#i'm assuming you meant them as characters and not the shipping?

[laugtherhyena]

Idk if anyone asked this already but What are your headcanons for kizuna and ayame?

Surprisingly I had never reviced an ask like this before so much so that it took me a lil while to think of stuff since my headcanons tend to fall more into character interpretation territory so here's the more headcanon-y ones, if that makes sense.

-Ayame's red jacket is comfort object for her hence why she always keeps it around despite barely wearing it, specifically over the shoulders since it's kinda like having a blanket wrapped around you.

-Ayame is named after a flower so i always liked the idea that one of her parents is a florists/gardener of some kind and that's where the name came from. I also like the idea that she resembles her father way more than her mother, i feel like that could tie into her being self-conscious about femininity n stuff.

-A friend of mine (Hi Poi) headcanons her as having a pet dog and i love that idea a lot and even made sprites for the little man. Her parents got it for her when she was a kid since Ayame never had many friends growing up, as you can expect, her favorite activity was to race with the dog around the neighborhood tho she doesn't do it as much anymore by the time she becomes a part of class 79 because the dog is pretty old by then.

-Same friend also headcanons her as being somewhere in the autism spectrum and honestly? The more i think about it the more i start love the idea, i feel like sports/running is probably her special interest seeing how focused and knowledgeable she is on it + how Ayame seems to love the idea of sharing that with someone/her friends to the point she can go a little overboard with training without even realizing (Aka making Yuki run around the school with her for 2 hours in her FTEs)

-going off this line from her FTEs, i feel like aside from not being into it another reason why Ayame tends to not dress girly is because she feels as if those clothes would just look weird on her, like she puts on something more feminine and can't shake off the feeling that she's "doing it wrong" and thinks she just looks stupid and that putting it on was a terrible idea.

-HATAMORI JUMPSCARE💥💥 Despite being a socially awkward person Ayame is a very affectionate partner, hugging, cuddling, picking up/carrying her gf around, kissing her on the cheek and that sorta stuff because that's her go to way of showing love. Sometimes this want to display affection bypasses her awkwardness, sometimes it doesn't, but that's no problem when Kizuna is the queen of physical affection and won't think twice before wrapping her arms around Ayame and hugging her tightly like she's a giant stuffed animal.

Anyways speaking of her uhh hi Mrs.Tomori

-She first got into cheerleading out of the status and spotlight it would being to her in her school's social hierarchy but started to genuinely enjoy it overtime because jumping and twirling and pulling out those stunts is just really fun for her, so much so that she'd suggest crazier/more elaborate choreographies out of really wanting to try it out and if it will make her stand out from the other girls even more that's a bonus.

-Kizuna is a pretty impulsive person, hence why she tends to say whatever comes to her mind without a second thought most of the time. Getting that star tattoo on her face was an impulse idea because she just thought it would look super cute then proceeded to rethink her life choices for the following days after getting it because the face region is one of the areas where it hurts the most to get a tattoo on and she did not know that. + Tattoos are not only generally seen in a bad light in japan but she shouldn't be getting one in the first place since she's still a teen, so you bet Minako scolded her for days over it which wasn't very fun either. (looking back on all that Kizuna would say it was totally worth it tho)

-After a lifetime of window shopping on fancy stores and boutiques Kizuna knows a lot about fashion and would jump right into helping one of her classmates pick something like that up if asked despite her unwillingness to grow closer to them. It's an excuse for her to look at a bunch of clothes and ramble why they're so pretty and how they'd fit this specific person, tho she would be pretty bitchy if the person didn't like her suggestions or thinks they know better than her on the subject.

-KIZUNA/KANATA BESTIES INTERLUDE‼️Sometimes Kizuna will randomly go to Kanata's house initially talking about some random unimportant thing but Kanata knows her well enough to be able to tell that something's bothering her but Kizuna being Kizuna has a hard time opening up from the get go, this visit almost always turns into a sleepover where after easing her into it Kanata gets Kizuna to talk about what's been getting under her skin and does her best to try helping her with the problem or just comforting her.

-She's a comphet lesbian (i will die on this hill) who thought that it was completely normal for her not feel anything towards the guys she messed with because dudes are just replaceable and only really serve to buy her things or bring her to cool places, besides girls are competition so for the longest time she's never even considered the idea she could be anything but straight. When she does realize she's into girls she has a mini freak-out and thinks back to the times she was jealous of the other girl's physical attributes wondering if it wasn't some weird form of attraction in disguise.

(Stemming from the previous headcanon, I imagine it was Kanata who first asked her she's into guys at all while trying to help her move on from her shitty habits and hearing about the things she did. Subsequently, she was the first person Kizuna came out to, albeit in a "oh my god what do i do" way.)

[donut251155]

The "Yugi twins situation" is NOT incestuous

I'll just analyze stuff people used to "prove" the opposite of this, as someone with a close (PLATONIC!!!) relationship with a sibling

I'll just get straight to the point

This scene is NOT incestuous. They hadn't seen each other for DECADES, it makes sense that Tsukasa reached out to touch Amane - usually if you can't believe you're seeing someone you reach for their face, no? And he just moved his head up (+ the つ (translated as "rub" could just be his hand moving and could be a translation error. Like the "ah…" from Amane, he says "つー" (Tsu) which would've probably been him calling out for Tsukasa)

Also Amane was blushing because he WAS ABOUT TO FUCKING CRY??? IT'S NORMAL TO GET RED WHEN YOU CRY??? That's basic knowledge I fear

He'd seen his brother after AGES, AFTER HE KILLED HIM. I WOULD'VE HAVE CRIED TOO IF I WERE HIM Y'ALL HE'S CRUSHED BY GUILT, GRIEF AND IS HAPPY TO SEE HIS BROTHER AGAIN

I also think that if the scene was supposed to have some incestuous undertones, Tsukasa wouldn't have moved his thumb back.

Someone said this

I believe it doesn't have incestuous undertones for three reasons:

1. He had a dreamy and hopeful face in both cases. Usually, when characters dream of doing anything, even eating a cake or something like that, the artist adds blush to make the desire stronger. Tsukasa's desires were just having fun with his brother at a festival, something COMPLETELY PLATONIC, and knowing that his brother genuinely cares about him (another COMPLETELY PLATONIC thing driven by a sense of insecurity that he got because of how grumpy Amane was while sick. He wanted to hear his brother say "I love you" (PLATONICALLY) for the last time. It's less ambiguous in the Italian version because it's "Amane, tu mi vuoi bene?" which can only be seen as platonic (voler bene is platonic, amare romantic))

2. He looks cuter blushing. He's a child, children are supposed to be cute. He looks depressed without the blush in the first image 💀💀

See? He's cuter with the blush

3. He blushes for like 90% of the time. It makes him cuter, more childlike, he's FOUR YEARS OLD. The blush disappears when the drawing is too small for it to be added, when he's supposed to be confused, scary/creepy or serious.

