#i imagine his character as similar to canon with even less filter

[buried-in-autumn-leaves]

Thinking about XOD!Baxter again gm everyone-

Anyway romancing this asshole would be so funny. JB getting pissed off bc Baxter was flirting with other people but "it's not my fault I'm so naturally charming."

Him refusing to go on the beach date because "look at me, I would get a sunburn" (true, but also his ass is NOT admitting to being scared of the ocean).

GOLDEN RULE DATE BUT WHENEVER SHE TRIES ANYTHING ON HE'S LIKE "I don't know, I don't think that's your colour."

Also thinking about him hanging out at Fuchsia even though he hates the food just because of the colour scheme..... SPEAKING OF THE MONOCHROME SOMETHING ABOUT EVERETT'S GLASSES. IDK BUT IK FOR A FACT THAT HE COMPLIMENTS HIM EVERY TIME HE WEARS THEM THIS IS THEIR AWFUL BONDING MOMENT.

[bathroomtrapped]

saw ask. so let's say hypothetically (not really) all the apprentices are autistic (they are) headcanon them

saw ask ‼️‼️ i completely agree unironically and i keep that in mind when i consume/write/draw saw content. jigsaw apprentices? more like PDA autistics anonymous jfc

i (shamefully) am not an amanda-guy and dont have pretty much any headcanons about her overall so sorry about that but ill do some bullet points for the apprentices bc ive thought TOO MUCH abt this

adam

1. the most obvious PDA manifestation, though i think its strong in mark and lawrence for sure, adam just doesnt mask his. he pretty much built his life around maximizing free will and full control over his schedule

2. constantly reducing sensory input with music and being baked. his apartment is dead silent and dark 24/7 tho

3. honestly i think adam has shocking high levels of empathy. most people in his life wouldnt peg him as someone who would struggle with that but i think its what sets him apart from nearly every saw character. hes so isolated but desperate to understand and connect with other people, even if hes in the shadows

4. studies high class targets and their mannerisms. it helped him function during a few job interviews

5. hates eating, hates effort so pretty much eats like shit. very few specific, cheap, prepackaged meals that he can handle. anything that isnt a time commitment to prepare and eat

6. talks too much to overcompensate (not sure if people are able to understand what hes getting at and ends up rambling)

lawrence

1. i hc him as a narc as well which (as you can imagine) combined with PDA makes instruction/criticism/responsibility stressful so hes constantly overloaded

2. same as above, combined with asd i think its the biggest reason he has that canonical low empathy (similar to mark)

3. can only eat incredibly plain and simple foods. rice, bread, vegetables without butters/oils etc. very picky

4. very little auditory sensory issues after so many years in a hospital and needs noise in order to function (including sleep)

5. started wearing pajamas under his suits after a few years in residency because hes already tired 24/7, the terrible fabric on top of that just makes him insane

6. struggled through med school because lectures are hard to interpret and hes more of a visual learner

7. so much eye contact

8. remember that dog picture in his wallet we see for like 5 seconds? i cant imagine someone like him enjoying the texture or sporadic energy of a dog and makes it sleep in dianas room at night. its not allowed in the office and he meticulously cleans all of the dog hair the second he sees any

9. absolutely allergic to change in every way

mark

1. low empathy as i mentioned before

2. he wears a lot loose fitting suits in canon which i think are for sensory reasons. he clearly prioritizes comfort with those (interesting) track pants?

3. i have joked with my mutuals about his off-putting, autistic ass stare countless times

4. terrible liar because he has less control over his facial expressions and mannerisms. he ends up making too much eye contact and thinks that brutal honesty is a good idea. he has an almost nonexistent filter

5. he reminds me of that brand of autism that a lot of patriarchs have, the kind that goes unnoticed bc theyre the head of the household. meat and potatoes his entire life, strange rituals and routines everyone has to get used to

6. extremely black and white sense of justice and a poor understanding of hierarchal authority. he doesnt get why people are above or below other people and struggles with those concepts

7. everyone in the precinct knows not to joke with mark because it will always fall flat and have to be explained. mark has rly funny but dry and blunt humor himself

[katebishopofearth]

Flowers at Dusk chapter 2 [an blackbonnet fae au]

Fandom: Our Flag Means Death Relationships: Blackbonnet Characters: Stede | Ed Rating: T for canon-typical language Other tags: fae AU | fairy tale logic | fae!Ed

|| Prompt from @kronosa113: Maybe Stede has a dream similar to Ed's vision? i.e. Ed's a mythological creature and meets Stede as a merman? ||

ii. first frost

[start from the beginning]

When the sun rose above the first frost of winter, Stede found himself lingering longingly at the edge of the forest. Though it was late in the morning, the sun was only a glimmer above the horizon, bringing little light and less warmth. There was no snow yet, but the frost covered the world in a crisp, cold layer. It was the perfect time to gather chestnuts, and just the thought of roasting them by the fire warmed him. The children would enjoy that, he thought, and Mary would smile at him, and he could bask in the glow of finally doing something right. That imagined feeling conjured up the memory of brown skin and silver hair and eyes like an autumn afternoon – Stede blinked and the memory dissipated like dewdrops in the morning light. 

It was too early in the season for snow, and the woods were shaded in hues of brown and grey. A thick mist blanketed the world, filtering the sunlight so that it seemed to cast more shadows than light. All was quiet. No breeze stroked the bare branches, no mouse scurried through the undergrowth of rotting leaves, no lonely birdcall echoed unseen through the mist. Even the spiderwebs were crystallised, their infinite intricacies preserved in frost, if only for a morning. A world dying, a world waiting.

Stede felt like he was the only living thing in all of existence. The crunch of his boots was the only sound, and the clouds of his breath in the crisp air the only sign of a living presence. He walked the familiar path with his head tilted up, searching the branches for ripe chestnuts. He barely noticed where he put his feet, which was why he didn’t notice the brilliant pink flowers until he was almost on top of them. “False goat’s beard?!” he gasped, his voice eerily loud in the silent wood. As he stroked the delicate petals along their long stalks, he felt like he was touching a unicorn or some other magical creature – it was unheard of – impossible – for false goat’s beard to blossom at the beginning of winter. But these were doing beautifully, seemingly not affected by the frost at all. They grew as tall and proud as their counterparts did on the most glorious day of summer.

A breeze stirred the still air, and the feathery plumes beckoned.

Stede.

He perked up his ears.

Stede.

Was it just his imagination or did the wind whisper his name?

Stede.

It rose up out of him, the sudden knowledge of where he had to go. He left the path and the impossible pink flowers, and traipsed through the undergrowth. He had never been this way before, but something deep inside him tugged him along. Like he knew, without conscious thought, that this was where he had to go. As he walked, the world grew light around him. Grey shadows faded into white mist, and out of it came a familiar, willowy figure to meet him.

“Stede.” It was his voice all along. The stranger from that autumn day with the foxgloves. 

“Hi!” Stede couldn’t help the ridiculous grin on his face. “It’s you.” 

The stranger smiled, too, warming Stede all the way down to his toes better than the weak winter sun. Around his neck, partially obscured by the beard, was Stede’s black cravat. “Stede, you came.” 

Stede didn’t feel like he had much of a choice in that matter, he had been compelled to come this way, almost supernaturally. “Of course I did….” He furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry, I never got your name – what should I call you?”

The man frowned, an expression that was like a raincloud on his face, and for a moment Stede thought he had offended him. But then it cleared, and he said, “You can call me Jeff.”

“Okay. Jeff.” It was a little jarring, such a normal name for someone who was, well, not. But Stede didn’t mind – he now had a name to attach to the face, the voice, the eyes that were the exact shade of the chestnuts he was looking for.

“Did you see the flowers?” His eyes flickered across Stede’s face, excitement and anticipation in waiting for his reaction.

Stede beamed. “The false goat’s beard, yes! They were magnificent!”

Jeff looked pleased. “I thought you might like them,” he said, as though he had personally put the flowers there for Stede to find. 

“Like them? I adored them,” Stede said. “This time of year, there’s not much in the woods that makes you catch your breath – no autumn leaves, winter snow, or springtime flowers. But that doesn’t mean that it’s dull. It just means you have to look a little harder to find the beauty that’s right there under your nose.”

“Exactly.” The corners of Jeff’s eyes crinkled fondly. “I kind of like this time of year,” he admitted. “Everything’s so still. There’s a hush over the world. Feels like the earth is resting, recuperating. Waiting for something to happen.”

“Yes!” Stede agreed enthusiastically. “Like a pause of anticipation.”

Jeff hummed in agreement. “That’s a lovely turn of phrase,” he murmured, the lines of his face relaxing into a soft expression. “So what are you doing out here today? Other than appreciating the beauty of the woods in anticipation.”

“I’m looking for chestnuts,” Stede said brightly. “It’s the perfect time of year for them – ever roasted them by the fire?” He groaned just thinking about it. “So soft and buttery, it’s like you’re tasting all the goodness of the earth itself, condensed and crammed into a little shell.” 

“That sounds amazing, mate.” There was a smile hidden somewhere under that beard, Stede was sure, from the way Jeff’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You make even a chestnut sounds like the best thing in the world.”

“Oh, it is.” Stede sighed dreamily. He blushed, aware that he sounded rather unhinged. He pulled himself together and added more sensibly, “My kids absolutely love them – they gobble them up like candy.”

“Your kids?” There was an edge to Jeff’s voice, like he was caught off guard. Stede didn’t blame him, he supposed he didn’t look like a married man – after all, who would want to marry him and have children with him, this silly man who went for walks in the woods and lost his way and got way too excited over flowers?

“Oh yes, two of them,” he said wryly, “Love them dearly of course, but I never really know what’s going on in their heads. Their mother won’t let me bring them into the woods – said it’d give them nightmares.” He sighed. “She’s not like… not like you and I, you see, she doesn’t understand,” he explained. “She’s terrified of the woods, she…” He searched for a turn of phrase and borrowed one that’s been in his head ever since Jeff said it last time, “can’t open her eyes and ears to it.” 

The prickly look disappeared from Jeff’s face, it softened into something almost sad, almost relieved. “I get it,” he said. He clapped Stede on the back. The sudden sound and movement banished the nervous energy. “Well, we’ll have to bring the woods to them then, won’t we? What was that you said – the earth condensed in a nutshell?” He touched Stede’s elbow. “C’mon, let’s go find some chestnuts.”

Stede let out a laugh in relief. “Sounds like a plan.”

[continue on AO3]

[dirtycccat]

the demon bros+ undateables showing their love

thought about this for 5 min then had to write it out so enjoy

lucifer

first off you notice he treats you differently

and by differently i mean like you’re his favorite child  sibling

you get away with anything??? and he’s softer with you than with the others (which is canon)

then you see that?? he keeps buying you stuff you said you wanted when he was present

and you’re ofc impressed

but you’re more impressed by how open he’s around you

he’ll leave most of his walls down around  you

which means you’ll get to experience unfiltered lucifer

he’ll laugh around you more, make dumb dad jokes, nap with his head in your lap, complain drunkenly about his work and bros, give you sloppy cheeks and forehead kisses

you find it rly cute though

if you’re in the human world he’ll 100% take this chance to send you beautifully written letters asking you how you are and leaving some verses that reminded him of you on the back like a 19th century vampire

“dear mc, how is your life? mine is filled with woe and unease since i do not  have the light of my life around anymore...anyway here’s a poem about being horny and alone by a 18th century romantic author hope to see you soon, xoxo lucifer”

you try to respond in the same way and send him memes on the back instead of  poetry (or real poetry depends on your mood)

mammon

protective of you 100% will throw hands with anyone that even glances weirdly your way

but also wants to show you off? like look at this human!!! this is MY human!!!

gives you random thoughtful gifts that reminded him of you

wants to be around you 24/7 so he invites you to all the events that he thinks you’ll like

you wanna party? perfect. you wanna go on a weird ghost stories tour around the city? cool. you wanna waltz in one of those old people parties? he’s already reserved two tickets. you just wanna lay around and nap? he’s already on your lap.

it doesn’t matter if you’re in a romantic relationship or not this man WILL serenade you outside your window

rapunzel style with an acoustic guitar or with a boombox like a rebel 80s kid

anyway here’s toxic by britney spears babe this is for YOU

levi

considers you his bff ofc

but also at first he’s still really awkward around you and doesn’t really know what to do for you and feels bad thinking only you do things for him

until you reassure him you enjoy just being around him so it’s fine

he blushes and starts inviting you more to his room to game/ watch stuff

at some point he starts buying two tickets to all concerts he goes to and invites you along

but also? he asks you what you’re into and starts marathoning your favorite animes/ movies/ series so he can talk with you abt them

you feel really moved that he’d do that for you???  like??? bruh...

your relationship is basically friends respecting each other and wanting to know each other the best through their passions even if it means getting into some weird shit

it’s rly wholesome tho

if you’re romantically involved he’ll totally do roleplay as your favourite character and you do the same for him and it’s really cute

also imagine: artistic collabs. you make fanart together??? you can program games together???? you do cosplay together??? the possibilities...

