#i love characters with inferiority complexes and tried to hide that by being extremely and loudly cocky and confident

[miraclesnail]

I am BACK on the monoma stan train.

He was so cool this episode!! I mean look at him!

I know which manga Im getting

[zahri-melitor]

Ask game for Oliver Queen, I have been curious about your thoughts on him for ages! 2, 5, 14, 20

I do have a lot of thoughts on Ollie, actually. He sort of falls into the same category as Arthur for me, where I find him incredibly infuriating at times but I do like him and his setting.

2. When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you've sent me a character I don't like)

The thing is, I go back and forth on my feelings about Ollie all the time. I've read some absolute terrible behaviour from him, because he's exactly the sort of socialist-leaning white guy who tends to frame everything through his own viewpoint and is oblivious to intersectional issues until someone challenges him on them and makes them unavoidable for Ollie to consider. He is so very often written as the sort of dinosaur from the labour movement I know so well who is fully committed to its ideals but doesn't think of his own at home hypocrisies.

But by god, how he tries. If there is one ultimate redeemable aspect to Ollie it's when he's challenged on an issue and he realises he's been wrong about it, he makes an effort.

It's actually what I think drives a lot of the good dad/bad dad narrative over Ollie, because he is fundamentally bad at being a parent and makes so many mistakes over the years. But he also loves his kids deeply and works on his problems (once he realises he has them). He tries again. And it's in his willingness to make that effort and try again that the relationships improve, and why people see him as a good parent.

Now if he would at any point aim that self-reflection at his relationship with Dinah properly I would be extremely grateful. It's been decades and he takes her for granted far too much.

5. My favorite ship of them

...probably Ollie/Shado, actually, because it's interestingly toxic. They have issues. It's ridiculously complex given the layers of nonsense built into it by various reboots. I desperately want Robert and Emiko to exist in the same continuity because it's just hilarious to me in terms of the drama it would cause.

I also like it because nobody tries to pretend they're perfect for each other.

14. Best storyline they had

This is where I have to say I do need to sit down and read larger chunks of Ollie's runs. Because I've read a bunch of his stuff from various sections of the timeline between COIE and the present, but mostly in single arcs here and there.

I might be basic and say I did very much enjoy Quiver. It's famous for a reason, plus it did absolutely bizarre things to Stanley and his Monster for no reason at all, which amuses me in terms of how complex it made the lore and also depresses me as it means people overlook earlier versions of their story.

20. A weird headcanon

A weird headcanon for Ollie? hmmm. Given everything around his history and backstory as a character, in terms of being a Batman expy from creation, he does actually feel like he's in a constant competition with Bruce, a competition where he thinks he's losing on so many metrics. It means that he centres himself in the aspects where he thinks he has an edge on Bruce and puffs up them, and denigrates all the ways he feels inferior to Bruce.

It's what drives so much of his relationship with Bruce over the years, on so many teams, and he would actually really have an easier time if their kids weren't such good friends. Because. He cannot escape the comparisons.

I also have this elaborate backstory for how Bruce specifically asked Ollie to look out for and care for Cass on her very first 'adult' team during Justice League Elite, and he looked at her and saw how she was hiding so much of herself to play Kasumi that he felt protective of her.

Which is why he pivoted so hard in Batman & the Outsiders to mistrusting her after the evil arc, because all he heard about it were the community gossip, so he thought she had been playing him in JLE and he missed finding out that the issue had been that she'd been drugged by Slade. And Cass can tell that he no longer trusts her and wants to look out for her, and reacts to that.

[starlightsigner]

TLDR - game very good you should play it now

My final verdict on Sonic X Shadow Generations - 9/10 I am so so so excited for the future of Sonic right now ya’ll!!!!!

Sonic Generations was Sonic Generations, a great remaster of an already good game. I know ppl are really hating on Ian and the dialogue changes but I honestly can’t think of any I didn’t like off the top of my head, they didn’t always match with the animation but also they did what they could with what they had from the og cutscenes. Probably the best part was as the addition of Sonic responding to the people he saved in white space as opposed to blankly staring back at them, not only did this flesh out the scenes more but it made him feel less like a model and more like a character in those parts. The drop dash is in this game now but honestly I don’t think I used it once so I can’t say much about it. Planet Wisp is still the worst. I almost want to say that City Escape classic is the best but after taking a second it’s hard to say since Crisis City modern and Rooftop Run modern are there and also so good.

Shadow Generations was absolutely phenomenal. My biggest complaint is that it’s short, it took me over 7 hours but that’s because I was being a completionist and getting an S on every level I could (I’ve only got like 1 act, 3 challenges, and the final boss to bring up to S). Not really a complaint but the game is extremely forgiving with the grading. There were times where I struggled and knew I was going to have to do it again, get a B at most, and ended up with either an A or S.

Off the top of my head Sunset Heights was as my favorite level. No question hands down tho Metal Overlord was my favorite boss no question between Sonic and Shadow Generations. I thought I would hate it bc I’m not a big fan of doom surf and that fight is doom surf only, but it surprised me and surpassed my expectations. I was really hoping that the Mephiles fight would be my favorite, and it is in terms of the cutscenes that come with it, but that’s it for it. The Metal Overlord cutscenes and dialogue were cool and touched on Neo Metal’s inferiority complex while still having him be a threat and the fight itself was fun. On the other hand the Mephiles fight was the easiest boss in the Shadow campaign, narratively its great, how he starts super on the offensive, trying to intimidate Shadow and be a threat like he was in 06, but as soon as he realizes that it’s not working both bc Shadow got stronger and doesn’t remember him, Mephiles hard shifts into defense, hiding in the shadows and keeping distance. From the beginning of the fight he looks confident but what never changes throughout the fight is his palpable desperation and growing sense of hopelessness. Mephiles has been trapped in the scepter and banished to nonexistence since 06 and he KNOWS it, he was aware for every second he spent in the timeless void, and as soon as Shadow finds him he knows it’s his only chance to return to the timeline, he doesn’t have time for manipulation, there is no time, there is only him and his enemy and he knows that only one of them will be leaving that arena. Mephiles wastes absolutely no time, immediately coming from behind with one of his strongest attacks, the one that he used to kill Sonic. Not only did Shadow dodge, but he’s completely unfazed. He don’t remember the monster Mephiles is, he just knows that this weird shadow dude just tried to kill him. It’s all downhill from there for Mephiles, while Shadow keeps his composure and beets the ever loving crap out of him, Mephiles loses more and more control of his emotions until he’s on the ground scratching and clawing at anything he can to hold onto reality, all the while pleading that he only wants to exist. And Shadow could not care less. BUT THATS THE BEST PART. Shadow has no qualms about shutting Mephiles down, but if Sonic had found him instead it would have been a MUCH different encounter. He wouldn’t remember how terrible Mephiles is either, and a desperate cry to be free is something Sonic could not and would not ignore.

And of course there’s Maria and Gerald. Their interactions with shadow throughout the game were absolutely adorable and some were heart-wrenching. Hearing Maria tease shadow like the older sister she is and mention small bits about him like how me apparently never did his homework for space class just brings so much to him and their interactions, they’re familiar and comfortable with each other and it shows, I do wish that there had been more responses from Shadow either via body language or him talking back in non voiced lines. Gerald calling Shadow is son was so great to hear and he’s so intent on Shadow not telling them the future no matter how much he wants to avert their fate. He knows that something awful is going to happen to them, he sees Shadow’s desperation to hold onto them, and he knows that despite all the heartache that thy’ll face the past must be maintained, if not for the stability of the universe, then for the growth and life outside of the ARK that it gave his son and for all the people Shadow has helped.

The main narrative is great, but for me what shined was the missable interactions with the npcs you can get after every level and boss. Each once has something new to say every time and even if the dialogue ultimately amounts to nothing it’s a detail that the devs didn’t have to include but it it being there just shows how much love and polish went into this. Omega remains the funniest Sonic character and some of the lore they drop with/through Big the Cat is insane.

Black Doom tho, as much as he’s the main antagonist and literally ingrained into the world he doesn’t feel extremely relevant or present. They should have had the doom eye follow and harass him more, goad him and feed into his anger and negative emotions. Towards the end of the game Maria and Gerald see Shadow start to give into his anger and it feeds the black arms in him, for a moment they’re scared of him, they later say they aren’t but all you have to do is watch the cutscene, they both recoil in fear and Gerald holds Maria to protect her until she breaks free of the fear and brings Shadow back to his senses. She pleads with him to let go of that anger, that it’s not who he is, and that lovely and fine, but it doesn’t feel earned bc at no point prior to this does Shadow’s anger cause a problem. Before the final fight he tells her that he’s let go of that destructive anger, but we haven’t seen that destructive anger, just the barest glimpse of what it could be. For me this just made Maria’s very sweet and innocent plea for her brother to be ‘good not bad’ falls a bit flat.

Gameplay wise its controls fantastic for a boat game. Chaos control works great and Shadow’s base kit just feels good to play. The doom powers are hit or miss with doom spear and doom wing being the best, doom surf being ehhh, and doom morph just at times being outright difficult to control. But even with that none of it feels bad, the worst just takes time to get used to and the best is fun and intuitive right out the gate, nothing bad I have to say about the gameplay or controls impacts the experience enough to knock the score down.

This got sooooooo much longer than I intended lol but I have a lot to say and I didn’t even say it all.

If you enjoy Sonic games I highly recommend this. Even if you didn’t like og Generations there’s a good chance this improved something for you and the Shadow campaign alone is worth looking into even if you don’t touch Sonic’s side.

I loved this game and I can not wait for the next non reboot/remake (except I will wait as long as I need bc if they rush again I will be so disappointed and sand)

Anyway play Sonic X Shadow Generations

[sockfus]

so this is something that i sent to a discord but i wanted to share bc hey. i was proud of it. anyway so sokka.

sokka is actually a very complex character under all of his comedic value, especially in the factor of his trauma, and insecurities.

abandonment

to understand the rest of his character, you have to understand where it all began. his fear of abandonment is not something explicitly stated in the show, and unless you really look, is fairly easy to overlook. it begins with hakoda's departure, shown in the flashback where he tries to follow all of the other men off to war.

in this, we can see sokka clutching so desperately to his father, he is crying because he doesn't want him to leave. his mother is already gone, and while we barely any evidence on how it immediately effected him, we know he missed her and now his father was leaving too. one of his parents was leaving him again, and he had no idea whether hakoda would survive or not.

like i previously mentioned, this is not expressed a lot, but it clearly effected him deeply, most likely becoming the seed of the deep rooted insecurities we see shown in the Sokka's Master, and because of that episode, we can decipher that he is afraid of being left behind as he believes he is essentially, useless.

insecurities

sokka's insecurities are mentioned in the show, being the main focus of Sokka's Master as he comes to realise that he is useful. it is quite obvious from the way he carries himself that he believes himself to be a greatly strong individual, despite the fact we later find out that he doesn't actually believe this. this is most likely caused by hakoda leaving, as unlike katara, who firmly believes that despite knowing why he had to leave, thinks it was unfair, but sokka's thoughts on it are quite different. he understands why all of the men left, and has never displayed any problem with it, but he feels that the only reason he was left behind was not because of his age, because he was weak, that he would only slow them down due to his lack of strength, and being with three master benders did not help with this.

along his travels, sokka met a variety of talented individuals, and compared to them, we know he felt inferior, even being told so at times (even though we know it was a joke). this is partly why he is quick to go along with things even if he doesn't believe it is a good idea if the person in question displays that they are impressed with him. one example, is in the episode Jet, where despite showing extreme dislike and mistrust for the other boy, goes along with him against his better judgement because somebody as strong as jet was impressed with him.

these thoughts are further fueled by Yue's death. the chief gave him a job, and to that sokka felt like he was useful, seen as strong enough to protect the princess, but then she died, and we know he believes it was his fault. of course, we know there was nothing that couldve been done to save her, and this includes suki's capture, along with the failure of the invasion and all of the people caught. but no matter what sokka believes this was all his fault. because deep down, he believes that he is a failure, who only slows people down or gets them hurt, and it's not just losing the people he loves that hurts him. it's not being enough to save them.

in conclusion

the reason his issues aren't brought to attention more than they are, is because he hides them. sokka isn't like his sister, who feel freely and wear their emotions and anger on their sleeves. sokka bottles things up, hence why is insecurities were only mentioned in one episode and his feelings regarding yue's death was only brought up the most in the swamp, only for him to brush off any questions about what he saw. he doesn't want to slow people down more than he thinks he already does, so he keeps all of his negative thoughts and emotions locked tightly away, and people don't look deep enough to realise.

however, this isnt to say that his negative feelings are his entire character. sokka is by far one of atla's more complex character's, if you take the time to pick him apart, and we know that while his insecurities are a driving force to what he does and how he acts, he isn't unhappy. he loves his friends, and they love him, and he has learnt how to see his uses over the course of the series, pushed along by the people who surround him.

[x0401x]

Given Movie: Anime Eiga Interview

The adult trio of “Given”, Nakazawa Masatomo, Eguchi Takuya and Asanuma Shintarou – finding out about each other’s appeal through proffering a deep love.

The sequel to the TV series that adapted Ms. Kizu Natsuki’s popular BL manga into an anime came in the form of “Given the Movie” and made its appearance in the big screen. Along with sensible expressions of emotion, this series depicts the circumstances of youthful love connected by music, capturing the hearts of the viewers. The movie portrays the “bitter and passionate love” between the band’s “adult members”, Haruki and Akihiko, as well as Akihiko and his ex-boyfriend, the genius violinist Murata Ugetsu, whom he continues to live with even after breaking up. Hence, this time, we have hit up Nakazawa Masatomo, the voice of Haruki, Eguchi Takuya, the voice of Kaji Akihiko, and Asanuma Shintarou, the voice of Ugetsu. What kind of appeal did they sense from one another after co-acting in roles where they had to proffer intense love? We had each of them discuss their thoughts.

Discovering the charm of the characters anew in a movie where the feelings of each accelerate.

——The movie is about the romance between Haruki, Akihiko and Ugetsu. The thoughts that they had been concealing are exposed, so what were your impressions when you read the script?

Nakazawa: In the TV series, Haruki, the character I play, was thinking about “wanting the band to do well” and “what he should do for the band’s sake”, being a “sideline support” for Mafuyu and Ritsuka, together with Akihiko. Haruki and Akihiko are said to be part of the “adult group”, but the two of them have their own ways of thinking - Akihiko is the type that aims for good things by taking action using a detonator. On the other hand, Haruki is always calmly concerning himself with everyone, so that they can do things freely. Both of them listened to Mafuyu’s singing voice, were influenced by it and suffered changes, so I felt from the script that I could get a glimpse at these changes. Regarding Haruki, he started feeling his own loneliness more strongly, and while watching Mafuyu display his musical talent more and more, he also had a complex about being just an ordinary person who liked music a little bit. I felt like we were able to see what Haruki was carrying under the surface.

——Were there any points where you felt the appeal of Haruki and Akihiko all over again?

Nakazawa: There were. Haruki never tells Akihiko that he likes him and does his best to hide it. It’s totally obvious, though... (laughs). Through Haruki, I felt that there are things you convey not with words but with feelings, and on the other hand, there are things that can finally be conveyed when you put them into words.

——Eguchi-san plays the role of Akihiko. Please tell us your impressions of the script.