This part fucking hell. Y'all do not know how four year olds think, do you?? Let me enlighten you

To the four year old Tsukasa, you either love or hate someone. No in between. He isn't talking about romantic love, he's talking about caring about someone, usually deeply. He means the platonic kind of love, it's all he knows. Nene reacted that way because she's 15, to her "love" is the romantic kind of love and she's in love with Hanako, same with Kou - they're teenagers who learnt that romantic and platonic love are different. Tsukasa doesn't know. He loves Amane in a platonic, brotherly way and thinks Nene loves his brother in the same exact way, like every other 4 year old would've assumed

(I reached the max of images :(( I meant the part where Tsukasa asks Nene if she loves Amane and says they're the same after she says she does, her mistaking it as romantic love and him taking it as platonic. Mb guys I'm new to Tumblr)

For the pose where the early manga showed us how Amane supposedly killed Tsukasa: it's not suggestive in any way. It just looks like Amane pushed Tsukasa down, stabbed him and that his knees gave out after he noticed he actually did what he did because of the wave of guilt and grief he felt (he even dropped the knife)

That's all I can think of atm :D

If you have any questions about this, ask ahead and I'll answer them!! I'm ready to answer

And sorry if I sounded a bit pissed off, but I am. I'm so sick of people misunderstanding sibling love lolol if you ship them go fuck yourself and do not talk to me, do not even breathe the same air as me I hate you and you're a disappointment to humanity

[valenrien]

Draw your favorite HSR on a aquarium date?

im assuming you meant favorite hsr ship? if so, then i bring you aventio on an aquarium date :)

i can't say i really ship them, i'm not very big on shipping in general, but they're both one of my favorite characters so i like it when they interact

honestly i really enjoyed drawing the background

[yellowocaballero]

i very much enjoy the extremely scientific analysis of the naruto verse in which there are three genders, aka naruto, sasuke, and Woman.

AM I WRONG? AM I WRONG? pulls down projection screen and plays powerpoint

Obviously let's give room for nuance. A ton of Naruto characters don't fall into these gender norms. This does predominantly apply to the rampant proliferation of the three-person dynamics that were assigned by the government and dictate your entire life. And, like, society. It does not end. Gender isn't a biological factor in Naruto, it's a social dynamic constructed entirely by your homoerotic tension with other men. And there are so many.

Madara (S), Hashirama (N), Mito (W). Izuna (N) and Tobirama (S) - tragically, Izuna died before women could be invented. Sarutobi (N), Danzo (S, horrifically) - see above about women not being invented yet. Jiraiya (N), Orochimaru (S), Tsunade (W). Yahiko (N), Nagato (S), Konan (W). Obito (N), Kakashi (S), Rin (W). Shisui (N), Itachi (S), that little deeply unimportant girlfriend (W). Um, fucking, Naruto (N), Sasuke (S), Sakura (W). Even - even, fuckin, Rock Lee (N), Neiji (S), Tenten (W).

And what do they all have in common????

(OT3. They're all OT3s. Is what I'm saying).

There is some room for alternative gender expressions here, like being butch or femme. Naruto gender expressions: teacher, otouto, woman who you can't even tell is woman gendered because she has no backstory but you just have to kinda assume that she has a polycule-based backstory where she was Woman Gender. I feel almost as if 2/3rds of the Rookie 9 are liberated from this. InoShikaCho just doesn't fit (their chaotic cousin energy is just too strong and Ino's too much of a lesbian). Hinata's too busy being defined entirely by a different throuple's N to have codependent dynamics with her own N and S (and I'm hesitant to even say that, since I actually don't know if Kiba and Shino have a codependent rivalry - do they?).

I get, like, the reason for all of this. Curse of Hatred. Cycles. N and S Genders being sourced from demigods or something. Narrative parallelism. Sympathy points. It's not the bad guy's fault he's evil, his N and W gendered counterparts died :(. But an extremely strange side-effect of this is that all of the male characters are, like, Just Naruto or Just Sasuke. But the vast majority of the female characters are - like, completely defined by the men in their lives - but also they are more likely to be a unique person. Mito, Sakura, and Rin have actually nothing in common. Writing so sexist it creates more interesting characters?!?!

Unironically, this is why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the ship of all time, nothing will ever top it, you will NEVER do it like Sasunaru, etc. Every important relationship in the series is meant to evoke Sasunaru. (Notably, none of the explicitly romantic ones. But we're beyond such paltry understandings of the most iconic pairing of all time as fundamentally based in romance. We're operating on a higher level than that). This unbroken chain of toxic yaoi has culminated at the end point of Sasunaru, and it exists to parallel Sasunaru and define their relationship by the dysfunction of generations of tragedy. That's why Naruto has to consciously break the cycle and free them from the generational hate - it was the only way to save Sasuke. This is also why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the point of Naruto, and that the entirety of Naruto is about Sasunaru. Come back to me when your work has invented new genders in the all-encompassing pursuit of toxic yaoi.

This also means that the only truly gender non-conforming individuals in Naruto are its mightiest heterosexuals: Minato (W) and Kushina (N). Truly insane. The N/S/W configuration is the societal norm, it's bonkers to make a major good-aligned male character a wifeguy. By Naruto standards Minato and Kushina are the only queer couple.

[prismatoxic]

okay, shipping brainrot from my last post aside, i'm still thinking about the shapeshifter arc. the other sites i use don't have inline posting or do but it's clunky, so i guess i'm theorizing here. some of this may seem obvious; bear with me, i'm not trying to be patronizing, just working through things. this will probably be long.

(edit: i've since learned there's canon explanations for all of this. regrettably i don't like them. enjoy my ideas of what would be better maybe? but keep in mind i wrote this before i knew it had been explained anywhere else.)

(edit again: i've done a 180 and come fully around on the canon explanations! i have a lot of thoughts about them but this isn't the post for that. anyway i'm disabling reblogs, sorry. you can still look at this if you want)

laios reveals what he knows of shapeshifters, and that they function on memory:

no one ever really suggests in chapters 39 or 40 who thought of which fake except in the case of which ones laios must have thought of, but i want to posit who i think each one came from, and what it means narratively if i'm right. so, mostly a thought experiment/character study that i could be wrong about or that was never meant to be clearly defined in the first place. but maybe fun to think about? (i'm sure other people have done this before too, but i think it'll be fun to write up.)

from the outset, i think it's worth mentioning that chilchuck knows all three laios fakes are, in fact, fakes. two chilchucks say this, but the one on the right is the real one. senshi and marcille immediately corroborate this, though we can't tell which of them it is except that it's not any of the really obvious fakes.

what i think this suggests is that, brought to the surface, the warped perceptions of the rest of the party that chilchuck, senshi, and marcille have can be easily discerned when compared with the real thing. each of these laioses is from one of them, but they immediately figure out none of them are right with the real laios right there in the room. this is important.

as for who's who...

i think it's fair to assume that giant laios is from chilchuck. laios is the tallest member of their party, at six feet; while chilchuck sees marcille and senshi as their correct heights, laios is a giant to him, and his bulky armor doesn't help. that's why, even if this is his perception, it's glaringly obvious that it's wrong as soon as it's made physical. it's the only big one, and easily falls into the camp of "doesn't seem to know much about monsters" that the others also do.

