s lower layers. But take a closer look:

Upon closer inspection, does the coat seem to have a downy texture to anyone else? Almost...feathered? It probably didn’t help my perception of this, since she’s shown riding one of her “children” a lot in this costume and even loses Viseryon, but nonetheless...a character who’s introduced as literally angelic in appearance and speaks of lofty, noble ideals, but over time, becomes corrupted more and more by her self-righteous lust for power? I know I’m not alone in seeing the fallen angel symbolism there:

Keep in mind, this is the scene right before Dany (or Her Satanic Majesty, if you ask the script) goes before her army to deliver a Triumph of the Will-style (by Emilia Clarke’s own admission) speech about “liberating” the rest of the world with fire and blood. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

And as for the character I’ve identified as the (spiritual) daughter of the above two for a while now?

Again, just a coincidence, I’m sure.

[imaginethreehouses]

Hi! I saw that your matchups were open so I hope you don’t mind doing mine for male characters (one of each house? If you only do one per request, then just one in general in fine!) I use she/her pronouns! I have rose pink hair reaching to my mid-back and drown brown hair. I stand at 5ft and am left handed. I’m a Sun Capricorn, Moon Virgo, Rising Leo and an ISTP.

Most people think I’m quiet and polite upon first impressions, so they tend to be surprised when I’m with my friends and Im here bullying and gaslighting the living shit out of them. I’m told that I’m a blunt person, not in the mean way, but just speaking the truth when a person is in trouble and needs to see reality kind, apparently. I’m a very sarcastic person and am definitely a bad influence. I don’t tend to talk about myself much. I’m really bad at giving compliments and don’t tend to stress much. I don’t like seeming week or stupid, so I tend to act like a know-it-all as I try to hide my flaws, tho it has gotten to the point where a friend asked if I’ve ever cried once in my life which really hurt.

Anyway lol, I was a music oriented person, having played the piano mainly for over 12 years, violin, and guitar but it was never a passion of mine so I kinda dropped it. I love writing, drawing, and playing mostly JRPG games. I eat a lot lol, but I guess it’s better to describe it as I only get full when eating too much of one food since I get tired of it, and am a fast eater. I also have the humor of a 10-year-old boy with plenty of Your Mom and That’s what she said jokes.

Hey!! Sure, you can request one of each house, it's no problem! It actually makes it easier for me in a way because I'm always worried the people I write for will hate the match I pick? 😅 Now I have three tries. Also, I hope you mean bullying/gaslighting your friends in a figurative/exaggerated sense? I'm autistic and pushing 30 so I'm not always sure what younger people mean these days when they say these things LOL. Anyway! I hope you like the matches 🥰

From the Blue Lions, I match you with... Sylvain! ❤

Look no further. He's the one who'd be laughing his ass off at a "that's what she said" joke in the middle of a war council meeting.

Sylvain needs someone to be blunt with him and tell him how things are once in a while. Pretty frequently, actually. All the time, maybe, even.

He's often taken for someone with no feelings because of the way he acts, so he would get really angry if he sees someone do the same to you.

Sylvain would be the biggest fan of your writing, he would go as far as to draw terrible quality fanart of it.

If video games existed in Fódlan you can bet Sylvain would spend at least 3 hours a day gaming.

He's got his issues but I think the two of you could eventually fit together nicely!

From the Black Eagles, I match you with.... Caspar! ❤

I think he'd be another fellow 'fine' humor enjoyer and chaos wrecker 🤭

He'd support you so much in dropping what wasn't making you happy and going for what you really enjoy!

He'd think you're not that interesting upon first impression, then be delighted to learn what you truly are like when he sees you around your friends.

He might not really get your sarcasm sometimes and just get things comically wrong as a result. Feel free to either have mercy or mercilessly tease.

From the Golden Deer house, I match you with... Claude! ❤

Sorry, I think this pretty much completes the holy trinity of the "that's what she said" kind of humor fe3h guys 🤭

I think Claude would also enjoy gaming a lot. He is also a musical person though, so he would bug you endlessly when he inevitably decides that he wants to learn to play violin and piano.

Despite all his dreams and the complicated politics he's involved with, at heart he's a guy who loves to play jokes and tease. You'd fit together quite nicely!

This is completely unrelated to any of what you said but I think Claude is pretty much the best cuddler in the whole game. I can't explain it but IDK look at that gif up there, he looks so soft? 🥺

Bonus friendship match! From the Church of Seiros: Catherine!

[cloudy-whales]

Do you have any headcanons about Odd? I headcanon him as trans

I do! Here are some of mine:

He is bi

Has a very specific hair and skin care routine that he learned from his dad and sisters

Kiwi is an emotional support animal, but Odd’s parents never got the French equivalent to the license for Kiwi so Odd just said “F this, i’m bringing my dog!” and did it anyways

Overall is really smart, academically and body language wise, but doesn’t really show it off and only utilizes it when it seems needed

His family is mad rich and lives in a gilded age mansion

You would never know this unless you go to his house, doesn’t like flaunting in that manner. Views his family as more C+ tier rich people when really they are in the A tier

I am basing this off of the fact that a lot of American private schools are really expensive (some can be almost the same as a community college tuition depending on what they offer) so I am guessing that sending your child to a foreign school would cost a lot + sending the older siblings as well. This is also assuming that the older siblings continued on for a college career as well. From his parents career paths (assuming that they are at the peak of their careers and can earn residuals from their previous work) and the ability to pay from Odd to fly back home for the holidays along with shipping his school stuff home once summer comes.

Prefers music with a faster BPM but don’t be fooled he will listen and tell you about anything. From ancient latin melodies, to an underground indie experimental band to something very specific like wizardcore rock or space acid disco

fav game genres are beat em’ ups, fighting games, JRPGS and high action hack and slashes

Non-gender conforming, however during the time of the show wasn’t really sure what was his situation so only expressed this through color choice. When he gets older he gains more confidence and expresses it more. 