Eguchi: I had read the original work, so I was looking forward to seeing the hearts of everyone from the “adult group” being moved and them putting an end to things. When I read the script, this is quite obvious, but I had many lines (laughs). Akihiko shows in it a part of himself that he never had until then, so destroying something like a sculpture of Akihiko that the TV series had warmed up was necessary work. Moreover, it was the kind of scrip that allowed for all kinds of fun, such as how long the monologues and narrations should be, so I felt a strong sense of compensation from it. During the recordings, I first tried throwing in what I had come up with. The team makes you want to create something together with them, so I felt like making up my mind and challenging myself. I was very happy to be able to take on the challenge.

——When you threw it in, were you able to see a new side to Akihiko’s appeal?

Eguchi: “So he was THAT compassionate?!” was what I thought. Akihiko is always cool, so I wondered when his emotions would take a swing, but I think this was a sign that he was afraid of “changing the present”. In the movie, I had to carry out the job of Akihiko properly facing all sorts of things and doing a retake on his true feelings. He gave off more of an adult impression until that point, so I think I got to see a more realistic, young part of him.

——Asanuma-san plays the role of Ugetsu, who continues living with Akihiko after breaking up.

Asanuma: There were few episodes in the TV series where Ugetsu showed up, but even in them, there are crucial scenes in which you can get a glimpse that “Ugetsu is this kind of person”. It’s exactly because he is a genius that he acts indifferent about anything other than music, gets fawned on in a genius-like way that makes people think, “If he says so, then there’s no helping it”, and has great interest in people like Mafuyu, whom he feels sympathy for. There’s a scene in the movie where Ugetsu and Mafuyu meet for the first time, and when I read the script, I felt that “Ugetsu approached Mafuyu with honest feelings”. It’s because he has sympathy for Mafuyu that he ends up telling him things that he can’t say to Akihiko face-to-face, such as “I love Akihiko to death”, and shows a side of himself that he usually doesn’t show to other people. It seems he speaks out his feelings when he’s with Mafuyu for some reason, which made me wonder if it isn’t Mafuyu who has the power to make people act like that.

——Ugetsu has a mysterious charm as a character. Was there anything you deemed as important when performing him?

Asanuma: It was my first time taking part in a BL show, but I felt that “Given” is a series that portrays emotions very delicately, down to the details. When performing, it’s exactly because the depictions of emotions are detailed that I make sure not to be “too theatrical”.

Love becomes more complicated as you grow older?

——In the TV series, we were able to see Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s high schooler-like romance, yet the movie is about an “adult love”, where they are “going through unfulfilling and agonizing situations, but no matter what, they like each other”. Was there anything you felt seeing their love?

Asanuma: There are things that we end up complicating precisely because we have accumulated experiences as adults. It’s because we know about all sorts of things that we don’t want to get in the other’s way and feelings of inferiority towards the other are born. When you’re a child, you don’t think much about things such as “pulling away because you think too much about the other person”, for example. There are many things we have to face when we become adults, so we might turn the feeling of “romantic love” around in complicated ways.

Nakazawa: I think “being able to break up once and for all” is important in adult romance as well. Not clashing with each other like, “I can’t do this with you anymore!” and parting ways, but instead ending it with, “If that’s how it is, it might be better for us not to be together anymore” after learning about each other’s circumstances is also a form of love. I think that reflecting about not just the feeling of “love”, but also about what you should do to make the “we can’t be together anymore” that lies ahead into a reality is what adult romance is.

Asanuma: They’re called the “adult group”, but they’re not adults yet. Even I, who am in my 40’s, have yet to come across anything like an “unconditional love”...

Eguchi: I believe this is valid for all kinds of romantic love, but I think it’s about being together with someone because you find that person to be an “irreplaceable existence”. And it’s because they’re irreplaceable that going out with them isn’t the goal, and the couple has to properly face one another. Also, when I looked at their romance, I felt it’s precisely because they like and are close to each other that there are words between them that they can’t say. They might have had a different relationship if they had conveyed those words, but there are words that can’t be conveyed exactly because this possibility exists. I think humans are extremely complex.

“Eguchi-kun is sharp!” – A casting that fit perfectly.

——What kind of appeal did you feel in each other’s acting and personalities through “Given”?

Nakazawa: The way that Asanuma-san bears a “quiet intensity” when playing as Ugetsu is very charming.

Asanuma: For real!?

Eguchi: And you’re also too good at putting on the air of a genius!

Asanuma: It’s only putting on, though. I have to make sure not to take it off too soon (laughs).

Eguchi: It had me thinking, “The way he envelops himself in the air of a genius is just genius!” Asanuma-san can push and pull splendidly. I was thinking, “He’s so awesome” when I watched it.

Asanuma: There are times when I tend to explain things with my voice no matter what. Before, in a different work, the sound director told me, “The animation is already doing the explanation, so you don’t have to try to explain with your voice so much.” In works like this one, where the subtleties of the characters’ hearts are so detailed, I think it’s even more important to bear in mind “not being too theatrical”, without deeming it as an exception just because it’s a BL, but instead seeing it as a love pattern that could happen anywhere and performing naturally.

——What is your impression of Nakazawa-san?

Asanuma: Nakazawa-san is tolerance incarnate! He can be no one but Haruki.

Eguchi: That’s right. He gives off a “mom” vibe (laughs). He’s like that during the recordings too; Nakazawa-san himself is a very soft person.

Asanuma: And although he may disagree, “looking troubled” suits him.

Nakazawa: I disagree!

All three: (Burst into laughter).

Asanuma: Since being troubled suits you, it feels like people gather around you, thinking that they “want to try and give you trouble” without any ill intent.

Nakazawa: That rings a bell (laughs). Indeed, I myself think that I have a Haruki-like side too. I also have a side that accepts basically anyone and any kind of comment... As for Eguchi-kun, if nothing else, he’s sharp! In terms of voice quality, his tone is low-pitched and solid, so the acting that he brings out is extremely sharp. There’s a fineness to it where it acts as a detonator, especially in “Given”, as if it will set fire, to his heart’s contentment, to anything that seems inflammable. He pulls off an acting that has an explosiveness to it, as he takes ahold of the important points while performing in a natural manner, so I have a lot of trust in him.

Asanuma: Eguchi-kun gives off a sense of broad-mindedness and security. Not because his body is big, though (laughs). I feel that he’s something like an emotional bodyguard. It was my first time in a BL series, but when I heard that Eguchi-kun would be the other party, I vaguely thought that “everything will go well”.

Eguchi: Thank you so much!

[zirkkun-uthcs]

General Info (Act to Flirt Cast)

This list includes short bits of information on the Act to Flirt cast. If you’re looking for a specific one, please use CTRL+F to search for the character, due to the length of this list. Reminder as well that most of this information is only “canon” to my fangame AU Act to Flirt, and I have only written this for the characters as of the latest demo (4.1 as of September 2021), to avoid spoilers.

Please note: Because of the nature of how Act to Flirt is written, all characters will be considered to be panromantic/pansexual, unless otherwise specified.

Gaster

Date of Birth: ??? Height: 6′3″ / 191 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him

+ watches over the world of Undertale and Deltarune sitting outside of the code itself + gets bored very quickly in a black void by himself, so he’s always interested when something new happens in the games + his SOUL is very vague, almost like it’s fading; or so it seems, by his emotions

character tag

Willo

Date of Birth: May 14th Height: 5′10″ / 178 cm Gender: (as player) any/interpretive (as self) [???] Pronouns: (as player) they/them (as self) [???]

+ mostly acts entirely as a vessel for the player; created by W.D. Gaster + their thoughts are never entirely their own; they hear voices all of the time and, most of the time, just accept that as is + has no SOUL of their own -- just Determination

character tag

Flowey

Date of Birth: May 1st Height: 1′6″ / 46 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him

+ no longer bothers with Saving and Resetting, due to the fact that he can see the code of the game and it leaves him concerned + has aged mentally, but not physically, otherwise his flower body would have died long ago + after failing to get the six SOULs to work for him through Frisk, he’s decided he’d rather focus on getting seven

character tag

Napstablook

Date of Birth: Aug. 28th Height: 3′6″ / 107 Gender: non-binary Pronouns: they/them

+ lives with Mettaton now, who lives in a major chunk of the highest level of the MTT Resort building + has gained some confidence, thanks to Frisk, but still gets flustered very easily + has extreme inferiority complex when it comes to his work

character tag

Toriel

Date of Birth: May 10th Height: 6′8″ / 203 cm Gender: ciswoman Pronouns: she/her

+ now that seven humans have gone through her, she can only assume the worst: all seven are dead. she feels like she has failed and has little interest in protecting Willo in the same manner + partially relieved to see an adult human; she’s only been around human children for so long, it’s relieving to interact with another adult + doesn’t mind being flirted with, no matter how cheesy

character tag

Sans

Date of Birth: Dec. 14th Height: 4′0″ / 122 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him

+ has a not-so-obvious grudge against humans as a whole + had stopped doing things on account of resets, but now that time has passed, he’s trying to do things again, more or less + less familiar with the new string of resets and acts as such

character tag

Papyrus

Date of Birth: April 21st Height: 6′10″ / 208 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him

+ has been trying out new things on advice of Undyne; designing different kinds of puzzles is one of them, including ones he’d previously thought were not as difficult + has a vague memory of Frisk’s resets, but considers them to be just dreams, since no one else seems to understand what he means when he mentions it + trusts very easily, which ends up being sometimes to his detriment

character tag

Undyne

Date of Birth: Oct. 3rd Height: 6′8″ / 203 cm Gender: ciswoman Pronouns: she/her

+ has calmed down a bit about killing humans ever since Frisk came through, even though she’s still very passionate about finding the final SOUL + tries to vary the different type of foods she teaches Papyrus to make now + acts abrasive, but can and will make friends very quickly, despite her conscious hesitation. she’s just internally very gentle

character tag

Mew Mew

Date of Birth: April 6th Height: 5′7″ / 170 cm Gender: transwoman Pronouns: flexes between he/him, she/her, they/them, and it/its

+ dresses how he wants and just wants to be considered himself despite that + likes being told how great they are and loves to hear compliments about themself + is a bit of a himedere, meaning she’s more of the type to want someone to do things how she wants and to be treated like royalty

character tag

Alphys

Date of Birth: Feb. 1st Height: 3′11″ / 119 cm Gender: ciswoman Pronouns: she/her

+ only one who still talks directly to Asgore since Frisk came through the Underground + stays in hiding just as much as he does, purely for the fact that she’s even more nervous about things than he is + can fall in love really easily and has simultaneously -- for her best record -- had a crush on four different people at once, not including fictional characters

character tag

Mettaton

Date of Birth: Nov. 20th Height: 6′2″ / 188 cm Gender: transman Pronouns: he/him

+ doing his best to improve himself as a person, ever since he met Frisk and realized that he’d been very selfish + acts confident to make up for his plethora of self-hatred + his new body doesn’t have a switch on the back for his boxy form and android/EX form. Now, it’s a switch between his NEO and EX forms.

character tag

Muffet

Date of Birth: March 14th Height: 3′11″ / 119 cm Gender: ciswoman Pronouns: she/her

+ used to be a ghost, but one day possessed a spider-like doll in order to support the spiders of the Underground + is very money-stressed all of the time, so she tries to make quick cash to avoid this + she either hates you or loves you, there’s no in between with her

character tag

Asgore

Date of Birth: Jan. 6th Height: 7′ / 213 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him

+  talks to his flowers in the garden as a way of letting go of the stress on his mind + has a profound guilt over what he’s done. he can’t bring himself to do what he set out to by absorbing human SOULs even after Frisk’s sacrifice + has chosen to lock himself inside (unknowingly) because he’s too scared to admit his feelings to his people

character tag

Asriel

Date of Birth: May 1st Height: 6′7″ / 201 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him

+ angrier and angrier about how he was left behind by Frisk, but relieved to see them return in the form of Willo + doesn’t want his world in Undertale to end, despite how much it seems like he does + irrationally emotional, but he’s not as self-conscious or upset about this fact as he used to be

character tag

[tvandenneagram]

The Mortal Instruments Enneagram Types - Type Descriptions and Tri-types under the cut

Clary Fray: 4w5 - 6w5 - 1w2

Clary is brave, creative and stubborn. She will always try to do what she believes is right and will follow her heart when she makes decisions.

Clary is very artistic and has a talent for creating runes. She expresses herself through her art and and carries her sketchbook with her everywhere she goes, using it like a diary.

Clary will fight for what she believes in and will often put herself in danger if it means protecting those she cares about. She is stubborn and it is difficult to change her mind once she has made a decision

Clary is very romantic and is preoccupied with her relationship with Jace. She has extremely strong feelings for Jace and somewhat idealises their relationship. Type 4s are often very attached to their romantic partners and search for an ideal partner, which I think is what we see Clary doing with Jace.

I considered typing Clary as a 6 because she is very loyal, however I think that she is more preoccupied with finding out who she is in the world than her safety. I also think she does not make her decisions based on fear and that she doesn’t really plan out her actions very much. While this could indicate that she is counterphobic I think it is more likely that she is a type 4.

Clary has a wing 5 because she is more introverted and withdrawn than a wing 3 would be.

Jace Herondale/Wayland/Morgenstern/Lightwood/whatever name he has this week: - 6w7 (cp) - 8w7 - 3w4

Jace is independent, headstrong and sarcastic. He presents himself as haughty and arrogant, but uses this attitude as a defense mechanism for his insecurites.

Despite Jace’s flippant attitude he has a strong moral core and is very dutiful. He is a very skilled fighter and takes his training seriously. Underneath his pompus exterior, Jace is hiding distinct feelings of inferiority. He is extremely self-loathing in the original trilogy and often purports things to be his fault when they are not. Jace believes that he has been fed demon blood and attributes his conflicts with this. He hates the feelings he has for Clary and blames it on being part demon. Even when all this is disproven, Jace still carries his mistakes like a burden and believes that he is defective. Some type 6s (especially counterphobic 6s, like Jace) feel like the world is ‘against’ them and I think this attitude comes across from Jace, especially earlier in the series.

Jace has very complicated feelings towards Valentine. While Valentine was abusive and is known to be evil, he is also the man who raised Jace. Jace holds onto his positive memories of Valentine, despite all the lies and abuse he suffered upon him. 6s often have complex relationships with their parental figures and they seek their support. 

Jace will fight for his issues head on and often runs straight into battle to protect the people he cares about. I think Jace is the counterphobic variant of 6, as he is more likely to show his aggression and put themselves in dangerous situations. Counterphobic 6s are also often rebellious and defiant to authority (because they don’t trust it), which is something we see in Jace. 

I considered typing Jace as an 8 because he is very assertive and values strength. However I believe that Jace is assertive and acerbic because he doesn’t trust easily. He puts walls up because he is scared of letting people in because he doesn’t want his trust to be broken. When Jace lets someone in he is very loyal and will do anything for them. 

Jace has a wing 7 becomes he is more emotionally expressive and more likely to react than a wing 5 would be.

Alec Lightwood: 1w9 - 2w1 - 6w5

Alec is principled, caring and brave. He is straightforward and doesn’t care much for pretenses.

Alec is serious and responsible. As the oldest member of his family, Alec put it upon himself to be the protector of his family. He felt that he had to be the most responsible and as a result became very dependable. Alec is extremely compliant and concerned with the rules of the Clave. 

Alec is very concerned with what others think of him. He is so scared of what his parents and friends would think of him if they found out he were gay so he kept it secret from everyone except Izzy. Alec knew since a young age he was gay, but bottled his feelings up, because the Clave said it was wrong. He was scared to go against the Clave’s laws and was worried of losing his family’s respect. 