stupid laios is, i think, from marcille. because the giant one is so likely chilchuck's and i don't think senshi sees laios as someone who stupidly wants to eat everything (even if senshi's opinion of him isn't stellar right now, "i have to eat it" wouldn't be paired with being an idiot to senshi), it tracks that marcille would be the one to remember him this way. to someone who doesn't appreciate their monster eating and otherwise thinks he's an idiot just as much as the others do, dumbly muttering about eating things seems like a reasonable portrayal of laios.

feminine laios, then, is from senshi. i think his physical perception of the other party members is the most off-base; this is likely because he's known them for the least amount of time, and his idea of what they look like is based more on their races than anything else. i think the resemblance to falin might not be intentional--someone suggested to me the other day that the dwarf perception of tall-men is probably more feminine in contrast to how Macho dwarfs are. i think that makes sense (if it ever comes up canonically, i haven't seen it yet). laios and falin do just... look like gender-swapped versions of each other, also. so if senshi sees laios as a feminine person, well... that just winds up looking like falin.

so this leaves us with only the real laios. confronted with their perceptions of him, his friends can immediately tell all three are incorrect.

moving on, we eliminate the three most obvious fakes from the rest of the party, starting with marcille:

if we take into account what i just said about senshi, i think this is his. racial stereotypes about elves being what they are, him not knowing the party as well as the other members do... she stands out, and that's why.

now this is where things start to get interesting.

the next two fakes to be eliminated aren't so blatantly incorrect that they can be struck right out at a glance, but it's not hard to notice the flaws when you look closer, and chilchucks A and B are the ones to point it out. chilchuck is naturally observant; most of his fakes seem to emulate this. (the one who addresses the fakes is A, the real one, but B is proving himself able to pick up on the things A notices. this is important.)

notably, chilchuck and senshi assume these must be laios's versions of them.

we can assume this is correct, if we want to. we can take the framing of this as being an intentional reflection of the truth.

or... or... we can look a little deeper. we can wonder if, perhaps, this isn't a reflection of laios, but a reflection of his friends and what they think of him. laios may not immediately notice the problems, but i don't think it's because he doesn't remember these details. i don't think laios sees much of anything in vague terms; he's observant in his own right, but in ways he doesn't really recognize, nor does anyone else. i think he was so focused on their faces and mannerisms that he didn't notice the bigger picture, glossing over something because so many other factors are at play.

senshi and chilchuck think laios doesn't take notice of things, but the vast majority of the shapeshifter arc is about them and marcille not trusting laios's judgement as it is, given how things went recently. is it possible there's more to their assumptions here than what the text explicitly says? i think so!

so then who do these two belong to? marcille, i think.

if we assume dumb laios is hers, then we can also assume her perceptions of the others are kind of broad and vague. she doesn't think poorly of them, necessarily (at least not in as obvious a way as she does with laios, who, i'll remind you, she's currently upset with), but she doesn't commit unimportant details to memory, like chilchuck's neck band or the damage to senshi's helmet.

we've got three more "obvious" fakes to get through, and laios offers another lore tidbit on how the shapeshifters work:

anyway, the first of the next round is marcille again, setting the stage for how these three next fakes are eliminated.

marcille changes her hairstyle all the time, so this isn't a surprise. the last one pictured here winds up being our next fake, as indicated by her grimoire:

so the fake marcille in this section is the one with the most visibly different hair texture (who even draws attention to this), and the spellbook that's woefully incompetent. i think she's from chilchuck.

he's observant, as i said before; even if he didn't commit her hair to memory, he did remember the stuff she's said about how important hair is to magic. maybe that's why the texture is so striking. more importantly, chilchuck isn't wary of magic quite the way senshi is, but he also doesn't understand it. the general tone of the low-quality grimoire also just... sounds like the way he'd frame something like that. (plus, the "how to turn back time" bit is a thing he specifically called her on when she suggested it a few chapters ago.)

so the next fake chilchuck and senshi are revealed via their tools:

i think the chubby-cheeked chilchuck with the simple lockpicks is from senshi, and i think the ordinary-looking senshi with the simple cookware is from chilchuck. the former speaks for itself--senshi sees chilchuck as a child, and knows absolutely nothing about picking locks. as for the fake senshi, chilchuck has a decent mental image of him but knows nothing about cookware.

so now we're down to the final three fakes, and there's only one person left who they could be from: laios. nobody thinks this, not even laios himself, but i want to explore the concept because i think it has extreme merit. the three remaining fakes have some key similarities between them, namely in that they're all close enough interpretations that making a distinction is difficult. they look a tiny bit different, but both the real people and their fakes make plausible cases for why they're the actual person. i want to talk about why i think laios is the one who made that so, and what that means about him.

chapter 39 ends with all his companions--real and fake--doubting his skills. seeing a pattern?

chapter 40 opens with laios determined to regain his friends' trust in him...

...while his friends (and their fakes) talk about how he's liable to like the fakes more, because they're monsters.

this is a needlessly cruel interpretation of laios, but after how things went post-falin-rescue, it's not a surprise. they see him as reckless and single-minded, more interested in the things he's weird about than in the people around him.

laios is really bad at talking about what he's thinking--not because he's hiding it, but because it doesn't occur to him that it's important. meeting the lunatic magician in the paintings is a prime example of this, but he does it a lot. they likely have no idea why he told toshiro about falin and the black magic; to them, laios was being flippant with sensitive information, not worrying about their safety. to laios? he was trying to get help. he trusted toshiro, and his perception of their friendship made him think the information would help them gain an ally who cared about falin as much as they do. he wasn't trying to put falin or marcille in danger--far from it, in fact. but he didn't tell his friends about his thought process. he didn't think it was important to share.

(he's autistic but we all know this. moving on)

so, we have laios's plan: the pairs cook together, while he watches for behavioral differences to discern who's who. it doesn't occur to him, or anyone else, that the people he's watching for mistakes are his own perceptions of his friends. and now we get into the meat of why i wanted to write this post.

assuming i'm correct... let's talk about laios's view of his friends, and how he challenges those perceptions.

starting with my favorite, chilchuck:

chilchuck A, of course, is in fact the real one. this is a pretty significant character moment for him too, in my opinion; we know he has difficulty expressing his emotions, and that a lot of his conflicts so far have stemmed from that. the fact that "chilchuck B asked for help with a menial task" is a gotcha moment to him is... telling. not only because it's so obvious to him, but because it's not obvious to any of his companions. he thinks they know this about him, but he's never openly expressed anything to make them think this is an issue he'd have, in addition to having sought help in the past.

his "convictions and pride and all that" seems to them like someone trying to convince them of something, not someone reminding them of facts he assumes they know.

anyway, back to laios. if we accept that chilchuck B is made from his memories, this suggests several things. first of all, chilchuck B is, despite his softer eyes and willingness to ask for help, still a fairly accurate portrayal of chilchuck. he's easily annoyed and he's observant, two traits chilchuck is known for. i think the reason chilchuck B has the kinder eyes and the more gentle disposition is because to laios, those things are indicative of someone being a good person, and he very much thinks chilchuck is a good person.