satan

he’ll hate to be compared to his dad brother but he does show how much he trusts you by showing his unguarded side too

when he first talked about lucifer without the filter of his nice guy persona you were pretty shocked

like he was really going at it

but then you realize? he’s just like that when he’s comfortable

and it’s not all mean spirited, he just has,,, a strong personality and a lot of opinions about stuff (which you sometimes share with him)

but you also found out it’s really fun to gossip with satan

since he knows all the juicy gossip from his multitude of ties (he’s sharing the title of gossip queen with asmo that’s why they get along so well tbh)

also if you even find a teacher you hate he’ll tell you all their embarrassing moments to make you feel better

he also recommends you books and poems and sends you quotes that made him think about you

so you sure as heck don’t need to buy books while you’re in the devildom bc he’ll buy you an entire library 

asmo

compliments you without comparing you to himself which is the highest compliment he can give

like mammon he’s more into the showing everyone his favorite human around while also protecting them

he’ll take you to his parties and gatherings as a guest of honor, he’ll make you meet all kinds of people and open up opportunities for you

he’ll be the one that pampers you

you’d think lucifer is the sugar daddy of the family but nope it’s asmo

he’ll buy you cute clothes, shoes, beauty products everything that he saw and imagined would look bomb on you

if you’re not into clothes he’ll buy you art supplies, books, anything you want but he’ll still probably  buy you at least some clothes he thinks are cute

if you’re romantically involved,,,, he’ll buy other toys for you as well which you can try together wink wink

beel

cooks for you

no questions asked when it’s his turn to cook he’ll think about what YOU would like to eat first before making something

which is??? really touching coming from beel

and also means sometimes he’ll make the same dish three weeks in a row and annoy the others while you just get excited bc ??? you get to eat your favourite dish??? again and again???? 

thank you beel you truly know how to touch someone’s insides

also opens up to you and talks to you about his fears and thoughts

expect to get 4 am msgs from beel if he had a nightmare

which would end up in you coming to cuddle him (and belphie also joins sometimes)

which tbh is that even a thing you can complain about?

belphie

is more baby less murder when you’re around

naps on your lap, naps on your shoulder, naps with you anywhere

but also let’s you nap on HIM

besides being soft around you he actually opens up to you too

and talks to you about his traumas and issues

which he has in common with his twin what can you do

so you have weekly cuddle parties with him and beel where you talk about shit and actually make them resolve their issues instead of just,,, ignoring them

also if you’re into each other you probably tease each other and flirt really shamelessly in public while the others cringe and or blush at your language

are you a cowboy? because i want you to ride me all night 

simeon

writes you fancy letters with poetry like lucifer, but his ink is scented and  his envelopes contain pressed flowers more often than not

if you’re together you even do letter sexting if you’re into it

creates characters based on you in his stories (which you don’t believe even if levi points out you that the two of you are kinda similar)

asks you to spend more and more time with him and luke

invites you to picnics, reads to you while your head is in his lap, cooks you snacks

if you’re a theatre kid too,,, you do musical love confessions too,,, sometimes by just reciting the lyrics of really popular musical theatre songs in a death panned voice

cough a heart full of love from les mis but read like poetry through the fence of the house of lamentation cough

asks you cryptic shit hannibal style like “tell me mc what does it mean to want to be consumed whole by another? is it a desire to become something bigger than yourself or is it related to our need to become one with our loved one like some cultures pointed out before?”

you’re either really into his cryptid talk or just roll your eyes and smooch him

diavolo

invites you around to his castle all the time

sometimes he even pulls some weird shenanigans just to make you spend more time with him

expect tea parties with him luci and barbatos in no particular combination

gives you compliments 24/7  even in public

remember how he treats lucifer? he’s that for you too but he’s learned from the lucifer experience to focus on complimenting you as a person more than how you look

if you’re into pda he’ll touch you all the time

if you ever wanted a gomez - morticia romance, here’s your goth big titty himbo that’s way too full of love

if you’re lovers expect to be pampered, i feel like? he doesn’t buy a lot of gifts and such because he’s probably tired of material things but he will make time in his busy schedule for you and spend a lot of time with you

which means more to him than gifts

(we will buy you anything you ask though)

barbatos

actually talks with you about stuff outside rad, the demon bros and diavolo

also invites you to alone time tea or wine time

where you drink and gossip

if satan and asmo are the crowned queens of gossip barbatos is the king of gossip but he doesn’t share his knowledge to most people so nobody knows what he knows

but he knows,,,, a lot

and not only that he knows a lot about people nowadays,,, but imagine the things he knows about like historical figures and such,,, 

so prepare for story time with barbatos where he  talks about how oscar wilde was almost summoned by drunk inccubi during a party once, or how  diavolo cried when he was a kid because he sent a letter to caravaggio asking him to paint his portrait and he said no

also if you get drunk together expect really energetic talkative barbatos destroying DESTROYING everyone (except diavolo ofc)

“lucifer please i once saw you crying because you thought diavolo was ignoring you when you actually forgot to press the send button to your messages ”

if you’re romantically involved diavolo will always be first in his hear but that just means you’ll have to invite diavolo along on your dates which  just means you’ve got a new lover and a new bff

solomon 

he invites you on all kinds of wacky adventures

you  visit witches, go to weird magical forest parties or orgies if you want, you go travelling the mountains for rare herbs

it’s like you’re faust and he’s mephisto  haha the irony and he’s showing you another side of the world you never knew 

ofc the others know about all this but??? they thought it’s normal and didn’t even consider you know nothing about it

but solomon knows what it was like to be just a human

and since he likes you he empathizes with your situation

he also make you meet all kinds of people

since he has 72 contracts and hundreds of years of doing wack stuff he must know some interesting people

and now his friends are your friends 

i feel like romantic solomon would be just him?? but less shady with you especially since now you understand him better 

but also he’ll probably bring you weird shit from his alone expeditions

did you ever want the tears of a mermaid? a carnivorous plant that feeds on emotions? a crying portrait? no? well too bad because now you have a room full of weird items

...that you love and treasure thank you very much

[prettywarriors]

Ok ill bite whats the worst mg series

alright, whats the worst magical girl series in your opinion?

Thanks you two for letting me do some yelling. The obvious guess would likely be one of the recent edgelord shows right? Magical Girl Site or something similar? But nay I say, for while MGS and Day Break Illusion and such and what not generally tell you what to expect right away. Don't like super violence and suffering? Watch something else is the clear message from the get go. One of the bait and switch series then like Madoka or maybe Yuki Yuna? For what faults they may or may not have, at least these series do something and are interesting, even if you're not huge on what goes down in the series. A parody then? They range from affectionate to banned in New Zealand but regardless of quality and their feelings for MGs, it's a parody. It's a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously (plus they're usually short so you can just forget about them forever).

So what makes a series terrible then, I am sure you are asking. IMO? Setting expectations for an interesting and enjoyable series, and then dashing them to hell.

Come with me below the cut, as I talk about Key Princess Story: Kagihime Eternal Alice Rondo!

Spoilers abound so if you care about those for a 15 year old series, click away.

Background: Kagihime was a 4 volume manga that ran from 2004-2006 that was picked up for a 13 episode anime adaptation near the end of its run. The manga is created by a pair (Kaishaku) who you may know for making Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto. Kannazuki no Miko, and Steel Angel Kurumi, and the anime had a script written by the same writer (Mamiko Ikeda) for Tenshi Ni Narumon who also did some script writing for Princess Tutu and Seven of Seven. The anime also had 6 character music videos which are fairly simple but a nice addition to the series for the main girls. Discotek has been publishing the anime in the states in recent years, and the manga was brought over by *squints at book spine* Dr Master Publications.

The Premise: Girls transform and enter weird outside of reality spaces to fight each other with giant keys to take each other’s stories to create a third Alice In Wonderland story.

Well, an off-brand Alice story written by Alternate L. Takion, rather than Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson, that while the series uses all the aesthetic hallmarks of the tradition Alice, the little we see of the in universe Alice story is clearly different. Which is fine, at the end of the day, it’s still about someone who loves the Alice stories and wishes there was more, and even makes his own fanfiction version. His? Oh yeah, while the girls do all the fighting, the main character is Aruto, a teen boy who loves Alice, and for reasons we don’t know till late game, can enter the liminal spaces that the ‘Alice Users’ fight in. He chases a girl who looks like the Alice he sees in his story, who is named Arisu, and gets roped into this fanfic battle royale. He is also the older brother of the very needy Kirihara, who also ends up being and Alice User. As does Kirihara’s bff Kisa. To round out the group of enemies-turned-friends-who-will-work-together-to-collect-the-Eternal-Alice-without-having-to-fight-eachother group is a young genius researcher Kirika who wants to know more about Aruto’s connection that allows him to enter the spaces where the girls fight.

Then there’s all the other girls, some of whom still have real importance to the story and some who have a few panels or 2 scenes total. But with a whole bunch of girls to design, the creators reached out to a whole lot of other people to have them create designs! Eventually the battle gets down to the last few girls, there’s a confrontation with the guy running the whole thing, and while the anime and manga vary quite a bit the whole time, in both version Aruto ends up with Kirihara. Oh and Arisu was created by Aruto’s super imagination powers.  

The Promise: Here on is subjective, particularly with what I personally saw as potential from this series. because I need you to understand how much I want to like this series. 

~Alice in Wonderland themed: I know some people aren’t alice fans and that’s fine you do you but as a big alice fan this is great. We have a few alice episodes and themed characters amongst series like CCS and MGRP, and even Alice themes in other series like Tweeny Witches and Alice 19th. But damn it I am down for Alice series.

~Giant Keyyyyyyyys: Yeah yeah Kingdom Hearts but these keys are much more staff like for a lot of the characters which ads and air of elegance rather than the KH ones that for me at least feel well designed for big ol props rather than actual weapons. We also get...

~Weapon variety: It counts as a key if it’s a thorn whip that can be shaped like a key right? How about a giant pocket knife? Crossbows can also be keys. Hush. And we have this variety because

~Guest Artists: For magical girl series where we have a variety of outfits designed by different people, we have Kagihime, Uta~Kata, and uhh I guess Magia Record? But that’s a mobile game with a hella number of characters and with how mobile game works I wouldn’t count it just because it’s less the intent of the series to have variety and more the nature of having lots of girls. (Precure doesn’t count because unless I missed a memo each season’s set is still by one designer). If a series isn’t about a team and therefore doesn’t need cohesion, bringing in other artists is a great way for variety and new looks. 

~The long term goal: Fighting with other people who love the same piece of media you do in hopes of creating new material that will be viewed as official? That’s just fandom nowadays. But it’s a legitimate interesting concept, and opens up so many doors for a message for the series, be it ‘what you create is no less valuable than the canon work’ or ‘it’s hard to let go when something you love doesn’t have more to it but you can still love it for what it is’ or ‘bond with the people who like the thing you like ya idiot instead of fighting about it’. The concept is interesting and there are so many narrative ways you can take this.

~Gays: Between the anime and manga, we have at least 5 wlw. Is it a magical girl series without some gays? (side note- the manga had a short thing where the MC wears a girl’s uniform and is pretty comfortable in it and while there is no way this was the intent, between that and the emphasis on the stories that live in girls and how the fight zones have no men, I’m just saying, Trans girl Aruto.)

~Greater Fairy Tale Premise: We meet a Little Match Girl based MG who is obsessed with Andersen rather than the Alice books, and touch on a Sleeping Beauty character in the manga. The manga at least implies that classic stories and fairy tale authors uh. Live on in a liminal space as immortals with world warping powers within that world and there could be opportunities for other girls in the real world to fight for Little Mermaid 2: Electric Boogaloo.

The Good: Everything has positive points, no matter how bad it is.

~Character Designs: Some of those looks slap. As do most of their weapons. 

~Backgrounds: I have a strong opinion on backgrounds in anime that can be easily boiled down to old watercolor backgrounds good, modern filtered photos as background bad, and as a 2006 series, this might not be Memole nice but they’re quite attractive. 

~Splash Pages: Easily my favorite thing after the designs, each chapter’s title page for the manga just has a character standing in a setting. Which is not everyone’s thing I’m sure but it’s a nice simplistic way to let the characters breathe imo. Even if at least some of the settings were deffo traced. But that’s how backgrounds work to some extent? If I ever get to the Met again, I am tracking down this exact photo, but here is a likely candidate for an example.

~Different Versions: I do not understand the need to make an adaptation that tries to be a 1:1. Kagihime had the same ideas and characters and did some of the same beats but very much had a different finale story and a lot of changes in the middle (like the Alice cops in the manga). Again, not something everyone probably wants I’m sure, but I very appreciate this, especially since the Anime kept good pace with the number of Manga chapters (reading the manga again while watching the anime at 3.8x speed just now was very interesting to see the different interpretations of events in a different medium.)

The ‘Fine’: Yeah.

~Anime Visuals: Look 2006 was still early enough into digipaint that I will give it a total pass on these. The colors are too bright but in a very bland way, the lineart is nothing interesting, and the faces are. Iffy. But it’s not total garbage to look at (probably helped by backgrounds and character designs...) it just came out in an era where not enough people knew how to stylize things to account for the weakness of the tools of the time. (It was 4 years earlier but I feel Kagihime is the polar opposite of Chobits with its painfully bland color palette while still being just. Flat. Sorry for the drive by Chii.) 

~Music?: There sure were songs. Obviously, they are nothing to me.

The Bad: CW for.... somehow all the big things to an extent. 