I should really draw my headcanon older Lyoko Warriors.... time to add that to the list of fanart I want to draw ✎

[sibyl-of-space]

Final Fantasy IX ~ Melodies and Memories

"Jesters of the Moon"

There are a lot of very good video games in the world, but it takes some luck and circumstance outside of a game's control for one to reach me at just the right time(s) and place(s) in my life that it has a tangible impact on who I am -- who I want to be. One that carves out a space for itself in my soul that will never be removed or replaced.

I've just finished playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time, and there's no doubt in my mind that such is the case here.

(Continued below readmore.)

I drew this art last year, when I was mourning my attachment to an old favorite game that I just don't feel the same way about anymore: Majora's Mask. I wanted to draw something that captured my feelings about it, because sometimes art is the best way to talk about something when the words don't want to come.

Why is "Jesters of the Moon," the name of a random song in the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack, plastered in the middle of this Majora's Mask fanart? Especially considering I hadn't even played Final Fantasy IX yet when I drew this?

The reason is exactly that "luck and circumstance" that allowed me to fall so uniquely in love with the game.

"Mt. Gulug"

In 2008, someone on YouTube uploaded a Majora's Mask parody-slash-let's-play series called "Majora's Mask: The Things Which Were Taken Out." The series has since become unlisted and won't be linked here out of respect for the creator who probably doesn't want things they said and made in 2008 being spread all over the internet, but because of Unregistered Hypercam 2 reasons, the series inserted other background music over the video and didn't record the actual game audio.

I didn't recognize any of the music, but I watched these parody videos on repeat because in addition to being funny (...at the time, in my mind, at least), I really really loved the music. It got to the point where I would sometimes be playing Majora's Mask and get disappointed when I approached Goht and the Mt. Gulug theme wasn't playing in the background.

I had forgotten about these videos for a really long time in the interim, but I remembered them at some point when I was thinking about Majora's Mask and I found them again. The creator had cited the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack for virtually all of the background music used in the videos, and I realized that despite knowing literally nothing about the game, I had become really fond of - and weirdly nostalgic for - the songs from it that I now recognized.

So I looked up "Jesters of the Moon" and played it on repeat while I drew out my feelings in colored marker. A few months later, I realized that my backwards compatible PS3 can also play PS1 games, and eBay had FFIX for PS1 at a good price. I had nothing to lose by ordering it and seeing what the source of all that fantastic music was like.

"Vamo Alla Flamenco"

I started my playthrough knowing nothing about what to expect from the game. I'd never played a Final Fantasy game before and my overall JRPG experience has been mostly limited to Tales of, Persona, and more recently, mainline Shin Megami Tensei. The only things I knew about Final Fantasy were a) the Tidus laughing scene, and b) Sephiroth. IX seemed like it had vibes I would enjoy, but beyond that I knew nothing about what the experience would be. So I approached it with a "let's have fun and see how it goes" attitude, naming my party members the first silly thing that came to mind, ending up with "Swaggy," "OwO," "Bitchin," "Gunz," and "SWOOORD" to start with.

(For the record I do not regret those names whatsoever.)

I was immediately struck by how differently the game uses music in comparison to all of my previous JRPG experiences. This was not a game where the composer was given a list of theme songs that were slapped on top of a mostly completed game-- this was a game constructed with the soundtrack in mind as a part of the writing process.

The opening act plays almost like an opera (side note, yes I know one of the other FF's has a literal opera, I haven't played that one): you traverse the same locations from different perspectives as different characters, introducing the cast with lighthearted humor and dramatic irony out the wazoo. While you traverse the city as OwO, OwO's theme is playing in the background, coloring your perspective of the city and the narrative. When you switch to Gunz patrolling around the castle, Gunz's theme accompanies your movement and informs his character and mission. I am so accustomed to "location themes" being the norm in virtually all video games that experiencing character and/or narrative themes as BGM instead while I bumble around town changed my entire perspective on what music in games can do and be.

The operatic feeling is definitely intentional, because the game uses a play-within-a-game narrative device to hit you over the head with its themes in a way that is somehow poignant and artful while also being extremely blatant. That is a hard balance to strike, but it manages. The whole game is like that: it is completely straightforward and tells you exactly what it's about at heart, but it does it beautifully.

At any rate, I was enamored with this intro and had a very fun time, but I wasn't obsessed or anything and ended up putting it down. I spent several months on the first half of disk 1 with weeks passing between play sessions. I liked the game plenty, but life stuff happened and I decided to get obsessed with Dai Gyakuten Saiban and Ghost Trick for a while. No regrettis.

It was already clear, though, that FFIX was going to be special to me. My compositions for my team's game in the Global Game Jam in 2021 were directly inspired by FFIX's opera-like intro. I wrote two character themes for our game that would serve as background music when you play as the two protagonists, coloring your journey differently even when moving in the same spaces. I was intentionally trying to mimic the way music is used in FFIX as an exercise. The themes I wrote are definitely some of my strongest work so far.

(You can check out the game here if you want, I promise it is significantly shorter than Final Fantasy IX.)

"Melodies of Life"

Music caused me to pick up FFIX the first time, and music caused me to return to it. After months of not touching or really thinking about it, just earlier this week I was inspired to play it again, because - again - I listened to the right song at the right time.

I was again mourning the loss of something, in this case a friendship, for reasons I'm not going to share here. I had already heard the song "Melodies of Life" because it came up when I was looking up FFIX songs to reblog on Tumblr a few months ago, and I decided to listen to it again. Even without knowing the game context, the song itself really spoke to me in that moment: "a voice from the past, joining yours and mine, adding up the layers of harmony" - it kind of made me feel at peace with the fact that I had a lot of positive memories of that friendship and I could keep those at heart while also moving on in the present. ...I'm also a sucker for music metaphors, so there is that.