we know laios isn't especially good at reading people in general. thus, his idea of who his friends are is skewed in broad strokes, but not in the ways they think. he knows who chilchuck is, but he also associates chilchuck with his own ideas of what makes someone "good", which results in a chilchuck who's less rough around the edges. confronted with this--the real chilchuck asking him if he can tell--laios compares the two and thinks, reasonably speaking, the nicer one who trusts him has to be the friend he respects so much.

senshi and marcille also want to accept this chilchuck, likely for similar reasons. they also respect and care for him; they've seen him go through a lot. laios's ideal of him is just that, ideal. in a roundabout way, it's only their deep fondness for who chilchuck really is that makes them want to see him this way.

next up, we have marcille.

the fake, marcille A, is a radical departure from what makes chilchuck B a fake. laios notes that the real marcille is exactly the same as she always is. the reason, then, that marcille A confuses him--and the others--is that after everything they've been through, their perception of her has changed radically.

if we look back to senshi and chilchuck's marcilles, it's readily apparent when they're eliminated that both interpretations hinge on the knowledge that she performs black magic. senshi's tries to use it to prove herself; chilchuck's has a grimoire loudly proclaiming it's what she does. contrast this to marcille A: she doesn't mention black magic at all, and her grimoire looks strikingly similar to the real one.

that's because laios doesn't think her performing black magic changes anything about who she is. her doing so proved her to be just as dedicated to falin as he himself is, and the knowledge that her goals involve it doesn't faze him. (additionally, marcille has been teaching him magic, and falin had tried in the past. though his image of a grimoire is flawed to someone experienced, to anyone else it looks fine.) thus, marcille A isn't a flagrant black magic wielder; she's someone who's been fundamentally changed by what they--and falin--went through.

let's go back to chapter 27:

chilchuck and senshi are appalled, and will continue to be. while they ultimately don't prevent marcille from doing this, and care enough about both her and laios (and in chilchuck's case, falin as well) to be in tentative support, this changes their view of her in a negative way. she's dangerous now, in a way she wasn't before, but she's still marcille--goofy and a little reckless. thus, their views of her, and the illusions that result.

laios's opinion of her changes for the better.

she is, all at once, both competent and loyally dedicated. she will stop at nothing to help falin. whatever goofiness she exhibited before now is gone, replaced by the cold demeanor of someone who is doing something extremely dangerous for reasons that are inherently selfish, but ultimately too important to reject.

thus, we return to marcille A: cold, sharp, dedicated. not reckless or goofy, but methodical and haunted. she may have returned to "normal" since they left the castle town, but laios's opinion of her, and understanding of her love for falin, has been forever changed.

so faced with the real marcille--still silly, still whining, still frequently annoyed with him--he's confused, because that's deeply familiar, but it doesn't line up with what he knows about her now.

the truth, of course, is nuanced--these things are true about marcille, but only under duress; it's similar to how laios becomes a competent leader when the going gets tough. she has this within her, but it's not her default state of being. still, the shapeshifter picks up on the strongest memories laios has of her, this new interpretation of someone he thought he knew.

now then--onto senshi, the punchline of this particular joke about the differences between the copies. i still think it says a lot.

i think this one speaks for itself, though i find chilchuck's agreement interesting. senshi is the newest member of the team; little is known about him. laios happily notes that senshi "always looks cool" while chilchuck says he looks normal (and chilchuck B insults the real one). laios sees senshi this way because he thinks senshi is cool as hell, and this manifests in an idealized version of a face he's not as familiar with as he is with chilchuck and marcille.

this is clearly comedy, but it also speaks to the same desire to see the best in the rest of the party. marcille is the only one who notices likely because her opinion of senshi isn't so romanticized. chilchuck's senshi, of note, wasn't a perfect replica: we don't see much of him after the obvious fakes are hauled off, but he's a little squashed (he's the top one):

which indicates that chilchuck's visual memory of senshi is already flawed. if we compare this to giant laios and the marcille with the unique hair texture, it tells us chilchuck's attention to detail is more specific than the others'; he can remember the hole in the helmet, the importance of hair, but he doesn't quite see the bigger picture. giant laios is also surprisingly... rugged? which i imagine has to do with chilchuck's perception of him as a tall-man. (or maybe how he clearly has trouble seeing laios's face half the time, lmao...)

anyway. laios thinks senshi is super cool and chilchuck has an imperfect idea of what senshi look like as it is. (i wonder if chilchuck is some degree of faceblind? not enough to not recognize someone at all, but can't pinpoint specifics.)

and so, we arrive at the moment of truth.

so let's go over what i'm theorizing here... all the remaining fakes are illusions based on how laios sees his friends. the illusions manage to make mistakes that reveal the truth to him, but i think the reason for that harkens back to what laios said earlier... the illusions are being updated over time.

laios isn't considering any of the things that give the fakes away until this moment. if it had taken a little longer to resolve things, maybe they'd have started course-correcting, but they aren't given the chance. laios makes sure they aren't--he acts very quickly. even as he presents the three pairs with his findings, he's aware that everything will fall apart as soon as he does... and he's banking on that. while the shapeshifter illusions defend themselves from being killed, he gets right to the heart of the matter in the only way he knows how: confronting the actual monster involved.

when all's said and done, laios reveals how he figured it out:

potentially of note, all of these details happened before the red dragon fight. chilchuck fighting a mimic and revealing his history with them, senshi gushing about the dungeon's ecosystem, and marcille being attacked by the undine weren't super recent memories. when laios brought them forth in his mind, he had a delay before the shapeshifter updated its illusions.

well... except with marcille. marcille A actually didn't show her hand so easily; it was the real marcille's carelessness that proved her identity.

but what this suggests is that, when confronted with the realities of marcille versus his idealized version of her, laios had to make a choice: did it make more sense for her to have been radically changed by the revival and subsequent loss of falin, or was the presence of a marcille he knew so well proof of an illusion? she was the one who was the most different, and as such, the contrast was the same one that eliminated all three laioses at the start: with the real thing in the room, the fake became apparent.

so, to reach a conclusion: one again, laios has proven he's not as scatterbrained as his companions think, but this time he did so on a more personal level than usual. to them, he reveals that he knows their quirks enough to define them by such when they're otherwise faced with convincing copies. to us, the readers, if we accept what i've suggested here... he's revealed a lot more. he respects, admires, and idolizes his friends, all out of fondness: he wants to see them in an ideal way, whatever that means for each of them as individuals.

anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What is your opinion on each of the known students in Ms. Mendeleiev's class (Marc Anciel, Aurore Beauréal, Mireille Caquet, Jean Duparc, Zoé Lee)? I realize that Zoé’s section of your answer will most likely be the longest, but I figured I’d go ahead and put them all in one ask anyways since there’s only five out of sixteen total and having one ask for each of the other four seemed unnecessary.

Zoé is going to get the most analysis out of me, so we'll save her for last and start with the character that I have the least to say about:

Jean Duparc

I didn't even know who this was, so I had to check the fan wiki page about him. He's apparently a minor character who gets akumatized and defeated off screen. His design is so generic that the trivia section reads, "Jean's design is a regular background model used in groups and crowds in the series."

So, yeah, nothing to say about this one. I can't have opinions on a character who barely even counts as a character.