Alec can sometimes come across as judgmental, rigid and condescending, which are common flaws of Type 1s. Underneath all that, Alec is the harshest critic on himself and he holds himself to impossible standards. Despite being very accomplished, he never thought he was good enough and would discount his successes. Alec is often afraid to make a mistake, which results in him being very careful and practical when making his decisions. 

Alec initially had a snobbish attitude and prejudice towards Downworlders, but opens up more as he interacts with them. In his relationship with Magnus, Alec becomes more carefree and loosens up a bit. He still shows insecurities within this relationship, but is able to overcome them. 

Alec has a wing 9 as he is more guarded with his emotions than a wing 2 would be. 

Magnus Bane: 7w6 - 4w3 - 9w8

Magnus is eccentric, worldly and kind. He really wants to find love and acceptance in the world.

Magnus is very flamboyant and whimsical. His personality contrasts quite distinctly with Alec’s more serious and reserved demeanour. Magnus is very open and does not compromise himself for anyone. He is inclusive and accepting of all people, having friends of all different walks of life.

Magnus enjoys a good party and seeks out experiences. As an immortal, he has had quite a storied life and has been all over the world. At times, it can seem like he doesn’t take situations very seriously and will make snarky jokes about them.

Deep down, Magnus yearns for the love and acceptance he never got from his parents. He had a difficult childhood and was not accepted by his family because he was a Downworlder. Due to this trauma, Magnus tries to repress his negative feelings and numb them with more ‘fun’ experiences. While he appears to be very open, he is actually deceptively guarded and is very hesitant to share deep and honest experiences with others. Magnus appears lively and jovial but is hiding a jaded and cynical worldview.

In his relationship with Alec, Magnus is initally the much more active party. 7s are assertive types and if they want to do something they will do it. We often see Magnus being the one to act first whereas Alec was too scared to act on his feelings for a long time. However, as time passes and their relationship becomes more public we see issues begin to form and Magnus is the one to pull away. When Magnus hears about Alec’s idea to turn him mortal, Magnus feels betrayed and breaks up with him. After their break up, Magnus is very avoidant of Alec and ignores him. This is quite typical of 7s, who hate to confront feelings. 

Magnus has a wing 6 as he is more relationship focused and personable than a 7w8.

Isabelle Lightwood: 3w2 - 6w7 - 1w2

Izzy is fierce, passionate and confident. She can come across as vain or narcissistic, but is actually very insecure and vulnerable.

Izzy is charming and magnetic. She has a quality about her which draws people in. Izzy is comfortable with her looks and will often use them as a means to get what she wants. Despite her outgoing demeanour, she is actually very distrustful and fragile. Izzy is guarded with her true feelings and is hesitant to let people know the real her. 

Izzy has a bit of an image that she has crafted of being rebellious and promiscuous to protect herself. She dated a lot and many of these dates were people her parents wouldn’t approve of. Izzy would form meaningless relationships so that she wouldn’t have to worry about forming real feelings or being hurt. She also did this in part to detract attention from Alec so her parents wouldn’t be suspicious of him.

Izzy is very protective and loyal to her friends. She loves them very deeply and is devastated whenever something bad happens to them. Izzy always tries to be there for her family and defends them with everything she has. She is particularly depressed when her brother Max dies as she blames herself for the death. She thinks that she failed him because she didn’t listen to him when he tried to tell her something was wrong. Izzy holds onto this guilt and even skipped the funeral because she felt she did not deserve to be there.

Izzy desperately wants love, but is hesitant to trust any man. Her mother confided in her when she was younger about her father’s infidelities and told her never to trust a man. As a result, Izzy is the character who takes the longest to open herself up to love. She is passionate about Simon, but is scared to love him because she thinks it will only bring her pain. 

Izzy has a wing 2 because she is more grandiose and showy than a wing 4 would be. 3w2s are generally more concerned with their outward appearances and appearing desirable compared to 3w4s.

Simon Lewis: 9w1 - 4w5 - 6w5

Simon is calm, nerdy and accepting. He is a great friend and is courageous when he needs to be.

Type 9s look for normalcy and struggle with change, which is something we see in spades with Simon. When we first meet Simon he is the only mundane character. He is the ‘normal’ one surrounded by all the magical creatures in the TMI universe. Later on, Simon is transformed into a vampire (well first he’s a rat, then he’s a Daylighter and then he’s a Shadowhunter) and longs to be normal. He resists his vampiric urges and refuses to drink from humans for an extremely long time. Simon struggled for a long time to accept this change and was worried about how it would affect his relationships with his loved ones. He desperately craved a normal life and once he became a Daylighter he tried as best as he could to lead as normal a life as possible.

Simon is non-confrontational and is afraid to share his true feelings for the fear that it might change his relationships. At the beginning of the series, he had been in love with Clary for years but never mustered up the courage to say so. He is initially very jealous of Jace and tries to get Clary not to like him. When he is dating Clary he realises her true feelings lie with Jace and ends the relationship. At his core, Simon truly cares for his friends and just wants them to be happy.

Simon is a great listener and genuinely cares about his friends feelings. He is something of a sounding board and both Clary and Izzy with both feeling very comfortable talking about their problems with him. When Max died, Izzy was able to find comfort in Simon. He listened to her and was able to give her solace and understanding. 

Simon is a people pleaser and is scared to hurt other’s feelings. Sometimes, this can lead to him making some mistakes. 9s fear conflict and will try to avoid it at all costs. They avoid saying negative things because they don’t want people to react badly or hurt their feelings. We see this in the whole mess with Maia and Izzy. I actually hate this storyline but I feel it is a good example of Simon’s general 9-ness. When Simon was dating both girls he showed the 9s indecisiveness, people-pleasing and fear of conflict. I feel that Simon wasn’t honest with either girl because he was scared of their reaction and scared of hurting their feelings. I also feel like Simon was confused in his feelings and couldn’t decide which girl was actually the one for him. 

Simon has a wing 1 because he is more repressed and uptight than a 9w8 would be. His 1 wing also influences him to want to be a ‘good’ person, which is part of why he is so upset when he becomes a vampire (which he feels is turning him into a ‘monster’). 

_________________________________________________

Images adapted from Google

The Infernal Devices Types (x)

[feynavaley]

That fantasy/Knights au piece about Mattie and Alfred is so LOVELY!! If you have time and don't mind, can you tell us more? And if you could, can you tell us where could Arthur (since he is my fav aph character) fit into this universe? Thanks for your time!

Of course I can tell you more! In fact, I’d love to. 😊 (Part 1)

I can see Arthur as the young (even though not as young as Alfred and Matthew) court wizard.

He comes from a noble family that has an ancient history with magical abilities, even though it has been mostly left aside in the last generations. Everybody tends to have the potential to learn the use magic but the proper study of magic is complex and extremely time-consuming, one ends up having to dedicate most of his life to it. Therefore, Arthur’s three older brothers decide in other pursuits. They’re all are trained knights, too.

But Arthur has never been cut off for fighting. He does get some training (and is insanely stubborn) so he can hold his own with a sword or even with his bare fists and he’s a fairly proficient archer, but he’s still tendentially physically weak and even sickly as a child. As a knight, he would be inferior to his brothers – however, he is also the one with the strongest affinity to magic. So, he dedicates all himself to that pursuit instead. 

His stubbornness and determination, mixed with his natural talent, make him progress so fast that by the time he has reached his twenties, he gets appointed as court wizard as he’s regarded among the strongest wizards of the kingdom.

He also has a strong affinity to magical creatures (not always the case for people who can practice magic), he’s very in tune with them so he can always see them and communicate with them, which give him quite an advantage whenever he has to solve some magic-related issue.

However, his quick ascent and all the time spent studying also means he never cultivates relationships with other people and is quite isolated even from other wizards, who tend to be envious of his abilities. (Arthur’s arrogance doesn’t help one bit in this.) He doesn’t like to admit it, but he feels very lonely. At the same time, he’s emotionally insecure and stunted so he ends up pushing away even those people who try to get to know him.

Then, Alfred and Matthew show up. Arthur doesn’t have a good opinion of them – he doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about, he thinks they’re two arrogant boys who just have a fair share of luck and are way over their heads. So, he does his best to avoid them. (Not to mention that the ‘young prodigy’ title is his thing. One of the few things he’s proud of, what makes him worthy. But Alfred and Matthew – not even in their 20s – are even younger than he – currently in his early-to-mid 20s – is or even was when he got appointed as court wizard. So, there’s also an unconscious element of jealousy in his dismissal of Alfred and Matthew. Their existence threatens what Arthur uses to patch his self-worth issues, basically.)

There’s the matter of Matthew with magic, however. As I mentioned in the other post, Matthew has a very strong potential but he has never been trained properly so he doesn’t know how to utilize it.

A brief tangent on magic. When people are born with magical abilities, they either train them as children, when they’re more malleable and it’s easier to synchronize their internal magical energy to the external one that permeates the world, or those abilities tend to fade. If one doesn’t properly train during the developmental years, moreover, his energy ends up being out of sort. Most people are then unable to access it anymore, only those very powerful can – however, using any mildly powerful magic then hurts due to the imbalance between their energy and the external one. Sorting this out at that point is quite complex.

Matthew is mostly in the latter situation. He did start using his magic when he was a child and knows some spells, however, he doesn’t have all the formal training that should come with it. He has never truly synchronized his magical energy with the external one aside from some clumsy instinctive attempts. He’s fine when he uses a bit of magic, but any attempt at more complex (or even stronger) magic leaves him strongly debilitated (from just exhausted – but it’s an exhaustion it takes him long to recover from – to even sick). He tends not to use magic due to this. However, magic has been quite useful in some situations so he also doesn’t want to dismiss it completely. He wants to try to train it properly.

Arthur’s name is quite famous around the kingdom, Matthew admires him and his abilities a lot. Once at the court, he finds the courage to approach Arthur and ask to be trained. Arthur, however, refuses without even truly listening to his request (due to the aforementioned reasons).

Matthew can take a dismissal. Alfred can’t. (He can’t take a ‘no’ on a good day and this time there’s also Matthew’s health at stake, which makes him even more determined to get his way.) He keeps pestering Arthur to get him to help Matthew. He essentially becomes his shadow. After refusing a handful of times, Arthur takes to pretending Alfred isn’t there. Alfred isn’t deterred and keeps following Arthur around and talking to him. (He thinks Arthur’s an ass but he’s also Matthew’s best chance to learn how to control his magic so he’ll take what he can get.)

But the thing is, as the days go on, both Arthur and Alfred start seeing the other one in a different light. Arthur may pretend not to be listening, but he still hears what Alfred has to say – about their childhood, about how much he loves his little brother and how he wants so badly to protect him, about how Alfred and Matthew are alone in the world – and begrudgingly realizes Alfred isn’t just there for the glory, he genuinely believes in doing the right thing and is a good person. Arthur also starts appreciating Alfred’s warmth and friendliness, something that has always been missing from his life. On the other hand, Alfred realizes that Arthur is much softer and gentler than he lets out, he just tries to hide it out of fear of being hurt.

Eventually, Arthur understands that Matthew is going to use his magic even if it hurts him so he agrees to train him a bit.

Arthur takes a liking for Matthew in no time, once he gives him a chance. He’s so polite, kind, and hardworking that Arthur can’t help but feel protective of him. Alfred is almost offended.

Matthew has gone too long without training so he’s never going to be a ‘proper’ wizard, however, Arthur manages to teach him to channel is magical energy better and curb a bit the adverse effects.

The more Arthur stays around Alfred and Matthew, the more he realizes that, under that facade of valiant knights, they’re only two overeager (and a bit lost) boys doing their best to navigate through everything. He starts becoming very protective of them both.

While Arthur still has his place in the court, he also accompanies Alfred and Matthew on some of their adventures. Other times, he reaches them when his expertise is needed. (Somehow, Alfred and Matthew constantly manage to get entangled in matters much bigger than they are and that involve strong magical creatures.)

He also teaches Alfred and Matthew a lot about magical creatures and how to interact with them.

And while he’s at the court, Arthur can’t help but constantly worry about those two ‘wretched boys’ and wonder what trouble they’re getting into this time. Without realizing it, he essentially turns into a mother hen. (And sends some of his familiars or magical acquaintances such as fairies to keep an eye on the boys, too. Which he will always adamantly deny, of course.)

Arthur is also much happier, though. He’s still quite grumpy and isolated, but after he shows his tender side to Alfred and Matthew, he gets involved with other people they’re involved with and isn’t so lonely anymore. (He still complains all the time though.)

This was a bit more specific that the last time. I hope it’s okay!

Part 3 | Part 4

[commentaryvorg]

If you could change anything from Kaito's character arc in V3, what would you change?

Honestly? The short answer is nothing.

Kaito's character arc is fantastically crafted. There are so many tiny, seemingly-innocuous lines and moments that actually serve a vital purpose in either showing us what's going on in Kaito's head despite him never talking about it, or in pushing his arc along further, all of which I had so much fun talking about throughout the commentary. Granted, a lot of it is subtle and difficult to spot - but then it should be, considering how much Kaito tries to hide his issues. When you look for it, though, it is very deliberately there and not meaninglessly ambiguous at all. There's not a single part of Kaito's arc where I'm thinking “this was written badly”; even his phobia, as much as I'm sad that it gives Kaito less screentime and less being-himself in chapter 3, serves multiple purposes for the story and for Kaito's arc. Kaito's writers are the best and I adore how much care and attention they put into writing him.

I've seen a fair few people, presumably fans of Kaito, say “Kaito deserved better”, and... they're wrong. Well, unless they mean it in a purely in-universe sense, in which case of course he did, but then so did everyone, that's kind of the point. But if they mean it in an out-universe sense, in that they think Kaito deserved a better story for how good of a character he is? No! Kaito's story is amazing. He is the best-written character in this game and got absolutely everything he deserved, narratively speaking. I genuinely believe this with all of my heart. If other people don't see it, then they aren't looking hard enough - which is understandable, but also a shame when those people are fans of Kaito who presumably want to enjoy his story as much as they can. I just want to take all of these people and show them my commentary so that they can realise just how good Kaito's arc really is and love him even more like he deserves. (And I am endlessly thrilled that the commentary does seem to have had that kind of effect on some people!)

Obviously I would also love to see a story in which Kaito learns that it's okay to show weakness to his sidekicks, completely untangles his horrendous double-standard for heroes and begins to have healthy, mutually-supportive relationships with his friends. But... that was never this story. This is a story in which Kaito's messed-up view of what it means to be a hero literally gets him killed while all but destroying his sense of self-worth in the process, yet he still manages to keep fighting and make at least some kind of difference for his friends anyway, because he still is a hero despite what he might believe about himself. And that's also a fantastic story to tell!

It's kind of like something I've also considered about Ryoma. It would have been quite possible to tell a story in which Ryoma overcomes his issues and finds a reason to live and survives, and I'd have loved a story like that with him, because Ryoma is great and deserves to be happy. But the story of how he didn't manage to overcome his issues and tragically died because of them is also a compelling story that it's possible to tell with Ryoma's character - and, well, someone had to be chapter 2's victim. With characters as ripe with potential as Kaito, or Ryoma, or really any complex and well-written character in anything, there's so many different and equally compelling stories that could be told with them. But you can't tell all of those stories at once, and that's okay.

(That's why it's great that we have fanwork, to explore all of those other possible stories that couldn't be told in canon!)

