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fumifooms · 11 months ago

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Chilchuck’s wife and family - Facts, theories and headcanons

I want to keep this as a sort of masterpost on Chil’s family situation if I can, but if we get a lot of information on it (in the additional content that Kui is gonna make) that renders this more or less useless I probably won’t update this anymore. If you find other crumbs of information or I've said anything factually incorrect please do tell me! I'm planning to edit this as we go since I want to compile most if not all of the information and pages we get about this topic on here, and if I just wait to post it perfection paralysis will nip this in the bud. It focuses a lot on Chilchuck and Chilchuck's wife relationships, but the daughters and Chilchuck's own parents and siblings are talked about as well.

CW/disclaimer: This post talks about messy family dynamics and such, there’s no outright abuse I’m implying anywhere, but alcoholism and neglect are mentioned and discussed. I’m not here to demonize anyone! I love every character involved and I just want to theorize about the topic as a layered issue that involves complex characters. Also, I try to use very transparent language as to when I’m citing or analyzing canon information and when I’m giving a personal interpretation or headcanoning.

Abbreviated table of content:

Timeline and circumstances

Possible strains on the marriage

The hair question. Confirmation on what his wife looks like?

Other family dynamic & post-canon theories & headcanons

Parenting style + misc in a reblog addition (new)

Let’s start with the facts, shall we?

Timeline and circumstances

So, we see that Chilchuck and his wife are childhood friends, and they married at 13 years old and had two children in that same year. Since half-foots reach the age of maturity at 14, they seem to be what we'd call teen parents. It's a bit debatable though, since Laios says the age of maturity for tallmen (humans) is 16 instead of 18 or even 21, so what's considered to be the age of maturity is a cultural thing and isn't fully reliable when we want to compare to our irl understanding and what developmental stage it perfectly aligns with. Also, during the succubus chapter Chichuck says that his daughters were all now of age to be independent, and Chilchuck's wife leaves to live with Flertom, which would mean that Puckpatti was independent at age 10 and lived away from home as well (since she's the third/last daughter). Ah yes another interesting thing to note is that we don’t know the pregnancy periods for the races, since Meijack and Flertom were born the same year. It could be tight timing or it could be something else, but I don’t think they’re twins, they keep talking about them being the oldest and the middle child, them being twins is definitely the sort of thing that would get mentioned.

Him starting working on the island notably happens just one year before his wife leaves him. I don't remember the other instances of him mentioning it though I feel like it happened, but since he started working at the Island's dungeon, working as a dungeon diver and then forming the half-foot guild, that probably means he started being away for longer periods of time and having a less reliable schedule on when he'd be coming back home. It is said that he went back home somewhat regularly iirc, though he usually ends up sleeping at the half-foot guild quarters. I'm not sure if Kahka Brud is also where he lived with his family, or just since he rented someplace new after she left him. He and his timeline state that he was born in a small village "northeast of the island", which he left at 14 one year after being married, but it isn’t stated where they go after so it’s unsure how far his home was from the island if it wasn’t in Kahka Brud. We don’t know when his father died so if that factors in to him leaving his village we have no clue.

Chil also says that he hasn’t seen or spoken with his wife nor daughters since the incident, which would mean he's gone 4 years without contact with his family during the events of canon. I don't remember if Chilchuck is said to exchange letters with his daughters, beyond the initial one from Flertom saying her mother was with her, so I've been assuming he hasn't.

He also says "For about ten years I’ve been travelling to dungeons in various areas and doing work" which considering he’s turning 29 that year would mean he started around 19 years old? The panel also gives details what sort of work he’s been doing. Either way it’s confirmed that Chilchuck travels for his work a lot.

In addition, since Chilchuck has the seal of approval of the bicorn + says so himself, he has always stayed faithful to his wife. So that means that unless he's had previous adventures before he was 14 and got married, he's never dated anyone else in his life, nor had romantic or sexual encounters/experiences with others in his 16 years of marriage right up to canon (year 514). I feel it’s safe to say that it’s implied that during all these years starting from when they were married, Chilchuck's wife was a housewife whose main job was taking care of the kids and the house.

Marcille's take on what happened is unreliable, as Kui even takes the time to directly say so in the Adventurer's Bible, so I don't want to use it as a baseline even if it offers some insight on what could have happened (her feeling out of place, leaving to test his love, etc etc).

What Chilchuck says seems to be accurate though since it pertains to his perspective of the events! Unlike how Marcille's theory flows, Chilchuck was aware that something was off before she left since she "suddenly fell into a bad mood".

Piecing everything together, my theory: Chilchuck and his wife were childhood friends and have always always sort of danced around of each other, the classic movie love story with childhood sweethearts, until they ultimately confessed and got together. While dating, Chilchuck's wife becomes pregnant and they're both unequiped to deal with the situation but decide to marry, either a bit forced in order to cover it up or hopeful to make the best of it. They make it work as they can and Chilchuck works to provide for the family while she takes care of the home and the kids, which means that even though he's not a deadbeat father (he cares, he was at least a bit involved in their lives and raising them since for example he knows how to braid hair after all) he ends up being rather absent from home. It only gets worse over the years, especially when Chilchuck starts working further and further away from home and coming home less often, and since Puckpatti left home Chilchuck's wife is alone at home most of the time, never knowing when Chilchuck would be coming and if to prepare the table for two instead of one, or even if he'd be coming back at all since his work is dangerous. The humdrum and lifestyle would get to her, they've grown into different people in these 10 years of marriage and she doesn't feel the spark or feels valued & seen anymore, so she leaves. He feels confused and betrayed which turns into anger so he doesn’t try to reach out and mend things, and with the way he says they’re estranged and he moves away I think he’s avoiding his family somewhat.

Possible strains on the marriage

Tfw all your daughters are independent and your husband is gone to work almost all the time and he barely even tells you that he loves you, is there even a reason to stay together anymore? Every day it’s just you and an empty house and chores to do, wondering if you have to cook for one or for two today.

Alright it’s analysis and theorizing time! Although there are more facts down in this post if you care about Chilchuck's wife's appearajce, Chilchuck's parents & siblings or the kids, the essential facts so to speak were all in the first part.

We don't see Chilchuck showing any discontent with his wife through the manga so I'm assuming that he was content in his marriage, happy with his wife, and with how he stayed faithful to her even in the 4 years after she left (and never stopped calling her his wife. Which also shows a weird stubborn attitude since he wasn’t planning on reaching out to her and mend things but I’ll put aside the possible entitlement/coping mechanism for another time) I think he truly loved her and still does. Since she left him and not the reverse, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on his wife's side of things. Especially since we do see how Chilchuck is at work quite a bit but never see how he is at home. I’ll be sounding harsh towards Chil on this but he’s pretty much the only party we can criticize since we don’t know her, I still side with Chil on the leaving issue though, he’s justifiably pissed if she left without a word what the hell even.

Alcoholism and health

Chilchuck’s favorite food as listed in the Adventurer’s Bible is beer, and it’s shown that he’s prone to drinking until drunk whenever he gets the opportunity to. A cheerful drunk is still a drunk. (Extra reading: if interested here's a oneshot FMA fanfic by a friend that goes in depth about this very topic that really illustrates what sort of family dynamic that can bring about. It’s not dunmeshi but it’s a good read.) Chilchuck is also canonically underweight, starving himself for a strict weight management diet (Extra reading: you can look at a short compilation post about that here). Did you know under eating makes one irritable? And this is on top of Chilchuck sometimes/regularly coming back home with "horrible injuries", since Marcille guesses it and he acts like she’s dead right on everything that far.

It’s rough seeing someone you love mistreat themselves, not being able to shake them out of that and having to stay to see them wasting away. It’s rough seeing them put their work above their own health. Putting their work even above their family. Putting alcohol over family time. It's not that simple, but there's always that element when asking someone you love to tone it down with things like alcohol or such, that if they refuse, then it feels like they value that thing more than they value your feelings or opinions. That they love alcohol more than they love you.

You know how there’s often this thing of "Well I’m providing everything for this family, so whatever else that I do you don’t get to complain." I do think that it’s something they’d have argued over a little bit, not that he’d say it that way, but the essence of it. "Chilchuck, you’re drinking a lot of alcohol often, I’m worried maybe you should ease up on it." "This is what I want to do in my free time, give me a break.", "Dear, your mood gets worse when you’re hungry, I really think you should stop dieting-" "Would you rather I die in a trap because I was too heavy?", "Honey I don’t like when you work so far away from home for so long" "Well what else can I do, do you have any better idea?". That sort of thing. Even if not being passive agressive or snappy, or even spoken upon, these situations can cause tension, or a feeling of powerlessness or imbalance in the relationship. Although I personally feel like they were both rather passive in their relationship (thus having little arguments), which itself can be a problem since yes they let each other live but they grew more distant and less communicative as a result, more on that later. Content and tolerating, rather than happy and fulfilled.

Workaholism and long distance

Spending a lot (or even a majority?) of time away from home for years and years obviously can strain relationships in many ways. Besides becoming more distant, both with his wife and his daughters, there's just that side that maybe you grow apart or you end up not knowing them all that well. Like the fictional dialogue excerpts I wrote just above, the way Chilchuck puts work above most things can by itself be the source of a lot of unhealthy habits and strains that could not only hurt himself but his relationships too. Devoted doesn’t mean attentive, even if Chilchuck 100% devotes himself to only her romantically and works in the goal to support her that doesn’t transfer into being there for her, even when he physically is.

An absent father isn't necessarily a deadbeat father, but an absent father is absent. And alright, we don’t know what his schedule was like exactly, but he was busy and traveled around, I think it’s fair to assume that if we were to make comparisons it’d be like parents irl who are often on work trips. We don't know what Chilchuck's wife's social circle is like, but regardless of how big or small or supportive it is it would be easy to get lonely I think. Besides raising the kids undoubtedly falling more onto her shoulders as well. Managing a household can be very hard and tiring even when not alone, I can imagine she felt like she missed the support of Chilchuck either as help or comfort oftentimes. We know very little about her, but I don't get the impression that she'd build up resentment over it except maybe her ‘falling into a bad mood’, but exhaustion? Absolutely.

It’s also implied imo, even beyond Chil not often being at home, that they rarely go out together. And that could very well be part of why she was mad after the outing. In Marcille’s theory she says that her wife felt out of place amongst all the cool adventurer coworkers, and if it’s a rare time that they go out together and it was supposed to be about her meeting his coworkers… I feel like what could have happened was that she felt out of place yes, and even moreso if she ended up not participating in conversations much because of it and no one really seemed to care, and the evening was all Chilchuck and his coworkers chatting it up as always and she was an outsider, if she sort of just faded into the background, if it felt like nothing would have changed wether she was there or not... If she felt like her presence didn’t matter on this special outing that rarely happened, it could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for her to want to leave, definitely. He finally comes back after a long work travel and they finally go out and this is what their quality time is like? The outing that was supposed to be about her & them both ended up being all about him, and once more she was supposed to just orbit around him and his life without complaint or her own selfish wants like a devoted wife. With how Chil said that she got mad "all of a sudden" on the way home and he didn’t know why, plus that he was probably drunk (which may very well have made the whole thing worse), I feel like it supports that he didn’t pay her much attention during the evening, not that I’m assigning him ill intent at all, I’m sure that for him, it was a casual and fun night out and he didn’t think it'd been unpleasant or alienating for her.

That night

And all of this speculation in order to try and figure… What happened? Why did she leave? I've already gone into it a fair bit, but this is where I discuss it fully in depth.

We can’t rely on Marcille’s theory. Neither in the why she felt so out of place enough to want to leave, nor if her intention when leaving was to "test" him. I definitely agree that the reason why she left is layered and that the night/outing was the straw that broke the camel’s back more than the cause perse, but besides that it’s hard to say how much of it was impulsive and how much was because nothing else had worked to fix their relationship, or how long she'd been thinking of maybe leaving him.

Personally my favorite interpretation isn't that she found herself to be boring surrounded with Chilchuck's adventurer coworkers, or her reason for leaving is super centered around insecurity and if Chilchuck even loves her anymore, but that she sees how rich and eventful Chilchuck's life is and at the same time realizes how stagnant her own life has been. Chilchuck has adventurers for coworkers and they go out to bars and spend evenings together chatting it up, while she always does the same house chores every day and waits, and wonders, uncertain about when her huband would come back, and waits some more. She has a sort of passive role in her own life that gets pulled in one way or another by the people around her at their whims and needs, which is also a recurring theme in the manga: having a passive role in your own life, or a role that's devoted to others. Like with Falin who's always following her parents' directives or following Laios around, being the party's healer and eventually sacrificing herself for Laios and Marcille (she also doesn't seem to think much of marriage, as seen with Shuro proposing to her and her not having answered yet, which fits with how she was supposed to have an arranged marriage in her hometown too; a loveless marriage isn't something alarming to her). Izutsumi too, whose whole arc is about her gaining freedom and figuring out how to use this empowerment for herself and what she wants.

So she'd sit there, not knowing anyone except Chilchuck and not being able to follow their conversations about dungeons, and think about how this is a world she's totally apart from. How she knows so little of the world compared to him. She'd realize that while she's always waiting for Chilchuck to come home, dedicated to him and their family, Chilchuck's world doesn't stop and end at where and when he sees her, that while she's waiting he's living and experiencing things and being self-fulfilled. She's so passive and devoted and her tasks seem almost senseless now that the house is empty except for her, and in that time he's formed half-foot unions and she understands so little of what his life has become outside of her sight. This isn't a diss on Chilchuck or his attitude, I just think that it'd make her ponder about happiness and lifestyles, what's worth it and if she's content with her life. I think she'd find that her and Chilchuck aren't on the same page anymore, and probably they don't communicate much or even that they don't know how to communicate with each other anymore.