~Fanservice: Look, I am fine with fanservice, especially for a series that’s, ya know, not targeted at kids, big Mai Hime fan here even if I would recommend skipping the panty thief episode. And honestly the series generally isn’t fanservicey, at least by the modern standards of having the camera choosing under the skirt rather than an over the shoulder shot like I’ve seen plenty in other shows. Even the sexier outfits like the rose whip dominatrix aren’t bad BUT. When the girls fight. One takes her phallic key and drives it into another girls chest between the boobs while the loser cries in pain and then her book comes out and when the victor rips out pages, the loser’s clothes also rip. It is very SuperS Amazon Trio assault metaphor-y. There’s also a bit of fanservice with the sister becauseeeee....

~Incest: If you read the premise up there, first wow good job because I’m sure not re-reading that, you might have noticed I said MC ends up with his sister. As someone who is a big mythology fan and watches plenty of anime, I have a decent tolerance for your obligatory ‘oh we’re siblings but actually cousins so our feelings are okay’ or whatever the fuck Citrus has going on I don’t know that series and I don’t vibe BUT. I have limits and boy did this series go beyond that because multiple episodes are dedicated to the sister being in love with the brother? And the brother returns her feelings but knows that they are wrong so he put everything he likes in his sister into his version of Alice who, of course, physically manifests as Arisu who he creates accidentally with his uh. Magic imagination powers. But again in both versions MC still ends up with his sister. Hey, at least the manga eventually said the boy was adopted when the sister was like, 3, so if nothing else no blood relations? The anime did not ad this. -_-

~Under Utilized Characters: Arisu’s gradual revelation that she has no childhood memories because she isn’t a real person is so interesting and they don’t do nothing with it but also? That’s the kind of thing I personally would love to dig into and Kagihime, while touching on this world shattering revelation, easily loops back to So Anyway She Should Fight For The Man and to hell with developing a life or personality outside of what has been written for her. The rest of the main 5 were 2 note characters which. Could be worse? The most interesting character ends up being the child genius who accidentally murdered her childhood bestie (and/or lover? depending on version) and her coming to terms with that (the friend is alive but the version changes how and why she thinks she’s dead). Then the villain has the motivation of ‘i lost my creativity and now have become an immortal living outside of normal space and am getting girls to fight each other because that’s like a story so I’m still relevant right?’. But shoutout to the anime for then taking death of the author literally. The numerous other girls are canon fodder outside of like. The manga version of the dead gf and the little match girl.

~Battle Royale: This is not a thing I have an issue with generally. Again, but Mai Hime fan, I need to read MGRP 11, BUT by not developing the non-main girls there is no emotional connection which makes them just canon fodder and that’s boring as sin for a royale system. The initial main character fights revolve so much around the MC guy being there that they fall flat, and the 2 or 3 final battles in both versions still feel without any stakes. Also for a royale thing most of the characters don’t actually die, which cool! Neat! Except when they do? Some nobodies and a somebody are murdered (at least in the manga) and the tone never feels like it’s supposed to be upping the stakes, it’s just. Some people are dead now. And do you want to guess which of the main characters died?

~Gays: Oh boy the best friend of the brother-complex sister is in love with her and (in the manga) dies. She does apparently get better for the last chapter but the death itself is only felt by the rest of the cast for a page or two before we go back to feeling sad big brother wants to kiss his mentally generated sister clone rather than his actual sister u_u. Bury your gays is nothing new, but I wonder if it was also intended to be justified because Guess Who Is Creepy and a bit Perverted? Oh look the lesbian keeps the used swimsuit of her beloved and manipulates events to get an indirect kiss and when she sees the sister trying to strange Arisu for a moment she decides to do it for the sister? It’s not good. You want bad gay rep in a magical girl series, well here ya go. We also had a nobody in the first(second?) episode whose story pages reveal her having a kiss with a girl, and then we also have the prodigy again and- in the manga- her. Uh. childhood lover who she thought she killed but the girl has been wiping her mind over and over so prodigy remembers ‘killing’ the friend and not the she’s alive so she can keep? fucking with her? Toxic!

~Sexual Content: But wait you say, you already covered fanservice! Ah but that is sexual content for titilation. This is sexual content for dramatic backstory! The red riding hood character was sexually assaulted, another character was manipulated into sex first as a teen and then more often to ‘get into the publishing industry’, and the same writer forces some aggressive kisses on the MC. None of it is gratuitous which is nice, but also, was it necessary? Not making a new point for this but read riding hood’s dog was also murdered so unnecessary animal death gets tossed on in there. 

~Male Lead: You can have a male, non magical character as the main character surrounded by magical girls. This is not how to do it. If I can make a vicious and hopefully not understood reference, Aruto is basically Tate from the Mai Hime Manga. If you understood that, I am so sorry. If you didn’t, congrats! Don’t read the manga. Or do and send me asks about the iconic final page of the first volume (18+). Anyway, this dude is boring, everything revolves around him, BUT I’ll be generous and say at least this isn’t a harem series? It looks like it out of context but it’s just a triangle with a fun attached scientist and token lesbian.

~Premise: They didn’t make good use of it. The initial goals of ‘take other girls pages from their soul books because if we get enough we unlock a third alice book’ is good! And then we add the twist that that was never going to happen and either if we get all the pages we can grant a wish, or these fights are just happening for the amusement of and asshole. Either way, yeah okay I guess. But at no point do we ever achieve this forbidden wish granting book and the asshole just. Lives. Nothing happens to him. His peers don’t even dunk on him. The only real changes from the beginning and the end of the series are: the siblings are now chill with dating, and the scientist lady won’t turn into a child in magical spaces. Oh. Yeah.

~Why did we make this adult a child sometimes?: I think we know why. Stop trying to get those types of folks to watch your already meh series. I also could have sworn at points in the past looking up images for this series I’ve seen extra art for Yuuri the Thumbelina-y Alice User that seemed like it would fit alongside anything by POP. You know, the Moetan guy. If you don’t know, god I wish that were me. 

Wrap Up: I have definitely forgotten some points and am well within my rights to ad to this whenever I remember more points but uh. Yeah.  

Listen you want an alice themed battle royale with nice outfits? Rozen maiden is right there. Battle Royale magical girl series that’s good with fanservice? Mai Hime. Series with different outfits while being based on a classic story? Pretear.

Hope anyone who read all of this at least got what I was saying, even if they don’t agree with it. And thanks for reading because whoops. 

[perfeggso]

every fortress falls (AKIRA x NCT)

Please enjoy this anime-kpop crossover for the Lights, Camera, Fanfiction event hosted by @supermwritersnet​! I chose to write for Shotaro and one of my favorite fictional universes ever, Akira’s Neo-Tokyo. If you know Akira, my story will run parallel to the canon plot. If not, I hope you give this a try and enjoy anyway and I highly recommend the source material! <3

If you’re interested, here is my AKIRA playlist. 

Setting of Akira: It has been thirty years since the end of WWIII, begun due to the detonation of an unidentified superweapon known only as “Akira” over Tokyo. The incident and subsequent war decimated the city which was rebuilt into Neo-Tokyo, a corrupt and crime-ridden megalopolis centered on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay.

Characters: Shotaro, Sungchan, Yuta, Akira main characters, other NCT members upcoming. 

Genres: cyberpunk, sci-fi, action/adventure 

Warnings: drug use/abuse, gangs, some swearing, eventual graphic violence

Rating: mature but not explicit 

Chapter length: 1.3k

Chapter 1:

The capsule cradled in Shotaro’s palm is red and white and shiny, like the earrings that Noriko would wear and which, when Shotaro asked, he found out were supposed to look like “blood and come,” respectively. The drone of Tanaka-Sensei’s voice from the front of the classroom barely penetrates the cloak of sullen disruption shielding Shotaro’s wooden amphitheater seat in classroom 12 of the Eighth District Vocational Training School. Even though realistically no one is paying attention, Shotaro tries to hold the pill so that his hand is obscured by his row’s shared desk. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous; Tanaka-Sensei is barely commanding control of the room as he attempts to explain how a carburetor works, the closest kid to Shotaro is reading a girly magazine, and everyone at the school is well aware that you can buy as many of these pills as any broke student could afford from the nurse’s office.

It’s just, Shotaro reasons as the patent-leather-like curves of the capsule glint in the jaundiced combination of natural and fluorescent light, he’s always been a good kid. He doesn’t do things like this – at least that’s what Yuta constantly tells him. He doesn’t buy drugs – no matter how cheap they are – from Kaneda’s girlfriend of all people, and he certainly doesn’t take them. Kaneda, Shotaro has always felt, is inextricably linked to him. For one, Shotaro Kaneda’s family name is the same as Shotaro’s given name (though they use slightly different kanji if anyone ever cared to notice). For another thing, the two boys have known of each other since early childhood, having come up in the same orphanage and school system for boys deemed by the state to be “lacking in future prospects.” (Shotaro doesn’t think this label really applies to him; it’s not his fault he doesn’t really like academics and the one activity he really enjoys – dancing – is far too expensive for him to pursue). For a final, crucial thing, Kaneda is the leader of the Capsules, the rival gang to Yuta’s Clowns. The fact that Kaneda could very literally kill Shotaro’s adoptive brother of sorts any day now understandably precludes him from feeling much of an affinity towards his classmate.

Shotaro has been taunted more times than he can remember for being the “boring” Shotaro. But if skating by under the radar to receive his vocational high school diploma, getting out, and not being sent to Jaws for discipline twice a week is boring to his classmates, Shotaro doesn’t really care.

Well, he didn’t care, until he had gotten to thinking one day last week. It started when he’d found Yuta’s stash of drugs. Yuta tries very hard to keep any evidence of his dependency from his little brother, but he’s not always great at it. Over the years, Shotaro couldn’t help but notice the blissful calm which comes over Yuta when Shotaro has caught him thinking he was taking the stuff in private. Nor could Shotaro help but register the ensuing boost in energy and motivation. It had always made him wonder even if Yuta categorically forbid it and he was good at smothering his curiosity. When Shotaro came to school the next day and mentioned finding Yuta’s pills offhand to Sungchan, the younger boy proved less adept at quashing his hunger for new experiences, and Shotaro had begun to truly let his imagination get the best of him.

“Hey!” The harsh whisper startles Shotaro out of his preoccupation with the look and feel of his capsule, to the extent that he almost blunders and drops it down the five graduated rows of seats below him. But fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, he holds on.

The voice is as familiar as the backseat of Yuta’s motorcycle and coming from the level of seats behind Shotaro, so he turns around. Class has devolved to the point that having a full conversation stage-whisper style is about the least disruptive thing occurring.

Sungchan’s oversized frame and comforting smile loom over Shotaro from above, like a benevolent version of the mechanical surveillance vultures Sungchan had once gushed in horror that the American government was trying to build.

“Did I scare you?” Sungchan asks.

Shotaro fakes a glare at his best friend, but only ends up chuckling.

“How could I be scared by a 185cm walking teddy-bear?”

Sungchan tries to look hurt but giggles right back.

“Did you get the stuff?”

Shotaro nods, angling his hand so Sungchan can see the pill.

“Why were you so late to class?” Shotaro asks, feeling irrational panic nipping at the edges of his mind for the first time all day to suggest that maybe Sungchan was held up because someone caught him with drugs. Shotaro wonders why this thought hadn’t occurred to him earlier, hoping that’s an indication of its ridiculousness.

“I got caught up talking to Sawako in the nurse’s office,” Sungchan explains, and Shotaro relaxes a little. “She was very chatty for some reason and I felt bad. I think she’s lonely. Did you know Kaneda got her pregnant?”

“No, what?” Shotaro makes a face as disapproving as he feels. “That asshole. Of course he wouldn’t use protection. Ugh, anyway. Did you get what you wanted? Everything go smoothly?”

Sungchan pulls a button-size plastic bag from his pocket and displays, not quite covertly enough for Shotaro’s liking but he’ll live, the identical red and white capsule within.

“Perfect.”

“I was thinking,” Sungchan continues, “Sawako said she thinks there’ll be a battle between the Capsules and the Clowns tonight. Should we try to catch some of it?”

Shotaro leans his elbows onto the desk in front of his friend and smiles, indulgent.

“While we’re high for the first time? Sounds like a shitty idea.” Sungchan pouts like Shotaro knew he would, so he adds a “we can feel it out in the moment, though,” because he is a weak man when it comes to Sungchan’s wants and needs. They are both that way towards each other, even when it gets them into trouble. But as Yuta always says, “memorable trouble is worth it”; i.e., if it makes a good story in the future, might as well go for it.

“Yuta would kill me if he found out though,” Shotaro wagers, “and I mean that literally.”

The last class of the day ends as he’s speaking and he and Sungchan make plans for meeting in the evening as they filter out of the musty, chipping paint, brutalist structure which is supposed to pass for a place of learning.

Shotaro finds Yuta where he always does after school: unsheathing his motorcycle in the back parking lot.

Yuta’s bike is a souped-up Honda painted to look like a 1940s bomber. Yuta wears a black leather biking suit he probably slipped on in the men’s room before heading out and pulls a helmet decorated with clown makeup over his black mullet as he greets his little brother, following the exchange by offering a similar helmet to Shotaro.

They hop on and head out onto the streets of Neo-Tokyo. Skyscrapers tower grey in the daytime light what feels like miles above the litter-strewn street and block out the sun. They’re so massive they could probably each hold an entire city’s worth of people, Shotaro reckons, and they move sluggishly in opposition to the trajectory of the bike, like cargo ships trudging against water.

