#i am not caught up on the manga so i do not know many details abt later todofam developments and anything i do know i choose to ignore<3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[ra1ny-daze]

the autism siblings

[jetpackgeneratedcat]

It took literal months, but I finished it!!

Top left: linked universe logo

The jojo's lu logo is sooooo detailed. It is one of the things I love about Jojo's asethetic with linked universe. The detail she adds brings so much life and information about the world of Linked Universe. Great example is all the embroidery on the chain's clothing. Let's you know about civilization, that an item may be magical, etc. It is difficult to keep small details in watercolor, but I think I caught most of the main details in the painting.

Middle left: Soulful legend

This was the fourth of the images I did for the painting, and the first image I really started to get into the painting. I think legend is my favorite to paint because he makes composition so easy. The red tunic adds an easy focal point. I did learn from this that I do not like masking fluid and likely won't use it again. It added to many hard edges that I wasn't intending. Very happy with the sky!

Bottom left: Evening snack

In this image, I liked the idea that wind and sky don't know what Ramen is because their worlds don't have enough space to produce wheat. So sky and wind are super excited about this new food, while legend has no idea why they are so hyped for noodles. I also liked the idea that four found a green pepper in the ramen as a topping and is a hater (this is from a note that jojo left somewhere saying that the chain will eat anything but four in the Manga does not like green peppers, idk where this note is to link it though....). I didn't end up drawing the Ramen noodles as it was just getting too small of a scale for me to be comfortable drawing the thin lines for the noodles in.

Bottom right: Testudo

I am very hyped in the future when we see more collaborative fighting with the chain and them working together effectively. I absolutely love the scene in shifting shadows part 3 where lenged and hyrule work together with the beam and hookshot.

Middle: Legends storage

This is a reference to one of jojo's earliest works where the chain goes to legends storage for him to pick up some gear. I love that scene and I tried to put as many references as I could. The one thing I need to figure out is how I want twilight to look. I can't wrap my head around it. Need to sit down and just try out a bunch of different faces for him. My Pinterest inspo for twilight is all over the place. I want twilight to look different from time because when Malon was trying to guess who was the descendent, she did not consider twilight (she looked at wars and wind (so I typically draw time, wind, and wars looking similar). For my own personal headcannon, twilight and time are very similar in their manner (the way the walk, stand, etc) and personality (their stubbornness (as seen in sunset pt3)) but not necessarily in looks.

Middle right: Boat boys

The first image I did. I like how the water turned out, but I will not be using masking fluid for the same reasons I noted earlier. I did trace the boat (i think this is the reference [L240632 Hornet Class. J. Arthur Dixon Ltd. Beken and Son]). I do regret not doing anything creative with the boat, but I just wanted to get into painting and needed some confidence by working directly from a reference. I also forgot that legend might not be so keen to be on a boat again based on a comment jojo left in 2022 or something. I think she mentioned something in a discord event back then about legend not too willing to be on a boat again. But that doesn't really matter, I put that boy in a boat whether he likes it or not lol.

Top right: Winter storm

Second image I did for this painting. I did trace most of the horse because I do not care to learn horse anatomy (ref. [Winter Save By David Stoecklein]) Favorite part about this is the lighting on the rope from the lantern. I think it turn out well.

Top middle: Heavy armour

Third image I did for the painting and the one I realized I need to spend more time painting people in neutral or back lite lighting. But for my first time I think it is good. I really want to see what jojo does with the armour sets! I like the idea that war's armour is clean and pristine while wild's armour is rusted and beaten from the calamity. In this painting I played with adding pink to the golden armour and I liked it. In the middle picture of the collage (legends storage), you can see i added pink to time's armour.

That's everything! ❤️

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 403: (But Just That One Part, Because I'm Not Caught Up)

Previously on BnHA: Truly no idea, but it kind of looks like Katsuki is riding some sort of spaceship, and everyone has gotten really, really sparkly. I see you all have been busy these past 22 months. Great job, keep it up.

Today on BnHA: “So it’s come to my attention that a truly shocking number of you are only reading this manga for a single character.” – Horikoshi Kouhei, October 2023.

so. where to start, lol

I guess I should open with an apology, because I am about to make a fairly selfish decision! what I am about to do, is post a reaction to Bakugou’s Return To The Manga. however, because I’m not caught up, I’m going to be reading this one scene completely out of context without knowing anything about what is going on. which means that I’m going to be missing out on god knows how many nuances and details, which means this reaction post will be short on those things as well. so basically I’m prioritizing my own personal gratification as a fan here even though it is 100% going to affect the quality of my reaction blog, and for that I genuinely am sorry. eventually I will finish catching up, and when that happens I will post a proper reaction with all the trimmings. that’s just how it is for now though

anyway so with that said, basically what I’ve done now is I have gone to the scanlation website, and clicked on chapter 403, and then scrolled down through most of the chapter while sort of half-looking away from my screen with my eyes squinted so that everything is mostly blurry, until I finally reached the big double-page spread with you-know-who doing his thing. namely, standing around on this giant glowy cereal bowl from the future, which appears to be either hovering up in the air, or slowly crashing onto the ground

and this right here, is exactly what I was rambling on about a moment ago. you guys I really am sorry to be doing this, because even I can tell this should be solemn and sincere moment of awe and excitement and relief. but because I completely lack any context whatsoever for wtf is happening, most of the dramatic impact is lost on me, and to tell the truth right now this page is a hell of a lot funnier than it has any right to be

like, so Deku. this boy is crying all the tears. I recklessly scrolled back up one page to see why, and it appears the answer is Because All Might Is About To Fucking Die (which, !??!?), so that’s actually VERY fucked up, and I’m sure I will have PAGES AND PAGES OF WORDS to say about all of that once I finally catch up properly. that is very traumatic and emotional and I will probably cry a lot about it

BUT, that being said, I just need you guys to know that without that context, Deku standing here with his giant head all >:O in the foreground, while Kacchan appears out of nowhere glowing with the power of a thousand suns and standing on top of this giant floating Smash Bros level that Nezu maybe probably built with his nine million dollars, is one of the wildest fucking things I’ve seen in my life. I feel like an accidental time traveler. you know when a character has one of those crazy prophetic dreams showing them chaotic glimpses of the future, and they’re just standing there all “???” because they have absolutely no clue what the fuck is going on? that is what it’s like right now

heh but there he is

“did you miss me, Izuku. back by popular demand after being on IR for 14 goddamn months. rebuilt better and stronger than ever thanks to the heroic spaghetti man wrapped tightly around my heart keeping me alive. just BnHA things. just a flesh wound. by the way, it’s me, Kacchan, just in case you didn’t recognize me on account of my still being really far away and completely covered by smoke, and also you thinking I was dead. here let me give you a close up to make this easier”

“fuck yeah. it really is me, btw. just in case you still couldn’t tell on account of me also being like 100x prettier than you remembered. guess it’s just that blindingly handsome character development”

also, “the end of an era” um hello, yes, what?? just what exactly have I missed here with all this All Might stuff?? because apparently All Might just prior to this was in some sort of mortal danger, is what I’ve been hearing, because everyone keeps posting excitedly about Kacchan showing up in the nick of time to save him? which incidentally makes my heart so incredibly fucking warm omg. it’s what both of them need AND deserve

why is everything so goddamn sparkly right now. this is like a Sailor Moon battle over here

love that look of instant recognition and shock and overpowering relief in Deku’s eyes though. also has he really been fighting in this cracked out OFA-overflowing mode this entire time?? he looks just like he did on the cover of volume 37. I still haven’t seen his actual canon reaction to the “death”, and I haven’t been keeping tabs on his fight with AFO??/Tomura?? at all, but I’m glad it looks to have been as emotional as I could have hoped

aw fuck yeah

his precious card. I’m now almost as invested in the saga of the All Might card as I am in all the rest of this. it’s all beat to hell, but somehow still made it through in the end. just like him

oh. my. g

protect them.

protect them all.

so is the reason this fight is so sparkly just because of OFA symbolism, then?? or is there something else happening here?? goddammit, okay, I‘m gonna very carefully scroll back to the beginning of the chapter, because I’m 100% positive there is some sort of deeply meaningful symbolic thing going on here and I’ll be damned if I miss out on it, spoilers or no

-- oh my goD??!

1. BABY ALL MIGHT WHAAAAAAT

IS THAT HIS MOM???? OH MY GOD DID WE GET ALL MIGHT BACKSTORY. oh my god. oh god. no actually don’t tell me, ahhhh I cannot fucking wait to read this properly, holy shit

so did something wind up happening to Mighty Mom later on then?? feels like it must have, since he wound up getting so attached to Nana? man I don’t want to think about any of that stuff after seeing this panel though :( just, damn it, why is this man’s whole entire life so goddamn fucking tragic

“the one thing I’ve done most is looking back to the path I took” my god I cannot wait to read this. only two short pages and I’m already buried miles deep into my All Might feels. came here for the triumphant Kacchan return and now I’m sitting here tearing up about All Might, god damn you Horikoshi YOU’VE STILL GOT IT. and I am STILL A SUCKER FOR ALL OF IT

anyway, so now back we go to the last couple of pages with this additional context, aaaaand...

...and apparently I’m now full-on crying about All Might! (: well how about that. turns out when you read the manual and follow the instructions properly this series still works exactly as advertised. don’t mind me I’m just sitting here sobbing because everything is exactly what I wanted and I apparently don’t know how to deal with that!!

THEIR FEELINGS BECOME WHAT?!?!?!

EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED AND I’M GONNA BE A MESS ABOUT IT FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME BECAUSE LIFE IS GRAND!!

ARE ALL OF THESE WATERY SPARKLES LIKE. DEKU’S FUCKING TEARS LMAO OR WHAT. HOW IS KACCHAN IN THE SPLASH ZONE. HOW ARE HIS TEARS HOLDING UP THE SPACESHIP. I DON’T UNDERSTAND A GODDAMN THING BUT THIS IS NOW OFFICIALLY A SHOUJOU MANGA, I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

the urge to ruffle baby Deku and baby Kacchan’s hair is so goddamn powerful you don’t understand. this is PRIMAL. they are SO happy and SO good and perfect. I’m gonna fucking die

there’s not even any dialogue. what the fuck are they even gonna say. their expressions say it all and more. also they are being kind to me because they know I’m not caught up so they don’t want to spoil me any further, thank you my sons

lastly, I guess, because I don’t really have anything else to add now that my brain has fully turned to sappy mush: so uh. I truly have not the slightest clue how or why, but. does Kacchan have OFA though. and why is the answer, “yes he definitely does.” ???

like, I don’t understand it, but I confess that by now I have spoiled myself on the last few pages of chapter 362 for reasons (those reasons being “I finally gave in and looked at them on purpose, because I’d already seen most of them out of context here and there, and my willpower is only so strong”), and so I know that this boy was talking to vestige!Might, and as far as I’m aware that is 100% not possible unless he has some sort of connection to OFA in some way so yeah

and now here he on this last page being all Profoundly Connected with Deku while they gaze into each other’s eyes, and I can’t help but notice that said eyes are all explodey and they look a LOT like Deku’s actually. and on top of that we have all of this All Might symbolism that I’m still crying about, so like? ???

anyway so I’m not going crazy here right? like this is definitely a thing? for whatever reason?? unless you guys know something here that I don’t. in which case I actually am asking to be spoiled fully just this once, because at this point I just need to know one way or the other and I don’t care lol

anyway so that concludes my thoughts I guess! so now my absurdly ambitious goal is to speed read the manga this next week and hopefully at least catch up to Kacchan’s “death”, so that I can better understand what’s happening when I inevitably wind up spoiling myself for chapter 404 as well. the plan right now is to still type up my liveblog notes as I go, but to not worry about posting or editing anything in between chapters. so I’ll have a big backlog of chapter recaps which I’ll eventually get to uploading whenever I can, but in the meantime I can participate more in the fandom side of things. since I really want to share all of my endgame theories and so forth, but in order to do that I really need to find out just what the fuck is actually going on lol, so yeah

[watermelonsloth]

Boruto Shipping Opinions

I’m gonna put a brief aside here to say two quick things to keep in mind before reading:

I am not going to go into great detail or analysis here because I’m holding off on that until the manga wraps up.