Other factors

They really do seem to be on different pages and not know how to communicate with each other well, since for example Chilchuck thinks that on the way back home she "suddenly" fell into a bad mood and seemingly left it alone, or otherwise they didn't talk until he knew what was wrong. Or like how she left and Chilchuck never reached out to her to talk or mend things, just like she never reached out either. According to Marcille it could be that she wanted to "test his love" and see if he'd even care if she was gone, but Chilchuck just got angry that she left like that and never reached out to her, so if that's true they definitely have incompatible expectations or ways to deal with things like that. Maybe she thought of leaving as something he should react to by trying to win her back, but Chilchuck did nothing and let her do her thing, and tbh if that were me I'd also have waited on her to reach out because I figure out that if someone leaves me they want space from me idk. He seems to be rather passive when it comes to interpersonal relationships and how they can mess up, made an analysis post here that talks about it, so the way he reacted by not reacting doesn't feel surprising, maybe she didn't know/remember that part of him, or wanted to shake him out of that tendency. He has no clue why she left, and there are just so many misunderstandings here that it's impossible to know what happened and how she felt and what she wanted for the future.

Also, we’re shown that younger Chilchuck, when he started dungeon crawling, is much more "innocent" and optimistic, less closed off on himself and bitter, and maybe he hasn't even developed his famous "sarcastic retorts" and "abusive remarks" yet as is plastered on all his character introductions and stats. Chilchuck has definitely changed a lot over the years, and some would argue not for the better. Staying with someone for so long has implications that they'll change and be different of course, but signing up for marriage with someone can still leave you questioning that choice decades down the line when they're so different

We get to see his freckles fade in sync with his corruption arc /j

Tfw when you can’t recognize the man you fell in love with.

The hair question

Edit 1/13/2024 leak!!!! Things aren’t officially confirmed but this is a safe bet. You can still read this section to see my reasoning to thinking she had black hair prior to this tho haha

It's not all that important rationally, but the community's been split on the topic: is Chilchuck's wife blonde or not?

Kui highlights Chilchuck being attracted to blondes a grand total of three times, and many assume that his wife is blonde due to this. However, the only vision we see of Chilchuck's wife is Marcille imagining herself as a halfling, so it's up for debate! Flertom has black hair, and that's mostly been the key clue that has people arguing.

I'm not an expert in genetics but black hair is a dominant gene, but it also doesn't mean a black haired parent can't have a brown haired kid, or that two brown haired parents can't have a kid with black hair. As long as one of the parents have it in their genetic code from somewhere in their family tree, it's possible, if not maybe unlikely.

People have been taking Flertom having black hair as evidence that Chilchuck's wife has black hair, but it could be Chilchuck that has the gene and could pass it on. Although...

That seems unlikely. We don't know what Chilchuck's elder brother's hair color was, and his elder sister does have a darker brown hair color, but in the case their parents had black hair or the gene for it, it seems highly unlikely if not impossible for the dominant black hair gene to miss this many amount of time in the gene russian roulette game.

And so I shall now call a witness to the stand, and you reader shall be the judge… Dandan.

You know, this guy? He makes appearances throughout the whole manga, but only has one spoken line in an easy to brush over flashback iirc. He's most often seen hanging out around Chilchuck and other half-foots, but it's unsure how far back he and Chilchuck go.

Now. Remember how Chilchuck and his wife are childhood friends? What if, and hear me out, what if Dandan is related to her. A cousin, or a sibling. Or maybe he's Chilchuck's cousin, even, if we go the reverse route.

The chapter cover

Look at the chapter cover below! We see each member of the main party at a table that's meaningful to them and their history, mostly showing themes of family, community and routine. Laios and Falin sharing a meal by themselves, Marcille at a meal in the cafeteria at the magic academy, Senshi by himself cooking in the dungeon, Izutsumi with Inutade at the Nakamoto household, and... Chilchuck, surrounded by much more mysterious and unknown characters and surroundings.

The only face we see besides the infant is a young one on the left which strikes me as looking a ton like Chilchuck! I doubt it's Meijack or Puckpatti, or someone else, especially since Chilchuck left his hometown pretty early which must make family gatherings harder (and routine is implied with the others�� panels). If it were Meijack I think Kui would have drawn it to more closely match her too, and have her usual freckles. I also don't think it's just Chilchuck and his own family, since if that's Chilchuck the only sibling with black hair he could have is his elder brother and the infant in the middle is clearly, well an infant.

My thoughts are that the table is shared with family friends, or at least members of the community. The elderly person implies that either there's extended family or it’s a gathering, especially if Chilchuck's grandparents don't live with them. Community is implied to be very important with half-foots imo, and if Chilchuck is from a small hometown like he says that would surprise me even less. Childhood friends are often brought together as friends because of circumstances, such as proximity or their families being friends! Doesn't that kid almost off-panel on the right, with a Flertom-like hairstyle and black hair, look to be the same age as the Chilchuck on the left? 👀

Also… Notice the dragon plush she’s holding?

Passed down from mom to daughter? The "most likely belonged to his daughters" is interesting too

If he is related, Dandan could be the infant. I suppose he doesn't end up mattering all that much in the end if you theorize that the Flertom-like kid is his wife on its own though haha. But wether or not you think that this is convincing enough, it's all we have on the topic for now.

Ah yes! Lastly, I've seen the sentiment around that his wife should be blonde, that Chilchuck's taste for blondes, if not the thing that brought them together, should be an acquired taste from loving his wife. That if that's not the case, then Chilchuck's type being blondes is either out of place or insuting or unromantic, etc etc. I can't help but disagree! I think, especially with how Chilchuck and his wife are domestic and all about knowing each from a young age, familiarity etc etc, that it would be so sweet if she wasn't his type! Loving someone so deeply, even if they aren't an idealized type... Which is a common theme/story & character beat in Dungeon Meshi.

Family dynamic theories

Meijack is the most capable, takes after her father the most, seems to have her own business as a locksmith but has a stable steady life. Flertom is the most social, she works at a tavern which seems stable and is ambitious with marriage plans, she has a caring side to her since she sent her dad a handmade gift. Puckpatti is the most upbeat, though she has the most unstable lifestyle, seemingly doing odd jobs.

His daughters do seem well adjusted, which encourages me in that their family seems amicable on the whole and (at the very least) decently functional. We don’t hear what they think of Chilchuck but presumably none of them are on bad terms with him or each other. Flertom does say that "half-foot men are stingy" which, gee, I wonder what half-foot man would have made taught her that- though it does also seem to be a racial stereotype in general, with how for example Namari also says to "steer clear from stores with half-foot clerks".

Flertom seems to be the only one who reached out after their mother left (the only one who's mentioned to have done so at least), and it's because she was the one who took in her mother. It’s not implied that they exchange letters regularly too iirc, it possibly was the only letter they've exchanged since then. I wonder if the daughters even know the full story, if their mother told them all about it or very little. Maybe some are pretty out of the loop, or more distant.

It strikes me that they don't seem to be very close. We're not shown anything that leads us to believe they don't like their father, but I think they're so used to him being absent for work that such distance is normal for them and they don't really long for a deeper relationship or to see him often. They were already out of the house and it seems like they didn't see each other much at that time either so for them it would be just a bit less than the regular amount of Dad time. It's been 4 years Chilchuck what are you doing... But yeah! From what we see they seem mostly unaffected, almost indifferent, not that we can truly tell. I imagine Flertom is the one most attached to Chilchuck with how she sent him a handmade cowl, and I think he rubbed off the most on Meijack teachings wise (besides her attitude, she’s also the one who still wears braids, and we see that Chilchuck braids hair). It makes sense, since they're oldest, and on the contrary I think Puckpatti is the one that knows her father the least. It'd fit the timeline with him working away more while she grew up imo.

Wouldn't it be interesting then that she's the one that Chilchuck says is carefree, in the official translation "doesn't treat life real seriously"? That she's the most optimistic, the most go-with-the-flow, out of the bunch? To me that sounds like a result from her being the youngest and Chil being the most often at work, thus her getting raised by her mother without as much involvement from Chil. Far be it from me to say Chilchuck would raise his daughters to be unhappy btw, not at all, we just all know what down-to-earth values he wants others to have so he doesn't have to worry about them.

Although… Puckpatti spotted?? Seems like he wants to stop her from buying something? His heart meter for her is full <3 (Note: I’ve seen it be argued that this could be his wife. I disagree, since the "stop them" and way that the long haired one is off-center compared to everyone else gives the sense that it’s many of his daughters, and the fact that it’s styled after a dating sim doesn’t mean it’s romantic love as we see with the others. Otherwise imagine being her wife and he tells you not to buy stuff when you go shopping together rip)

Headcanons time:

When naming the daughters, together they choose a pool of names they’d like but only one has the final say, and they alternate between who that is. Chilchuck sticks around more near the end of her pregnancies, and he hasn’t missed any of their births. I don’t have any opinions on who named who right now, but there could be some interesting stuff to theorize with Puckpatti, like them taking extra care picking the name together because they settled on her being their last daughter for fluff, or it was supposed to be Chilchuck but he was so busy that he ended up not picking in time and she was the one to name her for angst.

Actually scratch that I have a new theory : What if it’s actually customary for each parent to pick one half of their half-foot kid’s name? So then each would have chosen half of each girl’s name… And this could be why Chil calls Puckpatti Patti instead of Puck which is her first name, because he’s stubborn since Patti was his pick lmaoooo. Pattipuck doesn’t have the same ring to it alas, his wife was so right

Chilchuck liked to do activities with the girls when they were young. He's not opposed to relaxing at home with them perse, but he likes to do workshops with stuff like arts & crafts to develop their agility some. I don't think they'd do much outings to places like restaurants or theatres for money reason, and I don't think Chilchuck is much of an outdoors type, but he could accompany them to nice fields to play in, or in winter places to play in snow and sled, and organize some activities at home. He's not home very often so when he is he likes to take it easy as a break from work and values the time he gets with his family.

Chilchuck would sometimes work from home as a locksmith, say, unlocking a chest for a customer. In those times, Meijack would take interest and watch him work, even handing him the tools he needs as he goes. In this way, Chilchuck taught her a lot about the work of a locksmith over time. He's also the one that would oil door hinges or do renovation around the house- when he's available.

Like the plushies under his table in his home that we see in illustrations, Chilchuck has a lot of mementos from his daughter (and his wife) he keeps around. Sometimes they take a bothersome amount of place, but throwing anything out isn't something he's seriously willing to consider. Flertom's the most artistic and she used to help with sewing clothes back together, so he has a cheap ceramic mug painted by her when she was really young and small embroideries around.

Imo Meijack would be the most distant in the present. Flertom makes efforts for her parents and is pretty involved, and Puckpatti's distance is more out of being a bit airheaded and being busy + not having a great grasp on time or what's a normal amount of family contact, but Meijack's the one who knowingly and intentionally keeps some distance. I think she’d be the least optimistic about their family situation, and although she’d be hopeful when Chilchuck reached out to them again she’d be a but hesitant. I think Meijack would hold some grudges, being the one most critical of their parenting, both grateful to her dad for working so hard for them and saddened that he wasn't in their life more. Since Flertom was born in the same year I think it’s possible that Meijack was pushed aside a bit to take care of the younger baby more, out of necessity rather than lack of love. Her mom probably needed a lot of help around the house too. Flertom wasn’t blind either, and she cared about & noticed her mom’s emotional states, but she’s on the whole more hopeful and forgiving.

This is my most far fetched one but it is a hc after all, but I think it'd be interesting if one of them had food hoarding tendencies/stress. I like to think it's Flertom, because she's the middle child and would get told that her older sister and younger sister are "growing and need the food" so she wouldn't be allowed to take as much refill or such, add that to them not having much money to frivolously spend on food and that makes a kid who's worried about not eating to her hunger and tends to be possessive over food (I'm projecting). Differential treatment is inevitable in families with many siblings, and it can manifest in small or big ways, maybe they realize it maybe they don't. Working in a tavern has helped eased that tendency of her though, and while she does diet a bit she always leaves a meal feeling satisfied.

When they were younger, Flertom was a real firecracker, loud and spirited with some troublemaking tendencies! She was the daughter that got in trouble & got scolded the most. You can still see slivers of it now that she’s an adult, but she’s much more poised and diligent. She has much more acquaintances than friends, but she has a couple of best friends and usually gets along well with most people. Puckpatti was always a bit head in the cloud, very kind if not gullible, and tended to make friends somewhat easily but didn’t keep them for long, preferring to keep meeting new people and not keeping in touch well. She isn’t super talkative but tends to ramble when she does. Meijack is very introverted, she has more trouble making friends, she has a good handful though they don’t meet up often, her friendships tend to last and she’s close to them. She’s grown more confident over the years, less repressed and more quiet. Meijack as the big sister tended to be the listener for her younger sisters who had more social mishaps. Flertom has dated once before and it only cemented to her that she was going to have very high standards from then on.

Meijack wears thigh-high boots because she hates when sand, dirt or snow gets in her shoes. She wears practical clothing but avoids anything frilly or flashy. Puckpatti also dresses practically, but she does enjoy pretty clothes, it’s more out of necessity and due to not having enough money to indulge. Flertom has a social stable job and she loves prettying herself up (especially as she’s in search of a husband) so she’s the one who gets the most and nicest fashionable clothes and accessories.