With all that said, since this is about Kaito, you know I don't want to just leave it at the (very elaborated-upon) short answer. So here's a few things I thought of anyway that I might want to change if I could - all of which are really very minor nitpicks that barely matter in the grand scheme of things.

The absolute first thing I'd do is remove those four-ish lines in which Kaito is vaguely sexist in a way that is provably out-of-character for him. Gone. Expunged. Never there. Suddenly, magically, there is no longer a portion of the fandom that believes that Kaito is supposed to be sexist, and we literally only changed like four lines of his dialogue. Funny, that.

I'd also want to slightly change the parts where Kaito freaks out in a too-extreme way over ghosts once his phobia's been revealed. Not only is it not really quite in character for him to overreact that badly when he'd be doing his best to hide it, it also comes across like Kaito's phobia is being played for comedy. Which it shouldn’t be. He is literally mentally ill; that's not a joke.

These are the only two aspects of the way in which Kaito's written that I find actively bad in any appreciable way. And, yeah, they're really minor things that don't have anything to do with his actual character arc. That's kind of my point here!

...Though, admittedly, the part where Maki punches Kaito after he clings to her during his phobia-overreaction does actually play a small role in his character arc in that it seems to shift him into beginning to freak out more about his physical illness instead. Hm. Not sure what I'd do about that.

In terms of things I might change that are more meaningful and relevant to Kaito's arc, as I've said, there's really nothing that's actively bad at all. Rather, we're just getting into things where I'd maybe want to add a little bit more on top of what's already there.

Kokichi Doing The Thing in trial 4 - aka, repeatedly heaping insincere praise onto Shuichi in what's really a transparent attempt to jab at Kaito's jealousy and inferiority complex - should have continued for longer than it did instead of being weirdly confined to one specific quarter of the trial. There are plenty of moments after that that would have been perfectly good opportunities for it! And yes, this is absolutely part of Kaito's arc, shush. Not that this would have significantly affected how Kaito would respond or make his breakdown any more spectacular than it already was, mind you, because Kokichi's jabs at Kaito were not nearly as important as Kokichi wanted them to be.

Then there's the part in chapter 5 where, after being kidnapped and offscreen for a while, Kaito has evidently become okay with Shuichi being more of a hero than him and can just be openly proud of him again. There's no specific evidence indicating why this happened, even though it's a pretty important shift for Kaito. This was the only part of Kaito's arc that I speculated about in the commentary without having anything concrete to back up what I think went on there. So if possible, I'd like to add some hints at that.

...That's easier said than done, though, since Kaito gets so little screentime at this point in the story for unavoidable plot reasons, is still not willing to directly talk about his issues, and was never even really consciously aware of his toxic double-standard for heroes that was the root of this whole problem that he's finally begun to fix. It's entirely possible that this is something the writers already wanted to hint at more than they did, but they just couldn't find a way to plausibly do so in that situation. This also still wouldn't be me changing anything about Kaito's arc, just making part of it a bit more easy to notice and figure out.

Lastly - though this isn't even strictly part of Kaito's arc - I'd love to have Shuichi acknowledge more than he does that Kaito had been suffering, and for him to reflect on that and wish that Kaito hadn't been so selfless (just like he did at one point with Kaede!). Obviously I wouldn't want to make him more aware of it for most of Kaito being alive, because that'd change too much and because Shuichi's obliviousness is part of the excruciating tragedy of it all. But after hearing at the end that Kaito really was sick and dying all along, and that Kaito was jealous of him, Shuichi should have been able to recognise at least some of Kaito's vulnerability in hindsight. Having some reflection on that at the end of chapter 5 or at some point during chapter 6 would be lovely to underline and draw attention to what Kaito's story was really about from Kaito's perspective. It might even prompt more of the fandom to actually realise this and notice what an amazing arc Kaito had, which sure would be nice.

...In fact, there's a very small window of time in which Shuichi could have plausibly acknowledged this kind of thing a little more than he did while Kaito was still alive to hear it and potentially benefit from it. So, actually, now that I think of it: the one change I'd make that'd have any real impact on Kaito's arc at all? It'd be this.

[my-arlington-academia]

Tyler birthday fanfic 🎨🖌🎉

Welp. It’s almost Tadashi’s birthday and here I am releasing the fic that was supposed to be for Tyler’s birthday... Sorry about that 😔🎉🎉 I just can’t abandon my underrated boi. You know the drill, since Scholar was a she in Neha’s fic, he’s back to being a he in this one. It’s been a while since I wrote something so I just hope it won’t be too sucky 🤞

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

About one week and 3 days had passed since August 21st. Back in the day, Tyler always thought that it was nice to have his birthday during the summer break. But now that he had made so many friends in Arlington? It sucked. They all sent him birthday wishes but Tyler still desperately wanted to see them. Even Karolina of all people left him a short message. Under a picture of one of his paintings on Instantgram, she wrote ”You actually make some pretty good stuff, happy birthday *birthday cake emoji* *gift emoji*”

”Gee, thanks...”

Tyler knew that she forced herself to do this only because he was Tegan’s best friend. Or knowing Tegan, he probably tried to get Karolina to write something in a not-so-subtle way. Like coming to eat in the dining hall for once just to tell her that it was Tyler’s birthday soon. Tegan always grabs some food from the kitchen to eat it in his room, his daily routine just doesn’t correlate with the rest of his family... which isn’t surprising. When he’s on summer break, he plays games until 1am at least, 4am at most. He’s a wreck. Anyhow, it was clear that Karolina didn’t give much of a damn about Tyler. Never did, never will. To Tyler, her comment meant something along the lines of: ”Not as good as others but it doesn’t completely suck, I guess.”

Thankfully, the rest of the messages sounded much more genuine. Axel had shared some of Tyler’s work on his Tweeter, he announced that it was one of his best friend’s birthday and that his followers should ”give him some love!” Tyler is pretty sure that he gained like... 75k followers in a couple of days. The rest were pretty normal birthday wishes. Ellie and Tegan sent him some DaNk MeMeS™ as usual and Claire sent him some really cute gifs. Sometimes Claire reminded him of a really young grandma, or a mom. But to no surprise, the funniest message was from Tadashi.

”[This message was deleted]

Shit sorry.

Happy birthday is what I meant, it was a typo.

*confetti emoji* *confetti emoji* *gift emoji* *slice of cake emoji*

Oh and by the way, please come to school from the very first day this time.

It was really a pain in the ass last year, having to ask for the photographer to come back.”

Tyler had a giggle when he read it for the first time. Tadashi *correctly* using emojis? That’s huge character development from someone who used to say that ”he doesn’t need silly pictures” to express himself. And as always, he couldn't ’t stop himself from bringing up school into something completely unrelated. Tyler muttered under his breath.

”God, you can be so annoyingly cute sometimes.”

Strangely enough, although all of those messages made him happy... well except Karolina’s, the one that stood out the most to him was Scholar’s. It was really simple, yet Tyler’s heart had made a triple salto arrière when he first got the notification.

”Happy B-day!!! 😊🎉 Can’t wait to see you again in September!!! Miss you a lot, like really. Kinda sucks that we haven’t been able to talk a whole lot in the past month.”

Tyler and Scholar were texting eachother on a daily basis at the start of July but after that, they kind of fell out of it gradually. The timeframe between each text started getting bigger and bigger until they completely stopped texting in August. There wasn’t anything wrong going on between them, on the contrary they genuinely liked eachother but Scholar was getting really busy with his part-time job. As for Tyler, he was painting, going on trips in Europe with his family and some other random business. He really wished they could’ve gone somewhere together. Tyler was well-aware of how different a life can be depending on your monthly income but interacting on a daily basis with someone who had to actively go out of his way to work during *vacation* really put things into perspective. Getting ”I’m back from work!" texts at 6pm or even 8pm made Tyler feel like shit. Scholar worked almost the entire day for a few bucks and still called it a ”part-time job” while Tyler was complaining about going on vacations on the other side of the Atlantic ocean just because it was *mildly* draining. They were both the same age and went to the same school but their lives were almost entirely different out of it. To be honest, Tyler felt like he hadn’t achieved anything in those 2 months while Scholar was constantly making a race against the clock to make the most of this limited amount of time. Despite his lineage, Tyler was somehow really good at putting himself down and think lowly of himself. He wondered how his friends would respond if they knew how useless and pathetic he thought he was. He missed them so much.

Even though he usually hated the end of August because it meant that school would start again soon, this time he couldn’t wait for September to come around. Tyler’s father thought that his son had finally lost it for good. Now here we are, September 1st. Tegan should already be there at the entrance waiting for his friend like they promised, but he was nowhere to be seen. Weird.

Tyler went inside the dorms to check on his room and hopefully meet his roommate there. But again, no Tegan in sight. Actually, thinking about it now, he didn’t run into anyone he was close with since earlier which is weird because he was good friends with a bunch of flashy people. Surely he could at least find Ellie if he went looking for her in the robotics clubroom, she’s always making something new there. But no, no Ellie nor Tegan. Tyler started making rounds in the school in hopes of finding some of his friends, anyone, even Karolina is fine at this point. He was craving for this day to come as soon as possible to see his friends again, but now that he was finally back in Arlington he didn’t find anyone? What’s this sorcery?

He was ready to give up, go back to the dorms and unpack his belongings when a cheerful voice called out to him from behind.

"Hey! Tyler, good to see you again! You... don’t look so well. Are you okay? I can lend you an ear you know.”

It was Scholar. As usual they went to the garden. Why is it that they always go there to talk about their feelings? By the time they reached the benches and sat down on one of them, an eery silence had already installed itself between the two of them, which is odd. Scholar hopelessly tried to change the mood with some small talk. Knowing Tyler though, he’ll probably open up soon enough. Scholar guessed right.

”Scholar... You really don’t have to do this. I was just trying to gather my thoughts but instead I made it all awkward between us, sorry haha.”

”What? No! Don’t be sorry, I just thought that if you don’t want to share what’s on your mind then I can at least help by distracting you from... whatever it is you’re thinking.”

Scholar’s awkward smile was really cute. Actually, Tyler thought that it was adorable. His negative thoughts were making a race inside his head just a couple of seconds ago and yet, Tyler’s mind cleared up immediately thanks to Scholar’s gentle smile. His heart may or may not have skipped a beat, if not one then at least a couple of them. Surely, Scholar knows how to CPR so he’ll be fine. Probably.

”It’s just, well, it’ll sound lame because I really don’t have to worry about a single thing but... I’ve been feeling down lately. And when I say lately, I mean that as ”a-couple-of-weeks” kind of ”lately.” Which is really stupid, right? I mean, I have food on my plate everyday, I have a roof over my head, I have a family and a quite rich one at that... It just feels like I don’t have the right to be sad and yet I am. Despite all of my fortunate circumstances I still feel miserable. I think I just don’t deserve all of the good that happens to me, and I always get it without having to make any conscious effort. Is that weird? I’m not sure if I’m making any sense with all of my rambling...”

Tyler was too scared to look at Scholar’s face again. He didn’t want to get a look of pity especially since he felt like he didn’t deserve it. But at the same time, in a small corner of his mind he was hoping that he’d at least get a hug or something. However, what came instead is nine people who were hiding behind the trees and bushes. Tyler’s eyes widened.

”Uh. What the?! You guys were...”

Spying on them? No, that’s not right. Tyler had the courage to look back at Scholar and instead of pity, Scholar had a guilty look on his face. Whatever it was, Scholar was in on it too. Tyler didn’t have the time to figure out what was happening, Tegan rushed to his side and hugged him.

”Dude, that’s all BS. Having negative thoughts is nothing to feel shameful about. In what kind of family you were born and raised in doesn’t dictate your feelings, it’s perfectly normal to feel down sometimes. I mean look at me, I have it easy too but I’m practically a walking inferiority complex. You can’t be happy all the time Tyler. And I can guarantee you that we won’t think any less of you because of something so silly.”

Seeing Tegan cheer Tyler up was nothing short of incredible. The guy who was usually hunched back and mumbling became really assertive all of a sudden. Tegan was extremely convincing with his words when he really needed to. Kind of like Karolina, except she was convincing *all* the time.

Seeing the heartwarming scene, Ellie ran and jumped on the both of them, trying to take part in the hug.

”You should’ve told us how you felt right away! We would’ve told you that it’s all BS waaaay sooner than now dummy!”

She turned towards the rest of the squad, they were watching the scene fondly instead of joining in.

”What are you all waiting for?! It’s time for a group hug!”

Scholar happily jumped in on the hug, he actually wanted to take Tyler into his arms from the really beginning. But knowing that the others were already gathered behind the bushes and trees, watching them and waiting for the perfect moment to surprise Tyler, he couldn’t get himself to do it. Ellie’s invitation resulted in all of them burying Tyler... well, almost all of them. Raquel shouted out.

”Hey Karolina! I see you there, rolling your eyes like you don’t care! Get down from your high horse and get your little ass here!!!”

Karolina rolled her eyes for the second time and unenthusiastically joined in thanks to Raquel’s forceful command. After 10 seconds or so, a small voice from the middle of the herd could be heard. It was Tyler.

”Ughh... Guys that’s... enough love. I’m suffocating.”

Everyone stepped away from him while snickering, they carefully watched him getting his breath back and sighing to himself, clearly self-conscious. Then he looked at the bags full of sandwiches and other food.

”I know I shouldn’t feel this way after you guys drowned me with love and validation, but I still feel super embarrassed. I mean, because you heard all of that stuff... Oh and, let me guess: you guys were planning a picnic for my birthday and I ruined the mood. Great.”

Axel fiercely slapped Tyler’s back, making him lose his balance a little.

”Bro. Stop it with the blame game, it’s all good. You didn’t ruin shit, the group hug made this moment even better. We’ll all remember this day.”

Tadashi made a grimace, obviously about to retort something unpleasant back.

”Yeah... though it could’ve been even more memorable if you had taken a shower beforehand. You came back from a tour and you smell like horse shit again.”

Axel’s playful tone turned to ashes, replacing it with annoyance.

”Still better than someone who literally drinks shit to stay awake. And just for your info, it takes a hell lot of energy to be on tour for two weeks straight, alright?”

”Oh, so you didn’t bathe for two weeks? Which means you don’t shower during tours, noted.”

Axel scowled, knowing fully well that Tadashi has taken a liking to picking on him even though he claims that he ”doesn’t hate Axel anymore.” Whatever that means.

”No you ass! Of course I shower during tours! Hell, I shower everyday! It just so happened that I was really tired when I came back yesterday... Come on, I’m sure that I don’t smell *that* bad.”

Raquel’s face went soft and she compassionately looked at Axel.

”Dude. I’m sorry to break it to you but...”

”...Wait, do I... really smell *that* bad?”

”Well no, not *that* bad but let’s just say that if we weren’t friends I wouldn’t like to stand next to you.”

Tadashi laughed loudly to annoy Axel.

”it’s okay, don’t be so embarrassed. I’m fully convinced that your fans would do anything to smell your sweat. I bet they would even pay for it, shall we try to make a stand in front of the school?”

Axel punched Tadashi in the shoulder and while they were quarreling, everyone had already taken a seat on the grass and started eating the sandwiches and drinking. It’s weird, they’re supposed to be plain old sandwiches so why do they taste so good? Everything Claire made always tastes incredible, no matter how simple. She somehow managed to make Karolina eat much more than she usually would. Tegan was happy at the sight of her sister getting healthier both in mind and body.

”Karol, do you want my share too?”

”Don’t be ridiculous. I have enough with this much already.”