“Good day?” Yuta asks when they stop at an intersection next to Flower Alley Mall.

“Yeah,” Shotaro assures. “Sungchan heard something about a battle tonight? What’s up with that?”

“I don’t want to get into it, but he’s right,” Yuta admits. “But don’t try to tag along or I’ll murder you.”

With that, the light turns and Shotaro grabs hold of Yuta, mumbling “I know” fondly into his shoulder. They zip away like that the rest of the way to their apartment, the capsule burning nuclear in Shotaro’s pocket as he’s left to ponder his next move.

[alienheartattack]

Hello. Who’s ur comfort character? (Snk) what r ur notps for snk? And, last one, how do you write Levi and Mikasa so perfectly? Like their personalities and what they say- how do you even get good at that? I love all ur works

Hello! Thank you for reading and for taking the time to send a message!

I don't really have any comfort characters from SNK. I guess Levi? He's the only one who doesn't make me depressed about the series when I look at him lmao. Right now my comfort characters are my OCs, considering how much I enjoy brainstorming for them. (Both male leads I've written so far are masculine men with strong personalities who are also soft and kind. Now that I think about it, I tend to write Levi in a similar way in a modern AU where he's allowed to indulge his softness.)

In terms of notps, I think I've made my feelings on EM pretty clear. I'm not a fan of Levihan (love it platonically though, and I even follow some Levihan blogs) or Rivahisu either. However, I just filter everything I don't like so I barely even remember it exists.

I've been accused of writing Levi and Mikasa OOC before, so it's wonderful to hear that someone thinks I do it perfectly! I pay a lot of attention to how people talk IRL and sometimes I'll even say my dialogue out loud to make sure it flows. It's always been a big pet peeve of mine that authors who write "snappy" dialogue rarely write how people actually talk, instead they go all big and pretentious with it. I think Levi and Mikasa are relatively uncomplicated people (despite all the trauma), so their dialogue should be more straightforward. A lot of what I do is think, “How would a person who watched their parents die in front of them/was raised in a dangerous slum/is the only person they know who’s as strong as they are/etc. act in this situation?”

ETA: I rambled a lot about writing here, so I'm just gonna toss it below a read more.

In terms of Levi and Mikasa's personalities, I tend to focus on things we know canonically about the characters and then fill in the blanks from there. They're both relatively reserved people but they have a wicked sense of humor, and usually it relates to things that are scatological or taboo. I tend to focus on them being people who are stoic on the outside but very emotional on the inside, because that way I give myself an opportunity to explore their inner life, which usually involves some kind of domesticity (based upon Mikasa's desire for a family and Levi's potential career as a tea merchant).

I also like to drop in random canon or fanon facts, like Levi only sleeping a few hours a night or high school AU Mikasa being a goth, and then use those as jumping off points for further characterization. For example, writing a scene with cranky Levi doesn't hit as hard as writing a scene with cranky Levi when you know he's tired from a bad night of sleep and he's running on caffeine and fumes. It's easier to characterize him and add details to your writing by drawing on your own experiences of being tired: he probably feels like shit, he's exhausted, his eyes are puffy, he's yawning, he's not paying as close attention as he normally would be.

Another thing I do that helps keep me in tune with the characters is to decide what kind of Rivamika I want to write before I start writing. I decide how they feel about each other during the story and whether I want that to change. If I write a story where they're already friends, their personalities are going to show a lot differently in a story where they openly dislike each other, although I usually write them bickering in some way to reflect their interpersonal conflicts in canon.

The way I'm able to achieve all this complexity in my writing is that I tend to write pretty mechanically: I decide what goal I want to achieve with a story, then work backwards and figure out how to get there. For example, with the assassin AU, I knew it was going to center around a scene that was violent but also very caring and maybe even loving, so I made very sure to write Levi and Mikasa as people who argue a lot and say some really terrible things to each other, but who show deep respect through their actions. If they truly hated each other, Mikasa would never agree to sleep with him in any situation, so I had to make sure to add details that infer that maybe they don't actually hate each other that much. I really fixate on making my characters' motivations believable, so I was literally sitting there thinking, "If I were in Mikasa's shoes, in what scenario would I be okay having sex with a weird coworker?" Or I'll try to imagine a similar situation in my life where I thought I disliked someone but actually realized I would be upset if I didn't see them around. Especially with fanfiction, it's all about showing how the characters feel about each other, and what events and actions can make those feelings change.

I've already written enough here, but I wanted to emphasize one of the things I stand by as a writer that I think makes for better characterization: nothing is ever black or white. People are frequently conflicted or torn by competing desires, even when it comes to relatively easy decisions. (Especially when it comes to things like food and sex.) Even if someone falls strongly on one side of an issue, they can usually see the merits of both sides. No one is ever 100% good or evil, and oftentimes bad people genuinely believe they're doing the right thing. I try to make it so that every character in a story genuinely believes that they are doing their best, so when they come into conflict it's because they have deeper issues than just a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication. For example, in Inexorable, I wanted everyone to be sympathetic to a degree, even Eren, because I think it's too simple and unrealistic for him to be a straight up villain. Plus it makes the reader really feel for Mikasa, because both she and the reader can see that even though Eren was a dick, he's also trying to make things right. It makes her final decision that much more anxiety-inducing and ultimately satisfying because she has a good reason for being with Levi and a less good but still valid reason for being with Eren, and (hopefully) you don't know which one she'll pick. These problems often take a lot of thinking and brainstorming to resolve, but I find that they make for much more satisfying characterization and plot.

I could blab on about writing forever (obviously) so I'm always down to answer asks!

[fatebreaking-a]

Sorry to bother you but i am out of the loop. What did Riot do with seraphine?

// @crying-elf-lass // First of all - excellent choice in pfp, Marcille is great.

Now, trying to keep as much bias out of my post as possible... ( though there will be some, and I will miss some things! )

There are three parts to consider. Gameplay, narrative, and niche in the world.

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

First, we need to talk about the history of Sona in League of Legends.

Narrative & Niche: Sona, as a champion, has existed for many, many, many years. Her lore was 2 paragraphs and she had no short story. Her canon appearances ( excluding an Odssey short story which I will take about later ) were limited to other champion’s stories ( her adoptive mother, Lestara, helped Quinn to become a ranger-knight, she helped Ryze secure a World Rune in Call of Power ). Several years ago, Riot changed the lore of Demacia ( Sona’s current home ) to be one that denies magic. With the addition of petricite, a magic nullifying material, and several changes in lore, Demacia became the host of several magical problems ( dragons, Evelynn, Nocturne, Fiddlesticks ) and a unit of anti-magic specialists ( mageseekers ).

Throughout that time, up until 2 months ago, Sona’s lore did not receive a single meaningful change or update. This is a period of over 5 years, in which one of Demacia’s only mages / magical creatures ( Poppy, Lux, Sona, Shyvana, and later Sylas ) did not get any sort of answer as to what is happening with her. Several other champions did get an explanation of sorts, with some manner of handwaiving - for example, minotaurs are part of the Demacian army, so magical creatures are not out and out excluded. Yordles are known to be seen differently by different people, so Poppy’s existence is also possible to explain ( we learned this with an interaction between Ziggs and Jinx in Zaun ).

This left Sona writers in a general state of confusion. Is Sona in jail? Is Sona a registered mage? Not to mention that Sona left Ionia ( where a war between Noxus and Ionia occurred ) and the timing of that was unspecified.

Which led to a giant gap in terms of “what is this champion doing and what is her situation”. And each of us tried to fill that gap in our own ways. Some of us had Sona leave Demacia, some had her retreat into her mansion and play less music, some had her be defiant, and so on. Because the last thing we learned was that she was in Ionia, helping Ryze with the World Rune, some people put her in Ionia semi-permanently.

And we also had to contend with the existence of Sylas, who flipped Demacia on its head and caused something of a mage hunt. The finer details of that I exclude, it’s enough to say that certain mages were rounded up and put in prison where once they were exiled, and Lux helped some magically inclined individuals escape. There’s a nuanced conflict there between several members of Demacia ( Garen, Jarvan, Lux, Xin Zhao, Tianna, etc ) but getting into that is not the point of this.

We still didn’t know anything about Sona. So Sona writers and players and enthusiasts tried their very best to fill in the gap with what we did know, often incidentally. We did know that Sona was once in Ionia, that the Ionia-Noxus war happened, that she moved to Demacia, and that she is a famous musician with a magical instrument. Prior to the removal of the Institute of War ( a part of lore which said that ‘summoners’ were real and nations used Summoners + Champions to settle conflicts ), Sona was known globally and was basically Runeterra’s #1 musician when it comes to the etwahl, perhaps more. We also know that Sona is an extremely empathetic person, and her music is borderline spellbinding, to the point where it was easy to guess that she could affect people’s emotions and was an empath. None of that was out and out confirmed, but it was easy to make that logical conclusion.

Very recently, Sona’s lore changed. In it, a lot changed. We learned that she left Ionia with others, rather than just alone and with her etwahl, and it was to escape the Ionia conflict ( not because Lestara, her adoptive mother, wished to possess the fabled etwahl ). Essentially, this new lore painted Sona far more as a war refugee, and painted Lestara in a far better light as well. Along with this lore update/rework, we also got a short story ( that still left what she’s doing now up in the air!) 

However, this came after a several year wait. And in that time, Sona enthusiasts had no choice but to come up with answers to all their burning questions by themselves. One Sona writer followed the ‘Sona is the aspect of harmony’ track, another followed the ‘music as a means of community togetherness’ track, another put her as an oversensitive empath who uses music to heal the pain of her people - and we all tend to agree on one point - Sona is an extremely empathetic person who uses her music for the good of others.

And as we waited, several other champions appeared, some of them overlapping with Sona’s music theme. Bard, the wanderer who listens to the songs of creation itself. Jhin, the murderous theater performer and assassin who believes the world his stage. Rakan, the battle dancer who uses the songs and rhythms of people to fight and move before they do. And Sona’s niche, what was unique about her, grew smaller and smaller.

Finally, we had something that felt unique about Sona.

Gameplay & Design: 

Sona as a champion has existed a very long time... And is the aura and music champion. Her q does some damage, her w shields and heals ( and reduces damage with her passive ), and her e speeds people up ( and slows with her passive ), while her r is a rectangular ult wave - thinner than Nami’s, but still relatively wide. The kit as a whole is pretty simple, but it has a history.

Sona players are... innovators. They like to do things like buy Kirchei’s shard because it’s most efficient, or take Sona mid, top, jungle, and adc. And over the last two years, Sona has received nerf after nerf after nerf saying, “No, stay in the support role”. You can still pull off certain lanes, but it’s extremely difficult because her aura abilities give you mana back if you tag an ally... making them difficult to use in a solo lane, or to roam alone.

Also, as one of the older crew of champions ( pre Jinx when Riot started using other body types for women ), her figure is... well, she’s got an hourglass figure, and her dress does not hide her breasts much at all. And it’d been like this for ages and ages, which meant that in League’s toxic culture, being a Sona one-trick led to a variety of hateful comments which I won’t repeat here.

Sona has a history of being treated like either an overpowered support or a terrible one, in part because she lacks any form of CC before 6 ( barring her e chord passive ).

So if you’re a Sona enthusiast, a big part of you wants Sona to have agency and not just be a pretty face damsel in distress. Even I, who have a second blog where I write Sona as an extremely soft character, don’t have her be a damsel in that interpretation of her. This is made worse by the community and a lot of art that ships her with men who treat her badly, along with an endless slew of adult images that degrade her, and often make fun of her disability - that she can’t speak. It’s sad and it’s degrading. And even within the last few years, she was written in a story in the Odyssey skin line...  as a prize for Kayn to take. That is an official Riot story which essentially treated her like a prize to capture for Kayn’s own goals - not as a person, but as a carrier of a key, as an object, and she lacked agency. Thankfully over the last few years, Riot has started giving women more agency, but... it’s been a problem for a long time.

Recently, along with the lore rework, we got Sona in a skin that makes her look and feel like a badass - PsyOps, her legendary skin. She breaks free of her confines and rages against those in her way in a very Syndra-like fashion, uncaged. And this was very cool.

And now, we have Sona where she is now.

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

Seraphine as a champion has recently been revealed, along with her abilities and lore.

Narrative & Niche: 

Seraphine’s lore is essentially this.

She, born of Zaunite parents, went up to Piltover. She was able to hear the souls and songs of people ( magical empath ) and hoped to unite those around her with her music. Then, she went down to Zaun, a city full of impoverished and disenfranchised peoples, to try and do the same thing.

In other words, “This champion uses music as a means of bringing people together. She aims to aid the disenfranchised.” There is nuance there, and it’s not the exact same as Sona, but the similarity is striking.

Furthermore, several key points in her lore are things that Sona writers have already imagined for themselves. A hypersensitivity to others, for example. Having such a strong sense of hearing that she can hear things others can’t. Sona is known to be able to essentially echolocate ( or at least, she had been known to do so in her older lore ). 