I was really moved by this song, cheesy as it is, and I was also definitely in the mood for a distraction. Picking up FFIX again felt like the best move.

It was, and my life is forever changed.

The game never stopped being beautiful and funny and touching, and the soundtrack never ceased to amaze. I recognized concepts I've seen in other games but never had I seen them used so artfully. I adored the fantasy world and non-human cast, I found myself enticed by random encounter for the first time because it made me feel like I had to struggle to survive a difficult journey. Music, gameplay, visuals, and story felt like one cohesive work of art for the entire duration.

Life circumstances got me to play the game again, but the game itself was so captivating and wonderful that I binged the entire rest of it - disks 2-4 - in less than a week. Everything else that the game had to say, it told me itself, in its own context, and I was ready to listen.

"You're Not Alone!"

This is going to make me sound like an emotionally-stunted twenty-something, but it has been years since a work of media has got me to have a really good cry. I used to cry playing games all the time as a kid but recently I'll find myself getting emotional, sure, often tearing up, but getting completely red-faced and snot-nosed because I physically cannot contain the emotions being evoked by a work? Years. I can't honestly tell you the last time it happened with certainty.

I feel like an emotional band-aid has been ripped off. I was f*cking sobbing during the entire duration of the "You're Not Alone!" sequence. It didn't matter that what was happening was obviously coming from a mile away, because the delivery was so raw and emotional and human!!! A whole game's worth of Swaggy punching first and asking questions later to save his friends, being Protag McProtag endangering himself for others in any and all circumstances, for the payoff of all of his friends forcing him to stop being such a primadonna and let them help him for once. It's true, too! He relies on them just as much as they rely on him! And the game doesn't just tell you this, no, it lets you try to solo all these fights and waits until you realize how boned you are until they come bail you out.

When Bitchin showed up with her "looks like you need a hand" I wanted to straight up yell at my tv. YES I DO!!! YES I DO NEED YOU BITCHIN!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! I half knew that SWOOORD was going to heal me before I got truly KO-ed but I had been unmercifully wiped in "unwinnable" battles before in this game, so I legit thought I might have to re-do that whole part of the game again, and I was so relieved and thankful when she showed up and healed me.

This moment exemplifies everything that I adore about this game. It doesn't just tell you its story. It shows it to you, it sings it to you, and it and lets you play it out and feel it for yourself.

"Game Over"

This song is all too familiar to me. Gizamaluke's Grotto was very unforgiving for a first-time Final Fantasy player, especially one who didn't happen to pick up Big on the way for a fourth party member early on.

I hadn't heard the piano part in a few months, though, because when I picked the game back up I started just mashing to reload before it got to that point any time we wiped. I didn't hear it again until the game was truly over, this time for good.

I let it play for a while. Not too long, because I have a CRT TV and didn't want "The End" to get burned in. But a while. Enough to meditate on what I'd just experienced, and how I was feeling about it.

There's so much more to say about the game, far more than I could put in a blog post. But I don't think I need to describe these thoughts in words. I can do what the game did, and use music, use art, use stories, use metaphors, and use symbols to communicate what I mean; and hope that someone else is able and willing to listen.

And although a written record of my thoughts likely won't be preserved for all that long, maybe the feelings and the memories will be, so long as they have been shared.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part One

A lot of these posts are going to be just my impressions, things I love, cool things to point out, I don’t know.  Rambles about how much I love this game and everything about it.

To start off I’ll talk about my OC a little bit, and how I got into Mass Effect. Then we dive into the prologue.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

My OC

So we all have our Main OC Shepards. Mine is Annakie.

Annakie is a name from an MST3k episode that I have loved since the first time I saw it in the early 90′s.  I started using the name Annakie in IRC shortly thereafter, specifically in the SciFi channel’s IRC server, which used to be fairly active back in the day.  And by the day I literally mean circa 1995. They used to host some pretty cool, especially for 1995, events there, like authors and writers of their shows would come in and do Q&A’s, including Kevin, Mike and Bill from MST3k.  Kevin Murphy recognizing where my nick came from immediately was a moment of pride for me.

So I’ve basically always been Annakie online, even after knowing that it’s a real actual name some people have, I’ve still managed to snag it most places on the internet.  And most of the time when I play a new game, I start out playing Annakie, or one of two or three other names I regularly use sometimes.  But naming my first Shepard Annakie and having her look more or less like this every time I play is just... what I normally do.

Also I normally play goody two-shoes the first time I play through any game with moral decisions.  The first time I played through Mass Effect, though, she was an engineer.  I think the second time onward she’s always been a vanguard.  

She’s a Spacer, because I love having her mom alive and get to talk to her.  I like that she didn’t start from trauma.  But she’s a sole survivor, because I like how that shows how strong she became.  I also like that it gives her extra incentive to hate Cerberus later on.

Discovering Mass Effect

I’ve been gaming since I was seven in 1982 when my parents brought home our first Atari 2600.  When RPGs became a thing I liked JRPGs a lot on the family Nintendo and some action RPGish games like Super Metroid, but when Western-Style RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights came out, I found my true video game love.  

Before Mass Effect, my favorite game was Knights of the Old Republic.  And it’s still way up there in my list of favorite games of all time.  And I really loved Carth Onasi. Although I’d loved other video game love interests before him, Arin Gend, Valen Shadowbreath, Celes/Locke... Carth was my favorite.  That also inspired me to try my hand at fanfic for the first time.  That never saw the light of day and I’m pretty sure I lost it like 3 hard drive crashes ago.

So when I heard that the same company that made KotOR was making a new, non-Star Wars space game, I was excited.  Until I went and looked at some of the trailers, gameplay preview videos, etc, and saw no female protagonist option.  I must have looked somewhat early on because even on message boards I looked at the answer was “they haven’t said anything” or “I don’t think so”.  And I was *crushed*, then stopped paying attention to that video game. After it came out, I heard it was a pretty good game, but if you could only play a guy, I wasn’t that interested.  