I am caught up with the manga, I am not caught up with the anime. I have watched up until the arc the new team 7 infiltrate a prison, the second chunin exams, and whatever clips/moments I’ve stumbled upon being discussed. I am not an avid fan, I do not know all the ins and outs of character dynamics, and I don’t even keep up with that part of the fandom. I have no horse in this race.

BoruSara

I don’t like this ship, and I don’t know if that’s an unpopular opinion. I’ll try to avoid saying “they have sibling vibes” or “they’re just friends” because, coming from someone who has used that excuse in the past, it is very difficult to explain/defend argument. So much so that now it just comes across as cheap to me.

I will, however, say that I don’t like it for the same reason I don’t like NejiTen. It comes across as “he was a boy, she was a girl. Can I make it anymore obvious?” It feels like it stems from the idea that boys and girls can’t just be friends. If the dynamic was introduced with an edge of romance (like how Naruto and Sakura’s dynamic was introduced with Naruto having a crush on her), maybe it would be a different story. But as of right now, it feels like the fandom reading into something that doesn‘t need to be read into.

KawaSara

I hate to say this, but I’m guessing this ship stemmed from SasuSaku fans reading them as “next gen SasuSaku”. Look, everyone can ship whatever they want or choose to refrain from shipping, but I’m sick of the fandom projecting old ships on new dynamics. I have seen BoruSara compared to SNS, NaruSaku, and SasuSaku (for some reason). I have seen BoruSumi compared to NaruHina. I have seen MitsuSara compared to SasuSaku and SuiKarin. I have seen KawaSara compared to SasuSaku. Every single time I thought to myself, “The manga starts with Boruto asserting that he’s not his dad and this isn’t his dad’s story.” I get that comparisons will naturally arise since it’s a sequel series, but these kids are not carbon copies of their parents and they don’t have the same dynamics their parents did.

Now that my rant is out of the way, I think a hypothetical child between them having black hair with pink highlights would be cute and that’s about it.

MitsuSara

I wish these two had more of a dynamic. Both characters have interactions with Boruto and clear dynamics with him, but they don’t really have much going on with each other. They both have recognizable personalities, but they mellow each other out whenever they interact and it makes them boring (I’m guessing Ikemoto isn’t interested in them together). They also only tend to talk to each other about Boruto (at least in the manga). Say what you want about them, but at least Sasuke and Sakura had a dynamic.

Anyways, funny ha ha, Orochimaru gets an Uchiha in the way they least expected.

MitsuBoru

Gayer than any of the Naruto dynamics and that is saying something. However, I struggle to like the ship because I’m just so confused.

First, why does Boruto have so many lancer/foil/rival characters. Kawaki, Sarada, and Mitsuki all act as lancers. I get that writing doesn’t have to be formulaic, but they aren’t even all lancers to each other, having dynamics that bounce off of each other, they’re just lancers to Boruto. At least for me, it’s already gotten really boring and ends in the three’s dynamics with each other falling flat.

Second, the sun and moon symbolism makes no sense to me as a writing decision. The obvious problem is that it’s redundant; it’s already been used for multiple Naruto dynamics. The less obvious problem is that it contradicts Mitsuki’s manga introduction. Mitsuki was introduced as the middle between Boruto and Sarada’s two extremes, taking up a role similar to Sakura’s in the og team 7. If he’s supposed to be the moon to Boruto’s sun, why is he introduced to us as the earth? The admittedly more minor problem that distracts me is that Orochimaru was the one that Mitsuki down this road. Why? Orochimaru wasn’t redeemed by Naruto and has never shown interest in him or this philosophy before now. My best guess is that they’re fascinated by Naruto’s affect on Sasuke, but that still leaves me with questions.

It makes me think that the writer didn’t have any ideas when they introduced these two.

BoruSumi

I don’t like how the fandom is making another love square, but I doubt there’s anything I can do to stop them.

This ship is boring because Sumire is boring. That one anime arc made her interesting, but it’s referenced and relevant so rarely that she goes back to being boring. I’d like this more if the story let Sumire be morally gray or treated her like a redeemed villain more. As of right now, I think the only leg the ship has to stand on is writing tropes and I do not care.

KawaSumi

This ship feels like the product of the same people who ship SasuHina/SasuIno/SasuKarin/KibaHina out of spite. My last post/reblog went into why this happens but the short of it is that it’s easier to ship something in peace if the biggest “threats” to it are paired together. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a feeling most KawaSumi shippers also ship BoruSara.

KawaHima

Please… just stop. If not for yourself, then for me. I’m already barely coping with how popular NejiHina is. Why have I seen this as much as I have??? This feels like a personal attack on my sanity. They’re siblings.

Other

This is the section for all the ships I have little/no opinions on. I think MitsuCho is too boring for how popular it is, I think ChoSara should be more popular, I’m disturbed by all of the Eida x next gen ships because she looks and acts like an adult (at least how adults are portrayed in Boruto), and I’m surprised Code x Eida isn’t more popular, but I also think that Code has gotten the Kabuto treatment and isn’t very popular in the fandom.

The ships I haven’t mentioned I either have so little fucks to give or so little information on that I have ZERO thoughts about.

[detectivereads]

Delicious in Dungeon Vol 2 by Ryoko Kui

5/5

This post is for fan entertainment, I’m not being paid.

To see vol 1 post of Delicious in Dungeon click here

To see vol 3 post of Delicious in Dungeon click here

Hi Everyone,

Ok, Vol 2 goes in a lot more detail about the structure of the dungeon as well as the ecosystem.

Our boy Senshi understands that there is a balance within the dungeon, and he does an amazing job of maintaining it.

At this point I am two episodes away from being caught up in the anime, but when we met Senshi’s Orc friends, I think I like the anime better than the manga, I love Senshi’s bread tantrum.

In this book we are also introduced to another adventuring party who have a lot more members compared to Laios’s team, totaling at 6 members: Kabru, Mikabell, Kuro, Daya, Rin and Holm.

Now, when I first met these guys, they gave off vibes that they are new at starting adventuring or at least tackling a dungeon. How many times that Laios’s team came across there bodies after being taken out but monster of the dungeons.

Now the one creature of the dungeon I would pass on trying even if Senshi would cook it would be the Treasure Bugs. Although I love the sorbet they made with them though.

As we progress with the story, we got to the part with the rooms with the paintings, Laios really needs to read the room, and need to learn to be a little more subtle when he doesn’t want to be noticed by others. Now the elf we met in this chapter (I know who he is :D) is scary.

Another one of the chapters that I like is when they do character back stories, and we got a Chilchuck chapter.

I thought his hatred for mimic’s were pretty valid (click here for my encounter of a mimic in my D&D campaign). Mimics are cute & evil!!

Although in Delicious in Dungeon I thought they made their mimic a little more interesting to look at and fight. (I love the mimics in D&D just as much)

Now the last chapter in the book broke my heart, poor Senshi. To be betrayed like that by a friend. I understand it’s in the creature nature but its still heartbreaking for to see Senshi go through that. I am happy that Senshi and Marcille are getting closer as friends.

Senshi is my favorite.

I love this series so much.

[roydeezed]

Dungeon Meshi Thoughts 03

I originally wanted to write something on Dungeon Meshi after reaching chapter 50 or even 45 but so much has happened so fast since my last post that I’m writing this after chapter 36. The last time I wrote about it, I had just finished chapter 28 and was dreading the metaphorical sword of Damocles that was hanging over their heads. I shouldn’t have, because it came crashing down the very next chapter. I’m writing an update to my thoughts now because it’s becoming clear what kind of manga Dungeon Meshi is going to be and the next chapter beyond this also feels like it will be a defining moment. I’m purposefully being vague as I don’t want to spoil anything so more detailed thoughts are below the “Keep reading”.

Okay, the shit hits the fan right away. I had no idea that after so much speculation that things were going to get bad that fast. And I’m glad y'all Dungeon Meshi fans who dm’d about the non-spoilery questions I had in the last post kept it under wraps. I appreciate it and can’t wait to actually talk about this when I’m all caught up. Okay so immediately, the Sorcerer attacks our group and takes back Falin. So here’s my read on the Sorcerer. First of all, while they are currently evil, they also seem to be a tragic figure. I assume that because their life trajectory seems to be as follows: born as a lower class peasant, noticed by the king, becomes the court magician or some such high position, and then in an effort to help out the kingdom (extreme reach of a guess) messes with time magic and freezes the kingdom in time while also going mad.

The king, as a ghoul or specter of the dungeon, finally escapes it to perform the scene at the beginning of the manga and the sorcerer, who has gone mad and used to be extremely devoted to the king, refuses to believe the king is dead. Hence why they were searching for the king. Okay, that’s my reach of a guess but I’ll be happy if any of that is true. 

I really love how the dragon was tied back to the Sorcerer, in a way it cements them as the antagonist from the get. And I mainly think their struggle that led them to turn evil has to do with losing their own morality and sanity because that is exactly what is happening with our heroes. Slowly, one by one, they’re all becoming desensitized and accepting of things they never would. Senshi lets Laios heal him with magic without any complaints in regards to the magic, Chilchuck protests less and less against dark magic as time goes on, and Marcille becomes the first to dawn the frog skin. Marcille and Chichuck also barely protest against the dryad pumpkins before giving in. Laios… … … nope, nothing to say about him, this man happily leaps across boundaries. But to get back to the point of desensitization, in a way it’s a very jaded way of looking at coming of age stories and growing up. Our heroes journey mirrors media like Made In Abyss and Zombie stories where the journey itself takes from them, not just physically but emotionally and morally as well. They have to abandon their boundaries and morals at every step of the way. But the way that this doesn’t devolve into a 100% depress sesh is that they point to the other joys of the journey.