I will admit that the idea of ‘hypersensitive hearing or empathy’ is not the sole domain of Sona writers. Athena Cykes of Ace Attorney has a similar problem ( as revealed in her backstory ). And similarly, she wore a special device to help her filter that out. It’s not a completely unique idea, but again - the problem is striking. Sona, a highly sensitive and empathetic person, was often interpreted to be too sensitive to others. And now it’s on Seraphine, in her lore.

Seraphine’s whole lore is that she’s essentially an extremely popular and famous musician who brings people together with music... and that’s what Sona was.

She was all those things.

So to some people ( myself included ) it feels as though Riot has reworked Sona’s lore so they can give some of the overlap to Seraphine. Empathy / soul-seeing ( a Morgana, Kayle, Neeko, and Sona special... ) and the whole music thing...

And this is leading people to say, repeatedly, “This is just Sona 2.0.”

For Sona enthusiasts who have been waiting for Sona to get content or lore for years and years, this feels like a slap in the face.

Gameplay & Design:

Seraphine’s abilities are as follows.

When she uses 3 abilities, her next ability is empowered with additional effects ( essentially repeating ). Her q does damage ( based on missing health ) and is a skillshot, her w shields and speeds up people ( and heals herself if she’s already shielded ), and her e slows people ( and roots if they’re already slowed ), while her R is a rectangular ult that charms those hit and makes them walk towards her briefly.

That’s really similar to Sona.

When Sona uses 3 abilities, her next auto-attack is empowered with additional effects. Her q does damage. Her w shields and heals people ( and reduces damage output from an enemy if her passive is up). And her e speeds allies up ( and slows an enemy if her passive is up ). And her R is a rectangular ult that stuns those hit and makes them dance in place.

The similarity is striking. Seraphine does lack the ability to heal allies ( on first glance, I may have misread ), but she looks extremely similar to Sona... which is a frustration.

This year, we got Yone, Yasuo’s brother. And the reasoning behind this, when most other champions are written to give unique inputs/outputs, is that this is an alternative choice for Yasuo players when Yasuo is banned and will improve game health.

However, I suspect the same logic does not hold for Sona and Seraphine. Sona is in a class of enchanters, where several champions can do things similar to what she does already ( with some differences, of course! ). If you can’t play Sona, you can play Karma, you can play Taric, etc - not the same, but similar. It’s my suspicion that with the introduction of Seraphine, we will instead have the problem of Akali/Diana several years ago - these champions are so similar that whichever one is stronger will be played while the other one will be ignored completely.

Furthermore, Seraphine got a lot of attention. A lot of attention. She has a fake twitter account. 

And she is releasing with two skins, one of which is an ultimate. Release. For Sona players who only just got their legendary ( with the understanding that DJ Sona exists ), this feels like a slap in the face. It’s easy to feel overshadowed, and as much of the community is saying right now, this is ‘Sona 2.0′

Now some people are saying, ‘maybe Sona gets reworked’, but that will not be a great answer. If you like playing Sona’s current playstyle, swapping to Seraphine because Riot changed Sona completely will be alienating, and only exacerbate the feeling that Seraphine is replacing and overshadowing Sona.

But it gets a little worse than that too. Seraphine is designed for mid/support, to be played in both lanes. However, Sona enthusiasts have received nerf after nerf to Sona in other lanes, which only makes this hit that much harder. There’s a theory that Seraphine’s kit is essentially a scrapped Sona rework kit. If Seraphine’s build is the same as Sona’s, it will be... tragic. It will be disappointing...

And it’s already exhausting.

Neither Sona nor Seraphine enthusiasts are without the metaphorical gutpunch, and this is likely to divide the community even further. And heaven forbid you like both.

For Sona enthusiasts, this is a slap in the face. Our favorite champion being overshadowed and overhyped by another who gets so much on release, when we’ve longed for content for years is hurtful. 

For Seraphine enthusiasts, this is a punch in the gut, for seeing their champion essentially be treated like a clone of another is unkind. Any nuance or effort put into Seraphine will be drowned underneath ‘Sona 2.0′. And the overlap between both champions and their respective abilities and character traits will wear anyone out.

And that’s not fair to anyone.

( Disclaimer: I wasn’t able to stay 100% unbiased, but if you read all of that, thank you. )

[amillioninprizes]

Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here. 

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service 

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

[trainsinanime]

About Slytherin

People don’t talk about Hogwarts Houses all that much anymore, and for good reason. Between what we know about the author, the quality of the recent movies, the allegations against these movies’s biggest star (to be clear: I’m not taking sides on Depp/Hearst before the court case is resolved, and I reserve the right to not take sides afterwards either), it’s not exactly been fun to be a Harry Potter fan, and many people have moved on.

But sometimes you still see folks declaring what Hogwarts House they’re in, or what they imagine as a headcanon for a fictional character they like. And fairly often, the answer for that is Slytherin, both for themselves and for heroic characters. But how accurate is that? And more to the point, what is Slytherin really about?

I’m sure there’s stuff on Pottermore about this, but who cares. Within the actual books, we get three competing definitions of Slytherin from various sources:

The official description, from the Sorting Hat

Its reputation

What its people are actually like, filtered through Harry’s point of view.

The Sorting Hat is, functionally, a school official, and presumably gives the description of Slytherin that he’s supposed to. This description lists several core attributes of the house: It’s racist, and people may be devious, but they are also clever, loyal and true friends. Also deeply racist. If you leave out the racism then this sounds nice, and those qualities (minus the obvious racism) is presumably what people mean when they call themselves Slytherin. But can we trust the nice parts of that description?

There are plenty of examples throughout all the books of wizarding society featuring heavy propaganda from official sources, and official descriptions being incomplete and inaccurate. So it is at least possible that the Sorting Hat is speaking pro-Slytherin propaganda. (And also anti-Hufflepuff, I mean, seriously)

Compare and contrast with the reputation the house has in the wizarding world, among people who probably know more about it than just whatever new synonyms the Sorting Hat came up with. This reputation is simple: People assume Slytherin is evil, because evil wizards, notably Voldemort, and followers of evil wizards, notably the death eaters, often come from it. Harry’s experience certainly doesn’t contradict that either; to him, Slytherin is the house where all the bullies come from, both amongst students and teachers. His views gradually start changing as we see more non-evil Slytherins, like Slughorn, and with the whole Snape redemption arc (which, to be honest, was not my favorite by a long shot). The end conclusion the books reach about Slytherin appears to be that they’re just misunderstood and unfairly ostracized.

That conclusion, and Snape’s whole redemption arc, which is central to it, sure is… something. Parts of it have the same energy as the common hot take we’re currently seeing everywhere that goes, “calling racism racist is just bullying and forces vulnerable people to become racist”. I did not like it then and like it even less now.

But no matter what you feel about this arc, it’s important to note that the bad things people are saying about Slytherin are all based in fact: Voldemort did go there, and everyone else we know who is in Slytherin was either a Death Eater or has parents who are Death Eaters. The main exception here is Slughorn, who is hardly a shining beacon of anti-Voldemort resistance.

This brings us to the final source of information we have: The people who go to and teach at Slytherin. Now, since the books are all from Harry’s point of view, we’re obviously getting only a limited glimpse into life at that high school dorm, which may not be representative. But it is the best thing we got. And based on that, we see roughly three different categories of people in Slytherin: The aristocrats, the professional bootlickers, and the social climbers.

The aristocrats are easy to define as Draco Malfoy: His father is a racist slave-owning rich and powerful aristocrat. Draco knows that he will become a racist slave-owning rich and powerful aristocrat himself, and he’s already acting like one. And he doesn’t appear to be an exception there. It is heavily implied that a lot of Death Eaters are very powerful people, and their kids all go to Slytherin.

The professional bootlickers are Crabbe and Goyle, but also Professor Slughorn. Here we get people who are part of the power structure, but not at the top. They follow the aristocrats because they hope to gain social status that way. Slughorn is definitely much nicer than Crabbe and Goyle about it, but his main redeeming quality is arguably that he also seeks to decorate himself with royalty from other houses. He’s still a strict follower.

Finally, we see Snape and Tom Riddle: Both are outsiders who don’t really fit into the aristocratic system, because of their social background that is judged unacceptable. But both of them resent their social backgrounds and are willing to work with the established aristocracy. And since they’re very good at it, the aristocrats let them, and in the case of Voldemort, even let him lead. The fact that there are two of them implies that this is not an accident; Slytherin is, to a certain extent, open to people who don’t fit into the aristocracy normally, as long as they’re willing and able to get the aristocrats what they want.

So based on that, what is Slytherin about? I would argue that it’s power. Where Gryffindor has heroism, Ravenclaw has knowledge and Hufflepuff has a belief in the fundamental fact that all wizarding people have equal value, Slytherin represents power. Specifically, the house Slytherin’s explicit in-universe purpose is to preserve and perpetuate an old, very stratified and aristocratic power structure within the wizarding world.

This is supported by a number of key attitudes among all Slytherins who we meet. For example, all Slytherins have a rather cynical outlook on human worth, and believe it is right and necessary to rank people. Even Slughorn, the token “nice” Slytherin, has clear ideas of who is the most important among his students and who doesn’t matter at all.

Slytherins also have a rather peculiar moral codex that again serves its power structure. The aristocrats very clearly believe that rules and laws should apply strictly to other people; and the bootlickers help enable them in whatever crimes they do. Among aristocrats, it seems like they are openly acknowledging their schemes to some extent.

Here is where we get back to what the Sorting Hat says: Friendship and loyalty are key Slytherin traits. Sounds nice, until you realize that they mean the loyalty that Crabbe and Goyle show towards Malfoy. Or the kind of friendship that in real life goes, “I won’t tell anyone about your tax evasion and I trust you won’t tell anyone about my affairs”.

The racism of Slytherin is not an incidental element to make Draco seem more evil, but rather an integral part of preserving these power structures as well. First, the belief that some people are naturally better than others is engrained in Slytherin culture anyway. But more importantly, it limits the pool of people who can get into the aristocratic system, and thus ensures that the few at the top stay few and have to share less wealth and resources. Plus, the racism also provides the ideological underpinning of the whole system. Crabbe and Goyle follow Malfoy in part because they’ll get some of his riches and glamour, but also because they believe that he has a right to be in power. He comes from an old family that always was in power, and they’ve been taught both at home and in school that having the right ancestors is super important.

Is some of this a stretch? Maybe. But maybe not. Hogwarts is, after all, a reflection of the outside world, and there are plenty of examples of similar more-or-less aristocratic school systems that seem to have been the inspiration for Slytherin. In the US, the term “trust fund babies” is very obvious. In the UK, the elite private schools like Eton that educate most top politicians, journalists and so on are also a clear analogue. Slytherin appears to be a critique of that.

Until it doesn’t anymore, of course, because Harry needs to get closure with the incel who once lusted after his mother or something. Not gonna lie, Deadly Hallows was weak as shit.

So yeah, Slytherin: Aristocratic, racist, all about keeping the guys in power there.

Does that mean it’s wrong to head canon either yourself or your favorite fictional characters as Slytherin? No, of course not. As long as you/they are openly racist, have a superiority complex and believe that inherited wealth and power is always a good thing, then it’s perfectly alright to have such head canons. If not, well, then it becomes a bit more difficult.

[damtoti]

Ask Meme

I spent so much time formatting and writing this and it disappeared when I tried to post :’( Should have copy-pasted it somewhere just in case, especially since you were having issues too. But like an idiot I forgot.

Anyways, thanks for the ask! @snowywolff​

re: this thing

Fandom: Hetalia

Favorite character: North and South Italy, slightly leaning South Italy

Least Favorite character: None really, there are some that I’m less interested in, but in most cases I change my mind about them depending on the way they’re written

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Prumano, Germano, Itacest, 

Character I find most attractive: Turkey, actually, even though I never write him. Germany and/or Prussia close seconds.

Character I would marry: Maybe Prussia? Otherwise no offense but none of them, lol

Character I would be best friends with: Canada

a random thought: my opinions have changed soooooo much from when i first got into hetalia

An unpopular opinion: Idk if it’s really unpopular, but I guess I’ll go with Vene not being incompetent. I suddenly forget all my controversial opinions when it’s time to talk about them, lol

My Canon OTP: ...Romano and his trash

My Non-canon OTP: Prumano

Most Badass Character: I’m sure all of them at some point in time

Most Epic Villain: Vene, because he’s just so much fun to write. Runner-up is America, who I imagine has a very black/white worldview, and justifies his own shittiness with at least being better than The Villain, but in many cases he has to create a villain or exaggerate villain’s crimes in order to stay in the moral highground. And I know Russia is very overused, but I still like the idea of him getting people to do what he wants entirely through threats and rumors, meanwhile he doesn’t actually use violence against anyone. (Villain ramble because I love writing villains)

Pairing I am not a fan of: There are some I find boring, and they’re usually those where the characters are too sweet or reserved. I like characters with little filter between their minds and their mouths.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Hmm maybe just the ones who got less development, then again most development seems to come from fanon.

Favourite Friendship: ROMANO AND VENE, idk if it counts because they’re more family than friends, but idc

Character I most identify with: Like a weird mix of Romano, Canada, and Russia

Character I wish I could be: Greece, I want cats and I want to nap

Ship: Prumano

When I started shipping them: I ran out of fics to read for popular ships so I looked up this pair by chance and came across Seeing is Believing by VampireNaomi, and compared to other ships I like, the way prumano was presented here was just so realistic and believable

My thoughts: I think they’re somewhat similar characters who express things differently, which leads to a pretty fun dynamic

What makes me happy about them: They feel balanced together, and they’re both a weird mix of no-filter and repressed feelings.