It wasn’t until 2009 when I finally got an XBox 360 and realized I had no idea what games to play on it that I didn’t already have on PC.  I joined a game trading thread on a forum I was on, and bought a few titles, and someone was selling Mass Effect cheap, so I thought... what the hell, I’ll probably like it even if I have to play a dude.  

A few nights later I was curled up on my couch with controller in hand and... hmm this music is pretty good.  OK New Game... Create Profile... wait what?  Custom or default Female character?  You can play as a woman?!? WHAT??  Damn, I should have looked at this game more closely.  Okay.

So I made my Annakie Engineer... and honestly I don’t remember what origins I picked then... but the game started.

I recognized one of the first two voices I heard but couldn’t place it.  And then a third guy was talking over these space scenes and someone walking scenes and... hang on, is that Seth Green?!?!  Neat!  Real cool space imagery here, great music... and then the intro was over and another guy started talking.

That. Is. Carth. Onasi’s. Voice.  

I SCREAMED.

Then I stood up walked into my office, sat down at my PC, googled “Carth Onasi Voice Actor Mass Effect”, found the character’s name, then googled “Kaidan Alenko romance”.  Found the wiki page, saw the answer was yes, and screamed again.  Really, really mad at myself.  This game had been out for two years.  A space RPG where you can play as a lady and the same voice actor I already ADORED was in it playing another romanceable character.  I knew then, two minutes into the game, that I was going to fucking LOVE THIS GAME and I should have played it TWO YEARS AGO.

I went back, played all night, and for the next several nights until I beat the game.  And then joined forums and everything I could get my hands on to find fellow fans, then replayed the game, and played again, and again, and again until I had all the achievements.  Then I bought it on PC so I could get all the achievements on PC and be ready to import saves for when Mass Effect 2 came out.

The one good thing about waiting so long to play ME1 was, I only had a year to wait until ME2.  That year was basically all about Mass Effect for me.

The Prologue

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about the prologue.

First off, who else, the first time you played, when in character creation you heard the “Profile Corrupted!” message thought you fucked something up or maybe your game disc was bad.  Anyone?  Not just me, right? I  may have restarted my Xbox.

The class descriptions I think are a little wonky.  I chose Engineer the first time through because I like utility classes and I like healing.  But the classes don’t really... play that way I guess.  Hitting F to heal (or whatever it’s mapped to on the controller) doesn’t really matter, and a couple of classes have access to First Aid.  Nobody is really a “healer”.  Hence switching to Vanguard later.

The prologue itself does a really great job, though, of setting up the game, and the world.  It starts with the great move of telling you a little bit about your own character, helping you to understand those choices that you made “Spacer” “Earthborn” “War Hero” “Sole Survivor”,  That was a good move.  It took me until my second playthrough to connect those two guys talking about me to being Anderson and Udina.  

Also, nice that they explained what Mass Effect actually *is* and placed you in a year, so you have an idea how far ahead this game is from our own time.

And then this...

Majestic.

But it’s great how they start with a shot of you, looking at Earth

 then you see Jupiter, with an establishing shot of the spaceship you’re in.  (OK I didn’t get a great screenshot of this, I’m using gifs that are going in a gifset posting tomorrow)

And then you fly by Neptune

Then... wait what the fuck is this thing?

Along with Seth Green talking to... someone?  And the movement through the ship, giving you glimpses of Jenkins, Pressley, crewmates doing their jobs, the camera constantly sweeping, something big is happening!  Something exciting!  You’re not sure what all of it is but... it sounds cool!

The camera swings around on the person you’ve been following, and you already kinda know it’s your character, but there you are, in a very cool sweeping reveal.

The music swells.  Then the big glowy weird scissors thing... eats the spaceship and spits it back out.

It’s all so effective.  It’s kind of breathtaking to watch even for what must be like my 30th time, not exaggerating.

And I can never wait to do it again.  What a great way to start this game.  

[ckret2]

Out of all the human music, what do you think Ghidorahs heads would enjoy most?

It took over three thousand words to answer this question and I enjoyed every second of it.

So!

Did you know that dogs can communicate with each other through their pee?

I swear this is relevant to the question.

Dogs pee to mark their territory. And they have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell compared to humans. From a few drops of pee, they can tell another dog’s sex, whether the dog’s in heat if it’s female, whether the dog’s been spayed/neutered, which direction it was traveling, how long ago it was in the area, whether the dog’s stressed or sick…

So if you ask a dog what their favorite pee scent is, what are they gonna say? Probably something relevant to the data they’ve evolved to put into and get out of dog pee. They’re probably gonna say something like “mine, because it’s familiar and means that I’m home somewhere safe,” or “the smell of a lady that’s dtf” or “the smell of stress because I’m an evil dog sadist that relishes other dogs’ suffering” or “the smell of neutered dogs because it means there’s gonna be less fights in this neighborhood between horny dogs” or “i don’t care as long as there’s LOTS of dogs because play pals!!!” Something like that, probably. I’m making this up as I go.

If you ask a human what their favorite dog pee scent is, the answers you get are probably going to be “They have different scents???” or “idk, whichever pee smells the least" or “my puppy’s pee smells different when she’s sick, so, uh, whichever scent is Not That One.”

Ask a human what their favorite kind of music is, or assign a favorite kind of music to a human character, and it tells you something about them. If they say that they like 90s anime themes & JRPG soundtracks, then that’s going to tell you something about them. It’s going to tell you that either they’re from Japan and grew up with that on TV, or they’re a weeb. “Counterpoint: maybe it just tells you that they like that kind of music?” Yeah but where were they gonna stumble on that music if they aren’t either from Japan or a weeb? If they only like the music because of its sound, then they would also be interested in Hasidic Jewish music, right? After all, anime/JRPG music and Hasidic music sound a lot alike:

https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/187677604232/krakenpocalypse-jewishmagpie-tlbodine

But you never see people say “I like JRPG soundtracks and Hasidic music,” because people don’t like music because of the way it sounds. They like it because of the way it sounds AND because they were exposed to it (you can’t enjoy music you don’t know about) AND because they were exposed to it frequently* AND because they feel at home in a community that values that kind of music AND because that kind of music is accessible to them AND because that kind of music has positive associations for them AND because either they heard a bit of that music and sought out more just like it or because they’re in a place where they were passively exposed to a whole lot of that music… etc etc etc. 