Mireille Caquet

Mireille is a minor step up from Jean in that I actually know who she is - she's the girl who wins the weather reporter job at the start of Stormy Weather - but as far as her personality goes, I have nothing to comment on because Mireille does really have a personality. She only exists so that Aurore has someone to lose to at the start of Stormy Weather. That's why Aurore has a really cool and memorable design while Mireille looks like she's wearing pajamas. I don't think Mireille even has lines at any point in the series. If she does, they're not memorable, making her another character who barely counts as a character, leaving me nothing to talk about.

Aurore Beauréal

I really like Aurore's design, but there's not much else for me to say about her because we don't really get to know her character. She made for a fun akuma and that's all that she was meant to be. Her non-akumatized lines are just generic ranting about her loss

Aurore:(in the elevator) I should have won, I have the talent, the star looks, everything! But she took everything away from me. They took everything away from me! They--

and a generic statement of confusion after she's freed from her akuma. I wouldn't have been upset if she'd become a reoccurring character because - once again - she's got a really cool design, but I can't tell you anything else about her, so there's nothing for me to analyze.

Marc Anciel

Marc is the first character with some actual substance, but the substance is hardly abundant. He's just a kind of generic shy writer. I'm not sure why he's been added to the cast as a reoccurring character because they really didn't need more characters and they already have a writer in Alya. So I don't dislike him, I think he's fine, I'm just not sure why he's here. I was especially confused when he was given a miraculous because what has he done to earn one? He's not even part of the miracuclass where everyone gets a miraculous no matter how unworthy they are. It feels like he was just picked because they needed 18 holders, but they only had 17 and Marc is Nathaniel's comic-writing buddy, so I guess he's good enough?

Speaking of Nathaniel, I know that people ship him with Marc and that they're kind of implied to be together in the show, so I guess I should comment on that? I have to admit that I'm not a fan. Nathaniel's actions in Reverser were incredibly off-putting making this yet another couple with a really unhealthy foundation to their relationship. Why does Miraculous keep doing that???

In case people don't remember, Marinette gives Nathaniel Marc's story to read and Nathaniel assumes that it's Ladybug's private diary because the story is called "Diary of Ladybug". Why Nathaniel thinks that Ladybug would have Marinette deliver her private diary to him is beyond me. This is especially true since it doesn't read like any diary I've ever seen and the episode starts with these exchanges:

Marinette:(sees Marc) Marc you made it! (Marinette runs up to Marc and grabs his arm) Come meet everyone! (dragging him inside) This is Marc, the boy I told you about! The one who's always writing. Marc:(hides his book in his jacket) Uh... I'm sorry I didn't want to disturb you.

Jean-Pierre: Alix is our expert at street art. (Alix flips spray can in the air and catches it) And Nathaniel- Alix: He likes to draw people in skinny suits. (Nathaniel throws a piece of paper at Alix and she laughs) Nathaniel: Welcome Marc. As you'll find out, the good thing about this place is you can say whatever you want and no one will judge you, or only in good fun. (Marc notices Nathaniel's drawing and walks over to him) Marc: I... I saw your drawings on the school website, but they're nothing compared to the real thing. The movement, the expressions, the attitudes. They're all so-- Nathaniel: Thanks... That's nice.

Jean-Pierre: By the way Marc, you've shown up at the perfect time. Marinette told us that you're always writing and Nathaniel is looking for a script writer. (Nathaniel smiles at Marc)

Based on all this, it's not weird for Marinette to assume that Nathaniel would be able to guess that she was giving him Marc's writing. After all, the first few scenes of this episode all happen during the same day, meaning that Nathaniel was given this book right after being told that Marc liked his art, being told that Marc was a potential script writer, and being told that Marinette was Marc's friend, but whatever. What really matters is that, when Nathaniel goes to meet "Ladybug" and finds Marc instead, he gets extremely mad and rips Marc's book in half:

Nathaniel: What?! You're not Ladybug! Marc: Of course I'm not, it's me, Marc. Didn't Marinette tell you? Nathaniel: Marinette? (He looks over to Marinette's balcony, where he sees her filming him) Marinette: Uhh, operation "Comic Book" has hit a snag! (Tikki hides) Nathaniel: You were trying to make a fool of me, weren't you? (Points accusingly towards Marinette) Do you think it's funny to toy with my feelings? Marc: No, not at all! I-I just want.. to make.. a comic book, if you want to, that is. Nathaniel: A comic book? Us!? Together?! Never! (He tears Marc's book in half)

Oh yeah, I'm totally shipping these two. Couple of the century here. Really living up to that whole, "say whatever you want and no one will judge you, or only in good fun" thing, Nathaniel. Why did you even jump to the idea the they were making fun of you? Nothing in the episode set that up as a reasonable conclusion. No one was bullying you and you seem pretty freaking secure about yourself. If any character was set up to assume they were being made fun of, it was Marc!

This is another case where the show is trying to make things Marinette's fault, but she's actually not doing anything wrong. This is almost entirely on Nathaniel. They had a relatively minor miscommunication and, when he discovers that, his reaction is to destroy another artist's passion project in a fit of rage.

Anyone who thinks that it's okay to destroy another person's property because they're hurt needs anger management classes before they're ready to date anyone. Any time I see Marc and Nathaniel together, I remember this moment and wish that Marc would get out of there because I just don't view Nathaniel as a safe person. This was just such a massive overreaction and it gives me major ick vibes. Especially since this is yet another case where the wronged party never really gets an apology. The most we get is this:

Ladybug:(turns to Marc and Nathaniel) Marc and Nathaniel? By now you realize there was a big misunderstanding, but if you give each other a chance, I'm sure you'll find out how well you can work together. (Nathaniel holds out his hand, Marc looks, smiles and shakes Nathaniel's hand)

Why are we implying that there was blame on both sides here? Marc was the wronged party in every conceivable way. Once again, major ick vibes.

Zoé Lee

Zoé is written like someone's Mary Sue self-insert which is not a dig on Mary Sues! Mary Sues are just the most popular female equivalent to escapist male power fantasies and escapist fantasies should belong to all genders! However, if you're going to write a character like this, then they're supposed to be the main character. It's really freaking weird to have a side character written like this.

What do I mean by a Mary Sue self-insert?

Zoé shows up out of nowhere and immediately becomes best friends with all of the core cast members

Zoé has a tragic backstory that everyone finds oh so sad and comforts her over even though it really should make them wary of her ("I used to lie about everything and it lost me all my friends!" Yeah, I'll bet it did!)

Zoé is good at basically everything she tries and has no real flaws

Zoé gets brought into the magical girl squad in her second appearance, making her the character with the least development prior to being given a miraculous

Zoé is somehow the voice of reason, seeing the truth of things while everyone else is deceived in episodes like Kwami's Choice or Adoration, giving her things like the anti-Lila powers previously only held by Marinette and Adrien

Zoé is chosen as Adrien's replacement while Alya replaces Marinette, implying that these two are on equal standing somehow

In other words, Zoé is generic and kind of boring, but is treated as the best thing ever, which makes her a pretty annoying and crappy side character. The reason characters like this are successful main characters is because the whole point is escapist fantasy. You're supposed to be able to project yourself onto this generic cool person and pretend it's you being fawned over by your favorite characters. It's not my cup of tea, but I see the appeal and get why it's not hard to find stories like this especially in the romance, isekai, and fanfic genres, all of which are big on escapism.