And that’s the discovery and the companionship. There’s something very primally enjoyable about the concept of sitting around a fire, cooking and eating and knowing that next time you do it will be far away. Am I very unsubtly trying to suggest adventure stories play to our primal instincts of being nomadic hunters like our ancestors? Yes. And in this context the sitting around the fire contrasts very heavily with the moments they’re not. And that’s something I’ve noticed. The contrasts. This manga is so beautiful and intelligent in so many ways but the thing that has me losing my mind this post is the way the authour creates a benchmark, a static, and then uses other characters and moments to contrast and contextualize not just the characters but also the world. 

As I said in the previous post, this world seems to be different from ours in the way that existing and living in it requires a sense of detachment. But it was quite unclear to me at that point what exactly that meant. But by the introduction of Kabru as a fully fleshed out and thinking character that has an even more detached view of the world, we understand it and our heroes, especially Laios, a lot more. Now that I have some in world context, especially an outsider’s view, it seems our heroes, while they didn’t seem like it, are very much an ideal adventuring party. To start off with, the most out of left field is Senshi, and even then he’s a pretty tried and true adventuring trope of guide well versed with the area that decides to join them. Then we have Chilchuck, who is an extremely skilled thief/rogue that has a high position in the local (thieve’s?) guild. And Marcille and Laios really seal the deal for our party as the chosen ones as Marcille is the most skilled graduate of the magic school who also knows forbidden tricks and Laiso is an extremely skilled and noble knight. They kind of are the chosen ones despite their bumbling natures. 

And seeing them as the paragons sheds a light on everything else. In this world charity is looked down upon as Kabru finds Laios suspicious because of that.

The simple aspect of charity being a suspicious act contextualizes this world so much.

And also makes me very interested in Kabru as a character. Maybe I’m wrong but Kabru feels very much like a formidable antagonist. He freezes up against monsters but is really good at killing humans, knowing to aim for carotid arteries and such. This not only brings forth the possibility of Kabru as a potential murderer/evil serial killer, but it also contextualizes Laios as noble as he’s only skilled against monsters. In another instance, Laios mentions how they’re friends with orcs and kabru’s first thought is about killing them, highlighting quite well Laios’s boundary as he sees them more as sentient beings than some of his peers do. The way that Laios thinks about monsters is the way Kabru thinks about humans, painting him as a clear foil to Laios. 

But beyond just being a mirror to Laios, Kabru is very interesting. At the heart of it, it does seem like he’s noble but the way he thinks makes me feel like he’s one good push from falling into either good or evil. The way he thought about Laios and Falin giving gold to their injured comrades still sticks with me. He believes that because they are careless with their power and don’t look after things beyond their goals, they are evil. He thinks only his way of thinking is good and any other methods are evil. Simply having different priorities is evil. That’s highlighted by the fact that his party is quick to agree with him and offers little resistance, unlike Laios’s where he was just asked by Chilchuck to head back. I wonder if he will become the final antagonist after the sorcerer, like the scouring of the Shire by Saruman after the defeat of Sauron  in the Lord of the Rings. With how reverent it is towards fantasy tropes, it certainly is possible. Kabru feels dangerous to me. 

And that also brings us to the other big personalities we’ve passed. Namari and Shuro. We learn about Namari’s backstory and it seems like her motivation has something to do with respect as not only was it very clearly brought up that she couldn’t join back up with Laios because of the hit her reputation would take but that she already has a negative reputation because of her father. Namari also feels very practical but I don’t think she is too concerned about getting her own way in a party. So if Falin and Namari were not the voices of reason in the party then who was? I think it might be Shuro. Again I want to bring up one of the themes of stories like this, and that’s that you either have to abandon your morals or die. And Shuro seems to not want to abandon his morals.And because of this whole honorbound love, it’s driven him to exhaustion. But he also seems strong willed enough that he might have been the voice of reason with their group, alongside Marcille. Without him Laios just overrides her easily. But Shuro’s objections probably always come from decorum and morality as opposed to common sense like with Marcille. 

Okay, those were most of the scattered thoughts that I wanted to deal with first, with a lot of thoughts on characterization. Now I want to go over roughly what has happened over the last few chapters and talk about a few things. Right from the get, things once again go wrong for Falin. And right after she’s rescued too. As Marcille later explains she basically recoded Falin so her body became a part of the dungeon. And because of that and fusing with the Red Dragon, it can explain why the Sorcerer was able to find and control her so easily. It also makes me wonder if the thing that’s been changing the shape of the dungeon isn’t so much the Sorcerer but Falin in a desperate bid to save her friends with what little is left of her soul.

Then the sorcerer turns her bottom half into something we later find out resembles a big type of bird thing. Anyways, our heroes fight the Sorcerer and we see a lot of desperation and what kind of toll the dark magic is taking on Marcille as she giggles maniacally while fighting back against the Sorcerer.

They eventually escape but almost all throughout the fight we see these spirits surrounding them and pulling at them. I think the Sorcerer loved the King so much that they massacred all of the subjects and thus that’s why all of them ghouls and spirits try to stop them. And freezing the place in time would also be consistent with this worshiping attitude, the way that the dungeon was underground for a 1000 years and the madness of the Sorcerer.

They narrowly escape and after comparing notes realize they came up against the final boss way too soon. So Chilchuck asks to go back to the surface so that they can get prepared. Once again, the authour demonstrates exceptional control over the characters and the story as this gives us such a deep insight into Chilchuck as well as progressing his character development. Chilchuck has always been somewhat cowardly, at times even comparable with Ussop from One Piece. But here we see a growth of that cowardice. It’s still a key character trait but it’s taken on a very noble light as that worry isn’t about himself but rather his group. It shows how he’s come to care for them and how just like Laios was burdened with their lives so was Chilchuk.

It’s a really sweet moment and shows how character traits are stretched to their limit while being given respectable undertones. Chilchuck’s concern for his friends disguised as outright cowardice mirrors Laios distracting himself with food and adventure to help him cope with his worry for Falin and his companions. 

Okay, one little side note before we move on, just a little fun world building tidbit I want to mention. So Chilchuk is 29 but Senshi treats him like a child, but the halfling in Kabru’s party calls him a geezer, so does that mean 29 is old or like midlife for halflings? If so, I love the world building, it would be incredibly realistic for different races to have different lifespans as even on earth there’s a drastic difference in the amount of time dogs and cats live compared to humans compared to tortoises and whales.

Senshi is also insanely relatable as he’s very much a do-er and a carer. He wants to support these new friends that he’s made but the only way he knows how is to cook so he hyperfixates on them.

Honestly each and every one of our main characters gets intensely relatable sometimes. What does it day about me that I relate to these dorks? Nothing flattering I’m sure. 

We soon move on to Kabru’s party after some shenanigans with some dryad’s with our party, with Chilchuck, a grown ass halfling man, getting “The Talk”(Plant Edition).

Here we get more insight into Kabru’s party who at this point seem a lot like yes-men. We get insight into Kobolds, who in this world are dog-like creatures with low intelligence. Also if Kabru has been around since Laios first got his start, does he really have a right to be so critical of him? Laios is leaps and bounds more capable than him, what’s Kabru been doing so far?

Through Kabru’s group we learn a lot about our heroes and then jump back to them.

Here in their discussions, as Marccille is teaching Laios and Laios is fondling Senshi, Chilchuk brings up a very good point.

And that’s the fact that Laios needs to become a better leader. Being brought up so frankly shows the trust Chilchuck has in Laios but the fact that it’s being brought up at all is a valid concern. We also learn of Halfling’s history with elves and hear talk of an alternate dimension where magic is drawn from. As so far almost nothing has been said unnecessarily, I think this could be a very important clue towards the secrets of the dungeon.

It’s here where we get the spirits talking to Laios again and it seems like the spirits of the citizens of the kingdom are in some sort of stasis, perhaps between here and the alternate dimension and are in extreme pain. 

I fell in love with Laios last time and this time it’s this dork. Just look at her.

She takes so many L’s.

I love her. She distracts a Cokatrice and ends up petrified and used as a pickling press before returning to normal. The groups led by Laios, Shuro, and Kabru all converge and the revelation about dark magic being used occurs. There was a promise of things coming to a head as Falin also looks out over the group so I stopped to write this. Some final thoughts before I finish up here. First of all, I think Kabru has the potential to be evil, but in the future.

From the way he thinks I think he’ll try to pacify Shuro as it seems like Kubru's always wanting to maximize the situations he’s in and he doesn’t want to get hurt in the crossfire. For Shuro I think if he doesn’t attack Laios, then it begins his descent into the same depths as this is the dungeon stripping away at his morals as it’s done with everyone else. The only thing I can feel for Falin is pity, the poor girl has been through enough, she doesn’t deserve to get Nina’d. Someone save her!

All in all though, these last few chapters, even though they were quite dark, further the theme of companionship as being the antidote to spiritual and emotional exhaustion. All through very literal ways of course but it only emphasizes the point. Our heroes have fallen time and time again these past few chapters and it’s only through picking each other up, listening to each other and eating around the same pot do they recover from their scars. See ya’ll again after a few more big story events!

[snakegentleman]

Jude hey! Hope you are having a good day!

I wanted a little suggestion. I caught up with Stampede (still processing ep 11 🫠). I was wondering if I should pick the manga first or 98 anime. What do you think?

Also thankyou for suggesting trigun. I absolutely love it. It has everything I like and so much more. I don't even know how to process everything that happened hdjskskjs

Yay! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying Stampede! To answer you, I think it depends on your mood. I consider each version of Trigun to be sort of separate but connected entities. They all feed into each other and have similar themes, but vary in tone and plot points(especially Stampede for plot, though the end of 98 is very different from the manga too).

98 Trigun is shorter and startes off lighter. The manga was still being released at the time they were making it, so at some point in the series they go in an original direction that ties up the anime as it’s own story. The first 12-ish episodes are very goofy and episodic and really take their time to develop Vash as a character and his backstory as a mystery. These episodes are somewhat recreations of the manga. The later episodes switch to being as heavy as any of the other versions of Trigun. If you’re sad from Stampede, this would be a fun breather( for a bit)and it has that 90’s anime charm. This is what I did because I knew Maximum would take a while to read.

The downside to watching 98 first is it will spoil you for late manga events even if they’re in a different context. I don’t think this is a huge downside as the events hold emotional weight even if they’re spoiled, but it’s something to consider. If you’re really liking Stampede, it’s definitely heavily pulling from Trigun Maximum and the tone is much similar to the manga than Trigun 98. Maximum doesn’t shy away from dark subjects and body horror/gore similar like stampede. Maximum is the most fleshed out of the three because it has the time to be detailed. The art style is absolutely gorgeous; I have so many panels saved. I am biased, I much prefer Maximum to 98, but that is mostly personal taste. Both are amazing. One downside to the manga is that it can be hard to follow at times, especially fight scenes. I often had to reread sections to make sure I understood what was happening.

The choice is really, do you want to take the time to read closely Maximum and get full context before watching 98. Or, do you want to have fun with the 98 version and then dive into the manga? Which one do you not want to be spoiled for more?

Anyway, you’re the second person I’ve gotten to watch Trigun and I feel so powerful. I’m spreading my brainrot to others >:)

[darkdoverpseeker]

🕊️🔥Hello! I have brainrot for a specific OC of mine, and was hoping to find someone to write him with!