(*Fun psychology fact! Understanding certain sounds as “music” is learned, not just innate—if you hear a new song and it immediately sounds pleasantly musical to you, it’s because you’ve heard enough songs similar to it that your brain auto-interprets it as music. Which is one of the reasons why music in genres that you don’t listen to as often might “kind of sound all the same” or “blend together” or fail to hit any emotional chords in you the way that songs in genres you listen to all the time do. It’s not because you found the One True Emotionally Gripping Musical Genre and everyone else is listening to genres that don’t have that emotional punch for some reason; it’s because your brain is tuned, just like an instrument’s strings, to resonate with those kinds of songs, and other people’s brains are tuned to resonate with other kinds.)

I swear all of this is still relevant to Ghidorah headcanons.

So anyway, if somebody tells you that they’re into anime themes and JRPG soundtracks? It tells you either they grew up in Japan or they’re a weeb. If they tell you they’re into anime themes and Hasidic music? Then they grew up in Japan or they’re a weeb, and also they’re Jewish or close with Jewish folks which is why they were exposed to Hasidic music; OR, they’re a tumblr user who was into one of the genres, saw that same hundred-thousand-note post I linked above, and looked up the other genre. If a millennial says their favorite band is Backstreet Boys, that implies something very different about their overall musical tastes—and possibly their social circle, their fashion taste, their TV and movie preferences—than if they say their favorite band is Evanescence. That’s not to say you can’t be a goth-as-fuck dressed-in-all-black purple-dyed-hair vampire-lit-devouring Grown-Up Emo Kid if your favorite band was Backstreet Boys—but it doesn’t correlate as highly as Evanescence does, does it? Someone whose favorite band sings about the light of Jesus filling their soul probably has very different religious beliefs from someone whose favorite band sings about blowing Satan in a cemetery.

And all of those associations are massively intensified if we’re talking about fictional characters instead of real people. Me, grown up goth that I am, driving to work singing along with Evanescence songs and songs about blowing Satan—when I was a kid I had a phase where Backstreet Boys was my favorite band, and what’s that say about me, my personality, and my overall identity? Ultimately, not a lot, except that they were everywhere when I was a kid, I could name four of their songs (more than most artists!), and I thought three of them were pretty good. People’s tastes are varied, weird, pick up strange chunks, and drift around, and it doesn’t always tell you something deep about their character.

But, if you create a goth character but say when they were a child Backstreet Boys was their favorite band, why did you, the writer, assign them a favorite band that goes against their type so hard? What are you trying to say about them? Did something happen in childhood that changed them from the kind of kid who’s into pop (generally perceived in fiction and sometimes reality to mean a person is normal, well-adjusted, optimistic, mainstream, average, boring—or “has good taste” to other people who like pop) into the kind of kid who’s into goth music (generally perceived in fiction and sometimes reality to indicate a person is sad/angry/anxious, pessimistic, counterculture, overtly rejects the mainstream, weird, mysterious—or “has good taste” to other people who like goth music)?

Is it because something sad happened in their childhood and changing their style/music was how they coped? Is it because they met someone important to them who opened their eyes to The Beauty Of The Dark And Macabre? Is it because they were only allowed to listen to parent-approved pop as a kid and chose to dive into the most out-there genre they could find as an act of rebellion? Is it because they became a vampire and that’s apparently just what vampires do? Is it because they realized they were unconsciously faking being attracted to guys because they thought that was normal and picked an appropriate boy band to latch onto, but when puberty was kicking in at age 13 they saw a cute girl with black nails and clothes at the mall and went “hecc im love girls” and grabbed the first album they could find with a female vocalist in similar makeup on the cover?

What’s this character’s backstory? What’s the significance of that decision? Why did you give this character that favorite band? Why did you choose to have this music in this character’s life? Why pop, punk, jazz, rock, metal, rap, country? Why American, Japanese, Indian, Spanish, Arabic, South African? Why that mainstream, or why that obscure? Just the decision to make their favorite artist “Benjamin who plays his guitar at the local coffee shop” versus “Veniamin who plays his guitar in a coffee shop in Greece and puts the videos on YouTube” tells you something about whether they find their Obscure Favorite Artist in the local community or in Internet deep dives (unless they actually live in Greece). All those decisions tell, suggest, or imply something about that character’s position within their surrounding human culture.

That’s the key here: within their surrounding human culture. What music a character listens to suggests a whole lot about the millions of intricate connections they have with their surrounding culture when that character too is a human.

Assign a favorite kind of music to a non-human character, and you say something about them, too. What you say about them, before you say anything else, is “the way that this character’s brain is wired to interpret sound waves into pitch and rhythm is nearly identical to the way that human brains are wired to interpret sound waves; and furthermore, they’re familiar enough with human culture that they know and recognize different ‘categories’ of music and pick categories that they do like based on their assigned similarities versus categories they don’t like based on their assigned similarities.”

And that ain’t something that can be said about Ghidorah.

See I told you all that would be relevant.