Tyler was reminded of her birthday message, no matter how uncomfortable, he felt like it was necessary to bring it up. It just seemed so insincere coming from her, or was she actually *that* awkward?

”Hey Karolina, about your birthday wish... You really didn’t have to force yourself, y’know? No hate or anything but it sounded so fake that I genuinely cringed.”

Karolina choked on her last bite of her sandwich and Tegan’s gaze went back towards his sister.

”...Really? You did that Karol?”

Neha coughed loudly, trying to shift the attention away from her. Axel didn’t let that slide though.

”Oh yeah I saw that. Pretty stupid of you to do it in a comment section instead of sending it to him privately, but I bet that you sent it to him publicly because it made you feel like it was less personal haha. You’re such a clown sometimes.”

Raquel jumped on Karolina and locked her arm around her thin neck. She was awfully happy that Miss Princess was getting called out in front of everybody.

”Awww... don’t be so shy about it Karol. It’s okay, you can just tell us that you’re actually super terrible and awkward when it comes to sentimental stuff.”

Once Karolina had stopped chugging on the water, she fiercely pushed Raquel away and tried to deny everything with her bitchy attitude. Tyler was still dumbfounded at the fact that apparently, no one else besides him and Axel knew anything about the birthday message, which means...

”Tegan, you weren’t the one who asked her to write it?”

”No dude. This morning when we warned her about the birthday party we were planning she acted like she didn’t even know that your birthday was last month. So I just assumed that she hadn’t congratulated you.”

Tyler was amazed at how much a genuine message coming from Karolina could sound so fake. He took out his phone and read it again. ”You actually make some pretty good stuff, happy birthday *birthday cake emoji* *gift emoji*” Now, knowing that it was at least semi-genuine, the message actually sounded pretty cute... in a really awkward and cringy way but still cute. Tyler slightly grinned, lost in his thoughts. He didn’t notice that Scholar was bent over his phone, trying to sneak a peek. A small sound escaped Tyler’s mouth as he backed away, startled. Scholar immediately looked apologetic.

”Oh, sorry! I was just really curious: what were you looking at? You were smiling so I wanted to see what it could be.”

Tyler’s heart was thumping against his rib cage without rest. This was definitely not a good sign. His heart was beating as if he had just ran a marathon. He tried his best to calm down but it was pretty difficult to do that under Scholar’s cute and innocent eyes carefully looking at him. As if he hadn’t just caused a severe gay panic.

”Uhh. Nothing in particular! Just... a funny Tweet like usual..."

At the sight of this incredibly dorky scene, Ellie’s bro instinct kicked in and like the genius she is, she got an idea.

”Oh! Guyyyys... Don’t you think that we’re all a little too far apart? Why don’t we come a little bit closer, to tighten the circle and hear eachother better, y’know?”

Everyone listened to Ellie’s request, some understanding exactly why she was asking for this and some... having no idea that this wasn’t actually the real reason. All the while Tyler was just freaking out over the fact that his shoulder was against Scholar’s. Oh boy, this was not going to be a peaceful picnic...

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

Wow guys look! I did it! Only about 3 weeks late hahaha... And now I have to write Tadashi’s 😂 You know what? I think I might change the formula and make it a Tadaxel fanfic just for the sake of shaking things up a bit. And there’s lots of other ships that could be cute! (While less popular) I was thinking of ClaireXNeha (cinnamon rollXcinnamon roll), TeganXEllie (tallXsmol), TadashiXAlistair (the #from friends to lovers tag on AO3 basically) I’m not sure though, I noticed that people in the SE fandom aren’t really into ships? Well, in a way that’s a good thing. God do I not like the thought of ship wars ever happening in SE...

[justanotherlifeff]

Chapter 3

April 10 2316

Wednesday

Musutafu, Japan

In your two days at UA, you figured out a few things. Firstly, KAMINARI WAS BEST FRIEND MATERIAL. You were always into anime/manga and guess what? KAMINARI WAS INTO THAT TOO! Hence, there were the two of you obsessing over random anime characters and fan-girling/fan-boying the hell out of them. Secondly, Ashido Mina, or as you called her just Mina cause she insisted, was Kirishima's old classmate. They probably even had a thing for eachother and the two of them decided to stick around you and Denki, eventually becoming friends with you all. Thirdly and lastly, two unsuspecting members happened to join your rather crazy group. One of them being a pretty chill guy named Sero Hanta, who also happened to share your interest in anime but not as much as Kaminari and the other being the notorious Bakugou Katsuki. While Sero had a good reason to hang out with you all, Bakugou demanded that he was around because he had nothing better to do. You, however, figured out that it was because he for some reason, felt comfortable around Kirishima, who, to be fair, was really patient with Bakugou. There weren’t many people who would want to deal with his antisocial explosive personality. However, what you didn’t figure out, despite having a quirk that literally allowed you to read people's emotions was the fact that he had an interest in you. As to why, the only answer to that was the fact that you absolutely surpassed everyone else in battle training. While even he got defeated by shitty Deku, you on the other hand beat the crap out of Todoroki, who happened to be the most overpowered student in your class beside you. Since there were 21 students in class, you were paired up with Todoroki, it being his second match since his first match lasted only for a few moments. Watching you completely unaffected by his ice since you could levitate and breaking his ice with ease thanks to your powerful telekinesis made Bakugou heavily interested. However, that's what he was telling himself. While he definitely wasn’t lying to himself, he was still denying the fact that he was heavily turned on by your skin tight bodysuit that left nothing to imagination. The way your body suit lighted up wherever your veins got enlarged only made you look more attractive. Then again, ofcourse Bakugou wouldn’t admit it to himself. It was just his stupid hormones acting up.

Now, things may be going too fast but then again, you almost spent a lifetime without normal friends. That meant, you were willing to speed up this process of making friends, given that everyone you became friends with was infact very accepting of you. Well, everyone except Bakugou. He barely ever talked to you ever since the first day at school even though he stuck around with your group almost all the time. That didn't mean that you haven’t noticed how he's staring at you sometimes when you aren’t looking. Normally, no one would notice that he was staring since he's pretty good at hiding it, however, you were always detecting this intense emotion from him all the time whenever he stared. You didn't understand this emotion, however, you could tell that it was a weird mixture of admiration, competitiveness and anger. Then again, every single one of Bakugou's emotions seem to be laced with anger. Now, normally you'd be creeped out by Bakugou's intense attitude towards you. However, like your friend Kaminari, you happen to be a huge pervert as well. After all, how can you not notice that amazing jawbone, those toned muscles (you asked God to bless whoever made his hero costume). Hence, instead of being creeped out, you actually enjoyed the attention. Which is why, you were currently having this weird ass conversation with Kaminari which only made Sero more uncomfortable every second. "Oi Kaminari, he's doing it again." you whispered to Kaminari looking excited. "I can't believe you aren’t creeped out by that..." Kaminari glanced at Bakugou who looked like he wanted to murder you. "Now, now, did you notice how hot he is? You don't know how far I'd go to see him shirtless... Imagine those abs..." you drooled, making Kaminari sigh. "Aww I wish someone drooled over me like that..." Kaminari whined. "What's wrong with you two?" Sero muttered in disbelief looking at the two of you. "Well, besides, he's an interesting dude you know. He's hiding a lot of emotions in his head and I still can't figure him out. That rarely happens you know..." you muttered, taking a bite of the food infront of you.

Currently, you were having your lunch break and the unofficial Bakusquad was sitting together in one table. Your comment was based on the emotions you picked up about Bakugou during both the quirk test and battle training. He suffered from extreme inferiority complex and it was obvious that he tried to hide it with anger. However, you decided not to reveal his secret to random people. After all, you wouldn’t appreciate it if someone revealed your secrets... "Hiding a lot of emotions? Oi (L/N)-chan, is Bakugou in love with someone?" Kaminari exclaimed loudly. Before you could answer, Bakugou was already shouting. "WHAT ARE YOU DAMN NERDS SAYIN' ABOUT ME HAH?!!" Bakugou barked. "(L/N)-Chan thinks you're in..." Kaminari started but paused as soon as he saw your death glare. For a laid back person, your glare matched that of Bakugou. "OI SHIT HEAD! WHAT DID YOU FUCKING SAY ABOUT ME?" Bakugou turned his attention to you. "Relax Bakugou-kun. It's about what I didn’t spill about you. Kaminari was just assuming things" you answered with a smile since you knew that there was no point at getting angry at someone who used anger as a defence mechanism. "What the fuck do you know?" Bakugou growled at you trying to sound intimidating. You knew better though. His emotions were always so intense that even if you didn't want them to, they would always reach your head. "Bakugou-kun, I can read emotions. It's a part of my quirk and I can say exactly what every single person is feeling in this entire dining hall. This is something that's completely out of my control. I think you'd rather discuss your issues with a psychologist instead of asking me about it infront of a group of other people. After all, you're an antisocial bitch aren’t you?" you answered with a smile. Sure, you weren’t going to shout at someone who uses anger as a defence mechanism but that didn't give him a free pass to call you a 'shit head'.

The tension between you and Bakugou was as intense as it could get at this point with Bakugou throwing you a murderous glint while you smiled at him as if he was nothing more than an angry pomeranian. After a short staring contest, surprisingly, Bakugou grumbled, "Go die you fucking nerd" before looking away. "How was that an insult? Kaminari and I are otakus for life! Though, I'm not to sure how long Kaminari's life expectancy is cause he's a fucking snitch..." You gave Kaminari a sadistic smile which made him gulp with a nervous smile. "Uh... (L/N)-Chan? I promise I'll buy you a (Favourite anime character) figurine to make up for this please don't kill me?" Kaminari rushed. "Okay! We're going shopping after class!" your sadistic smile suddenly turned into an extremely sweet one at an extremely creepy pace. "You're kinda scary you know..." Kaminari muttered. "Yeah... Speaking up to Bakugou like that and shutting him up? That's scary..." Sero joined Kaminari. "Oh shut up! Ya'll still love me!" you pouted as you continued to eat and carry the conversation. Little did you know that Bakugou now had a new found interest in you. It was obvious that you were completely reading him by now. His murderous glint didn't work on you for exactly that reason. Cause he didn’t really have any murderous intent deep down. It was really rare for someone to not be scared of him and infact, stand up to him. While it did piss him off, he couldn’t help but find himself seeing you as more than just a shitty extra who happens to look hot. However, his trail of thoughts were quickly broken by the emergency sirens.

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

PQ2-Persona 3 Characters

I play this game slowly for a number of reasons: (1) I like drawing games out because I enjoy them more that way and (2) I played it intermittently, put it down when FE3H came out, then picked it up again, then got DLC for TW3K and put it down again etc. etc. I find it an easy game to put down and get back into.

However, I am now at the end, only Enlil remains and the Velvet Rangers. Since I want to complete the game fully I’m now doing the monotonous and boring task of farming the Reaper to get to Lv 89 with Ren so I can Wild Growth my core party to his Level, get Huang Di, and finish off the Velvet Rangers. Seriously though, who thought I’d reach a point where I’m bullying the poor Reaper and getting bored of the fight? He doesn’t even get me halfway to a full level now!

Anyway. So, with the end approaching, I thought I’d do for the P3 cast what I did for the P4 cast. I decided in the end to actually not watch/read anything about P3 or P4 till I finish PQ2, to form opinions based around it purely from PQ2, then once I’m done with it I’ll go watch LP’s of P3 and P4 to see how wrong (or right!) I got things.

Without further ado my feelings towards the P3 cast solely as they are presented in PQ2:

Exceptions:

I’m starting us off with exceptions. What are exceptions? Exceptions are characters who, for whatever reason, I feel their are circumstances that make them difficult for me to really discuss as a fully-fleshed character. They aren’t necessarily bad, but something about them means I don’t really see them as a fully rounded or developed character like the rest.

P3 Protagonist: Like the P4 Protagonist and Ren I just struggle to form any feelings or attachments to this character. I’ve said before I *suck* at self-insertion. I just do. In FE3H my least favourite character is Byleth, wish I could get rid of them, as I find the relationships between characters with more detailed and fleshed out characteristics and dialogue far more interesting. The P3 Protagonist isn’t bad but, compared to the rest, just feels shallow and uninteresting. He also shares the same problem as all four Protagonists in that I am sick and tired of how much their own teams have to constantly shill them like they’re the greatest thing ever. Ugh. It’s the most annoying thing to me about these self-insert characters, everyone has to stop every ten minutes to remind the player how they’re better than everyone and worship the ground they walk on. I hate it. Anyway; so, yeah, ultimately I find the P3 Protagonist, like Ren and the P4 Protagonist, just not as fully developed or realized in PQ2, and so see them as an exception.

Koromaru: He’s a dog. He’s cute, fun, a great mascot, but he doesn’t have detailed characteristics or interesting personality and dynamics with the other members. But he’s a dog, so, that’s not strange. So I see this as an exception.

Favourite:

These are the P3 Characters who I enjoyed most of all in PQ2.

P3 Female Protagonist: So can someone explain to me why the creators decided to give the Female Protagonist alone a detailed personality and demeanour? Not to mention something like double the amount of spoken dialogue as the other protagonists? Unlike Ren and the other two male Protagonists who barely say much at all and are difficult to define personality-wise beyond ‘cool, loved by all, sometimes make sarcastic remarks’ the Female Protagonist is heavily fleshed out: she’s an energetic and over-enthusiastic type, the ‘charge in head’s first’ type who doesn’t show much in the way of the stoic ‘cool’ calm of the others, and is very effusive and evocative in her mannerisms. She’s dealing with an internal feeling of isolation and inferiority, which she tries to hide from others, and is highly sociable in her engagement with her peers. She was a lot of fun and makes a big impact early with her ‘let me dress up as a policewoman and then karate chop this guard out cold’ routine. Her interactions with Futaba early on are great, almost like an older siser, although sadly those do taper off. Junpei and Yukari have quite good interactions with her as well, the most consistent people involved in her ‘am I out of place’ feelings, and I enjoyed that. I was surprised how there is so little interaction between her and her male counterpart though, would have thought that would be a good well of inspiration. 

Mitsuru: So what I love about Mitsuru is that she and Makoto are not just clones of each other. With Mitsuru also being a ‘older, colder, intelligent, authoritative’ figure I feared that the two would be very similar. But they aren’t. Mitsuru is vastly more secure in herself and confident than Makoto, who still has severe issues with her self-esteem. Indeed Mitsuru is actually kind of awesome in how confident she is. Similarly whilst Makoto is far more an advisor Mitsuru, quite honestly, comes across as if actually SHE leads the P3 cast and the protagonists are just their trump cards. Mitsuru almost always calls every shot for her team and makes the decisions, with their own respective protagonists usually just providing power. I do also enjoy that Mitsuru seems not to have the ‘I’m smart so the stupid member of our team I will always harass’ trait as her critiques of Junpei tend to purely focus on him not taking their situation to seriously and never go to the point of insulting his intelligence as Morganna does with Ryuji in the vanilla game and Royal. I also really liked Mitsuru’s interactions with Junpei. I know he has a girlfriend, he says so in the game, but I see nothing of her so I’d be lying if I didn’t say I somewhat ship the two after her nervousness inviting him to have tea with her and his desperation to protect her when he found out how hard she was trying to get along with him.