While I will defend this type of character as fine in general, they have no place in a show like Miraculous. Miraculous is not an escapist fantasy. It's supposedly Marinette and Adrien's love story, so what is a self-insert fantasy doing here? The show really showcases how awkward this is in Adoration where Marinette spends the whole episode freaking out about Zoé liking Adrien - because of course the self-insert gets a love triangle with the leads - only for Zoé to confess her feelings for Marinette like a good little self-insert would, but of course Marinette can't accept those feelings so it's just kind of fizzles instead of leading to the standard self-insert romance with their favorite character. Writers, what are you even trying to do here? Why is Zoé getting all this attention? It's weird...

Zoé's awkwardness is only exacerbated by the fact that she's also a blatant Chloe replacement and I don't just mean the fact that she gets the bee. I mean that she's often used to disseminate information that Chloe would have or to fill the role that a redeemed Chloe would fill. For example, take this scene from the episode Gabriel Agreste:

Zoé: (rudely) Jean Quinton, did my mother tell you that the dinner party is no longer at Gabriel Agreste's tonight? Armand: Oh no! Madam didn't mention anything to me. Zoé: A helicopter will be coming to the roof, to take you over to the Eiffel Tower. Armand: Is mademoiselle sure about this? Zoé: Excuse me? Are you suggesting that I might be wrong? (walks away) Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! (to herself) Sorry, but it's for a good cause.

The writers needed Chloe for a minute, so Zoé adopts Chloe's personality to allow them to have a good Chloe without doing the work to actually make Chloe good. Btw, this scene shows exactly what I mean when I say that I want a wild card on the team. Someone who isn't afraid to be mean to get the job done. The writers clearly understand that a character like that has their uses, but then you'd have a character who is on the side of good, but who isn't a total goody two shoes and I guess we can't have that?

As you've probably picked up, I'm not much of a Zoé fan. I find her pretty obnoxious because she's so wildly out of place. Outside of her role as substitute Chloe, her character adds nothing to the story. There's no missing role that she uniquely fills because the cast was already bloated as heck when she showed up. To be fair, there are ways this could have been fixed.

Zoé shows up right after Chloe's betrayal and she almost immediately reveals herself to be a status chasing liar who is trying to be a better person. This should make everyone super wary of her and could have been used to demonstrate the difference between a person who doesn't want to change (Chloe) and a person who does want to change (Zoé). This would require the show to allow for multi-episode arcs, though, because Zoé's acceptance would need to be a slow process and not speed run in a single episode.

You could have also had Zoé show up at the same time as Audrey and used her as part of Chloe's story either to drive Chloe to be worse or to give Chloe someone who helps her get better because no one understands your messed up home life better than your siblings.

But those are some pretty major changes to canon. As is, Zoé is totally unnecessary and I wish that the writers would stop trying to make us love her by giving her cool roles in the story, shafting characters that we've all wanted more of in favor of this rando that they forced on us at the last minute. I will forever be salty that Zoé got the black cat instead of Nino. Alya had already had her identity outed twice, give someone else the Ladybug and let Nino get a chance to shine! Or just give the ladybug to Alya and black cat to Nino and imply that this is going to be a new love square situation. After all, Kwami's Choice has Tikki claim:

Tikki: No, they’re made for each other. Love is what gives them their strength.

Implying that the ladybug and the black cat should be in love so why are you picking Zoé and Alya? Not exactly opposed to that ship, but I don't think it's actually the plan, so what was that about? Plagg and Tikki didn't even seem to consider the comparability of their new chosen which is super weird given the whole "made for each other" line we get from Fu when he picks Adrien and Marinette in Origins. You can tell that no care was put into choosing the replacement heroes. They just once again wanted to show how cool Zoé is.

[roblogging]

i've spent a lot of the past 24 hours talking to various trans people in the fandom that reposted or dmed me about this video and i'm gonna yap here under the cut about it.

(i'm not a spokesperson for trans people obviously, and i don't mean to lead these discussions. i know i've had a lot of them recently but yeah it's been rough, i just thought this was interesting to share and can hopefully share a lil of how people are feeling.)

i've always assumed that the hate that i've received on my account was because of me? i post videos talking about discourses, i'm open about ships i like that are generally hated, etc etc, i've just assumed it was a me thing.

but then when people are mad about those things, it more often than not comes to slurs. it's come to people debating my identity, questioning how much of a man i am when i wear makeup, posting me on reddit pages, throwing the words tranny and "she-man" around farrr too much, and i thought "isn't it heartbreaking that this is their first thought?"

so it gradually became less about me as an individual, and instead my identity. and just that these people are mean.

and i made that video from the perspective of someone who's already upset. who's had a lot of stuff like this happen and is Sad about it.

but i've spoken to 47 trans people that reached out to me themselves about this, and have so many more requests to get through, and not one has said that they feel safe and comfortable in this space. not a single one.

so i thought i'd share some of the things that were said (with permission and anonymously) because i think it's quite interesting to see what the issues are:

the MOST mentions goes toooo: the discourse about male characters - namely sirius - wearing makeup and the way gender norms become the forefront of this - makes them feel as though people dislike "unconventional trans people" as one person put it.

alongside this, the hate for trans characters - namely regulus - and how people get very mad about it "reinforcing heterosexuality" - do not feel recognised as the gender they are, feel as though people are viewing trans people as "fake men or women" - quote.

discourses surrounding height, hair, 'gender presentations' etc - brought up by a lot of people and they recognised that this is coming from a good place (not reinforcing heterosexuality) but feel as though the amount of focus put on it is disproportionate to the presence of it. copy and pasted quote: "I'm a 5 foot 2 trans man and feel like less of a man because of it"

profitting jkr: (obviously, because that's what the video was about) i want to add that nearly everyone said that they understand the desire to, and were receptive of the fact you don't know what goes on behind the scenes re: donating elsewhere etc, but said that they've felt less safe since the surge of posts about the reboot.

guilt. which makes me glad that i posted about that here a few days ago because i felt alone in this. a lot of the people i spoke to feel guilty for being here, and feel as though they can't claim that this fandom is inclusive anymore.

comment sections: brought up by a handful of people who said that not enough people delete horrible comments on posts - one said "even if they argue against them it just feels worse than deleting it", another said "obvs i can't ask people to delete them on their own account but it does suck that they dont think to" - every person that brought up comment sections said that they tend not to look at them now which makes them feel like an outsider in the fandom.

cosplays: brought up by four people and feels relevant to above points about "gender presentation" - said that unless you're cosplaying sirius, they nearly always have to delete comments saying something along the lines of "xyz wouldn't wear makeup". all of them said that they just feel nice in it and never meant it in a bad way.

scared to be loud: scared to post, especially with face. a few acknowledged that they are scared to do so anyway, but worry about it in this space as well. bolded this one because it makes me so sad, but having been put on reddit pages for saying pete was their friend, i get it.