What makes me sad about them: I love angst, so I guess fics where they share similar insecurities in the present day canonverse.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: WEAK AND HELPLESS ROMANO

Things I look for in fanfic: Banter

My wishlist: I like things with just a bit of that melancholy atmosphere, where they’re a bit gruff with each other but not really mean, if that makes sense.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: For Romano, literally everyone? He’s quite the charmer. For Prussia, BFT, England, Canada (lowkey still like foreveralone!Prussia tho, haha)

My happily ever after for them: Bantering into the sunset

Character(s): North and South Italy (You read my mind, how could I pick just one D:)

How I feel about this character: I love them both but I might have a teeny tine preference for Romano

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: For Romano, literally everyone, but top 5 in order--Prussia, Germany, Spain, Greece, Luxembourg. For Vene--Japan, Germany, America, Romano

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: I absolutely love Romano and America being buds, and I also like Vene and Germany as a platonic thing

My unpopular opinion about this character: I can see strangers being drawn to Vene at first, but for people/nations who know them well, Romano can be more approachable because he’s more upfront, whereas Vene is more guarded and always smiling, and therefore unnerves some people.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish we got to see a snippet of Romano and Prussia’s movie. Or just more of them being buds?

Favorite friendship for this character: Basically the same answer as non-romantic relationship

My crossover ship: ...

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Why I think Jean Grey is cool/underrated

I’m a novice when it comes to X-Men comic lore. As such if I get any info or interpretations here wrong please set me straight.

 This is how I’ve come to gradually perceive Jean Grey and think she’s a good and perhaps misunderstood character.

  To me, I can sum up Jean as someone who’s experienced great pain and hurt but who is in spite of that a very nice, nurturing and fundamentally empathic person; a little like Sue Storm, though I dunno if I’d call her the ‘Mother’ of the X-Men. Perhaps it is even that pain she experienced so early in her life through her friend’s death that MADE her so empathetic. Through that empathy and her immense power she has this duality of being possibly a great force for destruction or of healing.

 She wants to help and heal, but understands that sometimes she has to fight and be destructive (e.g. against evil mutants, Sentinels, etc) and knows to use restraint in pursuit of that. But being both an empathic person and also SO incredibly powerful (at times to a cosmic degree) her capacity for being destructive (even to herself) can be set loose. E.g. she could be profoundly dangerous if you hurt her friends, precisely because her empathy forges such love for them.

  In a sense her first major arc as Phoenix and as Dark Phoenix sum up this duality about her; let's put a pin in any retcons later on for a moment.

 As originally presented in Uncanny #100-101, when Jean became Phoenix it was explicitly to save her friends. She didn't want to die but was willing to give her life for them, desiring just enough strength to pull that stunt off. And she got that strength and then some. So you had this powerful yet kind person (who was still relatively young and inexperienced) abruptly handed way more power than maybe anyone should have but she still used it (at first) to help. The climax of the 'Phoenix Saga' with the M'kraan crystal (sp?) was fundamentally about Jean using her newly acquired cosmic powers to fix, to [I]heal[/I], something. And she could only do it by being empathic, by reaching out and drawing upon a human emotional connection (to her friend Storm) and forging a connection with a relative stranger (Corsair, the father of the person she loved so there was in a sense an emotional connection there she drew upon). The narration of that moment (visualized beautifully in X-Men the Animated Series ‘The Phoenix Saga Part V) painted the idea of Jean imagining her friends as a tree, a symbol for life and growth and kind of...healing. Appropriate for a Phoenix which represents rebirth and renewal.

  But then you get the Dark Phoenix Saga and this very empathic person, is corrupted by someone in a sense taking advantage of her emotions, by tricking her into making emotional connections through which he can then corrupt her and open the floodgates to the awesome power that might be beyond pretty much any mortal to control. And so Jean became a force of explicit destruction. Which is also appropriate because a Phoenix represents death and destruction as well.

  I do not know if this is canon to 616, but in X-Men: Grand Design, when Jean's powers first manifest she tried using them to essentially keep her dying friend alive. In X-Men vol 2 #71 the issue starts with Jean using her telepathy to cleanse the X-Men’s home of the negative psychometric impressions left by Bastion and his Zero Tolerance operation. Jean Grey was trying to remove some of the pain and hurt inflicted upon her home and friends, but doing it quite literally. Both of which would go some way in supporting what I'm trying to say about who Jean is, as far as her having great power which she can and wants to use as a force for healing.

  Appropriately for Xavier's first student (arguably the first X-Man), she in a sense is a microcosm of mutantkind and of the X-Men specifically. The X-Men can be destructive, sometimes HAVE to be destructive in defence of themselves, their people and of wider humanity. But Xavier also wanted them to be a force for healing and growth between mutants and humans and in truth that was their bigger endgame goal. So Jean being his first student, a founding X-Man, at times a team leader and the most powerful X-Man (usually) is symbolically appropriate.

  Maybe I am stretching here, but I also think that Jean’s pain and the duality of her being a force of potentially great destruction or healing plays into what to my limited experience are some of her most significant relationships.

 Professor X: Obviously she believes in his dream and wants to see it through, I outlined the connection above.

 Wolverine: A stretch perhaps because it wasn’t established off the bat, but the idea of Jean being a healer to others (noticeably her first interaction with Logan is as his doctor in X-Men 2000) connects her to Logan who is a literal self-healer due to his powers. You also have someone who has been through immense pain similar to her and possesses incredible potential for destruction he practices to (not always successfully) control. In a sense they both have dark and terrible ‘alter egos’, for Jean Dark Phoenix and Logan his berserker rage where animal imagery is used to personify their states of being. The Phoenix is after all presented as a raptor bird of prey and Logan is literally named after an aggressive predatory animal. Yet Logan can also be a positive force for others as a teacher, protector or even as a someone capable of taking life to ‘balance the scales’. I recall Mark Millar’s run where he murders Gorgon and his Hand/HYDRA gang in part to provide some measure of closure for the parents of a boy they murdered to get to him.

 Storm: At least during Claremont’s early tenure on X-Men he was presenting Storm as a pseudo Mother Nature style Goddess who even maintained plants in the mansion. The plants themselves demonstrate Storm as capable of care and nurture (her motherly relationship with Kitty bears this out) like Jean; so she’s connected with a form of healing and growth. Through her powers though, she and Jean also (in different ways) possess an immense capacity for destruction and healing, Storm’s being perhaps more direct and physical and Jean’s more subtle and ethereal. Both are also connected to primordial forces though, Storm the elements of the weather and Jean, obviously, with fire.

 Cyclops: They both experienced great pain and loss in their youth. They both possess immense destructive power. Cyclops however is tormented because his powers are in a sense broken, he is supposed to be able to control his optic blasts but that same youthful pain and loss led to him being unable to. And by extension he is himself a person with a lot of mental issues (not necessarily outright mental illnesses though).

 He is someone who can be emotionally distant because of these issues as well as his broken abilities, at least to some extent, leading him to be distant in terms of physical intimacy too. They say the eyes are the window into the soul and Cyclops’ powers mean he can neither look upon anyone’s eyes/soul without a red filter nor can anyone see into his. He can feel but in a sense is reluctant of doing so (which leads to at times more detached yet pragmatic leadership).

 Jean Grey however is a great counterbalance to Cyclops.

 Her powerset in a sense ‘fixes’ (or heals) Scott or else bypasses his handicaps. Her telekinesis is so powerful she can hold back his otherwise typically destructive power.* Even without that, her telepathy allows her a window into Cyclops’ mind/soul  in a way she couldn’t have if she wasn’t a telepath and he had complete control of his powers. Her empathy and mutual experiences of loss, pain, of bearing the burden of being potentially destructive allow her to emotionally connect to this man who finds it understandably difficult to open up and gives them both an avenue to share their baggage. Hopefully this, at least at times, can make Cyclops more well rounded and able to emotionally connect to others.**

 If nothing else Cyclops ability to be somewhat detached and thus more pragmatic and Jean’s ability to emotionally connect and be empathetic mean that as far as leadership is concerned, they are at their best united than apart.

 Having said all that stuff about Jean, the reason why I think I and perhaps other people like her is because in a sense she represents a different more subtle form of heroism and is herself an unconventional example of it.

 Often in superhero fiction the protagonists and fan favs are the characters who’re well...bad ass.

 Bad ass in a more ‘traditional’ and obvious ways. Wolverine, Batman, Punisher, even the quippy acrobatic and super strong Spider-Man.

 And there is NOTHING wrong with that. I adore all that stuff I suspect the vast, vast, vast majority of people reading this do too. It is in fact my preference for the kinds of superhero fiction I enjoy.

 However there are other forms of strength and heroism too.

 There is heroism in removing or preventing destructive forces like say Superman typically does. But there is also heroism in being the healer, or the person who tries to help people achieve their potential or prevent them from falling apart.

 Abstract example, but if you were to say the Wolverines and Batmen represent the heroism of fire fighters then the Jean Greys would be the paramedics, doctors and therepists who attend the victims. But imagine they also had fire hoses and axes too but less flashy and attention grabbing ones.

 Jean is far from the only example of this type of her, Sue Storm would be another example in my view. But what gives Jean a certain uniqueness to these other types of heroes (who for whatever reason do tend to be female, make of that whatever you want) is the fact that she also has the double edged sword of her power to heal being capable of immense destruction and at times she needs to fight hard to ensure it leans towards the former and not the latter. Sue Storm after all couldn’t be a casual city buster if she really slips up. Add onto that an extra layer of the mutant metaphor and Jean fighting for Xavier’s dream and Jean stands relatively apart from both these particular types of superheroes and many superheroes in general.

 That doesn’t make her or similar heroes better than the Wolverines or Batmen of the genre. Just a different flavour. But a more uncommon and at first glance less bright and shiny flavour so it gets overlooked.***

 Or worse, as Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men imo ignorantly summed up in their first podcast episode, gets them dismissed as a stereotype.

 Jean in that podcast and I think too many people is dismissed as just being ‘the girl’ or in all the stuff I’ve spoken about as a stereotypical female superhero.

 Which I disagree and take issue with. To begin with there is nothing wrong with a female character having these traits, the problem lies in the overabundance (if there even is any) and exaggeration which creates the stereotype.

 When Jean debuted in the 1960s, protagonists or not, yeah there were a fair number of female characters who were written as caring, nurturing and empathetic. And they were written that way just BECAUSE they were female characters and that was one of the few and limiting boxes to put female characters into.

 But I think Claremont and other writers basically (partially to be consistent perhaps) EMBRACED those traits within Jean and built upon them so she wasn’t like that because she was a female character but because that was just her particular personality, much as Rogue, Storm, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, Psylocke, Dazzler Polaris, and the other X-Ladies had their own personalities however many traits in common they shared or not.

 It doesn’t make Jean lesser, or weak or even boring. At that point you are almost equating good/strong with stereotypical male superhero traits.

 It just means she’s different and offers a different shade of strength and heroism.  

  And unless I’ve been super off the mark with most of this stuff, that’s why I think Jean Grey is cool and underrated. 

 *I’ve heard she can even temporarily fix Scott’s mental injury so he just sees normally but have never seen this in a comic, only (specifically from the Dark Phoenix Saga) her literally controlling the blasts so they don’t shoot out at all. Love to know if she can do more than that.

 **Not saying Scott was ever and unfeeling monster, just that he seemed to have a certain distance to everyone else in my reading experience, partially due to the burden of leadership.

 Also as far as making Scott more well rounded, this is perhaps a stretch but skipping around a lot of 1990s comics where Cyclops and Jean are together prior to ‘The Twelve’ he seemed more open and comparatively upbeat (I recall him and Beast goofing off in the wake of ‘Onslaught’ or something right?) next to his attitude after he and Apocalypse were separated (by Jean, so again she was acting as a healing force) and he and Jean drew more distant, their marriage fell apart and then later she died and he began dating Emma.

 I’m not even trying to diss the Scott/Emma relationship. I’m just observing...he was less upbeat and more stoic and seemingly distant than he was in the 1990s. Maybe one or both of those are OOC and I just don’t realize so again please tell me.

  ***Flashy and obvious btw doesn’t mean bad or lesser, again just different.

[mal-likes-biscuits]

More Diablo Character Head-Cannons

[Continued from here, so I don’t hijack the poof.]

I have pretty detailed head-cannons for most of the characters, including their personal habits. Some of the material makes it into stories when it’s relevant, whereas most of it doesn’t. But after talking with @fishyfiash about Inarius’ hair poof, I wanted to share some of the more relatable ones. Mostly about Malthael. And a few others.

Content after the break, because this is loooooong.

Malthael Discovers the Mortal Pool(s) of Wisdom

I have two Tales from Tristram chapters that I never posted, mostly because they were a bit too disjointed and they didn’t entirely fit into the series-cannon I was developing. The first one, though, went into details about when Malthael first moves in with Tyrael, and how they adjust to that. The Nephalem in town don’t find out right away because Tyrael bans him from going outside until he can figure out exactly what to do with him.