Junpei: Junpei has one thing that Ryuji and Yosuke do not have: confidence. Though Ryuji and Yosuke both front confidence it’s often incredibly easy to see the weak points in their facade and to deflate them. Junpei is able to far better stand his ground even when he’s being belittled. He is definitely more reckless than the two as a result, confidence is a double-edged sword, but he’s learned better than them the lesson of feeling good about himself. I do love how Ren can consistently support his ‘Greatest Detective Ever’ declaration and basically took every chance to do so. He luckily seems to lack any of the perversion tendencies, although as I’ve said in PQ2 the same is true of basically everyone, although I do sorta wish we got a bit more on his girlfriend if she’s so important to him. I get because she won’t appear and you won’t see her the game doesn’t want to waste time on a character we learn nothing about, but at certain points it felt off that Junpei doesn’t comment on her at all. 

Interesting:

These are characters I found interesting, easily as interesting as the ones above, but for personal reasons just don’t like quite as much.

Yukari: Oh boy, Yukari. Let’s start with my problem with her before I move on to why I find her so interesting. Put simply Yukari is mean. Whilst with both Ryuji and Yosuke I was pleased to see that despite being the ‘bro’ characters, PQ2 avoided constantly haranguing on them. Not so for Yukari and Junpei, yeesh! Junpei can barely open his mouth without Yukari insulting him, sometimes really rather severely. My problem is that she often insults Junpei just cause he’s too boisterous, or  confident. It just gets...well it gets like Ryuji in the vanilla game or Royal, it feels mean-spirited, particularly since Junpei never reacts by laughing or quipping back, but always by just deflating and sorta whimpering. I didn’t like it. With that said Yukari is still a very interesting character too me because she has an incredibly well-defined character. She is intelligent, emotionally so, perceptive to other’s feelings and has a very sharp wit and tongue, both to put down others and help them. Her interactions with the P3 Female Protagonist are interesting and she is often very insightful actually. I will also confess, to a slight extent, the sheer extent of her nastiness towards Junpei did make me, somewhat, feel as if the two must at least be close, they rarely ever say anything without the other chiming in, so I can see a bit of myself shipping it...but as a terrible mistake the two swear to never tell anyone else and eventually realize is just overall unhealthy for them. 

Ken: Ken plays a pretty well-worn archetype and he plays it fine: the earnest young boy with an edge, wise-beyond-his-years in some senses, but wet-behind-the-ears in others, with a strong hero complex tainted by a bit of an extreme edge. Ken is interesting but less fun to me just because he is somewhat predictable in the role he fulfills, which just isn’t my personal preference. I think he has amazing chemistry, and potential, with Akechi and Futaba and wish he got to interact more with both. His interactions with Ryuji, Ann and Morganna in their Special Ticket together is also absolutely great and again I wish him and Ryuji had more consistent interaction over the course of the game. But a lot of Ken’s interactions come down to Koromaru, which is fine, just not exactly thrilling. I do think Ken is adorable though, he’s very well-meaning and clearly very hard-working, and I’m a bit surprised that some more of the compassionate PTs, such as Ann, don’t actually regularly comment on or find him endearing. 

Aigis: So I feel like Aigis can come across to players of PQ2 as uncomplicated but that’s only at a surface glance. The thing with Aigis is that she clearly HAS already overcome her primary character conflict, her feelings about being an artificial construct and the meaning of her existence. Throughout the third dungeon she expounds heavily on the conclusions she’s already come too. For many a character completing their character arc becomes boring, but not for me. I found Aigis fascinating and LOVED a robot who, rather than repeating the old and tired song-and-dance of ‘do I feel? do I will?’ already has her answers and also avoids the cliche of ‘robots have no emotions’ by, in her own way, being very emotional. 

Fuuka: I enjoyed Fuuka quite a bit, and find her character a nice counterpart to Rise’s and Futaba’s. Although on the surface she seems to be the ‘shy, shrinking violet’ style of character this isn’t really true. She’s soft-spoken, by comparison to most, yes, but she’s not really shy. What she is, is the more calm and analytical of the three Navigators, less prone to exuberant emotional outbursts, but at the same time clearly more innately compassionate than the other two who are more prone to teasing or mocking. I felt her established interest in technology and mechanisms wasn’t integrated as fully as it could have been, alas perhaps because Futaba seemed to occupy more of that role, but did find that, if you look closely, Fuuka actually does offer some of the best advice to Hikari, and is consistently, along with Ryuji and Futaba, Hikari’s most verbal and ardent supporter and defender.

Uninteresting:

First, note, this does not mean I dislike the characters, I like them all, but these are characters who, in PQ2, I found the least interesting.

Akihiko: I feel so bad for him. So PQ2 really does avoid, for the most part, reducing it’s characters just to gags but Akihiko, man, they really do that with him. He basically only ever says one of two things: (1) I want to fight X (2) Protein-joke. It gets...old. I feel sorry for him because I feel he has potential there but the game seems determined to never explore it. He does have a VERY fun interaction with Chie and Makoto, all three I enjoyed and I can easily see Akihiko as Chie’s mentor and teacher, the two blend together well and have fun chemistry. His interactions with Makoto are also nice since it reveals his deepest character, as he is the one who tells Makoto to acknowledge herself more and sometimes realize that there is more to existence than regimented preparation. I enjoyed his chaotic energy, despite seeming a bit like a leader and an authority figure he’s actually very chaotic and impulsive, living in a more ‘go as the current takes you’ way which makes him adaptable and reactive. Now if only they’d used that for more than protein-related jokes. 

Shinjiro: Poor Shinjiro feels to me like he fell into the trap Kanji avoided. His main problem is just he spends so much time brooding and making tiny statements that we don’t get a feel for him. His other problem is that his most consistent dialogue partner is Akihiko and every single one of their conversations, almost, breaks down into: Akihiko says something about protein or fighting, Shinjiro calls him dumb, repeat. Shinjiro clearly has wisdom and common sense, but he seems to restrain himself from actually imparting it compared to the likes of Makoto, Haru, Ryuji, Naoto or Akechi. The result is he makes less of an impact because he’s the character of the main cast who most visibly feels like he’s withholding himself from the group. He’s like Akechi but more so. Akechi also, in the game, can come across as if he’s minimizing his interactions, but he doesn’t do it quite as much as Shinjiro. 

[amostimprobabledream]

My thoughts on Peaky Blinders...

Now I’ve finished Season Five, I wanted to get out my thoughts/ideas/opinions regarding the show. So strap in! - So first of all, the fucking cinematopgraphy in this series is gorgeous. You could take almost any scene and it looks like a painting. The lighting, the way it’s staged, it’s all just so visually pleasing to look at. My inner film student was just sighing dreamily at the shot composition. There’s a shot of John, Arthur and Tommy walking somewhere and you could fucking frame it and put it in your wall. - CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY. I mean, I always knew he was a good actor and also a pretty one, I think the role I remember him best in is Batman Begins, but holy shit, I never realised how hot he is until like two months ago. I know he apparently hates his Tommy haircut, but good lord, he can pull it off. The cheekbones! The eyes! The eyelashes! The sexy voice! Needless to say I saw him and immediately developed the biggest fucking crush. Apparently when I talk about Tommy to people my face goes pink. Thank you so much, show, for enlightening me to this human. Tommy is such a fantastic character, and I do wonder if another actor could pull him off quite as well. So much debate over his actions, motives, mindset, etc. I could probably write essays about the complexities of Tommy, but I won’t because this is a long-ass post anyway. He’s such a boss and I would die for him. - I actually really like Arthur??? So the very first clip of PB I ever saw was accidental, when I happened to turn the TV on and the Blinders were taking over the Eden Club and Arthur was glassing a guy in the face. I thought, “Oh, he’s probably like the dangerous thug character everyone is scared of.” (I didn’t know he’s Tommy’s brother at the time.) But actually he’s kind of endearing despite being the Shelby’s pitbull? Idk, the concept of the “failure” elder brother, how Arthur is the character the verbalises PTSD the most out of everyone, how one minute he can be lashing out like a rabid bear and then sobbing like a kid the next... I’m always like, “Oh, Arthur,” because you can see he wants to be a better person, but he just...doesn’t know how. - JOOOHN. I miss him! And it’s weird because in the early parts of the Season John doesn’t DO much but tag around after Tommy and Arthur, but his marriage to Esme is actually So Good and again, he’s actually kind of a softboi under the hard gangster act. (Also his “Do THIS, John, Do THAT, John, KILL YOUR FOOKIN’ TEACHER, JOHN!” is so fucking good.) He kind of provides a lightness when contrasted to Tommy and Arthur that I really do miss, because the last two Seasons have been very grim and I think John’s absence has something to do with it. I liked Esme too, even if she’s a stroppy bitch, her love for John but resentment of her role in the family and also she’s HELLA PRETTY. I’m sad her character has gone for now, but at least she wasn’t killed off. - I also love Ada a lot - I was really shocked when I read that Sophie Rundle hasn’t been acting all that long before she got the part in PB, because honestly she’s very good! And her concept again is a fun one - the only girl in a family of violent gangster boys. (Or as Freddy puts it, “The only princess”, which she is.) Having said that, I’m not sure how I feel about Ada’s character arc over the course of the season. In One she came off as kind of childish and still sort of stuck in her Rebellious Teen phase, then she became a mother and Freddie died, then in Season Two she’s trying to distance herself from the family and go legit, then in Season Four and Five she’s helping run the business and taking money from Tommy. Idk, I wish she’d play a more major role like her brothers because her motivations seem to change based on what the screenwriter wants, not what feels natural for her. Plus it annoys me that Ada blamed Ben Younger’s death on Tommy, but Tommy gets a lot of blame for things that aren’t his fault so I guess he’s used to it. Still, Ada is still a lot of fun when she does get to play a big role and gets some great lines later on. “Tommy Shelby is going to stop a revolution with his cock.” - POLLY, MY QUEEN! Easily the best woman on the show (sorry, Ada) and such a fucking badass. She’s definitely the voice of reason within the family and conflicting loyalty is a really interesting theme that gets explored with her, between her arguing nephews and niece, between her family or whether she wants to marry again and leave, her relationship with Michael, it’s all so great. Helen McRory is such a brilliant addition to the show. Also I love that Polly kinda represents women taking over after all the men went away to war and now they’re back, but the women aren’t just going to creep back into the house - World War One changed the workplace forever for women and I think Polly being the second in command after Tommy reflects that really well. - I think overall my favourite seasons have been Seasons One, Two and Four, I tend to find I get a bit bored in Peaky Blinders whenever it gets especially heavy on politics like in Season Three and Five and I admittedly kind of miss the simplicity of the early days of the show when it was about horse-racing, but the Changretta vs Shelby feud was genuinely really gripping and Adrien Brody was also Very Good. (I mean, I couldn’t take him seriously because of Brodyquest, but I like him a lot.) - I HATE GRACE. There, I said it. And honestly I have SO MUCH to say on why I hate her and also why I think she is the epitome of bad writing that has happened on this show that I might as well save it for a whole nother post, but Tommy and Grace’s relationship always felt so unnatural and forced to me, like they are in love because the screenwriter said so - Grace is the only woman Tommy knows who isn’t related to him and also because it pisses off Campbell. Like, she was tolerable if highly irritating in Season One, but then Two came along and she just got worse and worse. She’s annoyingly convinced she’s better than everyone else, pulls off a LOT of questionable shit that NO-ONE except Polly ever pulls her up on and Tommy repeatedly pining over a woman who lied to him and betrayed him makes no goddamn sense. I wish Stephen Knight would just let him get over her, because her showing up over and over again in the show after the bitch died two Seasons ago is so infuriating I want to throw my remote at the TV. The best bit of Season Three was someone finally putting a bullet in her, honestly. /rant - On that note, I really wish that they’d use May properly. She was introduced in Season Two and honestly her chemistry with Tommy is about a thousand times more believable than anything he had with Guuuhrayce and also May doesn’t consistently talk in that annoying, breathy voice and also she doesn’t shamelessly manipulate Tommy constantly. It’s too bad Stephen Knight couldn’t get Charlotte Riley back for Season Three owing to her pregnancy, because I think the trajectory of the show would have been very different. But her scene where she spoke about her husband and tried to hide that she was crying? So good. The fucking Face Tommy gives her when she asks for a mixer in her gin? Priceless. Agh - May’s been chronically underused in the show but she keeps getting mentioned every now and then, so I’m hoping there are plans for her to come back in Season Six. I really like her and I honestly think Tommy/May has been the best relationship he’s had, because it’s the only one that’s felt A) Natural and B) Equal. - Lizzie Stark. Okay, so I have mixed feelings about Lizzie. I liked her in Seasons One and Two, because she was this down-on-her-luck woman who was treated like crap by everyone, but she wasn’t wholly without her own flaws or personality - she did lie to John and Tommy did act in his brother’s best interests to tell him the truth. The scenes she had with Tommy in Season Two when he promotes her to his secretary were honestly very cute and my heart broke for her when that solider nearly (?) raped her in Season Two and she cried in John’s arms. But over time she’s started to irritate me. I know that people feel bad for her because Tommy honestly does treat her badly at times, though other times she’s also one of the few people he’s nice to, their relationship is complicated. But truthfully I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie every working out properly because Lizzie was a whore. She’s always been Tommy’s inferior and while I do think he cares for her, she never seems to think it’s enough. He doesn’t love her enough and she’s never satisfied with it and she’s always resentful of him. But you can’t FORCE someone to love you and it’s interesting that the minute she learned she was pregnant, you could see her thinking of how to make this work. She pulled the Baby Trap on him just like Grace did and got married like she wanted, but Tommy still doesn’t truly see her as his equal. And honestly, I don’t think she’s smart enough for him. Add that to Lizzie being EXTREMELY petty to other women (including her being really rude to May and slut-shaming her - bit rich from you, isn’t it, Lizzie?), and I don’t think they have a healthy relationship. I do like little Ruby a lot (way more than Charles, who is a spoiled brat because he’s Grace’s son and has a martyred dead mummy), but honestly I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie working out. I just hope that she doesn’t leave and take Ruby, I think it’d break Tommy to have his daughter taken away from him. - Alfie Solomons. So...I have to confess I have mixed feelings about Alfie. I liked him in Season Two because he’s batshit crazy, Tom Hardy is clearly having the time of his life and it’s refreshing to have a rival to Tommy who isn’t cartoonishly evil like Billy Kimber or Sabini. He ties into Season Two very well and yeah, I can see why he’s so popular. Also he’s pretty attractive, so that always helps. But. Alfie is starting to come across a bit like a creator’s pet to me. He consistently betrays Tommy every goddamn Season and while I know the fandom love to joke about this, it’s pretty inexplicable that Tommy would bother to continue to do business with him after being burned so many times and now it turns out he’s alive. Why? Why bring Alfie back? I feel like he was brought back because he’s a fan favourite and to add another suspect to who betrayed Tommy. I don’t hate Alfie at all, but I am starting to wish he’d face actual consequences for his actions, considering every Peaky Blinders character who fucks with the Peaky Blinders tend to suffer horribly for it, but not Alfie...for some reason. - Michael. Okay so Michael’s actor is pretty damn good and I thought it was cute that he and John’s actors are actually brother irl - you can see the resemblance. And honestly bringing back Polly’s missing kids was a really clever idea because there’s a family tie, but one that isn’t so strong you can always be sure of where his loyalties lie. His subplot with Father Hughes in Season Three was both very sad and very well done - I was cheering him on the whole way. But Season Five has made my opinion of Michael take a dramatic nosedive. He’s gone from sorta-sympathetic to an entitled brat almost overnight. I get he’s probably salty about being banished to America by Tommy in Season Four, but where has this sudden desire to rule the company come from? How did he meet Gina? Is he lying about Gina being pregnant because he figured it’d win him sympathy? I don’t know. He’s changed so drastically, and when Polly gave him that slap, I think she was doing what everyone wanted to. It’s too bad they just wrote Anna off as being dead, though, Michael having a sister and Polly a daughter would have been interesting. - The music?? Is so good?? I love it! Especially the themesong, obviously, but so much of it is always ON POINT. It makes me wanna buy the entire soundtrack. - Unpopular opinion, but I think Campbell was the best antagonist of the show, mainly because he was a vile person but still believable and had the best dynamic with Tommy.  - Season Five was honestly kind of hit-and-miss for me, it seemed like a lot of people are pissed at Tommy for fairly silly reasons in the beginning and I just didn’t find the political subplot all that interesting...but I still will definitely tune into Season Six. (Also these are all just opinions, so please don’t send me hate if you don’t like something I’ve said. Ain’t nobody got time for that.)