and the final point, a copy and pasted line: "i dont want to be represented when it suits them and i don't want to be a box they tick when adding diversity to a fic and then cry in comments. i dont want performative support"

ALSO ADDING HERE:

nearly everyone (bar 7 people) that reached out to me acknowledged that this is a minority, and not the majority. they were very clear that it isn't their whole experience, but is an issue regardless. a lot of focus was put on curating your own space and finding people who do support you, but algorithms don't always make that possible, and it's difficult seeing it happen even if they don't interact.

which is,,, yeah. that's the crux of it really. most of the time it's fine and it's lovely and things like this don't happen, but they still do, and how do you feel like you can engage when you don't know what side it will get on?

which,,, sucks. because there's not really anything anyone can do then. it's just screaming into a void and hoping that you don't end up on the wrong sides.

but anyway, i thought it was interesting. especially the comment sections and the headcanon discourse - which truly, i see less of on tumblr anyway but for all of the above reasons, don't fancy discussing this on tiktok right now which is the epicentre of it.

but yeah. food for thought perchance, and some very good discussions !! thank you to anyone that messaged me and allowed me to write this, you're not screaming into a void with me 🫶🏻

[antianakin]

You’ve talked a little about ships before but mainly in the context of how that is connected with the/a specific Jedi. And also a bit about ships you don’t like

But in Star Wars as a whole what’s your favourite ship, which one do you think is the best, and which one do you think is the most compelling?

(I know that the answer to all three could be the same but for me personally there’s often little overlap in these things so ymmv)

Also which ship do you think has the most potential?

I'll assume that canon and fanon are both options here.

"My Favorite" is the easiest to answer, so I'll start there. I've made an entire fic rec list for it and made no secret of the fact that I really like Codywan. Star Wars wasn't a fandom I really did any shipping in when I first was introduced to it as a kid. It wasn't until I decided to get back into Star Wars a little as an adult that I was even introduced to the IDEA of Codywan as a ship, but once I discovered it, it had me absolutely hooked. I will admit that I have a hard time with reading Codywan fics these days and interacting with other Codywan shippers because I often end up feeling like my interpretation of the characters is very different than the norm and what I want from the relationship - the thing that makes it compelling to me - isn't the same as most other people who enjoy the ship. But it was my first Star Wars ship and I still really enjoy the version of Codywan that exists in my head, so it will continue to claim the title of favorite.

For "Most Compelling" and "The Best" I'm actually going to exclusively define those as being IN CANON because anything in fanon can be compelling depending on how well someone writes it. I could obviously put Codywan down for both of these categories, but it would specifically be MY version of Codywan, the version that only really exists in my own head, and not necessarily the more popular version of them in the fandom.

I'm going to give "The Best" and "Most Compelling" to Jyn and Cassian from Rogue One. I will readily admit that, as someone who identifies as aroace, the fact that Jyn and Cassian never do or say anything explicitly romantic to each other is a major part of the reason I like them. I also personally believe it's the reason they're so compelling. Without being able to use any of the usual narrative shortcuts that romance tends to provide, Jyn and Cassian's dynamic relies on actually showing the two of them connecting with each other on a deeper level. I love how so much of their relationship with each other exists only in their eyes, in the way that they look at each other (whether the other person is looking back or not). I love the way their relationship comes through in-between the lines rather than stated out loud. I love the subtlety that exists for Jyn and Cassian in a way it doesn't for pretty much any other more "canon" ship.

I have also said before (though I'm not entirely certain I did it on this blog or not) that I really like angst, usually in the form of hurt/comfort but a good tragedy sometimes just hits the spot. Jyn and Cassian living in a "maybe," existing in a perpetual "what could have been," is so fucking sweet to me. That shit hurts JUST RIGHT. I love the idea that these two people meant everything to each other but only in the last few days before they died and they never even got to explore what exactly that could be. Their love is shown in how they impacted each other, the ways their relationship changed each other, because that's all they ever had time for. I fucking love that shit. The ambiguity of Jyn and Cassian's relationship is what makes it the most compelling to me and I think that the fact that they never get together forced the writers to show us they loved each other in far more interesting and nuanced ways than usually exist for couples that more explicitly get together on screen.

And finally, my choice for "Most Potential" is FinnRey. I really liked Finn and Rey's dynamic in TFA, I liked the way they both learned to rely on each other when they'd never had anyone to rely on before, the way they were able to escape their respective prisons and take their first steps into a larger world together. I liked the theme of coming back for each other no matter what, of reaching out for each other so they couldn't be separated, and the idea of shared fate where they would become the hero of the story TOGETHER. Obviously we all know how that dynamic got sidelined and ignored after TFA, but both characters are still alive and definitely have more story to tell, so the potential remains. Whether that potential ever actually goes anywhere, even if it's just in things like novels and comics, is still super up in the air. But I think these two could have an incredible dynamic if anyone was willing to give them the time of day.

[bogkeep]

some time ago i watched This Video about ergodic literature and got inspired to get the book S. by jj abrams & doug dorst. i've finally started reading it and i have Thoughts

the video i linked shows and explains the premise of the book, but here's the tl;dr - two students(ish) are writing annotations in the margins of a novel called 'ship of theseus' by mysterious author V M Straka while passing it back and forth. they are getting to know each other as well as trying to solve the mystery of Straka. it's a non-linear epistolary story told through a footnotes, scribbled comments, and inserts such as postcards et cetera.

there's a couple reason this book caught my eye in particular:

- i love "two people getting to know each other through letters/accidental text messages/notes" trope. it may just be the internet denizen in me but i'm a sucker for characters who get to know each other through text.

- immediately intruiged by the mystery author's name, Straka - it means magpie in czech, so i feel like i'm getting a head start on the mystery because i'm the specialest little boy in the world!!!!

- it looks cool as hell

(i purchased a used copy that was apparently a library copy so it feels extra Authentic hehe)

ANYWAY i'm still very early in, but i have many impressions to chew on already. first off, i really love the whole premise/medium, and it looks Really Good. there's a lot of really cool details that make it look authentic (if we ignore the COMICALLY LARGE MARGINS) - the book absolutely looks like something i could find in my grandparents' bookshelf. the comments being written in different colours of pen to signal when in the chronology they were written is very good. everything is pointing to a Very Fun and Immersive reading experience.

howeverrrrrrrrrr

while i Am having fun so far, there's also a lot of details that keep shaking my suspension of disbelief. like i am trying my best to hold on to it - im accepting the Comically Large Margins and the silly premise that these two people absolutely had to pass the book back and forth to communicate. like i am fully on board with that. it's just... i feel like this book is trying to Appear more clever than it actually is?

i think maybe the main problem for Me Specifically is that it's pretending to be a book written by a Probably European author and translated to english, but S. was so obviously written/created by americans and not intended to be read by someone who knows any of the languages they're dragging into this.

i was correct in assuming Straka is meant to be czech, as ship of theseus was originally written in czech - but it's weird to me that the narrative is completely uninterested in like... the original? there is a foreword by the translator, who goes on and on about the mysterious circumstances under which v m straka died, but the fact that the original language is czech is mentioned in a *footnote*. i would think a foreword by a translator would, realistically, say more about their credentials or their actual process of translating. or is that weird??? i took a class in classical literature in uni where that's kind of a big deal so maybe i'm biased???