Chilchuck is hinted to have had a rather dysfunctional family himself (alcoholic father, distant siblings, etc). So he doesn’t really have the best model on how to raise someone and such. I imagine it was a sort of neglectful home situation, where the kids are encouraged to be independent. If they didn’t have to work or help around much, then free range parenting sort of thing. We do see how the family has full and warm feasts, where someone cleans his mouth with a rag, so it’s not like he didn’t have a caring circle or a tragic childhood though! I don’t remember if it’s explicitely stated, but he’s heavily implied to having grown up poor, as most half-foots, and I just think it's the hardened hardworking family type of childhood where just like he does with others they instill somewhat harsh life lessons in him, which in turn encourages him to indulge in the simple pleasures of life like alcohol and sex, or at least women’s beauty and crass jokes. We do see he seems more optimistic when he's younger in flashbacks, so a bunch of his harsh view on the world is still likely learned and earned rather than taught. I still think he inherited many flawed views from how his father acted, like his attitude about excessive drinking not being a big deal and worth it. That work hard play hard, enjoy life die young mentality he has, shown mostly in the "alcohol" section of his Adventurer's Bible profile, could very well be partly a result of the general poverty half-foot communities are that he grew in as well, like how he doesn't hope for things to be as best as they could be and contends with good enough. As far as I remember, his mother is never mentioned, but I doubt it implies she was out of the picture. She was probably a regular sort of mother that took care of the home as well and was still around when his father died. It looks like there’s a good age gap between one sibling to the next, that could be interesting to dig into too.

A part of Chilchuck’s character is that he takes responsibility for safety and actions of people around him and is very often looking out for them to not do faux-pas wether socially or literally with stepping onto traps. The way he says "I’ve got three people to think of here" makes me think that’s also how he’d think about having to provide for his family, and that could be a source of stress and insecurity for him. Caring for others is a pretty integral part of his character and we see time and time again that his family is very important to him, in any case.

Post-canon

This pic has so much to say!! It’s the ‘thank you for reading’ double page spread where they’re going to a big dining table at the castle with Laios and the main gang. First family gathering in 4 years perhaps?! I’ll say, not feeling very hopeful that his wife isn’t in this, not even implied to be just off-panel with a hand or anything… I imagine before this he still talked to them at least a bit and figured their family situation out, but I think this is still in the early stages of reconnecting. Haha imagine being one of them and receiving a letter saying "Hi it’s been a while… I want to introduce you to my ex-coworker the king and his friends, you up for that?" I don’t want to reconsider all my hcs for this yet, but this pic does seemingly show an eagerness from all the daughters to reunite and reconnect! Meijack’s could be seen as more hesitant, but I think it’s just awkwardness from meeting so many new people, of high status no less. Chilchuck does seem awkward and somewhat self-conscious though, and while that could be just from say Marcille and the others meeting his daughters and him not knowing how to act, I think that also shows that Chilchuck is unsure how to act around his daughters too. Can’t blame him, I’d be stressed too. Anyways, the daughters are all dressed up! Puckpatti even brought flowers! And I doubt it’s just for Senshi, or just to be in with the king. Oh also also, Puckpatti chides Meijack here, seemingly on manners?, so that implies new/different family dynamics there~

We know with the succubus chapter that he does plan on reaching out to his wife again and shooting his shot, and when Marcille was dungeon lord he told her she could help think of a plan to make up with her together at which point Marcille showered him in gifts and flowers intended for her and his daughters. So we do know that whatever happens and however it happens, Chilchuck definitely will at least reach out to her to win her back or worse case scenario get closure on the situation.

These are his plans before it’s revealed that the Island is… Well, not an island but the golden kingdom, so the news that Laios is king and that might have changed them a bit, but I think he’s still gonna stick around to help with the half-foot guild for a while.

My personal ideal post-canon Chilchuck life is that after around a year or two of helping around in the golden kingdom, especially regarding half-foot working rights, he gets his shop and finally settles down. He prioritized the whole half-foot guild because there are changes to attend to and people to help, but also used that to procrastinate a bit on getting in touch with his wife again. He does send a letter though, and when she replies they then meet face to face. They explain how it was like on their end, their grievances and their feelings, and they do reconcile. But… It’s been 4 years and his wife has frankly moved on. She’d rather they stay as friends, and Chilchuck has mixed feelings on it but is ultimately fine with it. He was halfway resigned to not reconciling with his wife in canon after all. But no longer do they have cut contact! They get together with the girls for the holidays and the ambiance is nice! He starts exchanging letters more regularly. He also gets a second family of clingy asses with Izutsumi and the main gang and so though he lives alone in his shop he’s well surrounded and well loved, and his daughters visit to check up on him every so often.

I really like the… Maturity of Chilchuck’s plotline, if that makes sense? To me the ending that fits the most is him and his wife reconciling, but not getting back together. I like that they could still be adults about it and at least amicable even after divorce, and that that wouldn’t be treated as a tragic ending. In the end, they were childhood friends and teenage parents, they rushed things a bit and I genuinely think they’re just not that compatible. If not then, at least having it be a gradual process, getting back together and making it work until they’re truly comforatble with each other. Destroy the relationship to better build it again stronger!

Although, his arc in the manga is to allow himself to form connections and be optimistic, which would fit well with him and his wife getting back together. I def think Chil would get healthier post-canon which could fix the issues they had in their relationship though. Like for one he starts eating more, which improves mood & irritability & health, and also after the whole half-foot guild he plans to settle down with a shop so it wouldn’t be long distance or unstable anymore which would definitely give his wife some peace of mind. If they still do some long distance at first while he gets the half-foot guild stable, it’d be really cute if he sent pressed flowers with his letters to her… That could make a nice fic concept, like over time all the pressed flowers and exchanged letters hehe (oh shit that’s a nice title)

My post-canon timeline is Chilchuck lives a nice life living alone in his house except his friends all visit him and care and even tho he likes living alone it’s also bittersweet and every corner of his life is haunted by mementos of the ones he loves and the moments he had with them. But then it’s also like the shared duty of everyone to pass by his shop when they can and keep the old man company and sometimes that means many people come at the same time like if both Meijack and Marcille came the same day~ Cozy life, no regrets except a lil regrets still. That’s it that’s all I want.

Misc

I didn’t know where to put this, so new category time! Family truly is a central theme of Chilchuck’s character. His reaction to learning more about how life gets made is so awed by the wonder of the world. Life indeed…

The implication of this page is that Chil didn’t know about the science side of how procreation works, though of course he did know about the practical side of it. This is speculation, and we have no clue how widespread the information of how reproduction scientifically works lol, but I think it’s fair to think that half-foots’ education especially in smaller communities is handled by the parent, school of life style, or if there are schools then the education is very general and it probably ends early. I think this is supported by how for example half-foots’ jobs we’ve seen are based on experience rather than knowledge, like being a locksmith. Of course any job has its fair share of specialized knowledge to learn, but jobs you learn on the fly pretty well. This sort of dynamic contrasts a lot against elves many tallmen communities, like with the magic academy, where education and knowledge are valued almost above experience, this is what the mandrake chapter was all about after all. Poorer communities tend to have poorer education systems as well irl, it’s a whole issue.

So I already said my piece about his wife not being blonde and it being nice and romantic because literally you don’t need someone to be a beauty ideal to love them and that’s fine and normal and even more romantic imo. But!! I do have an headcanon, now that his wife’s appearance is all but explicitly confirmed. While their hair is blonde, yes their hair is wavy and the ‘main’ one has deep-set eyes, not unlike his wife! Now this is a ‘which came first the egg or the chicken’ question, but while most people seem to be assuming that he got with his wife because she was his type, since they’re childhood friends I feel like it’s his love for his wife that shaped his preferences in that deparment. Like ok he loves golden hair and hers is black, but isn’t it so much more romantic that he has so much love and devotion for his wife and has stared lovingly at it so much over the years, that it’d become his ideal? He loves her eyes <3

Conclusion

Reminder that I’ve got more observations and tidbits compiled in a reblog addition now.

More stuff I should workshop for the masterpost:

Compile more info on Chilchuck's father and his other family. Edit: I compiled all I had pretty neatly here in a speculation post, but there’s no other concrete piece of info other than what I’ve covered here sadly. Same with stuff like Chilchuck’s past work schedule and exchanged letters, there seems to be no other bits of evidence, except…

On the chapter cover and extra where he’s in his basement room we can see one letter and a few papers across his desk. Maybe family letters? Wether his daughters or relatives. Seems too few to me, could just as well be job descriptions, but truly who knows, it’s hopeful.

Excellent analysis on half-foot culture here by a friend that I should read and incorporate the good info into my own meta~

And thus I leave you with a lil web weaving I made about Chil & his wife’s relationship~ And this is where I’d put panels of Chilchuck’s wife… IF THERE WERE ANY

Should we even call Chilchuck's wife Mrs. Tims... We don't know dunmeshi marrital traditions though, and half-foot already have somewhat complex naming conventions... I hate that we don't really know if the daughters' last names are Chils or Chilz. Although that seems to be a japanese to english translation issue, since japanese used the suffix zu and not su, likely to imitate the english S sound at the end of a word. Oh yeah the last names change each generation, that’s odd right? But in english it sounds like saying Chil’s, like, [father]’s, so I think this also supports how half-foots communities tend to be tightly knit and live in the present, for them to be like "Ooh so you’re [father]’s little one eh? I know who that is and this is insightful as to who your family is to me!". Iceland’s a place where last names are like this, though I don’t know about pros and cons of it in that context. It’s called a patronymic.

Ah and I have a bittersweet spotify playlist about her and Chil too, here if ya want. That’s it the post is over

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #spoilers #chilchuck tims #delicious in dungeon #chilchuck’s wife #chilchuck’s family #Tims family #puckpatti #meijack #flertom #Analysis #Meta #Despite my best tries I am not omnipresent it's always fun when piecing together these topics is a community effort!!#please do build upon this if you have anything to add #but yeah editing is up in the air. I'll probably be adding stuff maybe even cutting stuff out #this is a giant post i am slightly overwhelmed #Kui puts so much importance in details it's incredible. It truly feels worthwhile to get into the weeds #We support chilchuck’s wife on this blog #I covered how stressful her life could have been a bit in my Grind Me Down Sweetly fic funnily enough if ya want to give it a read. It has #Daughters mentions too hehe. And my post-canon marchil take #Oh also if there’s already theory and compilation posts out there about this i’m down to link them in or smth. I haven’t seen it done but #If it’s been then i’m very interested in reading & seeing #Apparently chilchuck being an absent dad is a heated debated topic. Oops #Pls do not murder me… Peace and love in the dungeon meshi fandom? He’s my second fave have mercy on this humble stan #This is 7k words btw. Pls do pick and choose what you’re interested in or skim or take breaks or anything

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suzuran777 · 2 years ago

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Nitro Chiral April Fools’, 2005 - 2021

Nitro Chiral recently announced that they will probably not create any new content for April Fools’ in the future. I remember really looking forward to this every year, so I was a bit sad to hear that...! They mentioned that they might change this decision again some day, so we will just have to wait and see... To remember all of the fun jokes they’ve created throughout the years I wanted to make a fun compilation of all their previous April Fools’ jokes (or at least the ones I remember and took screenshots of). Maybe someone already posted something similar, but I had a lot of fun looking at these old pictures again!

2005 Togainu no Chi 'Vischio Jack'. This was just one month after Togainu no Chi was released! Nitro Chiral’s website was filled with Arbitro’s hobbies. He announced that the next game will be called ‘Makeinu no Chi’ which means ‘blood of the losers’... The new main visual also shows all of them bleeding from their noses lol.

Some interesting new items... the Shiki body pillow?

2006 A year later Arbitro hijacked the official website once more and comments on each Lamento character. He seems to be a fan of Konoe but the others aren't his type... This blog describes it in greater detail (Japanese only). Second part of the website teases the Togainu no Chi fighting game (咎狗の血餓狗 Mark of the Dogs). I kind of wish they really made this game because the description of it sounds fun.

2007 Lamento Love Love Gakuen, which was later made into a real drama CD also started as an April Fools' joke! Asato is Konoe’s childhood friend in this, Rai the student council president and Bardo’s a health education teacher.

You can still listen to some of the audio clips from the original page here! The plot doesn’t seem much different than the real drama CD they ended up making later.

2009 Nitro Chiral mentioned they couldn’t do anything for April Fools’ 2008, but they were back in 2009 with..one of the weirder ones. They posted a teaser of their new game, ‘Sweet Potchari’ which literally means ‘sweet chubby’ and as the name suggests, they posted art of all of the sweet pool characters, but this time they’re chubby.

You could check the profile description of each character and Kunihito’s description mentions that he’s very charming and “both men and women love him” lol. I unfortunately don’t have any high quality versions of these wallpapers anymore. Someone also recorded the voice lines, though listen to it at your own risk.

2010 This time Nitro Chiral announces a new project called 'YO! Akira'. It’s Togainu no Chi except all of the characters are replaced by mannequins and they’re kinda terrifying. They made videos in which they re-created part of the opening and the game, which someone actually saved and uploaded, so you can still watch it here...! The whole thing is a parody of Japanese sketch comedy series 'Oh! Mikey!!' which focuses on an American family living in Japan, but all the characters are played by mannequins.

This blog has some more pictures of what the website looked like. The day after this Nitro Chiral made a blog post about maybe spending too much time creating these April Fools’ jokes, but it seems like they had fun! They also had no idea what to do with the mannequins after this.

2012 I think they skipped 2011 because I cannot find any information about it, so let’s move on to 2012! Arbitro took over the Nitro+Chiral website again and changed it to Bitro+Chiral...

You could play this short visual novel on the website in which Arbitro introduced his new product line-up. A hataki (feather duster) shaped like Konoe’s tail, a life-sized Akira statue made of chocolate, Onnushi-sama's curry, and blue butter which is supposed to decrease you appetite so you don't have to eat anymore. After looking at these last two pictures I think I don’t feel hungry anymore...