I am 25+, Enby, and require you to be 21+. This will be a MxM roleplay with OCxOC, through Discord. Please be literate and able to write multiple paragraphs with detail and description, and proper grammar. I want this rp to be plot-centric and character-driven. This particular OC is a power bottom (if any smut at all), but that's not what I strictly write. Please let me know if you'll be busy, so I don't assume you've ghosted!

Side Note: (Superpowers will be involved in this rp. They can be scientific or magical in nature, and people can be powerless. Up to you what you want YC to be).

Brief Info On MC: MC is overpowered due to his past with the military (Got a Doc on his power for you, along with weakness and full bio), having trained him to be a weapon for world war. After sixteen years of abuse and torture from them, he escaped back into society by murdering everyone at the base and essentially destroying it. He is a highly complex, morally grey character with many layers to him. His age is 21-26, depending on what we decide to do. I don't mind if our guys have an age gap, with MC being the younger in this case. It is not a requirement, just an option! If romance is involved, it will definitely be slow burn on MC's end. I'm also open to platonic dynamics and/or more toxic ones. Just let me know!



Plot Blurb: YC is an authority figure in law enforcement, another military base, or an independent organization (or a high-ranking doctor and/or psychologist). Some of your crew captured my OC when he was weakened and malnourished after escaping, believing him to be a danger to the rest of society. They bring him to you, give the rundown, and YC decides to take the challenge of taking MC under his wing to *hopefully* rehabilitate him. YC notices that while my OC is an incredibly dangerous individual with his power, he is essentially an animal trying to survive. Maybe YC is caught in a web with their superior being involved with the military base that MC was captured by? Causing YC to eventually go rogue? Or, they have no affiliation and eventually convince MC to fight on their side, despite his "unsavory methods." (This can be set in a more "after war" apocalypse setting or modern. That decision will affect MC's timeline, but I don't mind either way.)

We can discuss details/triggers/limits in private. I have a few side characters from MC's past that I'd like to incorporate into the overarching plot. I expect you to multi-muse along with me to have a fleshed-out world! I have a RL and more anime/manga style faceclaim for him!

I will require a writing sample from you to ensure our styles match, and I will give you one to review, as well. Please like only if you are genuinely interested! :)

like if interested!

[dark-roleplay-finder]

🔥🕊Hello! I have brainrot for a specific OC of mine and was hoping to find someone to write him with!

I am 25+, Enby, and require you to be 21+. This will be a MxM roleplay with OCxOC through Discord. Please be literate and able to write multiple paragraphs with detail and description and proper grammar. I want this rp to be plot-centric and character-driven, and this particular OC is a power bottom (if there is any smut at all). Please let me know if you'll be busy, so I don't assume you've ghosted!

Side Note: (Superpowers will be involved in this rp. They can be scientific or magical in nature, and people can be powerless. Up to you what you want YC to be).

Brief Info On MC: MC is overpowered due to his past with the military (Got a Doc on his power for you, along with weakness and full bio), having trained him to be a weapon for world war. After sixteen years of abuse and torture from them, he escaped back into society by murdering everyone at the base. He is a highly complex, morally grey character with many layers to him. His age is 21-26, depending on what we decide to do. I don't mind if our guys have an age gap, with MC being the younger in this case. It is not a requirement, just an option! If romance is involved, it will definitely be slow burn on MC's end. I'm also open to platonic dynamics and/or more toxic ones. Just let me know!

Plot Blurb: YC is an authority figure (or doctor and/psychologist) in law enforcement, another military base, or an independent organization. Some of your crew captured my OC when he was weakened and malnourished after escaping, believing him to be a danger to the rest of society. They bring him to you, give the rundown, and YC decides to take the challenge of taking MC under his wing to *hopefully* rehabilitate him. YC notices that while my OC is an incredibly dangerous individual with his power, he is essentially an animal trying to survive. Maybe YC is caught in a web with their superior being involved with the military base that MC was captured by? Causing YC to eventually go rogue? Or, they have no affiliation and eventually convince MC to fight on their side, despite his "unsavory methods." (This can be set in a more "after war" apocalypse setting or modern. That decision will affect MC's timeline, but I don't mind either way.)

We can discuss details/triggers/limits in private. I have a few side character(s) from MC's past that I'd like to incorporate into the overarching plot. I expect you to multi-muse along with me to have a fleshed-out world! I have a RL and more anime/manga style faceclaim for him!

I will require a writing sample from you to ensure our styles match, and I will give you one to review, as well. Please like only if you are genuinely interested! :)

Like this post and the asker will reach out!

[lestcat-de-lioncourt]

(Gerard Way, by me. Black ballpoint, red fine-liner. 🖊🩸 )

Soo I’ve not posted much OC character stuff of recent as I’m still writing the second chapter of The Lord of Wet and Pyro Princess Adventures (Genshin Ayato x Diluc fanfic I’m having a lot of fun with as I’m back in ~Genshin playing mode~ since I invested a bunch in the game and it’s also the Lantern Rite time of year again, a favourite of mine).

I’ve had a request to finish my WattPad Kaze fanfic too, which I’ll try and deliver but I got kinda stick in the basement scene lmfao as writing Zero as a top is so odd for me even though I Want It to happen.

I’ve wanted to get out some Kaze stuff as not as many people post it anymore and I’ve realised there’s still a big fandom community for Vampire Knight which is excitingg! I might move it over to Ao3 once I have time.~

I’ve been a little busy planning and “making the art” and custom credit card designs as well as payment plan ideas not too mention considering setting up an Etsy or Fiverr or somewhere people have more access to than pixiv as setting up my regular posting on my pixivFANBOX and trying to build a schedule for Saturdays whilst juggling my physical/mental health and transition as well as parenting and socialising more. Basically I want a gallery of stuff to trickle out rather than doing it every week under pressure rather than when it comes to me, as whenever I have pressure to deliver I lose my imagination and just feel like it’s a chore so avoid it. I’m sure other creatives can relate!

Likewise I’m sitting back and reading again to unwind again and haven’t caught up with everything I’m reading yet but I’ve got numerous things In The Works I’m taking more time on rather than rushing out chapters such as:

• The NYE one shot for Orange Juice in the Studio~

• Chapter 3 “A Date In The City” of Orange Juice in the Studio, essentially the ~teaser~ Aquarium and ice cream parlour date where I finally introduce supporting character into the actual story who works at the parlour! I don’t know when I’ll be introducing Mama but they are on the horizon for sure. I’m currently busy researching real locations in Valencia and I’ve never been so I don’t have in person reference and am sourcing that online. I’m also researching top LGBT+ hang out locations/clubs in the city to make appearances in the storyline.

• ORANGE JUICE IN THE STUDIO CHARACTER INFO SHEETS!!! Exciting.

Here I’ll give lots of what you need to know about OC and Reader! I’m wondering if I should not make one though for Reader or ask for engagement from my actual readers of Who Reader Is To Them, as well, the whole point of the character is to depict You as a reader, and those who relate to what I write can get on board. I will make a mock up one for sure and be loose with it as a rule! Or leave out absolute details like “star sign” or height or something.~

• Beginning work on the AU “HorrorLand! The Isle of Marionettes”! This will be about the Orange Juice OCs. As you can tell, it’ll be slightly gory horror fiction, somewhere to express my love for horror and things but not canon. Just a little fun.

• Designing what will be in my monthly newsletter which only Bronze subscribers will get for yours truly to enjoy!

• Weekly updates to my pixivFANBOX, with my manga style art specifically. My pixivFANBOX is for my manga art style only, my other types of art can be found on zer0comicz IG, and Zer0 Comics on Facebook, or posted on here. This is my official name for my freelance illustration/comic business.

• I’ll try getting some new commissions up I’ve got of OC and Reader on here and/or on @crimsonyoukai , if not that, I’ll make some mock ups on PiCrew whilst I’m doing my own.

• Tiered FANs will be getting The Monthly Marionette+, this begins after the first month of being a patron on Bronze, Silver (to be set up) and Gold (to be set up). I’ll announce when the newsletter is starting to air!

You can get early teasers for chapters of OJITS posted on my pixivFANBOX as well too on Bronze tier, I’m not posting teasers so much on here anymore until I’ve aired it for protection of my work etc.

My Ao3 profile for writing updates!

Any queries or questions or anything you’d like to know in general or what you may like to also see from me, please feel free to drop them into my Ask Box!

I have commissions open for art likewise. Each custom piece is £5, £10 for more detailed works, which I offer postage for the original or a print. Tattoo designs are £25 each.

[lpfreakification]

My age has caught up

Im 30.

I've turned 30 last month but was super busy with school that I didn't have the time to process it.

Having this free time this week b4 I plan out what I wanna do in July, I think im overwhelmed with options.

Reading this BL in the past hour doesn't help with my emotions. They make them go haywire. God, boys are cute 😭

My timing is terrible when it comes to dating. I think it was 2 or 3 years ago now that I read a BL manga called Love Doctor that got me into a spiral of emotions + an overwhelming longing for a boyfriend. I did try. He was alright. I could do better. Then school started.

This feels selfish of me wanting a boyfriend just to recreate fluffy yaoi moments. That's a delusional way of thinking, Perla! *whines*

From experience, I do have ideas:

Step 1: Go to a place of frequent visits (such as internet, Tumblr, school, computer lab, library, lobby, coffee place, restaurant, workplace???)

Step 2: Do my doodle thing until someone walks up to you + compliments them

Step 3: intros

Step 4: talk about work/hobbies

Step 5: Repeat steps 1 - 4

Step 6: Exchange contact info once u get comfortable/confident, when your face lights up when the other person arrives, or can't stop thinking about them.

... + idk. I never gotten as far as that 😅 I remember one piece of advice I was told that I struggle with, + suck at: follow-up/following up. Why does it have to take so much energy 😫

I feel troubled. I know that I don't really like to give, just take. Eventually, I will have to learn to give more often. I constantly think to myself that I'm gonna give them something in return for what they've given me. In the end, I can never physically execute those thoughts, and I end up wallowing in bed in guilt.

Either:

- depending on future boyfriend, I'd do anything

- stay the same

- feels the same way + we can both agree not to spend on each other but for ourselves.

...

Man, what am I doing with my life this week, wasting away in bed? I guess I'm just being lonely as hell since the wedding two weeks ago. Dammit, the cute aggression is stirring up.

Also, aren't I supposed to be taking a break after two months of animation grinding, too?

I... don't have a good work-life balance. I've explained this so many times, so I'll skip it. Hmmm, little bit of things here, little bit of things there, + a few days off for myself to do absolutely, positively nothing.

I do have an ideal routine that worked out so perfectly when I had an internship in 2020:

I did get the right idea of starting animation work at 8 am. After my sister's wedding, I started taking my meds earlier at 5:20 in the morning. Huh, the 9pm hour is still an accurate time for chilling. I have been falling asleep earlier than usual nowadays, b4 11pm.

...

Since I'm here, let's organize my ideas.