To say “Ghidorah likes rock,” you first have to give Ghidorah the capacity to differentiate rock from rap, from country, from Bollywood, from 8-bit chiptunes, from whatever the fuck Tchaikovsky was up to—and even humans aren’t born with the innate ability to sort songs into categories like that. Hell, even humans who are familiar with music have a hard time telling apart different kinds of music the deeper and deeper you get into specific genres. Like, do you know the difference between Electroclash and Filthy Electrohouse? Probably not? Would saying that Filthy Electrohouse is Electroclash with a house kick help? No? What about saying that Filthy Electrohouse is basically the same as normal Electrohouse except that Electrohouse evolved out of House whereas Filthy Electrohouse evolved out of Electroclash? No? Sound like gibberish to you? You probably know the difference between rock and metal, though, even if only vaguely. Try explaining it to an alien who’s never heard either genre before. To the alien whatever you say is going to sound like explaining Filthy Electrohouse because they haven’t got any of the background understanding of the genres to sort them apart.

(And if you want to know more about what the hell is this Filthy Electro French Clash House thing, may I recommend https://music.ishkur.com/# as an absolutely terrifying but very interesting guide to the complete history of electronic music and its subgenres? I like to click on random things and listen to them. The above genres can be found way at the bottom under Eurotrash.)

So the tl;dr is: I can’t give Ghidorah favorite music. Not in a normal “oh, they prefer to listen to death metal/Italian opera/Tibetan throat singing/golden oldies/traditional children’s lullabies” way because all of that, any of that, implies a knowledge of and connection to human culture that not only do they lack, but just imagining asserting a preferred genre/artist like that mentally strains my internal willing suspension of disbelief.

And I had to say all of the above to say that tl;dr because, like, listen. Listen. “I can’t give Ghidorah favorite music” is a boring, uninteresting answer. It’s a lack of information. “I can’t give Ghidorah favorite music because the vast cultural background knowledge necessary to understand music on humanity’s terms is as alien to Ghidorah as the nuances of dog pee smell are alien to humans.” That, that actually says a lot about Ghidorah, and I think that it says something interest.

So with all that said! Lemme tell you what kind of music they do like.

Because they do like music. A whole lot. Lots of music from lots of alien species.

It’s just human music that’s unfamiliar to them. They will gain familiarity with human music—as soon as they gain access to a means to hear human music (and I do have that in the works!)—but the way they interpret and categorize it won’t necessarily have any correlation with how humans do.

Ghidorah’s wired for singing. Loooves singing. I haven’t decided yet whether that’s a natural dorat thing and over time they added in music from other species as they learned it, or if it’s specifically a trick that they picked up after being fused together and needing a way to weaponize their empath abilities. In either case, their singing is tied directly into their empath capabilities. Half of the “songs” they know aren’t “songs” in any conventional sense, but “the sounds that they figured out would interact directly with the way a target species’ brain functions in order to cause whatever emotion they want their target to feel.” I’ve talked about this before in my Ghidorah-as-siren post. https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/185784244462/ghidorah-as-siren

(Things like that—specific sounds that directly cause emotions in a species due to an instinctive response rather than a learned reaction—are precedented in real life! There’s a certain sound frequency that causes humans to feel fear/panic/dread/paranoia and sometimes hallucinate ghosts, and it’s theorized that this sound might be found at a lot of “haunted” locations: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/oct/16/science.farout )

So, when Ghidorah does this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA-QJUyBdJU

That’s literally a song, from their perspective. It’s a short song, but it’s a song. It’s a “become afraid and rampage against anything threatening (which means everything)” song. At the end of The Glorious Resurrection of Bouvet Island (here https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/187594976987/the-glorious-resurrection-of-bouvet-island ) when Rodan is “ whistling a high soothing note” and then they do this:

“It took him a while to notice that the middle head had started copying his whistle, letting out a single endless note at the exact same pitch. Then the other two joined in, turning it into a high, trilling, reverberating sound, an “ii-lii-lii-lii-lii.” The sound got into his head, made him feel like he was floating. Made him feel like he was in the safest place in the universe.”

They heard Rodan making a sound (something like a single long high-pitched bird whistle) which Rodan instinctively knows as a “soothe somebody” sound; they learned the sound, and from it learned something about how Rodan understands and processes sound; and they immediately turned it around and used it to soothe him. When Rodan immediately feels Super Safe, that’s not just because they’re being all nice to him—that’s full-on song-based dorat empath mind control he’s under the effects of.

So a loud trumpeting roar that induces “be afraid and smash things!” feelings is a song. A single high-pitched continuous note that induces “you’re extremely hella safe!” feelings is a song. So far, those are the only two Earth songs they know, because those are the only two songs they’ve got that work on Earthlings. One they composed themselves, and one they remixed from a song Rodan accidentally taught them.

Based on this, the human definition of “music” and Ghidorah definition of “music” are very different. Our music can be included somewhere inside his definition; but his definition is far broader than ours and includes things we’d never hear as musical.

Ghidorah can sing, like, non-mind-controlling songs too. He does do that. Just sing for fun rather than for megalomaniacal world-destroying reasons. Songs composed for normal reasons! All the ones he knows at this point are alien but he could sing them. There’s a mention in the one-shot from Gigan’s perspective that he likes Ghidorah’s singing and wants to expose him to more.

However, he doesn’t have to separate “normal songs that sound like actual music” from songs that can evoke emotions. Especially if the song itself is somehow intended to evoke an emotion, it’s pretty easy for Ghidorah to learn the emotion that it’s supposed to cause and actually weave that into the song itself. Because, generally, if a species goes “ah yes this song should inspire This Emotion,” then they’re likely to include sounds that physiologically/psychologically help induce that feeling in the brain. Humans do it! So if he’s singing a sad-sounding song with sad lyrics, the odds are good that if a member of the species that produced the song hears it, they won’t just think it sounds sad, they’ll be telepathically forced to feel sad.

The songs they most enjoy singing are ones that can make use of all their musical abilities. Of course, they’ve got their voices—and when they’re singing, they tend to go for higher pitch ranges. You ever hear this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eogtlyDg4Y

Dude can pull off soprano if he wants. If they do hear enough human songs to be familiar with them, yes, they’re going to sing along with the music—and yes, they’re going to do it even if they don’t know the words, which they won’t, because they’ve probably never heard a human voice except when it’s screaming loud enough that they can faintly pick it up from five hundred feet above. They’re going to sing anyway. Don’t pretend you’ve never tried to sing along with a song in a language you don’t know and ended up going “AAA LALALA DA DADA GSDKLFJGLKJ” as you sing.