This is also the year DRAMAtical Murder was released, so they changed the website too! Now it’s DRAMAtical Mother, which is of course referencing the Mother series (Earthbound). You can find some more screenshots and information here.

Aoba got his own Twitter account too this year, which someone also archived here! The Twitter account actually still exists but I believe they locked it after April Fools’ ended.

2013 This year they focused on DRAMAtical Murder too! They transformed the website into Junkshop Heibon's webstore (the store Aoba works at in the game). It feels kind of nostalgic...

That same year they also released a radio show in which Aoba and Mizuki work for Midorijima Radio Station. They invite Koujaku, Noiz, Clear, and Mink as special guests. This has been uploaded and fan translated, so I definitely recommend checking it out here! They also ended up selling this as a CD later.

2014 This is one I remember very well because I remember playing the short game they released. It's called ‘Osu-Boys!! ~Ikemen Ryoujoku ☆ Paradise~’ and it's a short visual novel which features the four protagonists, except they're all really clumsy and end up in some really embarrassing situations... I am guessing the artstyle is supposed to be similar to KyoAni’s Free! anime.

I don’t think I can show the full pictures here because the CGs of this game are quite NSFW, but you can probably still find them somewhere online. Aoba worked at an adult goods shop in this game though, nice new job (?). Unlike the browser games, this one could be downloaded, so some people probably still have it.

2015 Arbitro once again returns and opens his own 'hentai' museum.... yeah. Someone uploaded the theme song they made for the website, you can find it here. I believe it’s supposed to be a parody of ‘Atami Hihokan’ (an adult museum).

The website shows a map of the museum and its facilities, some more pictures can be found here. I think the art of the mascots is pretty cute this time...

You could also play this minigame on the website which also featured the four protagonists. There’s still a video of someone playing through the game, so definitely check it out if you’re interested. The artstyle has a bit of a retro feel.

2016 This year the website turned into the 'Raira-ryuu honpo' official homepage, an art school that specializes in the traditional art of ...boys love. All of the characters are drawn like famous Ukiyo-e paintings.

All of the ones above are Tōshūsai Sharaku paintings, so it was pretty easy to find which ones they were referencing!

They also re-drew all of the game covers too and the descriptions of the games were pretty funny. Midorijima was transformed into a big red-light district and the people who lived there were kicked out and are now living in poverty. I hope you’re surviving, Aoba...

This time there was also a flash game which could be played on the website, a shunga (erotic painting) puzzle. You can find all of these pictures here. Like the previous year they are heavily censored and not really NSFW.

2017 This time the April Fools’ joke is a parody of 'The World of GOLDEN EGGS', a Japanese animation series set in an American-style fictional town, except this time it’s called ‘BOYs LOVE Nitro+CHiRAL’. I’m assuming most people who have been in the fandom for some time remember this one. They created a short YouTube video series and it had English subs. You can still find the videos if you look for them on YouTube so please watch them...! It’s all worth it for Konoe singing ‘I’m in Blue’ and the Rhyme fight.

Youji is always the victim of these awkward conversations... Some more pictures here! You can find the YouTube videos by just searching for the title of the series mentioned above.

2019 After 2017 they stopped updating their website on April Fools’, probably because they were busy working on Slow Damage, but in 2019 they did post some extra illustrations. Not the most happy kind of illustrations, featuring the protagonists and Naito-kun apologizing because they couldn’t do anything for April Fools’ that year...

2021 Unfortunately this is the last one! 2021 is the year Slow Damage was released, so it makes sense the final April Fools' joke focuses on them. It's called 'Warau Euphoria', which means ‘laughing euphoria’. It’s a reference to Japanese series 'The Laughing Salesman', so they're also drawn in a similar artstyle.

The website has a warning that you need to be over 35 years old to enter instead of the usual 18+ warning lol. They also got Towa’s voice actor to record a couple of new lines on the webpage, if you click here you can still listen to a recording of it.

I’m a bit sad they might not do any of this stuff anymore in the future, but I’m also glad many people recorded videos of the old websites and minigames so we can still enjoy them even now. I couldn’t include every single screenshot in this blog post, so I tried my best to link other pages with more information.

I had a lot of fun checking out their website every year and I really appreciate the effort they put into all of this. I might update this blog with some additional info later!

#nitro chiral #slow damage #lamento #lamento beyond the void #sweet pool #togainu no chi #chiral #nitroplus #april fools #dmmd #dramatical murder

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beaulesbian · 8 months ago

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Thoughts and more thoughts about the potential of Rob Lucci after chapter 1111 - spoilers and theory

(disclaimer: this might be totally implausible and not at all what could happen, but it's something that's been on my mind since last chapter, so here are my thoughts on this. again, very long post ahead, I don't know how it keeps happening)

The way Oda allowed Lucci to feel during chapter 1111, is something I didn't expect to find so intriguing, and it points to how much depth really has each character in this story.

There is a subtle change of certain aspects of Rob Lucci's personality since the start of Egghead, and in the chapter 1111 even a bigger focus is on his reaction to meeting Mars Gorosei and asking for Kaku to be spared.

Given this swept away answer with seeing whom he's been serving all this time, there could come a realization that'd sort of wake him up. There's a potential to somewhat turn power of Cipher Pol agents from blindlessly following the World Government. To stop being the WG's shield.

It's very probable the story might deal with the reform or even collapse as a whole of the World Government - especially since the Gorosei are currently Luffy's main enemies. With that, the Cipher Poll intelligence could play a significant part of it as well, along with other moving pieces like the Revolutionary Army, Shanks, Luffy's fleet or even Morgans and his newspapers, and, of course, the Strawhats.

There's been comments of readers who only saw Lucci and Zoro's fight as one dimensional - one has to win, the other has to lose, and comparing points and skills without really diving into their respective characters - thankfully Oda knows those characters and knows how to make the story interesting and compelling. Where before I hoped we would get a follow up about the words directed at Zoro, instead Lucci was given more space for this chapter.

Where one would hope for Zoro to win and move to other parts of the island with the Strawhats, we instead stayed with Lucci and him witnessing Mars in his full on demon form - something that even Lucci was shocked to see.

Those two pages were such incredible moments for Lucci as a character who serves fully the Gorosei and the World Government in first place, yet! Yet! In the last part he's on the page, he's allowed and shown to be worried and caring for someone else than himself- after arcs and arcs where he appeared here and there just carrying out on orders and missions without seemingly caring about anyone to much depth before, he's given space to actually express the concern regarding Kaku.

Of course he's still this same of bloodthirsty killer, just like in Enies Lobby, (ch. 382),

both his immediate fight upon seeing Luffy on Egghead, and later against Zoro paints it clear what he's capable of.

Rob Lucci is regarded as one of the strongest assassin's in the Cipher Pol agency CP9 (and later with higher rank of CP0). Just reading his wikia to remember more moments, the section about his personality is mostly compiled of traits like cold-hearted, agressive, and especially taking the Wold Governments meaning of Justice into brutal heights, thinking all is allowed to accomplish his goals/missions/orders.

There's his past and how he has been trained by WG to do as they told him, or even go to length which he wasn't even ask to do, but knowing his position as assassin he did as he wanted.

By the end of Water 7 and leaving to Enies Lobby, where he preteded to be friends with Iceberg, Paulie and other shipwrights for 5 years, he didn't show any regrets leaving the place (contrary to Kaku, who seemed to really enjoy his work as shipwright and is sometimes shown really excited about new places and such)

Up until the chapter 1111 I mostly took him as someone really dutiful to follow orders through and through and not gave it much more thought beside that, but it's true that this already started to shift around chapter 1062, when we see Lucci, Kaku and Stussy on their way to Egghead Island:

"They want us to eliminate the most useful man in the world..."

"The last thing a man as keenly perceptive as you should be doing is looking for answers." (says Stussy, a double agent working for Vegapunk, lol).

I wouldn't call it distrust in WG, yet. At this point he was still adamant about following the mission to kill Vegapunk. But maybe it's more visible that he's thinking more about such orders and their consequences.

He fights Luffy immediately after setting foot on Egghead, calls it as it is in wanting to defeat Luffy and destroy his whole crew without any pretense (and maybe that honesty was why Luffy took his word for their brief cooperation in fighting Seraphim). ch. 1076

He says this honestly, yet after the Strawhats and Vegapunks are healing later on, Lucci still tries to attack Vegapunk, ch.1091

Once knowing Kizaru appeared too, Lucci returnes back to finish his mission, he strikes at Vegapunk again - unsuccessfuly because Stussy takes that attack, and Zoro pushes him from the lab and then keep him occupied until the latest chapter 1111.

And that is a big part of him, eyes always on the mission - get information to his bosses, to Navy/Saturn/Gorosei/Kizaru, and keep his enemies occupied or better yet - dead. This thinking was always present with him to this point in ch. 1111, and that is from where it could lead to even more nuance in his future decisions:

The first time seeing Mars in his demon form there's that blink-and-you-miss it expression of pure horror, hinting that even the highest ranking agents probably had no idea just what the true nature of the Gorosei looks like, and that a sight like that can pull this expression from Lucci:

After that brief shocked state, he goes back to immediately report all informations he has on Vegapunks, Strawhats, even their plan of escape, as well as mentioning the other Cipher Pol agents, trapped in the Lab:

then there's this panel, "well done. no further questions.":

which reminded me of very similar words Lucci said to Robin in Water 7, ch. 348: "you've fulfilled your role. good work."

Maybe it's not intended as parallel, but just that similarity of something he's been clearly hearing from his higher ups, that he added it to his own vocabulary.

But then there's this more surprising part of ch. 1111:

After his shock of seeing that monster in front of him, and after giving Mars all the informations, he still finds the strength to ask him to spare his partner's life, to save Kaku:

What he gets as an answer is along the lines of: "it might be difficult when everyone to us is like ants" and that's the last of Rob Lucci for this chapter.

Mars seem to share this same thinking like Saturn expressed before, while the navy guy heard that even the life of an CP0 agents isn't something Saturn (and Gorosei) would really be troubled over, if lost.

and hearing that from Mars could be an eyeopening moment for Lucci.

They're assassins and an intelligence agency of almost the highest standing among the World Governement, but even the lives of Kaku and such seem to mean nothing to the Gorosei.

The point of the current anime episode 1098 where Lucci & CP0 were just arriving on Egghead reminded me how he was asking Vegapunk about the missing Cipher Pol agents and their disappearances, ch. 1068:

It's not that he was only concerned about Kaku in the latest chapter, but since the end of Water 7 - and seeing how his crew cared for him to pay for his medical bills (cover story chapters 491 - 528, manga only, which is very interesting that the anime didn't adapt that cover story), I think he started to care more about "his own people" - the Cipher Pol agents in general - even to visit to their "hometown" while he was healing and defended that place (and the new young trainees) from the Marines who were sent to attack CP9 after their failure at Enies Lobby:

So the question is.. once Lucci saw just who he was serving all those years, the World Government and the Gorosei - and now seeing Mars in his bird monster form disregarding any care for any lives, even their own agents - will that be a tipping point for him?

He asked Mars to spare Kaku but got an answer that all of them, Cipher Pol agents even on the highest places, are still the same as insects in the eyes of the Gorosei

Could that be something that will help him make a certain change?

My possible theory of what he might do/what might happen (given that he still has the strength to walk after his fight with Zoro):

Find Kaku himself - he was trapped in the bubble like the other Seraphim - we don't know if anyone else un-trapped him in the meantime, and Lucci himself doesn't know about the bubble prison, given his flashback to Kaku is just him laying down, as he last remembers that from the Lab.

Sanji said to Kaku that Lucci abandoned him - something that Lucci kept taunting Zoro with during their fight - about the inability to sacrifice one from their team for the greater good. (It could mean that Kaku either wouldn't count on Lucci coming back, but it would work even better if it was shown Lucci actually coming back for Kaku

and they could go finish their side mission of rescuing the other Cipher Pol agents -

and that's another thing -

even during that brief panel of their rescue -they were thankful to Luffy! Despite their positions of agents of Government, which puts them always directly opposing pirates/Strawhats/Luffy, they appreciated and thanked Luffy for giving them food and saving them, ch. 1090

This together I feel could become a moment of all these agents realizing that Luffy isn't their real enemy - or wake up from their WG brainwashed thinking once they see just who is outside fighting: Gorosei in their monster forms vs. Luffy

I think that Rob Lucci stands there now as one of the few who could sway the Governments power to a tipping point from the inside.

Not precisely helping Luffy or Strawhats, but taking that power of the intelligence agency away from the WG and Marines.

It was shown in multiple pages how the Gorosei care more about the rank and position than any lives of their trained assassins, and think of them as something to be disgarded left and right.

Their intelligence agency and assassins act as a Shield to the WG, and the CP0 even carries that in their name: AEGIS, (a powerful shield from greek mythology).

If the other agents would follow Lucci in a different direction, he could be the one to take away that shield from the Gorosei, uncover one of the layers that act as their security, leaving them more exposed and vulnerable to future attacks (possibly from people like Dragon and Revolutionary army when the time comes for them to strike).

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orpiknight · 1 year ago

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OrpiKnight's FAQ FAQ

For the Neil Gaiman Tumblr FAQ

GO S3 was announced! Will you be updating the FAQ still? Yep! :)

--- Who? Vel (blog OrpiKnight)

Why? I'm excited about Good Omens 2, I was looking through the Asks on Neil Gaiman's blog anyway, and I like having a constructive outlet when I'm going through so much information. And there were a lot of repeat questions. I mainly made it for me and my friends for reference, but then decided to go ahead and throw it out into the Tumblr void, too.