- KH:DDD

- Kickboxing

- School stuff

- Improving on some animations, need a specific list for that

- Haircut

Those are my main points. There's bound to be more little things in between that may come along the way. Like, my psychiatrist appointment tomorrow morning, the local annual 4th of July Parade, + Traverse City, Michigan in August (more details when the date draws near).

...

I'm feeling a bit better now that I got these thoughts out of my system :)

Imma go grab a cheesecake from the kitchen X)

Yep!

[findroleplay]

🔥Hello! I have brainrot for a specific OC of mine, and was hoping to find someone to write him with!

I am 25+, Enby, and require you to be 21+. This will be a MxM roleplay with OCxOC, through Discord. Please be literate and able to write multiple paragraphs with detail and description, and proper grammer. I want this rp to be plot-centric and character-driven, and this particular OC is a power bottom (if there is any smut at all), but that's not what I strictly write. Please let me know if you'll be busy, so I don't assume you've ghosted!

Side Note: (Superpowers will be involved in this rp. They can be scientific or magical in nature, and people can be powerless. Up to you what you want YC to be).

Brief Info On MC: MC is overpowered due to his past with the military (Got a Doc on his power for you, along with weakness and full bio), having trained him to be a weapon for world war. After sixteen years of abuse and torture from them, he escaped back into society by murdering everyone at the base and essentially destroying it. He is a highly complex, morally grey character with many layers to him. His age is 21-26, depending on what we decide to do. I don't mind if our guys have an age gap, with MC being the younger in this case. It is not a requirement, just an option! If romance is involved, it will definitely be slow burn on MC's end. I'm also open to platonic dynamics and/or more toxic ones. Just let me know!

Plot Blurb: YC is an authority figure (can also be a doctor and/or psychologist) in law enforcement, another military base, or an independent organization. Some of your crew captured my OC when he was weakened and malnourished after escaping, believing him to be a danger to the rest of society. They bring him to you, give the rundown, and YC decides to take the challenge of taking MC under his wing to *hopefully* rehabilitate him. YC notices that while my OC is an incredibly dangerous individual with his power, he is essentially an animal trying to survive. Maybe YC is caught in a web with their superior being involved with the military base that MC was captured by? Causing YC to eventually go rogue? Or, they have no affiliation and eventually convince MC to fight on their side, despite his "unsavory methods." (This can be set in a more "after war" apocalypse setting or modern. That decision will affect MC's timeline, but I don't mind either way.)

We can discuss details/triggers/limits in private. I have a few side characters from MC's past that I'd like to incorporate into the overarching plot. I expect you to multi-muse along with me to have a fleshed-out world! I have a RL and more anime/manga style faceclaim for him! If descriptions are better, I can do that, too.

I will require a writing sample from you to ensure our styles match, and I will give you one to review, to be fair. Please like only if you are genuinely interested! :)

_

[elinorwritesstuff]

That's fine. I know people have life away from technology, and people have more to life than reading and writing as their only hobbies too.

So I wasn't expecting you to reply back right away.

And yeah.. The way I think things through never makes sense to other people who isn't me. So my explanations just tend to be contradictive to them. My thoughts make more sense to me than for other people.

But yes! That's one reason why I have problems with creative work.

I never get bored of any fandoms I'm in. My fixations alternate always alternates between fandoms, one fixation just lies doormat while that other fixation is taking over but then I eventually get back into it after.

So that's why I always feel the need to write one story per fandom.

And I do have a lot of ideas. But sometimes I never know which ideas would best suit which stories, for which fandoms, things like that has happened a lot for me many times. And.. like you said... There may be times when I have similar plots or details for stories. But because of a lot of people telling me that I can be repetitive, there's also some part of me that is trying not to make stories too similar at the same time.

That is definitely one reason why I have been working on some notes for stories, characters, anything I can think of for my story. Because it helps me to untangle enough of these thoughts to organize things for what I might want to write. Since my fixations are strongest when I'm caught up in the fandom, like when watching anime and even reading manga (since you also seem to be into animanga too), that's usually a time when I can figure out what I might want to do for that story just because I can piece together some details. Sometimes that helps me.

"Usually I do take a few days or a week off to write out some of the new idea, like a first scene and some notes, just to blow off some steam while the fixation is happening, and then I have it there to add other ideas that I come up with, but I definitely go back to the original project." Basically this. For the most part, this is what I tend to do too.

Usually I do have some idea about original characters. Though, to be fair, my visual ideas for characters are either based on any real people or other fictional characters. Which may seem stupid to most people.

I don't really have many, or even any, friends. Seriously. I'm not trying to be that person. But I don't. So I don't know anyone who would be a beta reader for me, if I did decide to have a beta reader for my work.

I might come off anonymously. Eventually. But, if and when I do, I will say now that I am probably the only person on the planet that doesn't use discord sites. Not that there isn't other ways to communicate.

I really need to stop writing long messages like this.

But yes! That's one reason why I have problems with creative work.

I never get bored of any fandoms I'm in. My fixations alternate always alternates between fandoms, one fixation just lies doormat while that other fixation is taking over but then I eventually get back into it after.

I do think I have it easy with fixations, in terms of like, I don't think they're hyperfixations per say, but sometimes I do get like, I cannot stop thinking about this to the point where it's uncomfortable, but then other times it's just I'm VERY INTO SOMETHING and I am going to summarize the whole plot to my husband. And I definitely cycle through them and get into new things but also get back into old things all the time. Do you get any time between them? Like for me that's the best time to write, but if you've always got one that's not useful advice.

So that's why I always feel the need to write one story per fandom.

Seriously, like if only I could limit my ideas to just one, like I'll start a new game/show/book and just be sitting there like, "don't get an idea for another fic. Don't get an idea for another fic." Like I've got stuff that I haven't gotten to in like, I've got two Silent Hill 4 ideas and a Death Note idea and a Death Note/Silent Hill 4 crossover idea (I see your crossover ask), and I just got into otome and I have one for Bustafellows not to mention several more DMC ideas and another in my Gangsta series and oh god please save me...

But because of a lot of people telling me that I can be repetitive, there's also some part of me that is trying not to make stories too similar at the same time.

Since I was just talking about all my ideas, I have that new idea for Bustafellows and I realized that a lot of the opening plot points for the story are similar to my first Gangsta fic and had a whole crisis, and then I decided to experience joy.

Like if multiple people are giving you the same comments, then there's probably some truth to it. But something I still love about fanfic is that you get to decide if you care.

Anecdote: I read this one AU fic that was just always talking about Nero taking showers. And not even in a thirsty way, just kind of a lot of the scenes began or ended with Nero taking a shower and thinking about how nice and relaxing it was. And that was fine; like I definitely noticed it, but it was just a fun little quirk of the story.

What I mean is, if you've gotten that feedback and you're really feeling like, "I'll be a better write and like my stories better if I work on not having them be so repetitive," then definitely work on that. But if you like the ideas and you're just worried about someone else saying you're repetitive, then follow your joy. Bonus: if you're writing in different fandoms, you might not have readers in common to the fandom who read both stories;)

Like I'm not telling you not to listen to feedback and not worry about this stuff, more like, I'm just getting some anxiety about what other people think from you that you don't have to have as much in fanfic land.

That is definitely one reason why I have been working on some notes for stories, characters, anything I can think of for my story. Because it helps me to untangle enough of these thoughts to organize things for what I might want to write. Since my fixations are strongest when I'm caught up in the fandom, like when watching anime and even reading manga (since you also seem to be into animanga too), that's usually a time when I can figure out what I might want to do for that story just because I can piece together some details. Sometimes that helps me.

I am into both anime and manga; anime a lot more than manga, but still both. A lot of times I watch and anime and I really love it and I want to know more details from the manga, or like the manga continues the story farther than the anime. (Have you read Visions of V? It's so good.)

But yeah (this is relevant to your next paragraph, too), a lot of times I put together the original idea when I'm just stuck in the NEW FANDOM, and then I chill out and if I'm on a different project I file it away for later.

Usually I do have some idea about original characters. Though, to be fair, my visual ideas for characters are either based on any real people or other fictional characters. Which may seem stupid to most people.

More easier said than done advice, but try not to worry about what other people might think is stupid. Like seriously it took me forever to get there, but at least don't worry about the theoretical people. Also that's actually super normal? Like I see it in RP spaces more, like when I was doing RP on tumblr everyone had a faceclaim for their OC, just like "here is my OC, his name is Steven and he looks like David Tennant." Not in those words, obviously, but like, I do tabletop RP and people will often find an image or series of images for their characters. Sometimes people make whole pinterest boards. I have an OC that like, I had a basic image of what she looked like in my head, and then I found a picture of a in an article about how to style curly hair that looked just like I imagined her so now I have that saved.

I don't really have many, or even any, friends. Seriously. I'm not trying to be that person. But I don't. So I don't know anyone who would be a beta reader for me, if I did decide to have a beta reader for my work.

Sorry you're stuck in an isolated situation. I'm glad you're feeling like you can reach out and talk, like I'm genuinely enjoying responding to your asks.

I really need to stop writing long messages like this.

Keep writing long messages:)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 341: The Pale Princess of a Palace Cracked

Previously on BnHA: All Might was all, “time to take up literally half of this chapter by calling a strategy meeting but then never getting to the actual strategy because we have to keep the readers in suspense!” Aizawa was all, “listen up Aoyama, I know you’re really scared about having to face AFO again, and possibly dying, and also potentially letting down your classmates again, and just basically having all of the odds overwhelmingly stacked against you no matter what you do now. But I just wanted to let you know it’s all going to be okay because we’ve got your back and I will personally guarantee your safety, somehow,” only he said it so convincingly that everyone actually did buy in because his words were just that sincere and powerful! The chapter ended with Shinsou being all, “SURPRISE, IT’S SHINSOU TIME!” at long last, and oh dang.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all, “JUST KIDDING, IT IS NOT SHINSOU TIME AT ALL, IT IS IN FACT TOGA TIME,” and okay then. Toga visits her abandoned childhood home and is all “ah yes, this sure does remind me of those carefree days I spent dreaming about being eaten alive by birds.” Dabi is all, “hey Toga, I’m just gonna go ahead and set your depressing house on fire now. Also, don’t forget that you’ve got some of Twice’s blood and can use his quirk! Just thought I’d remind you about that, apropos of nothing.” Meanwhile in AFO’s creepy pirate cave lair, AFO is all, “wow, Tomura sure is recovering well, just look at how many tentacle fingers he can spawn from his left hand now!” Skeptic is all, “btw Spinner I need you to become the new face of the PLF so that we can pretend to have some sort of moral high ground while we proceed to destroy the world.” The chapter ends with a bunch of villains just kind of randomly gathering in some apocalyptic city ruins somewhere, including everyone’s favorite inaugural chapter villain, Slimeothy McBlob.

(1. as always, all comments not marked with “ETA” are my unspoiled reactions from my first blind readthrough of the chapter.

2. as of today, I am very much NOT caught up with the manga, but will keep you posted on my progress (currently only up to this chapter, 341, but ONE OF THESE DAYS MY ROR (rate of reading) WILL FINALLY GET AHEAD OF MY ROP (rate of posting), SOMEDAY, POSSIBLY, MAYBE).