But like it’s not gonna be limited to human voices because they’ve been all over the galaxy, what separates a “voice” from an “instrument”? Nothing! They can sing violin & viola parts. They can sing brass instruments. They can sing piano.

You know that their tails rattle? Like rattlesnakes? They’ve got maracas on their tails. They can keep rhythm to music with their tails. Or their feet, if they’re on a hard enough surface that they can tap their claws.

You know this scene? With the wing thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhDdXXr9dfQ

Ever heard a tesla coil sing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f6GijQXaBI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee5evlN8Bbs

Yeah they can do that. Probably with greater actual range than a tesla coil. I imagine it works best on synthesizer music and some electric guitar. Probably other things too that I haven’t thought of, but uh I listen to synthesizer & electric guitar so that’s what I think about when I imagine singing space dragons lmao.

Their preferred music, therefore, is going to be stuff that 1) give all three heads parts to sing, 2) also lets them use their tails and wings, and 3) ideally, gives them some interesting emotions to steal/replicate/inflict on others. Which is very broad! Covers a lot of things, no doubt!

Eventually, yeah, they’re going to probably develop more specific human musical preferences—but the preferences are going to be based on their own alien criteria, and it’s also going to be based on what human music they have access to. At least initially? That means that their musical taste is going to be limited to whatever music they can pick up on AM radio in the Gulf of Mexico just off the northeast tip of Mexico. Which, depending on the exact stations available where the Rio Grande dumps into the ocean will probably mean “the current chart toppers in Mexico & the US” and “extremely local Mexican music.“ 

It took over three thousand words to reach that answer. I hope you found the journey rewarding.

[pro-ship-self-ships]

I’m new to self ship and I was wondering what the etiquette is if you don’t like someone’s f/o and you still want to participate in the fandom and also the etiquette if you self ship with the same character as someone else in your community??? This is the only self ship blog I follow so I was curious and didn’t know where else to ask. Thank you in advance

Well, TBH, I don't super interact with the community either (though I do follow a bunch of self-ship blogs, mostly to reblog stuff here), but here's a list of things that I've picked up from parts of the pro-ship community in general, plus what makes sense to me.

Respect people's DNIs. Even if they're obviously anti/fanpolice-esque or "goofy", there are many potential reasons why people might not want certain people to interact with them, and even if it isn't what you would judge to be a serious reason, most people on Tumblr are just here to have fun.

On that note: if someone says they don't want you to interact with them but don't block you for some reason, try to respect that. Many people have been convinced that blocking is "cowardly" or "admitting defeat" or something (which is not true! Use that block button as much as possible!) so don't push it.

I'm like 95% sure it's not a taboo at all to interact with people who ship with the same person. I actually run a personal server with Mod Joseph in it, and me and one other person there have a semi-joking Venn diagram of our "Fire Emblem husbandos/waifus", with many overlapping (though at least for me, most of them don't count as self-ships, just characters I fund hot). I can get why some people who are monogamous might feel possessive over a character they ship with, in which case it's totally valid to not want to "share" them, but if they can't handle the mere knowledge that other people are doing Certain Things with those characters, they probably need some more maturity.

This is more of a general fandom rule (relating to your queation about "if you don't like someone's f/o but still want to participate in the fandom") but just because you don't like part of a fandom (or even most of a fandom) doesn't mean you can't talk about it at all; you just might need to form different fandom circles (like social circles). Fandom circles can often be multifandom, but generally they're based on a similarity that's fandom-based; for example, a circle that's pro-ship and likes JRPGs. If you can't find one just by looking through the tags (which is probably very hard with how Tumblr is formatted) you may have to put yourself out there, like by making a post with a general DNI, "this is what you can expect to see on my blog", and/or "these are my stances on things I think people might want to know about", and probably a list of your fandoms (using "fandom" to mean "media I am interested in").

That's all I can think of right now, honestly; it's kinda late where I am anyway. If you have more questions, you can mesage or send an ask to @fiction-is-not-reality2, who is much more experienced and informed about fandom stuff than I am, though they get a lot of asks so your thing may not be answered right away, or possibly ever haha (though I do believe they try to answer most of the stuff that isn't trolling). Alternatively if you're not comfortable with that, you can message me directly at @genderneutralnoun. Fandom etiquette and history is an interest of mine, so I'd be happy to tell you more. I may not respond right away though; I try not to stress myself out about answering things on social media, which means I often take a bit to respond.

Thanks for asking!

[anichibicore]

I made a playlist for Luke Fon Fabre!

I got bored! so! playlist for one of my favorite JRPG protags! here it is! I’m making this post bc I wanna share why I put each song and just bc I like rambling about my favorite tales game haha. I’ll leave all that under the cut tho to keep this from being super long on dashes and stuff. Well, away we go!

Track 1: Bored to Death by Blink 182 At the beginning of the game, Luke makes it clear he’s bored of being trapped inside his family’s manor and wants nothing more than to leave. I can’t point to any lyrics in particular for this choice, but I feel it fits his situation nonetheless. Track 2: Disturbia by Rihanna Luke's just killed a person for the first time ever, and he's torn up about it. His mind doesn't want to leave that fact alone. So he beats himself up over it. Once again, I can't really point to any specific lyrics for this choice, and I'm honestly starting to rethink my choices. Track 3: Field of Innocence by Evanescence Akzeriuth is destroyed. Luke feels awful. His innocence is gone, and all that's left is guilt. He just wants to go back to how things used to be. But he can't, and he's devastated. This is one of the lowest points in his life, and he doesn't know what to do. He's lost.