[motheatenscarf]

So, I recently recommended Castlevania to people based on the first 2 seasons, and having now seen the 3rd season I’m still keeping that recommendation but with some pretty strong warnings going in.

The TL;DR version is, I still recommend this series with the caveat that your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for sexual themes and more specifically your sensitivity toward sexual assault. 

So uh, spoiler in the spoiler disclaimer, but content warning for discussion of the above themes. I apologize to mobile readers; this got long. I only feel the need to say all this because I have in the past recommended this show to people before these elements came into play in the first 2 seasons. So, I kind of owe it to those people who may have taken my recommendation to follow through now.

I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to anyone (or at least I hope it won’t) that Castlevania, the show which introduces its wandering drunk protagonist by having him overhear two inbred shit eating peasants in a bar talking about literal goat fucking, has a pretty cynical view on humanity and is a pretty hard R.

Most of that R rating and cynicism has been in regard to gore and Christianity and I’ve been extremely on board and pettily here for it. For all that it’s a gory mess with plenty of colorful language, however, it’s been extremely restrained when it comes to sexuality. 

For my ace ass, that was kind of an appeal. I’m not opposed to sexuality in my media, but people do tend to make it... egregious and often unbalanced. It often feels that any media that gets that R rating just goes “Fuck it, may as well!” regarding shoehorning its nudity and sexuality. And frankly, censorship laws in the United States are FUCKING ANTIQUATED AS ALL HELL, so a rape scene where the camera ogles the woman’s breasts as she’s assaulted? Yeah, sure, that’s an R. Consensual sex scene that shows no genitalia but the woman in clear arousal? That’s an NC-17 for you. And that’s just women; don’t get me started on queer censorship, we’d be here all day. So, given the country I live in, the fact that I like horror and fantasy, and the fact that I’m an asexual woman, you can maybe see where my stance on sexual themes in any adult oriented media is just, an exasperated sigh as I boredly sit through another rape scene.

So, our first scene in Castlevania S3 is of Alucard, having been alone for the last month now, slowly losing his mind to crippling loneliness and overwhelming guilt after having murdered his father where Trevor and Sypha took him at his word when he said he would be the lone guardian standing vigil over Dracula’s castle and the Belmont library. Turns out he was wrong about being fine, which we knew from last season as it ended with him alone in his room sobbing his heart out, but he’s already losing his grip here as he makes little puppets of Sypha and Trevor to carry conversation with. An eccentricity he fully acknowledges is insane.

Our next scene confirms through dialogue that Trevor and Sypha are now in a sexual relationship, even though they’re only ever shown cuddling up in bed talking about The Plot and various happenings a few episodes later. Nothing explicit is ever depicted between them.

Alucard, on the other hand, picks up a couple of strays who were the thralls of one of the vampires killed last season, specifically the evidently Japanese one named “Cho” and our two new characters............ I had to google their names, Sumi and Taka, are also Japanese. They ask him to train them to kill vampires to protect their clan. Alucard, clearly remembering what he said about “Think of all the things Dracula could have done if he’d put all this knowledge toward helping people instead of giving into his rage and destroying them,” decides to agree and help them. He is clearly trying to be the person his mother would have wanted. Aww. 

Except not aww, Taka and Sumi are two clearly traumatized and deeply flawed people from the masses which this series is, again, extremely cynical toward. They are unsubtley fixated on learning more and more powerful ways to kill vampires and Alucard is pretty chill about it because he can’t see through the 4th wall and hear the ominous music or the glances they exchange when he’s not looking. This is purely for the audience. They at one point have a discussion away from him where they try to psychoanalyze him and decide that his isolation is a self imposed punishment for killing Dracula and that this is as close as he can get to killing himself without actually doing it. THIS IS FOR THE AUDIENCE. Then they mentioned they should give him a reward for what he’s done for them.

What happens next is difficult to break down from their standpoint, as they’re not particularly well developed characters, not being Important Characters but just a duo from the masses which the show dismisses, but if you’ve caught a single frame of Alucard this season, is easy enough to explain from his perspective. They come to him at night when he can’t sleep, tell him he deserves a reward, and proceed to make sexual advances toward him, which he seems somewhat embarrassed and confused by at first before quickly becoming a participant in. Again, it is well established by this point that he desperately misses Trevor and Sypha, whom he was already jealous of the connection between last season, and is profoundly lonely. The sex, which he consents to, is clearly a proxy as it’s all he can get for now. The sex is also, unfortunately, initiated under false pretenses, and ends abruptly when the whole thing turns into a Christ allegory and they pin Alucard in the crucifix position after having betrayed him with a kiss (and then some) and demand he show them the secrets they’re certain he’s hiding from them. Alucard tries to reason with them, still insisting he knows they’re scared but that he’s been nothing but honest with them, but they’re too traumatized and broken to believe him, and so he kills them in self defense, all still right there on the bed where they were having sex. He then, reminiscent of Dracula from the series opening, stakes their bodies before the entrance to the castle as a warning to those who would come to harm him, telling the audience that he is Lisa’s son in many ways, but he is also Dracula’s, and is realizing with time and experience now that his father’s sentiment toward humanity may not have been so misplaced.

So you know. Lot to unpack there...

BUT THAT AIN’T IT, FOLKS!

There’s another, far less interesting (unbiased review here, folks) character named Hector. He’s a forgemaster which means he makes monsters which are loyal only to him. He’s no Isaac (whom I’d mentioned his backstory/characterization just kinda left a general bad taste in my mouth before but OH BABY, AM I CHANGING TUNE ON THAT ONE. Could write a whole review on Isaac but I’m gonna stay focused here) but he’s apparently here to stay, so fine. 

There was an evil femme fatale vampire last season who kinda bored me who tricked Hector into betraying Dracula and then took him captive when she got what she wanted out of him. She did not trick him with sex at least but was still “evil manipulative femme fatale” which... *yawn* In S3 she drags him back to her home country and then proceeds to talk to her own sort of war council on how to get him to make a monster army for them to use that won’t just kill them all.

The lesbian vampire war council are fuckin interesting and I love 2 of them. The other one is an actually evil seductress femme fatale who DOES manipulate him with sex. Yay. How original. Well at least there are finally enough interesting, compelling women in the story that this isn’t our token evil female vampire so it’s easy for me to shrug off and forgive. All you need to know about Hector is he played with dead animals as a kid, it freaked his parents out when he kept reviving dead things, he killed them, now he’s a dead critter loving sensitive weirdo who was willing to participate in a “humane cull” that would leave the human race in essentially livestock pens for vampires. 

So the entire time the red headed femme fatale is trying to get him to see that she’s not so bad, vampires can be civil, we don’t want what Dracula wanted, my sister didn’t trick you she appealed to your reason, blahblahblah, she’s calling him a “good boy” and leading him on, i fucking quote, “walkies” with a leash. There’s also a comment that she tended to an injured spider once. So,, y’know, she’s him, which means she’s best suited to manipulating him. And Hector even admits to being aware of what she’s doing and calls her out on it, but he’s trapped and doesn’t have much of a choice other than to go along with what she does and weirdly seems almost content at times. His weird naturalist... weirdness probably gives him some inferiority complex when it comes to vampires, I don’t know, his backstory and motive are not connected in the least and I’m frankly not interested enough in this character to give him much contemplation since it’s pretty clear there wasn’t much going into his creation. Anyway. Long story short, she eventually, with only technically lying to him about the purpose of a particular ring she wears, lures him into having sex with her and in the heat of passion has him swear loyalty to her before slipping a cursed ring on him which binds him exactly as he’d just sworn, essentially making him a slave. The sex, again, also stops here, but she makes some extremely unsettling comments later on about how he was surprisingly good at sex and she might “train him.” Which.... where to begin other than yikes, and why, and, where in the hell was a guy who played with dead animals supposed to learn to eat a bitch out like that anyway??

This is where we also, tying the themes together, learn that one of the allies Trevor and Sypha have been teaming up with was a child killer the whole time. They only learn this after he dies helping them fight the evil that had come to his town (and after the most iconic line of the season; “What the fuck is toilet paper?”) which they accomplish, but not before failing to save anyone in the village, which was consumed in an evil ritual. They’re alone again, with a distraught Sypha realizing what Trevor had tried to forget by getting caught up in her optimism, that, say it with me now;

So there is your mostly unbiased spoilery context for the scenes in question. You can make up your own mind from there if that’s something you can handle, I’m gonna go on to add a few of my own thoughts which do not represent how I believe anyone else should interpret the show, this is purely my own train of thought here.

Sex consented to under false pretenses is still rape. I don’t know that I would personally classify these as “rape scenes,” but that’s just me. The reaction of the characters afterward makes me think Hector’s comes closer than Alucard’s, but the fact that both have appropriate reactions to being sexually betrayed makes me think that’s mostly what people are talking about when they say either one was raped. Hector later falls to his knees in a panic and hopelessness as he realizes “You made me a slave, my life is over,” and Alucard just lays there on the floor where he murdered his father as he weeps silently in contemplation of his own despair. That’s... some heavy shit, and I can, again, easily see where someone with a history of abuse or assault can be completely traumatized all over again watching this. As for the leeriness/attempting to be titilating/making rape “sexy” that a lot of adult fantasy/horror does... eh? I’m asexual, none of it’s sexy to me, and I was paying attention to the visual and audio cues the entire time that were making the audience aware with their ominous music, flashing between sex and battles against evil, and watching the instigators (Taka and Sumi, and Lenore the femme fatale vampire) as the camera focused on their scheming faces. The camera in Alucard’s scene especially just seemed to want to show us how sad and lonely he is, but that was pretty well established by that point and I know a sex scene devolving into a murder scene is jarring for people.

The themes of the season were manipulation, trust, and betrayal. Hector’s story reaches a pivotal turning point the moment the ring is slipped on him. Could it have been implemented differently than through the femme fatale seduction route? Absolutely, the show hadn’t really adopted sexual themes until this season and probably could have done so without it. She’d already lied to Hector an said that the rings were symbols she and her sisters wore to unite them, she could have been lying and welcomed him to join them and gotten him to swear loyalty to them in a ceremony after spending more time getting him to trust her. It was dumb and unnecessary and probably added in there just so maybe Alucard wasn’t the sole bearer of such an experience, or maybe because they shifted his plotline to fit in with the established themes, or maybe they could only sneak a bisexual threesome past the censors if they threw in more straight sex. What can I say? The cynicism of this show is relatable.

Alucard’s was less “Yikes” for me because he was never in a position where he didn’t have emotional or physical power over Taka and Sumi, he was a mentor to them who made no sexual advances whatsoever and seemed to only want to participate in their advances because it temporarily made him feel loved and worthy only to have the rug pulled out from under him and remind him that much more painfully of how alone he is, and how right his father may have been, and how wrong he was for killing him. Could this have been done without a sex scene? Yep, it always can. I know what the writers were trying to convey and I personally don’t have an issue with it and see its effectiveness, but I fully acknowledge another hour of spitballing in the writer’s room would have avoided that. I don’t necessarily think it’s a good or bad thing that they included this, it just... is, for me. I personally think if they’re going to confirm the sexual relationship between Trevor and Sypha, though, and then show us that Alucard is clearly missing them, there’s kinda one natural conclusion to make on how Alucard’s relationship with these two was going to go. I actually think it should have been better established and more time should have been spent on his relationship with them and depicted it as romantic/sexual from an earlier stage rather than just seemingly coming out of nowhere to people who hadn’t realized, “Oh, they’re his proxies,” earlier. I personally found it more tragic than traumatizing, but I don’t have a history of sexual abuse, so that is my own biased interpretation. If someone has that experience, I would not blame them in the least for finding this unpalatable.

Other arguments I’ve seen are, why is the only bi character shown to go through this kind of trauma? I mean, Alucard is our only confirmed bi character left for now, but Isaac is heavily implied to be queer, and again. Cynical universe. And he isn’t the only character period to go through it. They’re not singling him out because he’s bi, he’s just going through a character arc and is bi. I acknowledge again it could have been handled better but I don’t necessarily think this is biphobia so much as it is... unfortunate tone deafness. Tokenism is the problem, not Alucard’s bisexuality, so here’s hoping that we get another bi or queer character soon because as of right now, it’s just rife with unfortunate implications. I had this exact issue with Isaac’s backstory/characterization last season as our lone man of color with a major role and they immediately fixed his arc this season along with introducing several new characters of color and it was honestly the highlight of the season, so... the writers have proven to me that they can learn from their mistakes and spin my suspicion into HYPE, so I’m willing to give them through season 4 to see what they do with it.

I have also seen the argument for, why are the only Japanese characters tricky and sexually manipulative? Well, because they’re human and the show is extremely cynical in its depiction of humanity, we’ve just mostly seen that with white Europeans so far. As I mentioned before, tokenism is the problem. Is it annoying to see a sexually manipulative femme fatale vampire? Yes. Can I live with it and shrug it off a helluva lot easier when we get butch warrior vampire and tactical genius vampire talking back and forth about how they plan to conquer and drink an entire nation while espousing their affection for one another? Also yes!  While we do finally get a lot more characters of color this season who are fleshed out and beautifully complex and sympathetic, I think Taka and Sumi could have been better explored, since their mistrust of Alucard makes sense but their decision to have sex with him in order to get his guard down is... really not apparent other than through speculation with 0 textual evidence to support it. I don’t think they’re sexually manipulative because they’re Japanese, I think they’re sexually manipulative because the plot calls for it and they happen to be the only Asian characters we have for now and the writers made another pretty tone deaf decision. Behind the scenes, I do wonder if they were chosen from specifically Cho’s court just so the animators had an excuse to draw her some more/get that Japanese audience invested. Orientalism is a helluva thing here in the west though, and the sexualization of east Asians is especially fucked up and I’m not gonna say this did not have catastrophically tone deaf implications. I hope we get more Asian characters with a nuanced depiction, and even though they are the only Asian characters, they are not the only sexual abusers and they are far from the only sympathetically broken but dangerous characters we see.  

This is also, I’m fairly certain, a dual-studio production, and I do know Castlevania is a Japanese video game series based on European vampire stories, and in the endless love letter between Japanese and American media, some things gets botched in the exchange. That doesn’t excuse it, and that doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful, but I also don’t think it means “Cancelvania.” But I’m Mexican-American, and Not Asian-American, or more specifically Japanese-American, so, this is purely my perspective. 