3. as explained here, I HAVE been spoiled for one Major Thing happening later on in the series. however, there are no references to said Thing in this particular post, other than a countdown image posted at the very bottom. I’ve taken the liberty of marking that with a spoiler warning, and placing it a few inches down and away from the rest of the recap, meaning this post should effectively be spoiler-free.

anyway, on we go!)

oh my goodness

this seems like a lot of blood even by Toga’s standards. should I be worried

and Horikoshi is really starting to get cute with all these chapter titles lately huh. part minus one???? so wait, what does that even mean? are we going to have some sort of flashback dating back prior to chapter 338? or is this implying that this chapter will be kind of a one-step-forward-two-steps back sort of thing in terms of their hero journey? lol what the hell

(ETA: based on the actual content of this chapter, I’m guessing that the negative/minus is Horikoshi’s way of denoting the villain chapter(s), similar to MVA vs MHA.)

oh damn

soo, I’m guessing this is Toga’s old house from back in her pre-villain days? and that this graffiti is related to that whole “innocently murdering her middle school crush” incident

wow, these people were absolutely charming

gonna go out on a limb and guess that her parents don’t live here anymore

but, surprise surprise, guess who’s visiting now

okay, I was prepared for more Aoyama feels. I was prepared for Shinsou feels. I was prepared to finally learn the details of the heroes’ grand and exciting and outrageously risky villain battling plan. but I gotta tell you guys, I was not at ALL prepared to have Toga feels, out of all the possibilities, just straight up out of the blue like this

actually come to think of it, didn’t Horikoshi mention her in his 2021 year-end interview? damn it, now I have to go back and find that thing lol

okay yeah. here’s the link to @hanashimas​’ translation. so let’s see. blah blah, “if things go smoothly...” lol well I’m pretty sure the series isn’t actually wrapping up just yet, so yeah. looking forward to that 2023 Jump Festa message my guy

okay here we go. “regarding Ochako and Toga, I have a scene that I’m itching to draw. Frankly speaking, Toga is a character that was created specifically for Ochako. And I’ve developed Ochako to match Toga.” huh. this sounds a whole lot gayer than I remembered lol

and unrelated, but nonetheless also interesting, he also mentions Tomura and Deku and gets really philosophical about the two of them. “He’s the greatest obstacle in Deku’s goal of ‘saving’.” and then this one part that really has me intrigued, “Saving and Destroying are both born out of ego. Whose ego will win in the end? Is it even a matter of winning or losing?” just, huh. what an interesting thing to say

anyways! back to Sad Toga!

you are really bumming me out right now Sad Toga

that close up of the door frame with Baby Toga’s height measurements all crossed out is fucking brutal. who did that, I wonder. was it the vandals? or was it actually her own parents? I don’t know if I can take this right now you guys

“no one will ever accept you, the way you are” dammit dammit dammit

well, granted we’re only like 4 pages in, but thus far I’m just as conflicted over the whole Toga Redemption(??) Saga as ever, lol. on the one hand she was and is just a kid, and she never really meant to hurt anyone, and definitely didn’t seem to fully comprehend what she was doing. but on the other hand, there’s an obvious clear-cut difference between “giving kids the freedom to be themselves and express themselves”, and “giving kids the freedom to straight up murder other kids if that’s their preferred method of self-expression.” so yeah! this imo is arguably the most morally complex out of all the LoV origin stories, and I really appreciate it for that

man oh man

when you get right down to it Toga really just has a REAL fucked up quirk. is that taking the easy way out lol. well whatever, I don’t even care, Toga’s quirk is the real final villain you read it here first

OH MY GOD

“every night I dream about this cute little birdie dancing on my tummy and then eviscerating me <3 <3 <3 it’s just the cutest little thing”

OKAY BUT FOR REAL TOGA, YOU AND I REALLY DO NOT SEE EYE TO EYE IN TERMS OF OUR HAPPY PLACE

mm. yes. so pleasant. so sweet :’)

what an absolutely delightful and profoundly unsettling journey we’re all having here today

LMAO WHAT

SO THIS BITCH CAME ALONG FOR THE NOSTALGIA TOUR TOO HUH. lol okay then. don’t tell me we’re off to visit Todoriko Village next

dammit Dabi I can never tell if you actually give a fuck, or if you just like being a dick to people all the time

but seeing as you’re a character in a shounen manga who seems destined for a redemption arc WHETHER YOU DAMN WELL LIKE IT OR NOT!, I’m gonna go ahead and stick with the former. look at you, out here keeping an eye on Toga as she confronts the looming shadows of her past. and pretending be all aloof about it. classic big brother move. wonder if she reminds you of Fuyu

what an interesting response!

“you sure you’re ready for the grand finale where we destroy the world and everything in it?” “not like I can do anything about it now either way.” sooooo. can’t help but notice the part where that is by no means a “yes.” having some second thoughts about your chosen path there, Toga?

meanwhile this guy is launching into yet another of his patented monologues

man, y’all are way too damn nihilistic for me. absolutely no one in the League of Villains is actually happy are they. or even has any hope of ever being happy. they all just want to burn the world down and presumably go out with a bang right along with it. it’s going to be so damn satisfying when Ochako and Deku and Shouto and the rest finally hit them with those long-overdue inspiring shounen beatdowns and remind them that THERE’S STILL SOME GOOD IN THIS WORLD, MR. FRODO, AND IT’S WORTH FIGHTING FOR

wow, Dabi

still as dramatic as ever, I see

awww. she says he’s going to get them both caught, but that she’s grateful to him all the same

and she called him Touya! my heart! better watch yourself before she starts coming for your blood, Dabi

OH MY GOD DABI

“[LEAPS OF A WINDOW!!] WHATEVER, TOGA!! [DOES A FLIP IN MID AIR] I ONLY DID IT TO SPITE ENDEAVOR SO THERE!!” because if there’s anything Endeavor hates, it’s having empty abandoned buildings burn down miles away from where any living people actually are. good job Dabi. fucking gottem

?? what’s this now?

some freshly acquired blood? but whose?

ohhhhhhh hh shit. oh, SHIT

exactly how much damage could this potentially do. shit

okay I just looked it up and apparently the ratio is 1 cup of blood = 18 hours of transformation. which. is actually so much worse than I remembered sob

however this is a fairly small-looking test tube though! so assuming that this can hold maybe 5 ml of blood, which seems reasonable, that means she has enough of Twice’s blood to stay transformed for... twenty minutes or so? wait, really? is that all? am I just really bad at math?? lmao well I take it back then, that actually doesn’t sound too bad at all. surely the heroes can fend off an army of Twices for just twenty minutes or so. right. ...right?

oh dang now we’re cutting to... Spinner? AND AFO???

what the hell

lol wtf is happening. he was just sitting there, and then suddenly AFO was all WOOSH, and then Spinner looked over, and then he started wandering down some dark tunnel calling for Tomura??

WHAT THE FUCK

HAVE WE ACCIDENTALLY CROSSED OVER INTO THE THIRD ACT OF FMA OVER HERE OR WHAT

OKAY SO NOW THE CREEPY CAVE TENTACLES ARE SUDDENLY RECEDING, AND IN THEIR PLACE TOMURA IS LYING THERE??

ARE YOU DOING ALL RIGHT LITTLE BUDDY?? YOU’RE NOT LOOKING TOO HOT RN MY DUDE?

LSDJKAFLKASJLGKJ okay now that I’ve forced myself to scroll back up to look at the “tentacles” again a little more closely, an action which I highly, highly regret, I can see that they are actually just... fingers. literally just a bunch of fingers. endlessly spawning tentacle fingers with joints and fingerprints and fingernails and okay you know what, where the hell did Dabi run off to, I’ve got a panel here that needs to be incinerated ASAP

(ETA: so now that I’ve looked at this page yet again, which I regret EVEN MORE, it appears that this is Tomura’s left hand trying to regenerate itself or something. anyway so that I’ll just leave it at that and will ask no further questions and will basically just do my best to NEVER EVER THINK ABOUT THIS PANEL OR THIS ENTIRE PAGE EVER AGAIN.)

NOW AFO IS HERE AGAIN OUT OF NOWHERE TO BE ALL CREEPY AT SPINNER!!

WORRIED, YOU SAY??? WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BE WORRIED???? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WORRISOME ABOUT ANY OF THIS, NO SIR. that’s it, Spinner. just play it cool. then wait until AFO has his back turned and grab Tomura and make a run for it

so AFO says Tomura is “conquering” the quirk doomsday theory, which. ????????????? ?????

(ETA: so I’ve had a day or so to mull this over a little more now, but tbh I still don’t really understand what he’s trying to say here. in the RHA translation, AFO says that Tomura is “gradually overcoming the quirk singularity”, so my best guess is that it’s a needlessly complicated way of saying that he’s gradually gaining more control over his quirks? since the quirk singularity nonsense is basically just a sciencey way of saying, “heads up, eventually quirks are just gonna get SO FUCKING WILD that no one will even be able to control them, so then we’ll all just die I guess!”

but that still doesn’t make much sense to me, and also I really have very little clue about what’s been going on with TomurAFO in general ever since his fight with S&S, so! just gonna have to keep reading I suppose.)

“he’s still Shigaraki?” oh Spinner. my sweet loyal Spinner. if you have to ask, I think that deep down you already suspect the answer

why wouldn’t he be? :) you don’t think AFO would lie to you about that, do you, Spinner? don’t you trust him?? he’s such a notoriously nice and trustworthy guy!!

(ETA: I mean he obviously is, don’t get me wrong. but it seems pretty clear that things are all going according to Vestige!AFO’s plan for now, and that the “Tomura” currently running things in the ol’ TomurAFO body isn’t the same Tomura that Spinner once knew. at least not right now.)

so now Skeptic, who STILL EXISTS FOR SOME REASON IN SPITE OF MY BEST EFFORTS TO FORGET THAT HE DOES, is launching into some boring speech about villains with mutant quirks? and saying that a bunch of them hold grudges against heroes because of all the historical prejudice and stuff

oh snap lol

YOU’RE FAMOUS NOW, SPINNER!

oh my god they’re trying to recruit him to be the League’s new public face or something. bitch you’re just trying to distract him because he’s onto you and he’s like the one member of the LoV who would actually be able to reach out to Tomura and snatch him back from AFO’s grasp with The Power of Friendship!!

seriously though! Tomura finally makes ONE real, true, honest-to-god friend, and IMMEDIATELY AFO is all “welp, time to send this kid far, FAR away from here right now” ffff goddammit. don’t go along with it Spinner!!

(ETA: forgot to comment on it at the time because I was too busy trying and failing to make telepathic contact with Spinner, but what the hell is up with this flash drive thingy that Skeptic is handing over to him? don’t tell me it’s ANOTHER Dabi tell-all HBO miniseries. how many of these are they gonna churn out.)