*Are a lot of these questions really frequently asked? Well, this started out being called a "QnA" doc because I was compiling the Asks. Then everyone kept calling it a "FAQ". So I rolled with it. It keeps up with the current Asks as much as possible, though. (I have no way of knowing how many times he gets asked some questions. That's for his inbox to know.)

Will you be actively updating it with new questions/answers? Yes. I update in batches now, every month or so. For my sanity. *When I update things, I usually put the new questions at the bottom of their section, even if they might fit next to something else in it better. This is just to make new ones easier to find. Later on I might reorganize them.

Can you put it in a Tumblr post? No. It's too much information, it can hang out on docs (which is 30+ pages). I'm pretty sure I would hit a word limit if I put it on here. Or break my dash. Or accidentally delete it. *You don't need a Google account to access it. I have tested this signed out on non-Chrome browsers. (I use Firefox btw)

You missed some Asks. Yeah... there is no way I could get all of them. I had to draw the line somewhere.

Some of the questions are strange. Don't I know it. Edit: But I do like to put in all sorts of questions. Sometimes there are things that don't even occur to me to ask that Neil says he gets constant questions about (like the ice cream/ice lolly). Sometimes there are things that I don't realize need clarifying (like "two consenting bicycle repairmen"). One person can ask a creatively specific question that other people are quietly wondering about. I also like the funny ones.

I found an error (typo/link not going to where it's supposed to/accidentally wrong info/etc.)?

But seriously, it's okay to message me to let me know. It's very helpful.

Can I have shared editing access to your document? No.

About the fanfiction thing... Please end my suffering. (And Neil Gaiman's) Edit: I should probably clarify that I do like fanfiction.

I have personal opinions. Please be nice to me.

Can you add or change this, that, or whatever? I work irl, am usually tired, and don't have much time to constantly edit every little thing. Unless you're Neil Gaiman himself asking, it's likely I'm just going to leave it how I organized it. And I mean that in the politest way possible. Speaking of, if you would like to help me out at all with things like bills, medical costs, and food— here's my: Venmo: @ajgvel Ko-fi page (It says you're giving me ducks on there! :D)

It's not expected of course. Regardless, much love to everyone, and thanks for making a space where we can all have fun together about something we enjoy. ♡

Find me on Bluesky: OrpiKnight

#good omens faq #OrpiKnight #okv

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theresattrpgforthat · 1 year ago

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This is slightly off-theme for you, but: *not* horror fantasy *adventures* by small companies, for systems with combat? (Compatibility doesn't really matter; creatures can be tweaked from existing and/or created.) Finding games has become easier than adventures, and most adventures I find are on the horror side of things (The Isle, etc.). Thanks/apologies for going off theme!

Theme: Non-Horror Fantasy Combat Adventures.

Hello there! I have less familiarity with adventures, but I follow some folks on Itch who compile some very useful collections. I noticed that in many cases these collections included dungeon crawls or system agnostic settings, so I hope you find these to be useful!

Mount Zorgoth, by Highland Paranormal Society.

Zorgoth, the Cyclops godling rules from the highest peak. His star magic keeps the world below shrouded in darkness! Can the spell be broken?

This is a one-page mountain-climbing adventure with a goofy look to it and a light-hearted tone. There is no named system for which this adventure appears to be designed for, and as a result there aren’t any stats for the monsters that show up - such as the Slug Shepard and his 2d4 spider goats. But for a one-page rpg there’s certainly a lot you can glean based off of the different locations you can go to. I think this might be a fun game to try with Brave Zenith, as tone-wise both games feel a little bit goofy.

Welcome to Candy Mountain, by cog5games.

Created centuries ago with dark magics informed by gluttony, cast by a wizard who has since lost interest, Candy Mountain stands as a blemish of sweetness protruding from an otherwise bland countryside. The inhabitants of the mountain, who were also affected by the strange enchantment, went about their daily lives. Until…

Side with the Candy Crone and summon a gargantuan Lemon Titan to crush the Sugar Queen. Or! Bow to the Sugar Queen and stop the Candy Crone from exacting her revenge. Or! Forget all that and seek out a source of pure sugar crystals for Doctor Xaraqus and complete the lens of the temporal telescope.

There are honestly a lot of Troika supplements that you would probably find interesting to flip through in your search for non-horror adventures. Troika is a science-fantasy multiversal ttrpg, so there doesn’t have to be a lot of cohesion in terms of setting details. This also means that while not every Troika supplement may work for you, there’s bound to be something out there that does! If you want to check out more troika adventures, you could also look at the Troika! Pamphlet Adventure Jam that this game was submitted to.

Flowers Beneath The Mountain, by BPB Games.

A Casual Stroll Through a Wondrous Locale. Time to Hit the Road!

Flowers Beneath the Mountain is a licensed adventure for Ryuutama. Designed as an evocative introductory adventure for new players who want to explore a region that has more magic and whimsy than the standard setting, Flowers Beneath the Mountain is a simple adventure that provides useful information to help veteran or first time Ryuujin to fill out sheets on their own.

I know Ryuutama has a reputation for being a bit on the cozier side, so I expect this adventure to be fantastic and cute, even if there are monsters for you to fight. The game also comes with tokens for you to use on a Virtual Tabletop of your choice, if you are looking for that to add to your game!

Almanac of Lost Places, by Fantastic Jean.

A mountain coveted by rival kingdoms. A city where information is not a synonym of truth. The ruins of a civilisation far from being abandoned. A valley bending reality to protect itself from exploitation.

This is a loose outline of a number of places with conflicts waiting to be expanded upon. The Almanac holds story seeds: how you describe people and places, and how your players decide to respond will determine what conflicts they find themselves in, which allies they make, and what powers they will bear witness to. There's potential for horror, but I don't think this setting is beholden to it. I’m also wondering if perhaps combining this with something like the Big List of RPG Plots would give you enough to get a story in motion.

Overdue! by seedling.

In this system-agnostic game in a fantasy world, the players are all agents of the Library, sworn to carry out its will. In this one-shot they can become entangled in book-themed royal intrigue, outwit a dragon who has taken control of all scientific journals, save the kingdom, and, most importantly, retrieve an overdue library book.

This is a system-agnostic dungeon-like adventure that looks to be less focused on combat, but I have a feeling that if you wanted to involve some combat, you could likely change some of the encounters within the game without necessarily having to change the core premise of the adventure.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #indie ttrpg #adventures

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specialagentlokitty · 8 months ago

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Mr Evershed x student!reader - hidden art

Hi. Can you please do prompt #42 (from the new set) with Mr. Evershed? Somewhere along the lines of that he spots the tattoo on one of his students. - Anon 💜

42: “Nice tattoo.” “Thanks.” “What’s it mean?” “No idea.”

Sitting on the wall, you flicked to the next page of your book, taking a sip from your water bottle and you set it back down.

It was quiet in this part of the school during lunch, and since you weren’t a big fan of other people, you enjoyed sitting here instead.

It’s probably why you were easy to find, because when the door nearby opened you looked up from your book and you gave a small smile.

“Good afternoon Mr Evershed.” You greeted.

“How’re you today?” He asked.

Putting your bookmark into the book, you closed the book and set it aside.

“I’m good, what brings you out here?”

Mr Evershed sat on the bench and gestured for you to go over to him so you did. Gathering your things you made your way to the bench and sat down.

He held out a bit of paper to you which you took and quickly read over.

“Basketball competition?”

“I know our school focuses a lot on football and rugby, but you seem to enjoy basketball the most, I thought maybe you would be interested in playing on a team outside of school.” He smiled.

You nodded your head, folding the paper and you put it into your bag.

“Thank you sir, I’ll take a look later.”

He smiled at you, gesturing to your book.

“And what are we reading today?”

“A collection of French poetry from the 19th century.”

“French? I didn’t know you could speak French.”

“Oh I can’t, I can read it. I can understand if someone talked to me in French but I actually can’t speak the language, I’m not very good with the pronunciation.”

“Ah, right. Well, it certainly makes a difference. Would you say it’s a good read?”

“Absolutely, it’s good. Very different to other poetry I’ve read. Though there are still some works that nothing can beat, a few works by Shakespeare for example.”

He chuckled a little bit, nodding his head in understanding.

You took another book out of your bag and held it out to him.

“Maybe you would be interested in this, it’s a series of letters from world wars one and two that have been compiled into a book.”

He took the book from you.

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to give it a read and have it back to you at the end of the week.”

You always gave him something to read, mostly old books, you never read modern literature, telling him it didn’t have the same effect as old literature did.

And since he was an English teacher you thought he would have interest in looking them over, which he did.

He liked to encourage people to keep their hobbies, to peruse them if it was something safe and of course not against the law.

He’d made that mistake once and it resulted in graffiti all over the school.

But you weren’t a trouble maker, you kept to yourself, you work in your classes, you had good grades, passing grades at least.

The bell rang and you picked up your stuff, giving him a small smile.

“See you later sir.”

“Have a good afternoon, and remember it’s non uniform day tomorrow!” He called.

You nodded, making your way inside.

The next day you went into school, it was some sort of festival going on.

You weren’t really paying attention when it was being explained, all you knew was that you didn’t need to wear uniform, and there was activities inside and outside.

But you weren’t interested in any of them, you thought it was just a waste of your time, so you made your way into an empty classroom, sitting on the windowsill as you read.

You head your headphones on, listening to music, blocking out the noises of everything and the people all around yelling and shouting.

Because you were listening to your music, you weren’t aware of the door to the classroom opening and closing.

The moment Mr Evershed walked in he stopped, looking over at you.

“(Y/N)? Why aren’t you outside with everybody else?”

He waited for a reply, and when he didn’t get one he began to make his way over.

As he got closer, he noticed the colour on your arm, but he realised that wasn’t it.

He reached out, tapping your shoulder with the papers he was holding and you turned to look at him.

Setting your book down you pulled your headphones down.

“Hello sir.”

“Hello to you too. What brings you here?”

“I don’t want to partake in the festivities, they aren’t really my thing. People and loud places.”

He hummed a little bit.

“Right, sorry. I forgot. How are you? Are you alright in here?”

You nodded your head.

“Yeah, it’s pretty quiet so it’s not so bad over this way. Plus I’ve got my music and book to keep me company.”

“Good, I’m glad. Do you mind if I sit with you while I grade some papers.”

You gestured to the classroom.

“Go ahead.”

He sat at one of the tables and you jumped down to join him, sitting down with your book as you carried on reading.

Mr Evershed used this as a chance to look at your upper arm again to confirm his suspicions.

“Nice tattoo.” He said.

You looked up, grinning a little.

“Thanks.”

“What’s it mean?”

You gave a shrug.

“No idea.”

This made him chuckle.

“How long have you had it for? And I’m rather sure that it’s illegal for you to have a tattoo.”

“You would be right on that, it is. But, I can get one with a parents approval from certain places, it was my birthday gift last year from my dad.”

“I see, do you mind if I take a look?”

You shook your head, pulling your sleeve up so he could see the whole design.

It was of a tree, he wasn’t sure what kind of tree it was, maybe a willow tree or something similar, but where it should be green it was covered in all sorts of colours, all in a watercolour style.

“It’s really nice. Out of all the students here you’d be the last one I’d suspect if a tattoo.”

You laughed a little, pulling your sleeve back down.

“I’m careful to hide it, it draws too much attention.”

“Well, as long as you keep it hidden I can’t see any wrong with that.”

“Thanks sir.”

He nodded, turning back to his paperwork and you went back to reading.

You were just a bundle of surprises, and even now there was still a lot that nobody knew about you

#ackley bridge #ackley bridge imagine #ackley bridge x reader #ackley bridge x you #mr evershed #mr evershed x reader #mr evershed imagine #mr evershed x you

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yoongisleftshoulder · 2 years ago

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BTS Reacts: Biracial S/O Experiences Racism

A/N: Of course, something like this can be a touchy subject and I will take full responsibility if I write anything offensive or incorrectly. As I've said in previous pieces like this, you are welcome to call me out on any mistakes so I can learn and do better. I personally am not biracial nor have I experienced racism of the sort but my inbox is always open if you need support or someone to stand with you. Also, I apologize but I couldn't find credits for some of the gifs used. I take no credit for the making of them.

TW: General racism, bullying

JIN:

Jin couldn't believe it when you pulled up an antis hate themed blog focused around you. He knew there would be some heat once your relationship was revealed to the public but he never thought people would be low enough to create an entire blog to bully you and insult you just based off of your skin color. It almost blew his mind that someone would take the time to put you down so badly. Jin would gently take your phone out of your hand and close the page, setting the phone down and out of view.

"Don't pay attention to a word they're saying. They're not worth your time, you're perfect the way you are."

Jin made sure the blog and nasty racist comments thrown at you were forgotten quickly, reassuring you that they were meaningless and simply not true.

YOONGI:

Yoongi had been out with Jin picking up food for the two of you when you decided to watch a few video compilations on YouTube that some fans had created for your relationship with him. Most of them were cute and wholesome videos with nothing but positivity in the comment section and you found yourself smiling widely throughout your time reading them. However, on the last video you had chosen, the comments made your heart sink. You weren't sure why they were there all of the sudden but many users had written harsh racist insults towards you, some even going as far as writing out threats. You knew it was stupid and the words were empty and didn't really mean anything but you couldn't control the tears that were forming in your eyes, eventually beginning to spill down your cheeks. Just as you were at peak sobbing and second guessing yourself, wondering if Yoongi really loved you as much as he said, he walked in the door, food bags in hand. Immediately, when he saw you curled up on the couch crying, he dropped the bags and sat on the cushion adjacent to you. He started rubbing your arm, unsure whether or not doing anything further was going to upset you.

"Woah, what's wrong sweetheart?" Your boyfriend asked, his voice soft.