This goes marginally well until Malthael discovers that Tyrael has a bathtub. Up until this point, he’s been bathing in rivers, ponds, etc. because he’d mostly been living outside. He takes care of himself, but you know, Sanctuary isn’t exactly known for working plumbing. But some of the wealthier residents of Tristram do have a proper claw-foot tub, including Tyrael.

And, well…you probably should just read the best part of that canned-chapter excerpt:

However, the one habit Tyrael absolutely could not abide was Malthael’s obsession with the bath. He did not understand how a man who seemed to care so little about his physical appearance could waste endless hours soaking. He was not entirely sure Malthael even washed while in the tub, for he continually looked as though he had spent several days rolling about in the woods. He suspected his brother spent most of his time floating and staring at the rafters, perhaps trying to reclaim some sort of communion with nature in place of his previous use of the Pools.

What it meant was the bath water needed to be changed often. And since only Tyrael could leave the house, he spent a gratuitous amount of time heaving buckets from the town well back to his home. After which he would go to use the bath himself, often to find it occupied again. Try as he did, there was no dislodging Malthael from the room once he entered. He locked the door and responded to Tyrael’s annoyed pounding with terse apologies or, sometimes, simply, “Busy.”

Thus, it was not through any sort of redemptive behaviour or earned trust that Malthael gained himself permission to walk about Tristram. It was because Tyrael was tired of doing chores for two adults, and he knew that Malthael was damn well capable of caring for himself if given the opportunity to do so. It was not his responsibility to ensure his brother was fed or watered, and he could carry his own bath water.

This probably isn’t a surprise, given Malthael’s habits when he was immortal. There’s canon descriptions of him being elusive, quiet, and spending a great deal of time just staring into the Chalice. He loses some of that, plus his access to the Pools, when he becomes mortal. And though there isn’t actually any indication of what you do with the Pools, I’ve assumed the experience of looking into them (and the Chalice, by extension) is pretty similar to being in a sensory-pond and just…floating.

Which is what he discovers as soon as he gets over his initial “wtf is this giant bucket of water” reaction. The tub is one of the few places he can block out external noise. I imagine he soaks with only his nose and eyes sticking out, and just lies there and lets everything else go away. I would also imagine that if you really wanted to try and “woo” him, your best bet would be to present him with an already-prepared hot bath. Possibly with some oils or potpourri thrown in. Nothing too flowery, though. Something earthy, or spicy.

I’ve alluded to his preference for bathing before in a previous cannon-short. Unfortunately, as much as I love it, it’s never made it into a story proper, even if I consider it a critical part of his early-series character.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Ya’ll thought you were going to get through this post without a pun, didn’t you? Pfffft no.

In terms of mortal angels, I would assume their hair closely reflects the head-covering they use in their immortal form. Tyrael, for example, has a tight-fitting hood, which becomes his very bald (shaved?) head later. For this reason, Malthael has long hair, because his cowl has damn long ribbons on it.

The guy has a love-hate relationship with his hair. He would never, ever cut it short, because he likes being able to hide his face behind it. It’s comforting to him, the same way he likes the feel of it cascading over his shoulders. It’s a fundamental part of his body-image.

But, of course, long hair has its disadvantages. It tangles, for one, especially if it’s too long. It’s harder to wash. (Regardless of how much time he spends soaking in the bathtub, it’s not time he spends washing his hair.) It flies in your face when you’re trying to swing your swords.

Which means that there is an optimal length for his hair. This is approximately around or just past his shoulders. Long enough to cover his face, but short enough he’s not at risk of getting it caught in his weapons. Or his armor. And it tucks into a hood well enough. And he doesn’t have to spend hours trying to maintain it at a waste of his precious time. Don’t even suggest that he tie it up, because that completely ruins the cowl effect.

So far, so good. Until winter hits, and it gets cold. And it snows. Tristram is a fairly temperate climate, from what I can tell. It wouldn’t get too hot in the summer, and I assume it would snow in dumps in the winter. Anyone with long or curly hair knows that humidity of any kind is…bad.

The very precise drapes of hair that he carefully maintains develop their own internal gravity. They become frizzy. They stick out at weird angles. And no matter how much time he spends trying to keep his hair out of his eyes, it always ends up back in them.

Malthael, of course, refuses to do the simple thing, which would be to cut his hair in the winter. Instead, he packs up his bag and goes someplace warm. If you’ve (for whatever reason) been tracking his travels in the series, he always disappears for long stints over the winter months. There are multiple reasons for this, including that he legitimately dislikes being in the cold for too long, because, you know: death. Also, he’s no idiot, and he’s figured out that people always seem to get ill when it starts to snow.

But, going someplace warm and dry also conveniently puts his hair back where it should be. Mostly.

Malthael’s OCD hasn’t gone anywhere since he became mortal. If anything, he now has more things to become OCD about.

When your BFF Knows Hair Better Than You

Farah and Malthael talk quite a bit, whether it’s through letters or, eventually, in person. We’ve seen a bit of what they chat about, but it also extends to occasionally more mundane topics. Including hair.

Both Farah and Aya are blessed (or cursed, they might say) with extremely thick hair. And since they both wear theirs long, they’ve learned all kinds of ways of keeping it up out of the way, and also of keeping it healthy. Aya is a lot flashier with her hairstyles, but Farah is practiced in all sorts of braids, buns, you name it. You can’t carry books around if your hair is always falling in your face.

She notices early on that Malthael doesn’t do anything with his hair. Of course, she also doesn’t say anything, because she knows he’s particular about his looks. They have to be just so. But eventually, one night, they’re sitting and talking in front of the library fire, while listening to a torrential downpour that’s been going on outside all day.

And he keeps trying to blow hair from his face. Repeatedly. He’s clearly annoyed. And Farah has had enough of their conversation being interrupted with “pfffffft” every twenty seconds that she has to say something.

This is how Malthael learns about proper hair care. I mean, Tyrael isn’t any help. He doesn’t have any. But Farah certainly does. And she’s familiar with hair oils, and all the things you need if you have thick, long hair and you live in a desert oasis.

She never does convince him to let her braid his hair, or anything of the sort. But he does end up with substantially less frizz when it gets rainy outside. And he becomes quite the expert at braiding her hair if she asks. Because, fair is fair, and if she wants to do something weird like that with hers, then he isn’t about to judge.

Coffee is the Drink of the Gods…

The other Tristram short that was canned, which I might post eventually just as a joke-fic, had to do with Aya bringing Farah a coffee set from Caldeum, and Malthael absconding with it because Farah absolutely can’t stand the taste or smell of it. The fic was canned because it was just too tongue in cheek and because I didn’t like working coffee into the story that much, though they would likely have some sort of equivalent there.

But yes, for anyone who is wondering: Malthael does drink coffee sometimes. He prefers tea because it keeps him awake without absolutely wiring him. But sometimes, you’re working late, and you just really want to finish something, and the only thing that will help with that is a good, dark cup-o-joe.

Tyrael hates when Malthael drinks coffee, because it makes him jittery, and he also starts. Talking. Incessantly. Coffee removes his mental filter almost as much as alcohol does, at least in terms of conversation. And it also makes his conversations even harder to follow, because his brain is jumping around at several times the speed of its already remarkably fast pace. Any conversation with him while he’s had coffee is just a relentless string of non-sequiturs that make perfect sense to Malthael and no sense to anyone else.

…Unless You’re Tyrael, and then the Drink of the Gods is Alcohol

Tyrael is one of those work-hard, play-hard kind of guys. In a completely respectful, kind-hearted way. But, in short, his favorite thing to do after a long, stressful day of work is to get hammered and sing raucous drinking songs until the wee hours of the morning. He makes no apologies about it. He likes being mortal at this point. He likes all the emotional, giddy, messy parts of being mortal. He likes dreaming, he likes eating, he likes drinking, he likes banging.

If you think Malthael hates when Tyrael comes home four sheets to the wind and proceeds to slam around cupboards and doors and everything while Malthael is trying to read quietly, then yeah. You’d be right. (They’re brothers with completely different personalities, they find all sorts of ways to piss each other off.)

Most of the time, they co-habitate fine, because Malthael is often not home, or not even in Tristram. But he’s been subjected enough to Tyrael’s boisterous, happy-drunk-mode to know that it’s best to just nod, fake a smile, and let his brother talk until he passes out. Hopefully on a chair, because Tyrael is a LOT bigger than Malthael, and regardless of physical fitness, Malthael has a 21 in dexterity and a 12 in strength, and he’s not lifting his bro into bed. No way.

Now, Tyrael must drink a lot to get to that point. Which is why he’s at the tavern all night.

Malthael does not drink. Well, he shouldn’t drink. He’s a cheap date. One beer, and he’s getting a bit chatty. Two, and his filter is gone. Three, and he’s probably hanging off your shoulder and either arguing about some completely esoteric philosophical principle, or he’s laughing about the shape of the tree leaves.

Lyndon vastly prefers Tyrael drinking to Malthael, because Tyrael is fun. Malthael isn’t exactly aggressive, but he can get kind of argumentative, especially if you prove him wrong about something. Which is not hard to do when he’s drunk. You only think you’re wise when you’re drinking.

Which Takes us to How They Know This (Also Known as, the Time Malthael Drank Mead)

The story of Talm’s wedding has been referenced a few times, mostly in the Tristram stories, but it never really gets expanded on beyond that lots of mead is imbued. The real truth is that when Malthael tells them he doesn’t drink, he’s never tried until that point. All he knows is it makes mortals act stupid. You don’t need it to survive. So, why bother? (Biscuits are superior.)

But, sometimes he succumbs to peer pressure. He’s happy for Talm, and he’s feeling pretty content, and they really want him to have fun. He’s only going to sit with them to talk. That’s it.

Except, research. Hey Malthael, how do you know what alcohol is like if you don’t try it? How can you even appreciate how it affects other mortals if you haven’t even experienced it a little bit? He’s watched random people drink enough to assume you have to drink a lot for anything to really happen.

Oh. Poor guy. They have mead. It’s probably a good 15% at least. And he is the world’s. Cheapest. Drunk.

So now, they’re stuck with him at their table, and he really just wants to talk about stuff. He has a lot to get off his chest. He’s only been mortal for a year, and really doesn’t understand social conventions yet, and all of these emotions he’s been bottling up this whole time want to get out. All at the same time.

They’re relieved the farmers have no idea what Malthael is talking about, because he’s blathering on about cups filled with light, this incessant noise that still follows him around everywhere, and how he doesn’t get why this all makes so much more sense now when he’s stupider compared to when he was taller and brilliant.

Lyndon isn’t nearly hammered enough to be listening to all of this. He’s still skeptical that they didn’t just stab Malthael in Salvos and be done with it. But he’s also kind of…amused. Because this is the guy they spent days tracking down in Westmarch. Whose deep, terrifying voice was blathering on through the Soulstone about Murder and Souls and Deeeeeeeeath.

And now he’s in an argument with Jerem’s cousin about the proper way to season biscuits.

This is clearly not the same person. Or, at least, he’s a mortal, healthier version of the angel they happened to stab many, many times through the chest. Healthy is relative, Lyndon guesses. If it doesn’t include being really intoxicated. And from what he can tell, Malthael is still an impatient, sarcastic know-it-all. He’s just shorter and eats things now.

The whole party really jumps the shark after Talm and Lena disappear for the night, and the relatives get rowdy. Someone starts up a little sparring competition with practice sticks. Tyrael, of course, jumps right in, because holy shit, drinking and physical activity? He’s all for that. The farm hands put up a very good fight, but he eventually comes out on top.

But, you know, drunks can be drunks, and someone starts razzing the little skinny guy to go and challenge his brother. Hey, are you really brothers, even? You don’t even look the same. But, whatever. No can do, says Malthael, he’s not getting involved with that. At least, until someone calls him a coward.

And then he gets mad.

Oh Hells, Lyndon thinks. But also, Hells yes, because this is going to be hilarious. It is, for most of it. Neither Tyrael or Malthael is sober enough to swing the sticks properly. It ends up being a great show of them stumbling around and taunting each other. Too much taunting, probably. It gets personal. It’s good for them, right? They still have a lot to talk out.

Tyrael isn’t the best at talking at this point. He takes all his immense frustration at his stupid brother, puts it in his fist, and punches Malthael in the face.

Which is how the party ends.

Jerem watches the whole thing perfectly sober, because he’s the responsible host, and he’s really confused at who the hell these two actually are who have spent the night arguing about angels, and demons, and related things like they exist. Now one of them has a bloody nose, and the other is apologizing profusely, and there’s a lot of adult tears happening about betrayal, and bad decisions, and Jerem figures neither of them is going to remember any of this in the morning.

But, brothers are brothers, everyone has troubles, and he’s not going to get involved, other than to get some ice from the cellar, and a few rags to mop up the blood.

Malthael wakes up on the floor of the barn, covered in hay, spilled mead, and pastry crumbs, and decides he’s died again because his head hurts so bad. He also decides that drinking is the dumbest thing in the world, and he’s never going to do it again.

Probably.

But that’s a story for a different time that you’ll actually get to read.

[lunamanar]

have any favorite au's for FFVIII? bit of an au junkie here

AUs…yes, but they’re all mine, or shared AUs, haha, so I don’t have any fics to point you to, if that’s what you’re asking (again, I am not a good person to ask for fic recs because I am painfully slow to read…when I have the time, I prefer to write). All of them are pretty Squall/Rinoa-centric, still. That part never changes. 