NOOOO SPINNER

DAMN IT AFO. he was definitely wavering until he heard that, and then he immediately got all resigned

AND THAT’S THE END OMG

WHAT A DARK, DEPRESSING, AND FOREBODING CHAPTER IN WHICH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOOD OR POSITIVE HAPPENED FOR ANYONE, AND EVERYTHING JUST KEEPS GETTING EXPONENTIALLY WORSE SOB

and is that the OG sludge villain chilling out there in the bottom right?!? BACK FOR MORE, EH. well I seem to recall you got your ass kicked by a fucking backpack all the way back in CHAPTER ONE so it’s pretty fucking bold of you to show your face in these parts again after all this time! but more power to you I guess

so there we have it! not the most exciting of chapters, but I really like that about it, actually. like for once, we got a chapter that actually slowed down the pace and took time to breathe, and that was actually really refreshing. granted, I might not have felt the same way if I’d spent a whole week waiting for this, and then had to resign myself to waiting ANOTHER whole week to finally see what Shinsou & Pals are up to, lol

BUT SINCE I’M FROM THE FUTURE where I have the freedom to continue reading AS MUCH AS I WANT in order to get as much of that SWEET IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION as I desire, I feel like I can appreciate this more than I might have otherwise! and in all seriousness, I think the pacing of this chapter bodes very well for the future. the last two arcs in particular had a LOT of plot developments that felt more than a little rushed. things like Nagant’s whole storyline, S&S and her history with All Might, and so forth. there were a lot of times when it was just like, “[SUDDEN PLOT TWIST OUT OF NOWHERE!]”, immediately followed by “[HASTY EXPOSITION-HEAVY FLASHBACK BELATEDLY EXPLAINING THE PLOT TWIST].”

and it’s not like most of the twists were actually bad, but you know what would have made all the difference? is if we’d had a couple of earlier chapters introducing us to Star, or establishing Nagant and her history with the HPSC. that would have served to get us invested in these characters beforehand, the same way that I’m now more invested in Toga’s story after spending a few pages with her revisiting her childhood home and confronting those old memories. that kind of thing really goes a long way, and it’s something Horikoshi used to do a lot more often (remember Twice’s introduction way back in the day?). so yeah, I was really happy to see him getting back to that kind of writing here, and hopefully that bodes well for the writing as we move into the final arc

anyway so yeah! AND WITH THAT SAID, I GUESS THIS MEANS IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN, by which I mean “time to post our updated ‘COUNTDOWN TO SPOILER THING’ meme”! so here is your friendly warning that ***if you are not fully caught up with the BnHA manga, please stop reading here!***

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you may have noticed that we appear to be counting in the wrong direction from the previous chapter! that is because, after a bit of discussion and some confused pondering and consideration, I have decided to go with 362 as the revised Chapter Of Destiny! so yeah. THE RECKONING STILL APPROACHETH, but it hopefully doth approach slightly more accurately than before lol. BUT IF NOT THEN OH WELL

[herehavesomeheadcanons]

BSD Manga x Reader, But it's only Sigma because he's the only one that matters

Yeah so... I just got caught up with the BSD Manga. I am going to THROW HANDS with an old man. On the plus side, I'm adding Sigma to the list of characters I take requests for! On the minus side... Emotional trauma.

Anyway...

Sigma

Casually grabs a cute image off Pinterest-

🤍🎰 He's actually pretty easy to keep happy, all you gotta do is love him and give him a place to belong. And don't use him. (Looking at you, Fyodor)

🤍🎰 He's suspicious of you at first, since he's been used and manipulated like 5 times in the 3 total years of his life. Once you prove your worth to him, though, he's exceptionally clingy. He's always trying to take time out of his busy schedule for you!

🤍🎰 Very, VERY attentive to details. His memorization skills are impeccable. He will memorize absolutely everything about you. Hey, at least you'll never have to worry about him forgetting important dates!

🤍🎰 Do his hair for him please you can do so many things with it- it's very soft. He needs to keep up a good appearance for customers, after all. His shampoo smells like fabric softener. You ever smelled fabric softener? It's the best.

🤍🎰 He loves cookies and if you bake them for him he will cry. He'll eat them even if they totally suck.

🤍🎰 I hope you don't have a fear of heights, because Sigma loves to be high up. He wants to be as high up as he possibly can without literally suffocating because of the altitude. I could see a hot air balloon date as a possibility.

🤍🎰 He likes card games, and always lets you win. He's very good at making it seem like you honestly won, though.

🤍🎰 He's not sure what to make of physical affection at first, but once he gets used to it he loves it. He enjoys cuddling and soft kisses.

🤍🎰 His love language is literally everything. And with memorization skills as sharp as his, he's pretty damn good at making you feel special. Trust me, you'll never feel unloved with him around. He knows exactly what gifts to give, exactly what compliments to say, exactly what grand gestures to make, etc. ("How did you know I wanted this?" "You said so 3 months ago.")

🤍🎰 All in all? Absolutely wonderful man. 10/10 would recommend! This poor man keeps getting himself involved with crazy psycho killers when all he wants to do is run his sky Casio, he needs another normal person to keep him sane. Please help him.

[therealbeachfox]

Wait, you were talking about "Gods of Astielle" being the next in line after "Rise of Empire", but I thought Queen of All Monsters came after Rise of Empire?? Does Stars Rising Infinite take place between those two, or what's going on? Who even designed this timeline in the first place?!

[[Character Breaking Information to Prevent Confusion: This whole thing is meta fan-fiction for @unpretty's Astielle series, which is written as if it's fan-fiction of a non-existent long-running video game series. This is my vision of what said game series might look at based on everything she's written so far. Legend of Starlight Hero XII: The Gods of Astielle is the name of the 'current game' Astielle is supposedly fanfiction of. This is written shortly before its release.]]

Well, no one. That's the problem. By the time anyone involved with the series realized it was going to last long enough for Lore to be a concern, they'd already played so fast and loose with the reincarnation cycles it was anyone's guess how they all related to each other. There are centuries long gaps between game-worthy incarnations, piles of side-games that constantly contradict each other, all those comics and novelizations, and so many Youtube videos trying to detangle the whole mess.

But you're in luck, Anon! With Gods of Astielle coming out, I've been mulling over this very question myself lately, and I am ready to present to you and the world the only 100% True and Canonical Legend of the Starlight Hero/Astielle timeline.

[[A screenshot of The Old Man of the Mountain sitting in his chair in front of a room full of herbs and bottles in all his 32-bit glory, but with a fox-head crudely pasted over his face]]

So come in from the cold, child, and buckle the fuck in. The Old Fox of the Mountain has some learning for you.

First, I'm laying down some ground rules so this project is halfway feasible.

I) I'm only covering video games. No novels/comics/web exclusives/terrible 1989 cartoons. I'm not getting caught in the "You forgot this obscure three issue manga from 1991 that said-" trap.

II) All numbered Legend of the Starlight Hero games have to be canonical. Yes, even Return to Monster Mountain. Yes, even Queen of All Monsters. Sorry.

III) All games involving time-travel (Tangled Skein of Destiny) or alternate time-lines (90% of the Untraveled Paths DLCs) or crossovers (Smash Brothers) are automatically out of the lineup. Yes, this means that I'm not covering some of the best games of the series, but to make up for it, the canon timeline includes the absolute worse ones.

IV) Any games which directly contradict world details or events laid out in the mainline games are out. So we wont be covering the Stardust Dungeons series or Fight of Goddesses/Final Flight or any of the PSP games. Again, not saying whether they're good (Fight of Goddesses) or bad (Stardust Dungeons), just whether they're part of the Main Canon timeline or not. "But if you assume that X is true, and Y was lying about Z, then technically~" This isn't Unraveled. If you want to imagine that there's a colony of sentient rootboars having magical adventures in their underground kingdom that no one else knows about somehow, that's all fine and good, but unless there's a sequence in Gods of Astielle where we meet them, I'm not counting it as canon.

Second:

My arrangement of the timeline may not be your arrangement of the timeline. The games I consider to be canon might not be the same ones you do. It's your right to disagree and it is my right to be correct.

Finally:

To try and make things clearer, all the Legend of the Starlight Hero games will be in bold, while all other games that are part of the main timeline like Monster Kingdom Builder will be in bold + italics.

Quick Lexicon (for the lil'ones):

Astielle: The World/Universe the LotSH games all take place in. Starlight Hero/LotSH/Astielle are used interchangably when talking about the series/franchise as a whole which doesn't get confusing at all, what are you talking about?

Dan (Thanks, Dan) Ryner: Head of Void Star Games studio and edge lord supreme. Banished to the wastes of Idaho for his many many sins

Fantastico: Plastic toy maker turned video-game maker turned console maker turned industry-cautionary-tale. Were responsible for the LotSH golden age of 1990-2000, and then also for whatever you want to call the 2001-2006 period.

Ito Makoto: The original creator of LotSH, and chief game designer until his death in 1998

Itokoto: Japanese game company that was the first publisher of LotSH and related games until it's bankrupcy in 1990

LotSH: Legend of the Starlight Hero. The main series of games for Astielle

Nichelle Augustin: Studio Head for White Spire Games. Also a former developer for Void Star Games who managed to grab the LotSH license and leap out of company headquarters right as the whole thing imploded in slow motion behind her.

Void Star Games: Owners of the Starlight Hero franchise from 2007-2015. Despite their best efforts, LotSH survived their stewardship.

White Spire Games: The current developers for LotSH since 2016.

Everything clear? Alright. Let's start at the beginning

=*=*=

Lute Bard Hero (2007) [Void Star Games] [Arcade/Wii/PS/Xbox]

[[A stylized Renfaire-esc bard playing a lute in a rockstar pose as magic explodes behind him. Jet Black from School of Rock has been crudely photoshopped over him]]

No, stop, don't click away! I swear I'm fucking serious! Let me explain.

It's 2006, era of Guitar Hero clones and endless Wii filler, and a spunky little studio named Void Star Games had just snagged up the rights to the Starlight Hero franchise in the aftermath of Fantastico's collapse. And while the studio heads plotted together in their dark crypts as to how best suck the joy and laughter and everything pure from the franchise, their shovelware department was put to work creating some quick and easy cash grabs to provide the funding.

One of these projects started as a generic Guitar Hero knockoff "with a twist". The twist being, you were a generic fantasy-world bard doing heavy metal rock if lutes were able to play heavy metal rock. Then the programmers realized that, hey, their company owned this great pre-existing fantasy world franchise that came with all sorts of pre-developed assets and started mining the entire Starlight Hero franchise for... easter eggs? Homages? Fanboying?

Regardless, what you wound up with was a too-short rock-opera where your first-person bardic protagonist traveled the countryside of 'Almost, but not quite Astielle', playing giant fantasy kingdom stadiums and rocking with Void-Magic Heavy Metal Rock, and occasionally defeating armies with wicked lute solos. If it had more than eight stages, or if they'd been able to hire someone halfway competent to write the music, it would've been awesome.

So why does this count as the first Astielle game and not just an easter-egg filled one-off? Well, the head developer of Lute Bard Hero was a bright young lady named Nichelle Augustin, and there was this other game she'd be head producer of a decade later...

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Legend of the Starlight Hero XI - Stars Rising Infinite (2018) [White Spire Games] [XBox/PS/PC]

[[The boxart of Stars Rising Infinite featuring the Heavenly Trio in action poses.