Between sniffles, you did your best to explain how so-called 'fans' were being incredibly racist towards you and saying Yoongi deserved someone of his own race.

Yoongi couldn't believe what he was hearing and was only able to muster out a quiet "What the fuck?" He was pissed to know you were upset and pissed that anyone could say such things to you.

"Don't listen to those assholes, they don't know you and they will NEVER know me. I love you, you're perfect the way you are. They're probably just jealous that there's nothing even mildly interesting about them. They mean nothing."

HOSEOK:

*Ping*

Your phone had been blowing up more than usual. Your boyfriend, Hoseok, was sitting next to you so you opted to check it, wondering who else would be sending you so many texts. Lit up on your screen were texts from your best friend, telling you not to listen to what people are saying on Twitter and that all of those people were wrong about you. Confusion washed over you as you opened the Twitter app to see what was going on. The first thing you saw was your relationship with Hobi on the trending list. Your heartbeat sped up as you tapped on the link to checkout the corresponding posts. As soon as it opened, you were met with post after post about the live you did with him yesterday, where you had revealed your face for the first time. There were comments saying how pretty you were and how sweet you seemed, of course, but among these comments were floods of hate speech. Every single negative comment had to do with the fact that you were biracial. You suddenly closed the app, tossing your phone to the side, startling Hoseok. He closed the book he had been reading in the chair across from you and asked you what was wrong, moving to sit aside you when he noticed tears pooling in the corner of your eyes. All you told him was to check Twitter. Taking out his own phone, he clicked on the trending HoseokxYN link and skimmed through the posts and comments. He very quickly put his phone back into his pocket, unable to read anymore racist words against you. Pulling you into a tight hug, he reassured you that he felt sorry for those people, telling you that they must feel so badly about themselves and have such low quality lives that they had to spew meaningless hate towards you. If anything, they were lower than you and were only doing it to feel better about themselves. Even though the remarks were towards you, it felt painful to read such things and he was overwhelmed by disappointment.

NAMJOON:

As you and Namjoon made your way through the intensely growing crowd inside of the airport, fans yelled and screamed various words of encouragement towards Namjoon. You loved to hear other people showering him with love and positivity, despite the craziness of the crowd itself. You were smiling widely while walking hand in hand with your boyfriend, listening to the fans, until you suddenly heard someone take a jab at the color of your skin. Namjoon heard the person too, stopping for a brief second to turn and glare at them. He shook his head as he turned back around, gripping your hand tighter, pulling it up to his face to lightly kiss your knuckles. Like a chain reaction, that one person being brave enough to say such things to you in front of him set off a wave of more racism. Namjoon began walking even faster, guiding you the whole way, wanting desperately to get you out of there.

"Those aren't my fans. If they were, they would never say such bullshit things to you."

JIMIN:

Jimin witnessing you beginning to cry after seeing racist comments saying you weren't worthy of being with him because you weren't Korean hurt his heart. Your laughter was his favorite sound in the world and he lived to see you smile. Seeing you so upset was painful and made tears prick his own eyes. You were so important to him and yet strangers were bringing you down with nonsense hate. Jimin made sure to pound it into your head that he wanted you and only you; if he wanted someone who was 100% Korean, that's who he would have chosen.

TAEHYUNG:

After a long chat, you and Taehyung decided to reveal your secret relationship to the public after having been together for over a year. Taehyung took the bold leap by posting a couple of cute, romantic photos from Valentine's day on his Instagram. Knowing that it would warrant a little bit of craziness, he did it late at night before the two of you went to bed, planning on checking on it in the morning.

That next morning, Taehyung had woken up before you. Rather than waking you up, he went into the kitchen, fixed himself up some breakfast, and got comfy on the couch with his phone, ready to checkout the reveal reactions. He found himself giggling at some of the comments, even feeling happy over some of the supportive ones he read. Not long after reading, though, he stumbled upon comments he wished he hadn't seen. Many racist insults and death threats filled the comment thread. They were targeting you because you were biracial, spewing hate and saying he deserved better than you, someone who was fully his own race. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"How could these people say things like this?" Taehyung whispered to himself, still trying to be careful about waking you up.

The thought of you waking up excited to read the reactions of army only to see your race being the main focus of the thread made him very upset. He pondered whether he should delete the photo or not, wanting to shield you from everything. After a while of thinking, he simply turned off the comments to the post.

When you finally awoke, the first thing you did was ask him about the public's reaction. He produced a white lie and said the staff recommended that he turn the comments off but allowed him to keep the photo up. Although you were disappointed, he would much rather have you thinking that's what happened, instead of being aware of the nasty racist comments that flooded the post.

JUNGKOOK:

The last thing Jungkook expected when you tagged along on a flight and exited the airport with him, navigating through the crowds of screaming fans, was to hear several death threats and racist remarks thrown around towards you. He gripped your hand tighter and tighter with each disgusting comment he heard, knowing he couldn't do anything in that very moment. He glanced at your face multiple times, checking if you were still mentally there, only to see that you had begun crying quite hard. Instantly, Jungkook removed his jacket and held it over you to cover your face as various people with their phones and cameras hounded you. When you were both sat safely inside of the car waiting for you guys, Jungkook pulled you in close, kissing the top of your head while you buried it into his chest.

"You know I don't think of those things, right? I don't care about your race, I love you for you. Don't listen to those people, they aren't real army."

#bts #bts reactions #bts reaction #jin #suga #jhope #rm #jimin #v #jungkook #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook

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kurisus · 11 months ago

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Noragami reread: Volume 25, 26 & 27 thoughts

The last of the reread thoughts. Until the next reread (I'll still use the same tag!), and see you with the release of the final chapter shortly. Until then, I'll be mostly off the grid.

Volume 25 is...absolutely brutal. It starts right off with Yuka clearly seeing Hiyori as similar to her mother (aka someone who smiled her way through problems), then we get a flashback of Yukine's father finding the letters and ripping them up in front of him. The most chilling part is that he said he knew all along what was in them, but Yukine isn't even listening. And then there's the page of sound effects followed by an unsettling silence. I just. ANOTHER TOP 10 MOST GUTTING MOMENTS OF NORAGAMI. (Maybe I will actually compile a list.)

Nora goes back to trash dad because even though she's figured out he's full of shit, she still craves the love of a parent--she wasn't ever alive long enough to have it, so that yearning will never go away. So when he calls for her with a fake apology, she's never heard that from him before and believes him, and gets swept up in the moment of working as they used to. But the illusion is broken, and that's why she eventually turns on him.

Yato's struggle to get Yukine back contrasts beautifully with trash dad's backstory--a story about how the world is mean, and cruel, and you have to fight to survive because everyone's just in it for themselves. Trash dad is projecting his anger onto Yukine because he never had a father figure to look up to, but Yukine does now--Yato.

Yukine realizes this in what is still probably the most beautiful scene in the manga (although him asking Yato about him being buried is tied). I cried so many tears over this, and I will continue to do so.

Trash dad in Yomi with Izanami is a super interesting scene because of how casual she is with him. She sits with him a while, seemingly never pressures him to dine with her, and willingly tells him all about shinki and ayakashi while asking him about his own past. At the end of this, he steals the brush from her and escapes. When we see Izanami in the current story where Yato and Ebisu encounter her, she's desperate for a friend and keeps pushing food on them. So my guess is that back then, she was a lot more hospitable (or maybe just because she knew humans aren't allowed to leave Yomi), but him stealing from her and escaping caused her to become even more lonely and distrustful.

Likewise, what Father says about the brush naming shinki is very interesting too. The law of Yomi supercedes the law of heaven as far as spirits are concerned, because she was the first person to try naming ayakashi. Since Hagusa and Mizuchi were both named as corrupted spirits, the names bestowed by the brush can't be removed by Amaterasu. Could Izanami remove them? Probably.

That makes me wonder if, in the final chapter, because the brush is destroyed they will lose those names. It doesn't really matter, though, because (a) Yukine already made the choice to become a stray. That won't change. Same with Mizuchi, even if she'd personally gone around and begged every god to release her. But (b) both of them were pushed into this choice by a master manipulator, one who is dead and won't be able to control them anymore. And (c) Yukine, at least, has found his forever master. Mizuchi is...a little lost in that regard, but I'm hoping the fan theory that Kofuku names her comes true.

Not a lot from volumes 26 and 27, but I didn't notice before that trash dad separated himself from Fujisaki so he woke up, but how did his lifeline to Father get cut? I assume they'll explain it in the last chapter--maybe Yato stopped by? He's unable to talk super well (probably because he's feeling some of the effects of decapitation) but he would still remember the name...but that also fades as he talks to the police.

Side note, I love that his birth date is omitted in his student ID. The month and date, not just the year. Adachitoka said NO celebrating Fujisaki's birthday for you.

Now that I'm not distressed and angry about the Hiyori shinki thing (because I know it was reversed), I want to comment that I wish she had said, like, a single word while she was a shinki. Wondering where she is, or who that girl's body is, or something. I do just wish this whole business hadn't happened in the first place, but it is what it is. Since it was undone, it's not a dealbreaker.

As for my other ending hangups--I think Yukine's father won't have his fate mentioned, or maybe just a quick mention that he's dead. There's a point in Yukine's Hagusa arc where he decides his father isn't worth his time, basically, and the official translation talks about forgiveness. But it's not really forgiveness, it's just accepting that getting revenge won't do anything now.

Still kind of wish Hiyori and Bishamon had had more to do in the final arc, still think it's a bit funny that the gods started slaughtering humans only for them to go back to normal like 10 minutes later, don't really care that much though. As long as the trio stays alive and trash dad stays dead, I'll take it.

Discord reactions:

#live update #Noragami reread #GoodbyeNoragami

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lairofdragonagelore · 2 years ago

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Somewhere in the Crossroads

This post has compiled the most relevant information during the main quest for completion’s sake. These quests have little “archaeological” value, but since I’m visually covering the majority of the game, I can’t put them aside.

The last minute of the game, after the end of the credits.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Somewhere, probably in a space of the Crossroads, we see Flemeth in front of a mirror. This scene is extremely mysterious because we can't be sure of what she is doing with the eluvian.

This could be a piece of herself being placed in the mirror so she can awake eventually in similar fashion as she did with the necklace in DA2. This is an option that, no matter your choices in game, is always possible.

This could also mean that she is placing Urthemiel in the mirror to save them from being consumed by Solas. She knows that with the destruction of the orb, Solas only has a way to find the power he needs: hers. But this option would make no sense in a game where the player did not save Urthemiel, so this possibility is immediately discarded.

If we read the description of the Dev's notes in the game files [all the game files I'm working with belong to Corseque's works since I don't know how to extract these things] we realise that Flemeth always knew the development of this series of events. She knows that Solas needs her powers, and she won't resist it, but she wants to "pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan". Now, there is some chance that the bit of energy she is placing into the mirror is "this essence of godhood". Lore-wise, it seems a bit confusing to me, since I understood that the essence of Godhood in Flemeth is Mythal herself, no? So, she is placing a bit of Mythal for Morrigan to accept eventually? Or this essence is more related to what the elvhen extracted from the Titans?

From the small bits that follow in the scene, we obtain some confirmations:

This seems to be the Crossroads, since we see Elven Tree Statues in the background.

Flemeth recognises that the orb belonged to Fen'Harel [”your orb”], despite its game file name [Mythal_orb]. It seems that originally was meant to be her orb, probably lent to Solas, but that was changed to make it his orb.

Combining it with information that Solas gave us in the Frostback Mountains: Attack to Haven, we know this orb accumulated his energy while he was in his slumber.

So, this orb increased in energy as Solas stayed in his slumber. While, according to the game files, Flemeth’s had a small bit of Mythal that she nurtured through the ages. It seems to imply that both powers are equivalent, so I’m inclined to suspect a bit more that the orbs are related to the power of godhood, and Solas has it in the shape of an orb because he never made it part of himself [according to his mosaics in the Elven mountain Ruins], while Mythal had this power inside her.

Flemeth cultivated the power of Mythal because she knew Solas will need that power, eventually.

He calls it slumber, not Uthenera [I personally think that the game series hints us that the Uthenera is a more messed-up and horrifying process than mere slumber. But I need to work in a long post about Uthenera.]

After his slumber of thousands of years, he was too weak to unlock the orb, so he tried to use Corypheus and kill him in the process. It clearly failed.

He would prefer to pay for his mistake, but he seems to have a unique role or power to make his People return. Would this imply that he is the only one able to destroy the Veil and join the Waking World with the Fade again?

We get the confirmation that Mythal and Fen'Harel were old friends, as all the ruins we visited along the game seemed to suggest.

A moment before consuming Flemeth, we see a very particular effect. I'm not so sure if it can be understood as the following, but it seems to visually suggest what we have been suspecting for a while: Solas [like all the elvhenan] has been a spirit [or better said, an entity of the like] bound to a shape. This similar effect has been seen in Hakkon, when the spirit shape overlapped the dragon's head in a teal-greenish-like colour. Now, we also know that Solas has been this way since the time of the Evanuris [his own words at the end of Tespasser], so, if this interpretation is correct, he has been bound to shape even before the creation of the Veil.

UPDATE Jan 2023: Mrs-guache has added an extra relevant detail and a gif in a different angle in their post [here].

Checking the game files, Mrs-guache found that Solas’ effect on his head is called “fadewisp head”, the same one used for the orange wraiths we find in-game.

The place where both are met is an elvhen ruin. Unlike anything else we saw before, this eluvian is protected by both of them, one at each side of the mirror. The size of the eluvian is immense too.