Where has my heart gone? An uneven trade for the real world Oh I, I want to go back to Believing in everything and knowing nothing at all

Track 4: Afraid by The Neighbourhood This song is the one that inspired this playlist, partly thanks to this post. Luke’s seeing through Asch’s eyes, he now knows he’s a replica, and he’s scared that the others will want to replace him with Asch. Especially as they make their emotions clear about Luke and his actions. But, Luke doesn’t want to be replaced. He’s hoping to get back the trust he lost. But he doesn’t know how. You're too mean, I don't like you, fuck you anyway You make me wanna scream at the top of my lungs It hurts but I won't fight you You suck anyway You make me wanna die, right when I... When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might take my place When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might take my place When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might take my place When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might end up being me Track 5: Ghost Rule by DECO*27 This is kind of a personal choice, and this is also going by Rachie’s English lyrics. I can’t point to any specific moment in Luke’s arc where this goes, but I still felt it fit him. Maybe his feelings about being a replica and feeling like his whole life is a lie. A couple of lyrics could be used to refer to his tendency to hide his feelings. Another line could be used to show his guilt over destroying Akzeriuth. I could pick this one apart for days.

I only know how to lie, I guess I really can’t dodge it this time No law to pardon my crime, no clemency for this evil of mine Things don’t look better today, the mask I wear is crumbling away Lapsing in depravity, I didn’t see what was happening to me Track 6: No One by Aly & AJ Luke’s woken up. He’s starting to think about how he’s been and decides he wants to change. He cuts his hair and promises Tear that he’s changing himself to be a better person. He still feels broken, but he’s working to fix himself. One piece at a time.

I am moving through the crowd Trying to find myself I feel like a guitar that's never played Will someone strum away? And I ask myself Who do I want to be? Do I want to throw away the key And invent a whole new me And I tell myself No one No one Don't want to be no one But me Track 7: Brave by Sara Bareilles Luke meets with Guy. His life long friend tells him that there’s only one Luke in his eyes. I feel like this song’s more Guy to Luke, hoping to motivate him to speak his mind and lift his spirits. He wants Luke to be brave. Innocence, your history of silence Won't do you any good Did you think it would? Let your words be anything but empty Why don't you tell them the truth? Say what you wanna say And let the words fall out Honestly, I wanna see you be brave Track 8: This is Me by Kealla Settle (from The Greatest Showman)

Luke nearly died but he came back, and he feels better than ever. He feels alive. It’s funny how finding out you’re slowly dying makes you appreciate the life you have. Still, Luke feels like he can take on anything. And he’s not going to let any of his emotional baggage slow him down now. When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be, this is me Look out 'cause here I come And I'm marching on to the beat I drum I'm not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me Track 9: Fight Song by Rachel Platten This ties into the previous track a bit, with Luke’s feeling of strength, like he can take on anything. He’s got a lot left in him, and like hell he’ll go down without a fight. This is my fight song Take back my life song Prove I'm alright song My power's turned on Starting right now I'll be strong I'll play my fight song And I don't really care if nobody else believes 'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me Track 10: She’s So Gone by Naomi Scott (from Lemonade Mouth) Luke’s facing Asch in Eldrant for the final time, and he’s going to prove to Asch that he’s a different person now. He’s his own person, and the fact he’s a replica won’t change that. This fight likely means more to Luke than to Asch. Luke’s going to prove Asch is wrong about him. One way or another. Insecure In her skin Like a puppet, a girl on a string Broke away Learned to fly If you want her back gotta let her shine So it looks like the joke's on you 'Cause the girl that you thought you knew She's so gone That's so over now She's so gone You won't find her around You can look but you won't see The girl I used to be 'Cause she's She's so gone Track 11: This Life is Mine by Jeff Williams and Casey Lee Williams (from RWBY) This song could be any point after Van betrays Luke, tells him he was using him, discards him, anything really. Luke looks back on how Van controlled him, had him essentially wrapped around his finger, and swears he’s going to make him pay and put an end to all he’s been planning for all these years.

Amazing how you conquered me Chained me in servility And made me see The world the way you told me to But I was young and didn't have a Way to know the truth Born to live your legacy Existing just to fill your needs A casualty of this so-called "family" That you have turned into a travesty But I don't intend to suffer any longer Here's where your dominion falls apart I'm shattering the mirror That kept me split in pieces That stood between my mind and my heart This is where I'll start I'm not your pet Not another thing you own I was not born guilty of your crimes Your riches and your influence Can't hold me anymore I won't be possessed Burdened by your royal test I will not surrender This life is mine! Track 12: Angel With a Shotgun by The Cab The battle against Van has begun. Luke and Tear work together to take down the man they had been so close to for years, and while each second is painful for them, they know there’s no other choice. Luke will free Lorelei once all is said and done and that will be the end of it. Nothing else matters to him right now. I'm an angel with a shotgun Fighting til' the wars won I don't care if heaven won't take me back 

Track 13: Home by Daughtry Luke’s freed Lorelei, he and Asch have joined with Lorelei, and the world is saved. His friends all miss him, and on his coming of age ceremony, Tear is singing alone in Tataroo Valley. The rest of Luke’s friends join her, and as they mourn their lost friend, a figure appears in the distance. A figure that resembles Luke. He’s come home. I'm going home Back to the place where I belong And where your love has always been enough for me I'm not running from No, I think you got me all wrong I don't regret this life I chose for me But these places and these faces are getting old So I'm going home Well, I'm going home

Track 14: Shape My Heart by Eyeshine

I didn’t add this one until after I made this post (I’m editing this post to include it) but this is another general one and not one i added bc the singer of this band was johnny yong bosch i swear. It’s the party to Luke because he unintentionally helped some of them change the way they view the world, even if it was only a little bit. His presence made things just a little bit better.

You take our pain away

You make our world okay

You shape our hearts so we can feel what love is

You take our hate away