Jet Black from School of Rock's head has once again been pasted over Vaelon's.

Brienne of Tarth's face has been pasted over Lynette’s.

Karzarul's head has been replaced with Baby Yoda's]]

*wicked heavy metal lute solo*

Go back and look at that lute in the screen shots above. Now look down at Vaelon's lute. Now look at the hands. Now compare the Aekhite Empire architecture with the architecture of the final concert arena. Now look at how Vaelon's primary mechanic is Void Magic powered by Heavy Metal Lute Solos.

[[Two screenshots side by side of first-person perspective from The Lute Bard and Vaelon with redlines connecting all the similarities. A piece of the background from Stars Rising Infinite that crudely approximates a triangle has also been outlined in red with a heavily pixilated illuminati pyramid next to it]]

Lute Bard Hero is Vaelon's prelude story. After that final blowout concert, he wound up chilling with the imperial family, hit it off with the eldest daughter, and wound up helping her run off on her quest to find fairies willing to hook her up with Goddess Smiting powers to kill her brother with.

The rest is history.

So. This game.

It really, really shouldn't have worked.

I have publicly made penance for all the unkind things I said about the concept when the first teasers dropped. I've left them up as proof that even the best of us can be young and stupid at times. But come on, it was an origin prequel that no-one asked for that retconned some of the basic foundations of the entire series and they blew a significant portion of the budget on getting Jet Black to voice one of the Celestial Trio!

It really, really shouldn't have worked as well as it did!

Obviously, this is the first main game of the series chronologically, no question of that. The Celestial Weapons don't even exist until halfway through the main campaign! So, a Shitass Long Time Ago, in a land that's the exact same land we've always been on, the Aekhite Empire is still in one piece and the eldest daughter of the dead emperor thinks her older brother sucks at the job and comes to the conclusion that the most logical and straightforward solution is to wrangle a Void Witch to her cause, track down the king of fairies, get him to help her acquire the divine blessing (and arsenal) or her patron goddess, then use those to depose her brother all while an epic-rock soundtrack plays in the background.

I love you, Lynette, but did you ever consider just hitting him with a brick?

Along the way, the Void Witch flirts with a reflection of moonlight so hard it manifests a Sphinx Cat fursona to flirt back with, everyone winds up getting Patron Goddess Blessings, and the most dysfunctional love/hate triangle in history proceeds to conquer the world before crashing and burning so hard it sets off the Unending Murdercycle that's shaped Astiellian history ever since.

Vaelon almost muscles Jonys out of the position of Best Starlight Hero.

Karzarul completes his journey from "What If Bowser was a Sexy Were-demon" to "What If A-Precious-Cinnamon-Roll-Who-Just-Needs-a-Hug was a Sexy Were-demon".

Lynette is the Queen Empress of Hot Messes, the answer to the eternal question 'Why are the Heirs Like That?' as well as the archetype of Video Game Playable Antihero that all future game-writers should learn from. She is beauty, she is grace, she will stab you in the face.

I have so much more to say about this game. And I have. Repeatedly. Check the sidebar. Or my YouTube channel. Or get cornered by me at Furcon.

[[Screenshot from the Winding Paths of Destiny DLC of the popular "Mothman" alternate monster form saving Vaelon, Lynette, and Lynette's horse during the canyon collapse scene]]

The DLC for this game is god-tier, but explicitly non-canonical, so I'll pass it by other than saying I hope the 'Venturing Off the Path of Destiny' mechanic becomes a series standard. I don't know how they'd manage the "Frantic Quicktime Button Mashing Choices that Result in new Monster Forms" mechanic from the alternate timelines, but the Gods of Astielle devs have made noises that something from that will be showing up. I'm hoping for Mothman. Everyone's hoping for Mothman. Long live Mothman, King of all Mothmans.

=*=*=

Stars Rising: Astiellian Warriors (2019) (White Spire Games) [XBox One, PS4]

[[A screenshot of the stampede scene from Lion King with Tauril heads pasted on all the wildebests and Lynette's face pasted over Simba]]

This is such a stupid game. I love it so much. It's a blatant Dynasty Warriors knockoff, it's got a multiverse/timestorm framing plot, the fucking Universal Dragon plays a major role, and the voice acting is for shit. But you can also plow through 1,000 soldiers as a Tauril before kicking their commander in the face so hard he flies halfway across the map and ragdolls Lynette right off her horse. Glorious.

Even within the story, 80% of it is explicitly non-canonical, what with the branching timelines and multiverse shenanigans, but The Untrammeled Path of Destiny is straight up how Astiellian history actually went. The fact it explains the details of the Aekhite Empire's expansion and Lynette's and Karzarul's shadow war way better than Stars Rising did is just a surprise welcome bonus.

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Aekhite Empire: Eternal Zenith (2019) (White Spire Games) [PC/Mac]

[[An old Evony ad. The standard big boobed princess has been replaced with a seductive Abyssscale, and Aekhite Empire is pasted over "Evony". The 'Please Save Us, My Lord' text remains unaltered]]

I don't play much 4X games beyond Civ, so I can't speak to how balanced or polished or original the gameplay of EZ is, but any game that gives you combat bonuses for sexing the opposing general so hard their stats fall off, or reserves an entire gameplay loop to sending your boy toy out to open in-universe quick-travel points is alright by me. There's a lot of world-building and random details they put in this one that don't contradict anything from the core games, and I hope it continues to stay that way because I love every bit of it. It paints such a deliciously fucked up view of of pre-collapse Aekhite Empire and I love the additional look into Lynette's head via all the Event Decisions that come up during your 'Conquest for their own Good' of the world. The 'Political Maneuvering' minigame might've gotten cut from Stars Rising, but this is a very suitable replacement.

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Monster Kingdom Builder (1997) [Fantacon/PlayStation/N64/PC/Gameboy/Game Gear] [Fantastico]

[[The American box art of Monster Kingdom Builder. If there's been any memes photoshopped in, they're too subtle to notice.]]

No, this is completely canonical! Look at the state of the Moonrise Kingdom at the end of Stars Rising Infinite. Now look at how the Moonrise Kingdom looks the next time we see it in (spoilers) Legend of the Starlight Hero I. Going from wooden "Ewok meets Art Deco" stylings to Silver-veined Marble columns and big crystal stain-glass windows?

Sounds like someone took Lynette's whole "Savage Kingdom of Sticks and Stones" speech a little personally and spent the next few decades playing an adorable city builder with perky chiptunes and chibi-Turial loading icons in order to spruce the place up for when she got back. "See, Lynette?", he'd ask, "I spent forty hours arranging all the construction bridges just right so I could get marble from the furthest quarry to the palace without loosing a single Rex to a canyon crossing! And the pathway spells out 'Please love me, Lynette" in Old Astian!'"

Pity Needle was too much of an asshole to notice all the hard work Karzarul had put in to spruce the place up for them. But what else can you expect from the guy?

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Black Drakonis I-IV (1984-1990) [Nintendo/Atari/Sega Master/Fantacon/Others] [Itokoto]

[[Super Mario Brothers screenshot with The Hero pasted over Mario. Toad's text has been altered to "Thank you HERO! But our BLACK DRAKONIS HAS TAKEN another castle!]]

The third pillar of the the Metrokonisvania genre. Also known as Lair of the Ebon Dragon, Lair of the Black Drakon, or Drakonis' Castle depending on who was in charge of translating for each system. It wasn't until Black Drakonis II made enough American sales that Itokoto cared enough to ensure there was a single title across all systems. The Black Drakonis games have continued after the fourth, but the rights were bought by a different company, and the cross-continuity that'd developed between it and Astielle was (mostly) broken off. White Drakonis remains ones of Karzarul's iconic forms, and Black Drakonis was a surprise major character in Stars Rising Infinite, not only giving us some truly amazing/hilarious moments, but tying the original four BD games in even tighter with the Astiellian timeline.

The Black Drakonis games are relatively straightforward (storywise). A giant not!Dragon has taken over a local castle, and whatever poor sap who appears on the cover has been recruited to go deal with that... somehow. It was noteworthy at the time for having Black Drakonis be a force of nature to drive off as opposed to a Final Boss to deplete the health bar of. This was the series that got Itokoto known in the west, and paved the way for Legend of the Starlight Hero to perform as well as it did.

When White Drakonis appeared as Karzarul's final form in LotSH III, it was mostly an issue of reusing existing assets as part of the legendarily rushed and penny-pinching creation process. But Ito Makoto ran with it, bringing Black Drakonis herself into LotSH IV and officially tying the series together. And while everything from Black Drakonis V and onward is in its own unconnected universe, the first four slot in neatly in the early days of the Reincarnation Cycle as Black Drakonis continuously seeks out and claims poorly guarded (by her standards) castles/spires/megadungeons to guard until such time as some unnamed protagonist arrives to drive her back off.

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Legend of the Starlight Hero III - Return to Monster Mountain (1987) [Nintendo/Sega Master/Fantacon] [Itokoto]

[[Box art of LotSH III with giant OSHA Violation tape draped over everything]]

This is what happens when you push for a sequel to come out eight months after the previous game, people. So, Black Drakonis II hit America in 1986 and was a huge hit out of nowhere. Then when LotSH II dropped six months later, it became one of the holiday season's biggest sellers. Itokoto management saw the sales figures and sent the orders down that they needed the next LotSH game ready for Christmas 1987 Or. Else.

They sent this order down in April, 1987. Some things in game development never change.

Under an unexpected time crunch, the team got "creative". A half-completed side-scroller with the working titles Crystal Warriors of the Underground got a bunch of Starlight Hero sprites thrown in, the backgrounds turned from weird magitech caverns into Monster Mountain, combat was changed from the time honored 'Jump on their heads' to 'hit it with a sword', and someone took Black Drakonis, painted her white, and dropped that sprite set in as Karzarul's final form.

Not that anyone got to see it.

This game was brooo~oooken. This wasn't broken as in the Nintendo Hard style of the first two games. At least with those, it's possible to get all the timing right to actually beat Karzarul into a puddle. With Return to Monster Mountain, however, it's impossible to even get to the final stage. Level 8 sees Starlight Hero having to navigate increasingly narrow platforms over the standard bottomless pits, all the while getting arrows shot at him by an offscreen Karzarul which push you back whenever you get hit. People have had AIs run this level. There is no pattern of movement that can take you successfully through the level. The Itokoto playtesters never had a chance to give the game a proper go-over before its release, and it never got taken care of. "Fortunately", most players just assumed they weren't good enough to get past it, assuming they even got that far in the first place.

Still, it's canonical that at some point before Needle, some poor-assed sap went to retrieve his birthright weapon and got shot off a cliff by Karzarul, who was probably feeling pretty damned crabby about all these Not Vaelons that kept coming around for the sword by this point.

RIP nameless Starlight Hero. Watch the first step. It's a doozy.

All this and we're not at Needle yet? Stars above! Let's continue this conversation another day, child. Next time: We -finally- get to Needle. And hopefully the other Needle. Maybe even Jonys! Hoboy, Jonys.