When Solas consumes Flemeth, her face looks like turned into stone? There is some greyness to her face that ends up covering her completely. I don't think we saw this effect before in any other moment of the game. It’s not exactly petrify. She is like turned into “ashes” [it’s not stone, but it’s certainly extremely grey]. It's also curious that this power is similar to what we see that Solas uses against the Qunari in Tresspasser: they turn into stone with just a flash of his eyes.

Symbolically speaking, it is also curious that entities of fluidity like the elvhen could manage a power so related to the stone, the titans, and therefore, the reinforcement of reality. Maybe in this detail there is a hint about why the Evanuris godhood [aka, power] seems to be related to titans. But there is no hard evidence on this, and it’s a topic for another post anyway.

The following scene is Solas’s face, with all the power he needs for his goal. His eyes glow in a cold blue, and he is surrounded by a dark smoke effect.

These were effects we saw in Flemeth when trying to control the person who drank from the Well,

as well as in Abelas, when he tried to destroy the Well of Sorrow.

I can’t stop thinking that, taking into consideration the decade of time difference and the engine, it’s a similar effect to the DAO Archdemon, just in a more blueish hue. It’s also described as such in the book Last Flight. I’m not saying they are the same, but there may be a connection. It always surprised me that these powerful elves had such an ominous and “dark” effect associated with their magic.

An interesting gem that Corseque showed in her post, is that it seems that Morrigan was meant to witness this last scene when Solas consumes Flemeth, but it was removed from the game. I personally think it doesn’t change much. Morrigan seems to be able to use some eluvians, so it makes sense that she may have ended in this place. Probably, originally, it was going to be a situation that would justify the moment when she acquired her godhood, but it seems she will do it eventually when she finds out this eluvian where Flemeth placed that godhood essence.

Update 2023: Gaider shared in a twitter a flux diagram where we see part of the cut content of this scene

In particular, the important section is this one:

Solas seems to drain Flemeth but not killing her, it’s the drinker of the Well of Sorrow who does it, probably removing the effect of the Whispers, free of any bound related to Mythal’s essence [the Well of Sorrow has a bit of her essence to work]. This is cut content and I’m not fan to explore this too deep because we don’t truly know to what point this may still apply into the story. What seems interesting in this cut content is that this is the last command that Mythal tells to the Inquisitor when she implied that there was a still a command she wanted to from them, it’was not the right moment yet.

In any case, this was Solas’ intention since the moment the orb broke, that’s probably why he looks so heartbroken in the scene wher he picks the pieces of the orb: he knows he has to kill Flemeth, and potentially, transform himself in the process. He tried to work his feeling through the mural we find in Skyhold, but he could not manage to finish it. The dragon is dead, and the wolf acquires a dragony-shape. This emotion is so deep and strong, than in Tevinter Night, we learn that he ended up feeding a demon with similar shape: a black wolf of dragony style called Regret.

The story was well known—the Elder One, the false god Corypheus, had torn a hole in the sky to steal power from the heavens. He couldn’t be killed until his blighted dragon was dead, and the Herald, the Inquisitor, had somehow countered with a dragon of their own. And there was a dragon on the panel, with an Inquisition blade in its neck. But according to the story, both creatures had fallen first, leaving the final victory to the Inquisitor.

But here, unfinished, was the outline of a beast that stood over both dragon and sword. This was not the battle, or the victory. This was after. And the beast was not a dragon. The outline alone might have allowed that assumption, but now, filling with black and red, it was something other. The creature was reptilian, but also canine. The snout was blunted and toothy, but edges came to a point in houndlike ears. As the mass of plaster filled the shape, it began to rise, revealing scales and tail, and paws with talons. It looked like two figures painted on either side of a pane of glass, then viewed together, their forms confused. A wolf that had absorbed a dragon, and now stood crooked over all.

[...] The beast regarded him in silence, looming, and then its plaster lips spread into a smile far too quickly. “I am the heart of what was here.” As it spoke, it raised an arm—one of three—and pointed at the fresco panels in order. “An echo that has breached the Fade.” The creature’s arm finished its path at Sutherland’s friends. “And I can still the bravest blade or magic.”The limb folded into the creature’s layers, each movement adding to the rasping sound. It rose to its full height, as high as the panels would’ve allowed, and bellowed its name so loud that dust fell from the walls.“I am Regret!”

[...] “I am the regret of a god, you—!”

--Callback, Tevinter Nights.

#flemeth #solas #Howling Fen'Harel statue #Dragon Mythal statue #eluvian #main quest #elven tree statue

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ninjakittenarmy · 5 months ago

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Was thinking about the trend of people compiling oneshots from unrelated fandoms into one published anthology labeled as a crossover and I figured like some others I’d try to explain a few things to people doing this for why this isn’t a good idea.

Putting multiple fandoms into a work gets it labeled a crossover. The expectation is that the two+ settings will be featured in one story. There’s a wide variety of types of crossover but people generally expect stuff like characters from each setting interacting, or characters from one setting being transported into another or an overarching story relevant to both worlds even if they don’t interact directly or stuff like that. It’s fairly self explanatory. If you tag with more than one fandom, that’s what people usually expect. I can think of other things that could justify it but not separate stories that are unrelated. You publish those as separate works. If you’re going to publish separate oneshots as an anthology, they best ALL be crossovers. Anything that isn’t should be published separately. Otherwise it clutters the search results and makes it harder for everyone to find what they’re actually looking for and that is only going to attract negative attention to your work as people grumble about them while scrolling past.

There’s not much benefit to publishing anthologies on AO3 to begin with. Anthologies of unrelated short stories are typically published like that for convenience for the reader and publisher. It’s far easier and cheaper to buy a whole book of short stories than to buy them as like, pamphlets. More profitable too because more people buy them as collections. That’s not relevant here since you already have a website full of search results for all of these stories. Only real reason to publish oneshots together is if there’s something tying them together. Same continuity, same theme, same scenario etc. and DEFINITELY same fandom and preferably ship(s). This sort of anthology makes sense because it’s meant to be viewed as a whole work as well as a collection.

AO3 already has a feature for putting stories into collections. Collections have their own tags for stuff common in all the stories. Title can reflect the reason they’re paired together. The stories still show up individually in the search so everyone finds the one they’re looking for without sifting through all of them but they’re still told they’re part of the collection so they’re prompted to look into it. Tutorial here.

Adding on to that, there should be a reason for these stories to be in a collection aside from the fact that you wrote them since people can just view your author page for that. People do actually click on those pretty often.

There’s no algorithm on AO3. This one you’ve probably heard shouted in bold text in large fonts often. I’m trying to keep this more calm since that can get overwhelming at times. There’s no feed on AO3, just search results, and the search results are based solely on what is entered in the field. This means that there’s no inherent benefits or drawbacks for stories of long or short lengths. This is in contrast to social media sites, a lot of search engines, and video platforms who prioritize promoting the content the company believes is most profitable for whatever reason. On say, YouTube, you see stuff like content creators combining videos that were posted in parts into longer videos because the algorithm used to favor short stuff and now favors long stuff, and that fluctuates a lot. We don’t have that on AO3 bc it doesn’t matter what becomes popular there. AO3 doesn’t make revenue off the site, it was designed not to because companies and authors have sued a lot of fic writers and sites for copyright infringement if they did. Fanfiction.net gets away with having ads so long as it’s nonprofit, but AO3 relies solely on donations because advertisers tend to demand you make sites friendlier to their brand and that’s a whole other can of worms. Point is, AO3 doesn’t care which content becomes popular, it’s just a place for it to exist at all. More or fewer tags, fandoms etc. won’t game the algorithm to promote your stuff. Only thing it changes is who’s looking for it. People who want long stuff search for higher word counts and vice versa. Without an algorithm trying to convince you to favor something, it’s a complete toss up who reads what as far as you’re concerned. Which tags you use and how many also do not boost your work’s likelihood of showing up.

#fan fiction #fan fic writing #ao3 #fanfic #fan fic stuff

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totaldramafan-lauri · 2 months ago

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Some strange facts about some random anon like me!

I keep checking everyday those past few months when the update came when I still didn't find your tumbler account so I didn't have any knowledge of what was going on but I didn't stop doing that even though I found your Tumblr account everyday because apparently it became a habit.. checking and refreshing my browser page to see if getting updates was the best thing that happens to me with the chapters .. like chapter 8 I think got released on my birthday so I was very happy that I think I got it as a gift from you even though you didn't knew! So even if you didn't know that fact thank you ^-^!

I keep re-reading the parts where Golden cheese is angry because that was kinda a little attractive!.. You made it so well that I was surprised, just a question.. were you getting possessed when you were writing golden cheese or something because you did her so well lol!

I like her firm and dominating.. I just want to imagine it and I'm already getting sleepy due to the high overlord in my mind XD..

Like reader share some of that light- ahem!.. went overboard there..but what I said was true.. I got attach to golden cheese even with the lack of content when I found your fic :))...

I'm happy and kinda sad about the fic ending now.. like I mean I have been here since chapter 3-4.. even though I think that's not kinda long..I think?.. I basically got attached since that's too long that I will eventually get attached! Even if it's just writing! I waited for it.. I waited even if my time was wasted, I waited and it was worth it.. I was happy!.. I'm happy reader have found golden cheese cookie again at ending 2.. now I don't know where I should find another golden cheese fic again because apparently.. no one write her much since all the attention went to Burnt cheese due to his natural attractive nature with that long hair..

I would eat and gamble all that yummy food that people would write fics about golden cheese because it's the most delicious thing I can have in crk for awhile.. since I recently just join because I was raging at the lag months ago so-..

Take care by the way! I hope this brightens your mood like the other anons!

AAAAAA, h-holy crap! Yeah, this did make me happy! Thank you so much! I was already feeling a lot better about myself today, so you didn't have to do anything to cheer me up, s-so don't worry about that.....I-I was just a bit stuck in my head yesterday....^^;

Y-yeah, it's a shame that she doesn't get a lotta X Reader fics....I checked that tag recently, and the whole thing was me, like ONE other fic, and some older compilation stuff from pre-her release (when most of her characterization was just people speculating cuz we knew so little about her). She deserves so much more! Sh-she's just SUCH a cool character....! B-but sadly, I did see it coming, cuz back during her update, i-it really did immediately seem like Burnt got all the simps....I-it felt like I was in my own corner.....Wh-which is why it's such a pleasant surprise to me that my fic's gotten as much love as it has!

I-I do have ideas for other fics about her, and....i-if I ever do get to those, it'll probably be just for the sake of giving my fellow simps more food, cuz.....th-there's so little of it.....>///////>

A-also, the whole "it felt like you were possessed by the character while you were writing them" is SUUUUUCH a good compliment to give a fic writer, you have no idea....I-I really had so much fun writing her after I got the hang of it, so hearing that I did that good a job makes me feel very.....very good.....Cuz, I DID try to make her as in-character as I could, even if I got a bit indulgent in the last few chapters......X//////D

R-really, thanks so much for sticking with me for so long....( If you're telling the truth that chapter 8 was posted on your birthday, then wow, that's VERY lucky, cuz that was a really important chapter, for....o-obvious reasons, pffff.....) I-it's good to know that I was able to keep someone's interest for this long....Now, if CRK sticks true to their word and we DO see her again in canon soon, the game'll do the work for you while I take a rest from writing for a while! We'll see when that happens tho....So....y-yeah, thank you....!

#people actually talking to me #muom talk

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fumifooms · 1 year ago

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Laimar crumbs

I wanted to compile all my laimar/marios crumbs to be able to look back at them whenever~ These are CRUMBS and I’m not arguing that all these moments were intended romantically, I have my shipping goggles on and picking every moment I think is meaningful and shippy for these two. I'm probably gonna have to split this in parts because it's gonna get long. Part 2 link

Content warning: spoilers for ALL of the Dungeon Meshi manga! Also blood & corpses in passing

They are so repressed aghhhh. I could go on forever about how Marcille is special to Laios because she was Falin’s first friend and was the only one to follow him into the dungeon for Falin and not the job, how from the get go they were linked by something more than work and that made him feel more comfortable with her. But my Laimar thesis is essentially: they are so sickeningly-sweet domestic and complementary. Their charm lies in their old couple "we’ll argue over what to have for dinner" familiarity with each other, having 0 filter. And also they’re funny together.

They’re so domestic… The way she touches him so fondly and easily and she helps him out of his armor 😭💕 How used is she to disrobing Laios that it's such a no-brainer action for her?

Which, touching is something she does easily without being embarrassed or deeper meaning, which is mostly due to the nature of being a healer beside her affectionate touchy-feely personality (that we can especially see when she interacts with Falin or Chilchuck), but that isn’t true at all for Laios, who we see is very awkward when it comes to touching someone.

Isn’t it so very interesting how Marcille being happy and not lonely aka her wish being fulfilled is the thing that makes Laios react here? The last thing he offers before Winged Lion goes like “it seems you’ve made up your mind~” in the next page.

I've already pointed out Marcille's smile being a special thing to Laios here but it bears being posted here again.

Laios has a "I want to learn more about Marcille face" that he does with no one else just saying.

Laios is always the one she instinctively clings to.

Imagine intimately knowing someone’s worst fear and having comforted them in a moment of pure naked weakness and that instance having had such a profound impact that it subconsciously affects them and their decision making. Laios truly was Marcille’s therapy dog. Pet the dog and fears will fly out

I am SCREAMING why is Marcille the one sitting right next to Laios?? His sister just got revived and Marcille is STILL sitting closer? She’s so right hand man coded they are so partners. I’m just saying having her sit right next to him at his right all the time is so <33 For a series like Dungeon Meshi all about eating metaphors and the importance of sharing a meal? To share that meal with her at his closest?? While Chilchuck and the rest of the party have their own lives in Laios' ideal world conjured up by the Winged Lion, besides Falin Marcille is the one shown to work in close quarters with him <3 It's his ideal world and he wants her to be there to support and help him daily, help... I’m planning to make a post on just that but for now:

They’ve been hinted to be complementary on a planning level so many times. Imagine the country they’ll make together fr!