I won’t defend the choices, I certainly won’t argue with people who draw a line in the sand and say “This is unacceptable, I won’t watch this,” that’s a valid perspective to have. To me, the writers through Isaac have proven they know when and how to correct course when they need to, so I’m cautiously optimistic that this was all build up for a dynamite season 4 if/when we get it. The show is cynical, I’m cynical, but I can recognize careful writing when I see it, and to me the highlights of this unrepentantly stupid fucking show that I kinda love are gonna be worth sticking through the stuff that makes me wrinkle my nose with concern because I want to see where it goes. A time may come when that stops being the case, but for me it hasn’t reached that point yet. I completely understand if it has for anyone else though.

[gaytoxe]

here’s the thing about kaito momota for me: at first, i didn’t really understand his character and saw him kinda just as the bro character that i loved since he was a hero that always looked on the bright side and motivated everyone around him to keep going. little did i know that this motivational ball of sunshine could actually be a lot more complicated than i first thought.

seeing him break down in chapter 4 for a couple times, i realized that it wasn’t just him being mad that one of his friends was being accused.

kaito lies a ton. he’s selfless and would rather be the person others need rather than what he himself needs. his version of a hero is a person that is just like a huge wall or pillar; something that can’t be broken down and doesn’t need repairs no matter what. a person that is full of constant support and motivation that doesn’t need anyone to share their weakness with and doesn’t even have any evidence of weakness. he’s constantly forcing his happiness in the darkest situations for the sake of others, and he barely talks about the negative parts of himself. i mean, we never hear about him missing his grandparents or space since someone always interrupts or an event ends up snatching the spotlight from him. because of his prideful stature and his care for everyone around him, he only ever seems to talk about the good parts of himself and never his flaws.

what flaws does he have, you may ask? it’s quite literally the way he sees a hero and how he is almost all the time.

kaito’s version of a hero doesn’t have weakness, doesn’t show weakness, and doesn’t even experience weakness. a hero that everyone can depend on without depending on anyone else. his version of a “sidekick” is someone that is “weak” in the sense that they have potential but just need someone to help them grow.

so he did just that with shuichi and harukawa. he helped them grow.

when shuichi finally grew stronger, kaito was obviously proud and happy for him, but he also grew envious of how he could solve all the cases thrown at them and find the truth without his help. it’s two-sided.

in chapter 4, when kaito constantly tries to prove that gonta wasn’t the killer, it wasn’t just because gonta was his friend and didn’t seem like someone to kill. it was also because kaito felt weak and inferior. he tried to scramble back up to the top and prove his worth to everyone, but in those efforts, he showed some of his weakness to his sidekick. to him, it’s the worst thing he can ever do as a hero. showing weakness is legally not allowed in his mind, and his inferiority and desperation bled a little from him.

his greatest strength is his greatest downfall, and he wasn’t ignoring shuichi because of him. he was ignoring shuichi because of himself. his weakness that he showed he tried to hide throughout that time for everyone’s sake but mostly shuichi’s.

in chapter 5, kaito ends up being as powerful as ever when he’s about to die. he comforts everyone and dies smiling, content with the fact that he didn’t die to monokuma’s execution. he triumphed as a hero and it really took some fucking guts to be able to stay smiling as his illness ate away at him. just as i said, he was the person everyone else needed him to be and not the person he needed himself to be. his mindset is quite unhealthy. he needs someone to call him out on his bullshit and be willing to help him grow as a person, which is why i ship oumota so much.

one of the reasons why i don’t prefer saimota or harumota more than oumota is the big factor that, in kaito’s eyes, he isn’t legally allowed to show weakness to his sidekicks. shuichi also dangerously idolizes kaito and kaito would most likely end up staying his hero character around him.

however, a shuichi that calls kaito out on his shit and is willing to help him grow? that’s the kind of saimota i want. they don’t have to be rivals; that’s the base need that needs to be set in a relationship. you don’t hide things from each other and rely on each other. nothing is one-sided.

however, harukawa is a very different story. she goes against everything kaito believes in and tries to kill the mastermind at the end despite that not being what kaito wants at all. she makes him comfort her instead of comforting him before his death and figuratively kicks his gravestone by doing everything he doesn’t want her to do. it’s very toxic in my opinion, and the fact that no one brings it up is even worse.

now, kaito believes in everyone. and i mean everyone. even ouma. he clashes with him so much because he believes in him, wants him to prove him wrong and wants to believe that ouma isn’t bad and that he’s a good person. he wants to believe he isn’t anything that he’s saying and he wants to believe that he can help him. he never wanted him to die and he really, truly did care about him.

and, on top of that, he wants to understand him. being the only one to really see how ouma feels probably fueled his pondering of what if and the question of who really was he on the inside the whole time?

kaito sees people for who they are, rather than what they are. even though ouma may be a liar, that doesn’t stop kaito from believing in him as a person, which is shown from the fact that he helps shuichi and harukawa because of the fact that they have the potential to become strong. he sees what they can be and doesn’t give up when he hits a bump in the road. they’re extremely similar in the sense that they both lie and wear masks.

that’s why they complete each other; they call each other out on their shit and therefore help each other grow as better people. besides, they’re the only ones that can keep up with each other’s energy. even with shuichi, i’m sure it’d still work out, but ouma is a better fit for kaito in that he isn’t afraid of telling him when he knows he’s lying about something. kaito isn’t afraid of doing it, either. and they both really do care.

overall, kaito really truly is the embodiment of a hero; he’s just in the first stages of it. he’s slowly acknowledging his issues one by one, but he’s not at his final resolve just yet, and i think he realized that at the end of the day, he really was a hero with his flaws.

no one is perfect, everyone has flaws, and we all need to understand them. that’s just something we need to come to terms with. it’s one thing to know them, but a mark of a real hero is having the confidence to tell people about their problems and let others in to help them become a better person. while kaito isn’t at that point just yet, he would definitely be able to realize it at one point. he might not have been able to realize it quickly, but seeing him grow is a really good experience for me because i can relate a lot to how he feels.

but understanding flaws and letting people in to help fix them is just another chapter of his story; another chapter of kaito momota, luminary of the star’s story. the hero that stayed smiling no matter how he felt and the hero that’s still learning to accept his faults. the hero that really shines as bright as all the stars combined.

kaito really is an interesting character and is a lot more complex than what’s on the surface; it took me quite a while to really understand his character. it’s probably why he’s the only one i can legitimately write. i’m slowly gaining speed on ouma’s character, but there isn’t a single character out there i understand more than kaito.

being able to write his character and see him grow as a person whether it’s because of ouma, all of his friends or his own ponders through my own writing really is a joy to me. he’s a complex character that truly is a hero and that just needs more time to become everyone’s shining star.

i love kaito for his flaws and for his selflessness; i love him for him as an entire character. he is and forever will be my favorite danganronpa character and, of course, my favorite astronaut.

he’s not perfect like he wants himself to be, and he never will be, even if he desires to not be flawed more than anything.

and i’d like to think that, at the end, he realized that exact fact and grew determined to work on his flaws, no matter what; that’s just the kind of person he is. even with his flaws and the difficulties, he’s determined to keep going and help everyone, and that’s exactly the reason why he’s not only my favorite character ever but also why he’s the brightest shining star around.

our flaws are what make us human, and i think kaito fits that saying perfectly.

[yoosea-mysme]

Did not expect anyone to ask about my OCs x’D I assume because of my matchups from @marshmallowprotection​

First thing, which I myself often forget: these ocs are actually technically inserted characters in a pre-existing universe, a French roleplay youtube series. I originally just started imagining different scenarios for the existing characters and then basically did the “let’s give them kids and see what happens” thing. Kinda lame concept, but I love the characters I created for it, and I’ve had them for… a couple years now? Second thing, that universe is magical fantasy, I just didn’t mention it in the matchups because it wasn’t relevant (nor how they end up in Mysme’s world, shush). Now that I’ve thoroughly disappointed you, here are the characters themselves, the cousins/siblings gang (because I’m unsure about giving names, we’re gonna call them Big Sister, Younger Brother, Adopted Cousin and Lyn):

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We’ve got Adopted Cousin (here), the oldest one, he’s actually the only one not blood related to the others. Black with green eyes, VERY tall and thin, originally he was meant to have long blond hair, but I have a tendency to picture him with a black long ponytail so it’s still unclear. He’s an orphan who became the apprentice and then adopted son of a character who is HIMSELF not blood related to the parents of the others, but because their parents treat him as family, he’s their uncle and his son is ergo their cousin. It’s the law. If anyone questions it Big Sister will punch them in the face. Hard. He’s also the only one of the group who has zero connection to magic nor any interest in it whatsoever. For a long time, he avoided the topic of his family because he didn’t want to relieve the trauma of losing them, and tried to focus only on his new family; he’s gotten better at talking about it since (though I won’t go into details on how they died). Easily the most chill and calm of the whole group; all he wants is to get to do his experiments, invent some cool stuff, read, draw and sew because it’s soothing. 98% of the time he gets roped in an adventure is against his will by his cousins (other 2% is when he wants to get his hands on something forbidden to study it; the only times he gets in trouble he does not mess around. Go big or go home, what’s the use of going apeshit if you don’t even get arrested). He just wants to stay home and hyperfocus. Please let him take a nap (they don’t).

The advantage of constantly being thrown around by creatures of hubris is that it puts into practice your quick-thinking skills: very promptly got used to taking charge of every kind of situation no matter how crazy and keeping everything and everyone under control, and will get frustrated when people don’t listen to him (he’ll make them listen). Even though they should technically get along great for being the two most reasonable, he often butts head with Big Sister because of his leading nature (“No I don’t think you’re dumb, please I just want us to survive this let me handle it”) His adoptive father is himself in a huge position of authority so he’s learned a lot from him. He’ll drag everyone safe back home by force if he has to (even if he has noodle arms).

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We’ve got the Big Sister (here). Physically perfect mix of her grandmothers, but with her father’s older sister body type (aka: huge): long dark blonde wavy hair and blue (?) eyes. Arguably most attractive face of the bunch. Her father is basically a paladin, her mother is petite but strong (not a fighter though) her aunt is at the head of an army, and she wants in on it. Since she was very young she’s trained with her father in the hopes to join their army (and succeeded) and she’s become the epitome of a huge muscular woman in so doing. She tries to follow her father’s ideals of “justice and protection to the weak and innocent” in theory, but due to her sometimes abrasive attitude (which she gets from him), and the fact that she has inherited a lot of her mother’s personality (a “the end justifies the means” kinda gal), she can sometimes have a warped vision of morality that she has to work on a lot. Sadly, she’s also inherited a bit of her father’s introverted exterior and aunt’s “in case of doubt, punch” reasoning and honestly, that’s just a whole mess of a personality combo but she tries her best. She’s easily the most confident and assertive of the group and never doubts her abilities or goals (sometimes maybe a bit too much), might even boast a lot tad. She’s extremely protective of her loved ones and is the kind that will yell at you for getting in trouble (big sister vibe +1); before her older cousin was adopted she was used to being the oldest of the family and therefore still feels responsible of everyone’s safety, she’ll definitely always try to be in control for every situation. She actually butts head a lot with her adoptive cousin because of them both taking the “older and wiser” role, and it took her a while to begrudgingly admit he’s often better than her at handling things, and that they should just work together instead of trying to one-up each other. She loves messing with people (ESPECIALLY her younger brother whom she can drive MAD) but hates being messed with and will definitely get her revenge. She does her typical “older sibling friendly bullying” thing, but if you trashtalk her brother anywhere near her you’re dead. Only she can mess with him, it’s the law.

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We’ve got the middle child (here), the one I called Lyn (actually a character from another story, this one created entirely by me, that I inserted here once just because and somehow she ended up with an entirely different backstory and family). Related to the other two Brother and Sister by blood (dad is their mother’s half-brother). Somehow looks more like her father’s sister than her parents, also a lot like her mother though she hates to admit it. Her mother had her without ever telling her dad and was extremely abusive to her for 10 years (she has scars, mostly on her back). At that age her father, who was married, found out about her and tried to get in contact with her, until he found out the way she was being treated. Her mom tried to get rid of him by getting him arrested, but his sister-in-law (maybe?? What do you call the sister of the husband of your sister??? She’s the head of the army I mentioned earlier) pulled some strings and managed to get him and his husband custody as well as getting the mom banished. Lyn hasn’t seen her since (but she will ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ). She’s extremely happy with her dads now and thankful to have them.

Her dad is actually a fire mage and she has great control over fire herself, but no interest in pursuing that talent academically; she’s good with knowing how to burn stuff that annoys her when necessary. She greatly prefers to run around outside; she’s really good at sports, an extremely good climber and fighter, runs fast and is agile (all this taught to her by her stepdad). She’s not as much of a “horse girl” as her cousin, but she’s got her own horse (she created it; don’t ask) and she loves him to death. Has absolutely no clue what she wants to do with her life as an accomplished adult and honestly neither do I; maybe she’ll end up going on adventures for the sake of it like the original characters, why not. She honestly doubts herself, her own abilities and her future a lot, but usually tries to hide it behind jokes and smiles. She’s actually extremely resourceful and a quick-thinker, but only if doing so will end in mischief. Sidenote: she drives her adopted cousin up the fucking wall. He just wants to rest and be chill most of the time and she somehow always gets him mixed up in her messes, which he always has to help her clean up. He loves her, but damn does he also want to strangle her. (And now I can see the Vanderwood/Saeyoung vibes, god dammit @marshmallowprotection​  was right about both their matches)

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And finally, the Younger Brother (here). Perfect mix of his parents, white, grandma’s wavy locks, dark hair and blue eyes, arguably the cutest (his sister and his side of the family just got the bamf genes): youngest of the whole gang, used to being doted on, particularly by his sister. Also used to not being taken seriously because he’s young and being messed with a lot, PARTICULARLY by his sister. He has a huge inferiority complex towards her because he’s always felt like she was more accomplished and closer to their father than he was (which is partially true because since she pursued the same career as him they just got to spend a lot of time training etc. but he loves his children equally. He himself is closer to their mother and mother’s brother) and had a better grasp than him on what to do with her life and how to achieve her goals. He later discovered himself a talent in magic and learned a lot through his grandfather and his mother’s brother the mage; successfully entered the same school as he, one of the best of its kind and has been receiving nothing but praise since. He’s very excited about his studies now. Still very cunning and ambitious.

I mentioned in his matchup description him being easy to manipulate due to his insecurities (also true in love; my baby was in an abusive relationship for some time, his first love, but he’s okay now (his sister and Lyn avenged him…)) and hurting someone he loved because of it: that’s actually Lyn. When he was younger and still dabbling with magic, he started to learn things outside of his level due to the manipulations of his grandfather (that guy is a whole other story, we’re not gonna get into it). Lyn tried to warn him that he was going too far, but tired of never being taken seriously, he tried to prove her wrong and accidentally injured her (and then ran away for two weeks because he had no idea what to do and had a major breakdown). Lyn lost her sight from her left eye; she got most of her sight back now, though not all, but couldn’t get rid of the scar on her face. He felt particularly guilty because out of the entire group, Lyn was the one he had the closest kinship and relationship with due to them being the youngest and certified troublemakers and he couldn’t cope with what he did to her. Lyn was the one who forgave him, helped him get out of that bad mental place, reject their grandfather and get help, and they’ve become even closer ever since, basically inseparable. (Which to me makes the fact I ship them both with TWINS hilarious. Actually damn, that whole thing reminds me a lot of Saeran attacking Saeyoung too because of his mental state and Saeyoung being the one to help him anyway. I’m starting to understand why I ship them with the twins).

 … hope you don’t regret asking, anon x’DD