But, to name a few: 

- I have an expansive headcanon about witch/sorceress history and what things were like before Centra was ruined by the Cry. While I think it plays just fine with canon in its own right, it’s just kinda fun for me to imagine Squall and Rinoa living in that time, instead of the game’s timeframe. I actually have several half-finished AUs which have them running into each other, under various circumstances, in that distant past. Of course, I set it up for them to have a relationship, haha, but the venue is just different enough, it’s a good way to explore their relationship in a slightly different way. For instance, in my past headcanon, Hyne’s descendants were both revered, and had acquired a totalitarian grip on the world’s political bodies, in spite of their relatively small numbers. They were seen as demigods, and feared as such…and their behavior as a ruling class, if not as a unified group, only served to fuel those fears. They enslaved people as it suited them, even bred and trained prospective Knights and kidnapped women who were known to be capable of receiving Hyne’s power to make bodyguards of them–all to ensure that they would have a source of augmented power/stability from the former, and someone to take their powers should they die, in the latter. It was how they maintained their power. 

But, Not All Sorceresses, yadda yadda. While being raised in one of these very political families, my AU!Rinoa came to despise the whole thing and figured on taking it all down. Depending on the exact story I was writing–I must have started over 15 or 20 times–Squall’s role was always a little different. In one version, he was part of an organized faction bent on hunting sorceresses to their extinction, and had met Rinoa while undercover at a fete–and yeah, a dance, har har–but stuff happened, his ‘mission’ was ruined, his base of operations destroyed, and…he really had nowhere to go, no one to contact. Except her. He knew enough to know she was a rebel among sorceresses (and in this story she’d been one since her mother died). He took a risk and sought her out. Story story blah blah blah from there. 

In another version, he was one of slaves, either kidnapped or bred (the former in his case) for the express purpose of being a Knight Prospect…or if he failed to be chosen, a soldier in a sorceress’s army, or a gladiator, or at the very least, a disposable source of energy, depending on which sorceress was buying. This one branches out even further…in one variation, he was chosen by a reluctant Rinoa, as much to pull him out of those abusive conditions as because she admittedly liked him. In another, she lived near the “school” which trained him and they bumped into each other when she’d escaped her home at night in an angry huff after a fight with her father and tutors; he was hiding out on the edge of a recreational area, avoiding various other people on his campus. Both scenarios made for some really good dialogue bits, and I like playing with the idea of sorceresses as being viewed as a sort of natural, even inevitable predator, when they were in their prime as a political force. It puts some weight on a particular aspect of Squall and Rinoa’s relationship that is very important to me (and which I guard jealously, if I’m honest). 

In yet another version, he was unrelated to any of that, and was just a sort of no-one’s-man, having spent his life living with and, ultimately, caring for Ellone after she herself became a sorceress. She fought the power…and it slowly ate her alive because of it. He knew nothing about it, had no access to the education he’d need to help her, so he watched her wither away. When she eventually died, he was consumed by grief, and wandered for quite some time before Rinoa found him (by chance, because I’m the writer and I said so dammit). Or he found her. Another variation, but it doesn’t matter too much, either way. In this scenario, he has nothing left. He either sees her coming for him, and figuring she’s probably going to kill him, puts up a surprising fight before collapsing under her power, or he sees her first, and after a great deal of consideration, comes out of the shadows and, when he can be coaxed to speak, more or less gives himself up, once again imagining she’ll just drain him to death like sorceresses are known to do. Of course, that doesn’t quite happen. 

Oh, and it’s not uncommon for other characters to follow them to these once-removed universes, but for the purposes of answering your question, it’s easier to just focus on how it affects Rinoa and Squall.

You can find similar themes in both my AUs and my canon-based fanfiction…Maaayyybe it’s because, from a writing standpoint, I came to this fandom from a horror fiction perspective…though I wouldn’t classify most of my FFVIII writing as horror, mind–it’s actually a departure from the sort of story I’m typically drawn to–but I’m kind of fascinated with both tension and resolution in violent power dynamics, and predator/prey symbiosis is a big one for me. There’s a lot about FFVIII’s world that sets up and leaves a lot of room for that sort of relationship between both Hyne’s power and its host, as well as sorceresses and their knights. 

Obviously, that’s my headcanon/interpretation, but it’s one of the things I saw right away when I first played the game, and it’s stuck with me ever since. So any time I wander off into an AU to sandbox with an idea, that concept is never too far away. The scenery changes, the timeframe, sometimes even the world they’re living in, regardless of the context, Squall and Rinoa are just perfect for messing around with power dynamics in relationships, for a lot of reasons, and while that’s certainly not all I write about in regards to them–no no no, there’s plenty of teen angst and abandonment issues and poignant connection and entertaining domestics and all of that is important to me, too–it definitely is a mainstay, and I enjoy exploring it under a multitude of different lenses and filters. 

[kltiago]

Fans of Fiction

By: KL Tiago 

Fandoms are one of the newest hyperboles to take on a life of their own in our current media generation.  While the actions of hardcore media fanatics used to be viewed as geeky beyond the point of social acceptability, new online communities help these like-minded individuals connect and fuel each others’ obsessive desires to form the megalomaniacal overminds we know as Fandoms.

Check out Tumblr and search the tags for Marvel’s Avengers.  You’ll find a wealth of fan-made material carefully constructed by people who are truly in love with/obsessed with all things Avengers.  They’ll discuss with their friends their favorite relationships–‘ships’ as they’re called–and draw the characters out on dates, cuddling by fires, having dinner parties.

Want to read a story where the Avengers go to the beach?  You can find one.  Want to read a story where the Avengers are in an alternate-universe high school in Japan? You can find one.  Want to see the Avengers drawn as cats?  You can.  Want to see a picture of your favorite Avenger couple flying on a dragon?  You can find one, and if you can’t you can commission an artist on Tumblr to draw you one.

Same goes for the video game Overwatch.  Or the television series Supernatural.

The magnitude of the obsession surrounding these media narratives can almost eclipse the actual source material.  The number of fanatics on Tumblr who would sail their Stucky (relationship between Steve Rogers and his BFF James Buchanan Barnes) ships into battle can sometimes seem more numerous than all the people who watched the Captain America movies and made it a financial success to begin with.

I myself wrote fan fiction as a young teen.  I loved the characters of video games but wanted different stories or couples.  With no options for them in the games, I would invent them.  Or scour FanFiction.net with specifically chosen keywords to find them.

These fandoms extend from movies and video games to real life celebrities and even kids shows.  The Steven Universe fandom is extensive, filled with fan-theories and intricately designed ‘gemsonas’ representing the fans’ inner-characters. There are fan fictions about One Direction going out with each other, getting married and having babies.  The imaginations of those who absolutely adore can grow exponentially wild; and media-creators are taking notice.

The MTV series Teen Wolf found itself a popular ship in the form of Sterek; made up of the characters Stiles and Derek.  The popularity of this ship filtered its way into official Teen Wolf media with the actors who played the characters sharing posts of them together on Instagram or Twitter, as well as the show putting the characters on-screen together knowing it would lead to online conversations of lingering glances and double-meanings within the script.

The willingness of the show to feed the fandoms was, however, a double-edged sword.  While it initially helped build the series in terms of ratings and online presence, eventually all of the non-romantic Sterek pushes from the network and the show’s writers wasn’t enough to satiate the avaricious fans who wanted to see the gay love of their imagined Sterek become official canon. This never happened, with both Stiles and Derek being given various female love-interests, and eventually Sterek fans revolted, leading to ratings drops.

All the efforts made by Teen Wolf to push Sterek were no longer seen as fan-service but queer-baiting.  With no actual relationship developing between the two on the show, the fans kept to their online fandoms sharing fictions and art where their dreams were reality.  The canon of the series became less appealing to the fandom than their own creations of it.

Do writers cater to fans and craft narratives based on what the online communities want to see?  Do they ignore the pushes of the fans, no matter how serious, heartfelt or obsessive and write their own stories?

Maybe one day there will be shows or movies where the fans vote for what happens or who gets together?  Maybe more fan-fictions will be turned into narratives of their own by big production companies in a similar vein to Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey?  Maybe new sequels will be released based on alternate realities the fandoms created and crave?

Only time will tell just how influential fandoms will be on narrative integrity, but it certainly has already begun to have a real impact on the media we absorb.

So keep writing your fan fictions and drawing your favorite characters making out with each other and let your freaky fandom flags fly free.  You never know: you might just get your weirdest desires up on TV.

[rotten-raia]

finished-Part-4 thoughts

so listen. I more or less cut my teeth in the BBC Sherlock fandom. there is literally no stone unturned where that group is concerned and I was/am(?) pretty into johnlock.

that said, I am accustomed to both a mountain range’s worth of evidence being available, but that same evidence also requiring a little bit of legwork to attain. in other words, I’m not lazy; not when it comes to seeing and supporting a relationship I’m into. (other stuff, all bets are off, but did you SEE my tumblr handle? yeah, we’re keeping it fairly singular here lol)

so. believe me when I say that when I WANT to see something, I know how to work for it. heck, I might even cheat a bit. unfortunately though, be it “rare pairs” or even some popular ships, if there isn’t SOMETHING letting me see it, I usually move. as I know I’ve stated before,

**these are MY opinions and only that**

so please don’t come for me like I’m telling you what you can/can’t do. fandom is big enough for everyone! if I can block/mute/filter whatever I personally don’t want to see, I intend to use those tools made available to me and let others go on their merry way!!

that being said, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don't see Josuke and Rohan as a pair. I am completely through Part 4 now and I really held out. yeah, that stuff leading up to and with Highway Star was pretty intense, but then the mirror shattered pretty quickly once Josuke healed him at the end, IMO. as a person who looks way too closely for these things (guilty as charged), the fact that Jotaro was there when he hadn't been up until that point really set up a mirror for HIM helping Kakyoin...only Josuke got yelled at and Jotaro's eyes went under the hat. yare yare indeed.

I'm definitely not the first person to draw this comparison, although the place I'd seen it before saw it somewhat differently. iirc, they said Jotaro mirrored his own mother there, like he "understood" the motivation behind why you'd help someone, but I almost saw the whole thing more as Araki making FUN of what happened in Part 3. so in other words, I see it as evidence AGAINST Josuke and Rohan, not necessarily FOR.

okay, well take the time old trope of enemies-to-lovers. sure there is plenty of animosity there, but even after the worst of it burns off, the most I get is a grudging, no I mean GRUDGING respect. they barely acknowledge each other after that, and while Rohan has to be stared down/growled at by Koichi just to come clean with Reimi before she DISAPPEARS FOREVER, it's only convenient to say that "he's never straightforward with how he feels".

BUT SPEAKING OF KOICHI, I don't exactly ship it, but I could probably convince myself sooner that Rohan has a bit of a crush on HIM. I mean you can sort of take some of the things that Yukako mentions as reasons SHE has for loving him, for the things she sees in him, etc. and find similar beliefs on Rohan's part.

but yeah, when I finish a story and start feeling out the fan works to help me continue enjoying the characters, it's definitely hard to ignore the most popular (and by this case I mean most readily available and abundant) ships. however, I'm quickly brought back to what I had said before about Jotaro and Kakyoin. ships don't just exist because of the canon evidence that is there to support them, and the ones with the most "evidence" aren't automatically the best or "more valid". I've been around long enough to know better than to think any of that. hell I wouldn't be writing any of this if seeing wayyy underneath or entertaining remote possibilities or larks wasn't something I could do or took interest in!!

I mean heck, for the most part I've been talking about characters who don't even have on-screen canon partners whose existence I have to sort of gloss over or whatever...these are gift-wrapped by comparison! LOL (otoh, Araki's penchant for killing my favs doesn't really help, but lucky for him I've got a crazy imagination and uh, quite a few audio notes saved on how I'd get around all that. so. 😏)

I won't patronise anyone (or myself lol) by saying "I don't need ships to enjoy something" even though it's probably 50(ish)% true. I simply know myself and that part of connecting with characters for me is to explore those sides of them that you don't really get to *without* putting them together with someone. that "someone" just tends to be a 同性 pair. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(as an aside, I've noticed a truly LARGE amount of chara/READER fic for this fandom? that's never really been my thing, but I'm curious as to why it seems so much more abundant in the jjba fan world.)

so I'll say a few (more) things now that I've wrapped on Part 4.

1) I loved it. I loved the pace, I loved the variety of characters, of situations, THE AESTHETIC. I get why the previous parts were they way they were for the most part, but I'd be LYING if I didn't say that the "slice of life" moments helped make this part my favourite yet!

2) that said, I think my burning need to write for Part 2 in particular, but also Part 3, has a lot to do with not getting those moments. but hey, fandom has always been the best for those sorts of things - I just love Part 4 for letting me kick back a bit...

3) late af, but I'm super into Josuke and Okuyasu. as friends, as more? WHATEVER!! give it all to me. ✨ also THANK YOU Araki for breaking your fucking Kill All The Best Friends curse! you'll probably clap back with Part 5, knowing you, but I'll take what I can get!!

4) did I mention just how much I love Josuke and Okuyasu's relationship?! yeah listen I can take it at face value and still be thrilled but idk man, this one is wide fucking open AND I LOVE IT.

5) ...I think Araki ships himself with Rohan too hard to let anyone else have him anyway. 😂