Them both wanting to stay in the dungeon kingdom, looking like king and queen <3

Not Laios baiting Marcille with him finding her cute omfg.

Laios is the one who wordlessly takes charge of caring for sick Marcille and feeding her.

I could put the whole 96 bit of Laios being all sheepish asking Marcille to stay with him, going up to elfic authorities and telling them "Mine." with Marcille under his cape as his FIRST show of kingly authority (which could represent how Marcille is a good catalyst/motivation for Laios growing more comfortable in his shoes & role and being willing to truly chase something, instead of wandering and hiding his true self. She gives him courage). Honestly the first time I read it I was almost expecting him to propose when he dragged her into the forest holy shit. He's so cute and uncomfortable with showing affection or interest help, Marcille meanwhile the gossip romantic soul of the party being totally oblivious. More on this scene in part 2!!!!!

I ALSO could rant AGAIN about the whole Marcille is Laios’ succubus aka "most alluring form" thing but that’s a complex issue and I go in depth into it in this post

In conclusion they're soulmates both platonic and romantic no one can change my mind. They are so similar. They are so opposite. Laios flees from intimacy and she chases it. They are insecure. They kick ass. They unquestionably love each other, wether it be platonic or otherwise. They get on each other's case. They value each other's input and skills.

#dungeon meshi #laimar #marios #shipping crumbs #masterpost #fumi rambles #i do be a laimar truther but i got nothing but respect for any other shipper ofc. hi farcilles i love u guys don't kill me #some of these points i might repost separatedly bc some people highly prefer short posts. Gotta spread laimar propaganda

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pqrachel · 4 months ago

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Art Fight 2024 Final Thoughts

I'm working on probably my last Art Fight attack for the season. If I get an attack during the extension period I'll still try to revenge but if not I want to be done with Art Fight by the end of the month.

Overall I'm currently at 12 attacks given and only 3 defenses received. Which is an 80% attack rate.

EDIT: Since this post I've done another two attacks and gotten 2 more back so my rate is around 75% now, which is awesome. Late attacks weren't something I was expecting but they mean so much to me.

I definitely still had fun despite the attack ratio, lots of great art came out of this month thanks to the event. I'm pretty sure the lower number of attacks received is because I don't have any specific references for any of my characters (only art that I've done of them in other contexts) and the characters that I want attacks for the most (that are at the top of my profile page) aren't the same as the ones others want to draw so they skip my page after looking at my first row. The attacks I did receive were amazing don't get me wrong but they were all from characters on my 3rd row or below so they had to actually go into my characters page and find something, so I know there's a bit of a mismatch there and maybe I could have gotten more attacks if I put my more unique characters up front for more people to see.

And yeah I wanted to compile all my attacks in one place too so here goes.

My favs are probably these 3, the poses were fun and the non-human elements let me leave me comfort zone but like just barely, they're still very much my style.

This year I did a couple sketchy attacks too which was nice. Some started out sketchy but I colored them and did some minor changes after and they still looked good. Definitely gonna start with a sketch and just go from there more often after this Art Fight. I barely did any separate sketch and line layers at all and it was so nice not having to do that step.

And yeah overall I really enjoyed this year's Art Fight. Definitely made me think about my style a bit. Even though I didn't experiment outside of my style too much this year other than trying some animals and a couple unique BGs which I don't usually do, I kind of got into the flow of it and just kept going. I got to a dozen or so attacks done that I'm super happy with overall.

Here's my attack page if you want to check out any of the people who made the characters or anything like that.

#justsometext #artfight

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vampyresonata · 2 years ago

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Violinist Day 2022 - Letter 2 Analysis

This was originally posted on my old twitter account, but since I've privated that account I realized there is no way to access it anymore! So, I've compiled my entire 5 Page analysis below for you to enjoy here! Like before, I'll start with the TLDR first and put a read more below! I'm someone who loves Antonio a whole lot, so whenever this letter hit twitter originally I was... disappointed at the responses some people gave, to say at the least. (And, another warning, this is very long.)

TLDR;; The devil is not at all metaphorical and is real. Even if the devil in general media can be used as a symbol for things such as addiction and indulgence, he is less an active metaphor when Antonio’s addictions were something that happened prior to his deal. Additionally for Antonio's case the devil does not serve as a proper metaphor for addiction when the two times in text (before this letter) he has been presented to us, the devil had been helpful to getting Antonio out of the situations at hand. Antonio does have his indulgences, but they have very little to do with the situation at hand beyond brief context. To blame him for the addictions (and blame him for even having them) is demonizing addictions as a whole. While this does not take away the fact that Andrea still suffered some sort of trauma, we as the viewer are aware that what had happened was not Antonio– and even then Antonio himself is aware that he has hurt her even if it was not him actually doing it. Additionally, neither of them could have expected any sort of outcome as Antonio has never physically harmed anyone before when the demon possessed him in the past, so we cannot say that he should have known better. We also cannot say he should have known better for making the deal in the first place, as the deal was made during a point of his life where that was the only place he can turn to.

Starting off with the fact it's written on the back of a piece of sheet music, which is later established to be because he had written a piece in her name for her on the front of it. From here, I will bring up each section of the text I specifically am referring to.

This is the first we hear about Andrea. As she is a new introduction, she is not mentioned in any prior lore-- the only other women we know that Antonio is involved with is any of the one night stands alluded to in Deduction 2 and the Princess to the royal family he was priorly imprisoned by. We assume one of two things of Andrea:

The deduction ‘Seductive Tune’ is not actually about him having one night stands with different women and instead is an early iteration of his time with Andrea. I find this to be unlikely of the two options because the description of Seductive Tune makes a mention of “joy that was missing,” which aligns with his history of being partial to indulgent behaviors in order to obtain immediate satisfaction in the way his talent could not.

Or, the more likely of the answers, he found Andrea after his time with the royal family. He makes a mention that she is different from the other people he’s met, both upper and lower classes. She understands him like nobody else we’ve seen within his story, which must mean an awful lot to him as we know Antonio’s story tends to play with Toys/Puppet + Caged Bird motifs with how the world around him perceives him. This one is more probable than the first option.

He starts off mentioning there’s been some time they've last seen one another, which we will touch upon later down the line. Carrying onwards, we also learn that Andrea does not hear things the same as other people-- very likely that she is some degree of hard of hearing, given “grateful that the aria managed to overcome the barrier in your ears” and “unlike those with normal hearing.”

Andrea means a whole lot to Antonio, this is clear. Not only by how he starts off with “My dearest” and how he asks how she’s been during their time apart, but additionally in the lyrics he relays back to her in this letter. These lyrics show how much he truly adores her, whether he wrote them himself for her or if these were lyrics she sang to him once that he remembers. This is very reminiscent of Crescent Knight to me, in the way there is someone dear to him in his life that is now unobtainable to him. But that’s neither here nor there!

It’s incredibly important to note that Antonio here is not excusing himself. He is explaining things, being honest about himself and his past. It’s additionally important to know that Antonio has spoken about this to Andrea before, as he notes twice “as you know.” Which leads me to point out that Andrea had begged and pleaded for him to play the song he repeatedly told her he feared (“No matter how much … I would never…”); and that the song itself had already left them somewhere rocky ( “... or even threatened to break up with me, …”). He makes it expressly clear that he does not want to play the song, no matter how she pushes him to do it, because he knows that he should never.

We can assume that he has only played this song twice, as it’s instance is recorded twice in canon: once when he first made it in his desperate attempt to escape the royal family (to which it was the only thing he could turn to) and once more when he was forced to play it at the concert we see in his introduction video. However… he eventually gives in and plays it for her, but not without her having to ask him after he makes it clear he feared it. This is by no means to blame Andrea for anything that may have happened beyond this point. However, to properly understand everything that has happened we need to be aware that she had been asking him to play a piece he had repeatedly refused. He brings up indulgence because he is expressing that he has indulged by indulging himself in her wishes because of his love for her– not because he has relapsed back to any of his prior habits.

Now, I go back to bringing back the mention of the prior times Antonio has played the piece. The first time (seen in Antonio’s Letter #1), we are aware that he goes into a puppet-like state-- where the violin plays before him and he is pulled against the wall like a puppet. Nothing happens to the servant in question, nothing happens to the Court Maestro writing the letter. We can see something similar happen in Antonio’s Introduction video, where he just plays before the crowd whilst becoming the puppet for the devil his soul is tied to. Those two instances are helpful for Antonio– one to get him out of the royal family (who had practically kidnapped him) and the other to push forward and continue playing in concert to save his pride. There’s no reason to believe that something would have happened between the two of them, there’s no way either of them could have guessed.

While Andrea does not know, we as the viewers are very aware that Antonio is being truthful when he says that he was not himself. There are several canonical accounts in Antonio's lore that tells us that the devil in his backstory is real (and IDV did not write off all of it’s supernatural-- Luchino’s Professor to Reptilian’s existence is proof alone, alongside the other Eldritch Beings), and to refute it in order to “blame” him is absurd when there's nothing in canon that would even imply to us that the devil isn’t real. There is nothing in canon that would point to Antonio lying about the devil, and if you think so I recommend you read his deductions and first letter again to refresh yourself. The text is set in stone that he does have supernatural/demonic involvement.

This is not a matter of a relapse of addiction, this is a matter of possession by a supernatural being and the fact that Antonio is not himself. While he does bring up “seduced by the long-lost joy and pleasure of gambling in the Casino,” he does not mean this literally. As this letter takes place to recount one instance in time, I believe Antonio is speaking poetically and is comparing the way the possession feels to his prior experience gambling. He took the risk of playing the song for her, and that in itself is the gamble. There would be no reason for him to play the song and then just fuck off in the middle of it to go to a Casino, since this is recounting one set instance in time.

I previously brought up that in Antonio’s possession he has never really done anything directly to people, instead he just plays while the demon takes over him. As I have also (repeatedly) previously brought up, we as the viewer are aware that Antonio was Not Himself and anything happening under this moment was the devil. That being said, there’s two things that may have happened here:

In his possession, he frightens her-- it’s a horrifying thing to see someone you love become an almost entirely different person (because he, in this case, WAS an entirely different person) and she is too fear stricken to leave until he is out of possession. Antonio mentions “distant crying,” which implies that she was across the room from him rather than directly near him. He also describes the bow gradually swung down with inertia, rather than by his (or the devil using his) force. This would make sense as an option, given his prior behavior upon playing that song on the violin. When I first read the letter, I did genuinely think it was that he ended the song as he heard her cry and the slow fall (“gradually” , “inertia”) was him coming out of the possession and thus the bow hitting the ground in front of him.

However I cannot deny another possibility that aligns with the described behavior, which is the one most people have chosen to believe, that while under possession the devil may have used Antonio to strike Andrea. If this is the case, I do not believe he had done anything more than one strike. I do not believe he beat her as some people may have claimed, as the word beat over hit has severely different connotations– and it would have been detailed in the text instead of a vague horror. There is nothing that would imply further than that. However, I am more inclined to believe the first option over the second-- but again I will not and cannot deny this possibility.

However, there is no way to tell exactly what has happened, as Antonio was not conscious enough during the event to tell us. We simply know that he played the song, wound up possessed, and in the process Andrea ends up crying in a mess on the floor and it takes him out of the possession. Looking at it, after rereading the letter, to me it seems that Antonio has no idea what actually happened and is in horror at himself at the possibility of different things that could have happened. This is a one off instance rather than an occurring instance given his prior possessions have never hurt anybody. Once again, he could not have known any better. We cannot say for sure what he did or did not do, and this will likely stay this way. Identity V likes to be incredibly vague, and when they want something to be obvious they will be obvious about it. It's why the media is so full of unreliable narration... because they want us to do the work and piece it together. We're the detectives after all!

Now, it is important to note that: even though his actions were not his own, this still has an effect on Andrea. It is equally important that I state, again, that I am not blaming Andrea for anything that has happened. We as the viewer know it is not him, but she does not– and Antonio is aware that she does not, which is why he takes the time to explain it. What happens between them is still understandably hurtful and terrifying, but through the lens of the viewer we need to be aware that Antonio shows remorse and regret. The second he recognizes what has happened, he is terrified in what his image had been used to do, whether if it was to strike her or if it was just him scaring her. This carries on in the next set of lines.

He calls back to “the sunlight, the moonlight, the starlight” as a way to prove how much he cares for her and how much she means to him. Additionally, he is aware that he cannot fix what has been done, and he is aware that in her mind it is him who had scared her off/hurt her. It is important to note: he is not asking for forgiveness, he is apologizing. He is acknowledging how this has affected her.

Calling back to the beginning of the document, it has been months since they have last spoken. He is looking for her, not just for closure and to apologize but because she has gone missing.

Given how we know he becomes a hunter, whoever speaks to him about getting rid of his possession was lying to him. <3 But it’s important to note that Antonio arrives at the manor in order to find Andrea again and he is aware he is taking a risk. He writes her this note, in the hopes that she will see it, as a way to prove to her that he is changing for the better and as a way to go out of his way to change for her likely so he cannot bring her, or anyone else, harm again.

Basically, the most we need to point out here is that he is still in love with her+ he feels remorse+ he’s going out of his way to risk everything just to change and reverse his errors + this will fail him.

If you read all of this, hope you enjoyed! :)

#Identity V #IDV #Antonio Paganini #IDV Violinist #character analysis #Skull tag #Skull Analysis #i like antonio a normal amount.#i call myself the ceo for a reason.#ask to tag

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