BUT ALSO the fact that straka's identity is So very mysterious and very possibly a pseudonym... if you're like, genuinely trying to untangle this mystery, wouldn't you make a note about the meaning of the name??? like wouldn't you put a picture of a magpie on your conspiracy board about it?? Straka is absolutely a valid czech surname because most czech surnames are seemingly random nouns or adjectives, but if you think it's a pseudonym then someone made a very deliberate choice!!!! HELLO!!!!!!

then they listed the names of people who are thought to possibly be v m straka (of varying nationalities), and like okay maybe i'm nitpicking but i has to take a pen and fix some of them. they used SOME special letters for some of the names but very sporadically - they wrote vaclav instead of václav, and ekstrom instead of ekström... like at least be consistent if you're going to ignore special letters!

the worst language offender by far is this:

if you want "the monkey dances" it's "opice tancuje". you could also do "opičí tanec" for "the monkey's dance". this particular abomination is causing me physical pain.

one of the first inserts i ran into was a letter written in swedish + a direct translation:

GUESS WHAT I CAN READ SWEDISH TOO... i can't tell if the "original" letter is supposed to be the swedish or the english one - while the swedish seems to be grammatically correct (I THINK), it extremely reads as Something Written In English And Getting As Directly Translated To Swedish As Possible. it reads very stilted and oddly phrased. i get the impression i'm not actually supposed to be able to understand it, it's just here for Flavour, and that's fine! this one i can easily justify as the swedish being the in universe translation.

here's another very small thing that made me sigh very deeply

"at what point does this book stop being straka's alone & become *theirs*?" THE BOOK IS CALLED SHIP OF THESEUS. AREN'T YOU GUYS DOING LITERARY ANALYSIS OVER HERE??? IT'S THE FIRST CHAPTER AND YOU'RE JUST SPELLING OUT THE PREMISE TO ME TO THE POINT OF CONDESCENSION.

like. okay. maybe not everyone knows what the ship of theseus refers to (also i want to point out it feels like a very english language phrase to me. it Does exist in czech but it doesn't sound like a good or catchy title i think) - but i really do feel like two university students doing a deep dive into this book + author would 100% analyse the meaning of the title, that's like 101 level stuff!! this comment would be so easy to save - just have Mr Black Pen add a quippy comment about this being a bit on the nose, or pointing out the aptness or irony of the title, Anything. it would add so much to the believability for me.

like i didn't study literature at a higher education level so maybe i'm completely off base, but i DID study art history, and it seems almost absurd to me that these characters are doing so much digging and mystery solving about the author's mysterious past and rereading all of his books to find out more... and not engage with the basicest basics such as, the original text(s) pre-translation, possible cultural contexts, tHE TITLE... why are they drawing connections from choices made BY THE TRANSLATOR that absolutely would not be there in the original czech!! !!???!!!????!!

anyway my biggest actual problem so far is that i'm really struggling to read the actual ship of theseus. i have fun reading the annotations, but the actual book... i am Struggling. i've never been any good at reading ~*The Classics*~ so it might just not be my vibe, but i'm not sure if TOS is even a Good Book? like in this universe it's Allegedly a classic and very iconic or whatever. and obviously it's a challenge to write A Classic that makes its mark on history. and gods know there's discourse about whether or not The Classics are actually good books and that's way above my paygrade. but idk i couldn't get through chapter 1 without skimming through it because it kept boring me so bad.

i suspect i might just, keep reading the annotations storyline and not bother too much with the 'book' part of the book. i genuinely wanna see where the story goes!! despite my complaints i Am sold on the emotional core of it.

i think the premise rules so hard but i really feel like the authors are too monolingual and american and maybe haven't read that many books????? i can't speak on the latter but the former.............. maybe im the one who's too european

[raconteur-wanpi]

One Piece 1130

Here comes another review / reaction!

Starting with the Yamato cover stories again, it seems whoever is the suspicious kidnapper is also trying to steal Yamato's katana! Or at least, I'm assuming it's the same person. I feel like this means we're going to find out who it is rather soon. Is my bet on Perospero going to be completely and utterly debunked? We'll just wait and see.

Franky and the rest of the strawhats remaining on the giants' ship seem to have decided to call off the search! It's certainly the right decision, because as we'll see later, the rest of the crew is indeed already on Elbaf. It's interesting to see Franky specifically showcasing determination and speaking out the decision, I kinda love it. You have to remember he was the leader of the Franky Family for a long while, nice seeing that element of his again.

The rest of the New Giant Pirates are starting to show up! I remember both Gerd and Goldberg, but getting more dialogue from them is nice, they seem like genuinely charming characters and I love both their designs. They even showed up in Vegapunk's flashback, helping out Saul pick up all the books in Ohara. They seem to not like Rodo very much, which is kinda funny but makes total sense. It's also worth mentioning that apparently, according to Linlin's childhood flashback, Loki, Rodo and Goldberg were all born on the same day, or at least very close to each other! (From chapter 866)

The strawhats unfortunately don't recognize these two, who are certainly their allies, so instead they hide away from them.

This panel of all of them making their escape from Rodo's weird creepy dungeon is pretty cute, I always love seeing the strawhats casually interact. Sanji saying he used to cross a rope bridge like this is very interesting to me, surely there was one in Germa, right?

* Edit: oops, turns out that's Chopper saying it! Big thanks for the corrections in the replies. It's really hard to tell, but that makes more sense, we do see that in Drum Island.

Anyway, Luffy seems to spot something that catches his interest during this walk-away.

Meanwhile, back on the ship with the Giant Warrior Pirates....

Dorry and Broggy have been framed for the Egghead incident by Morgans also! Well, they did go against the government, so it's to be expected. Their bounties increasing to such numbers seems to actually align with real life inflation rates, Oda did his research.

Aaaandd here it is, one of the biggest things in this chapter. Vivi left a message to the strawhats!!!!!!! Being with Morgans, she was obviously able to draw the marking on the photo before it started getting reproduced for publishing. Everyone predicting Vivi joining the strawhats this arc is probably correct, hopefully! Please let it happen. Go get your girl kids!!!!!!

OK, this is the other huge (pun unintended) thing revealed this chapter. More information on Loki and, well.... the revelation Harjudin might be his brother!? They're both the King's sons, right? They both get referred to as princes here, aren't they!?

King Harold is referred to as Loki's father here, so it's safe to assume he was Harjudin's father also. If this is the case, Harjudin going after the Flame Flame Fruit in Dressrosa makes more sense.

Hmm, this narrative is pretty interesting, Loki getting called things like "cursed", "the shame of Elbaf" "not right in the head" etc, it feels like pretty cruel words. Even if he is indeed a horrible and dangerous person, something tells me we're meant to be wary of people being spoken about that way, so it might be a case of the people of Elbaf taking their measures against this guy too far and pushing him into what he eventually turned into.

One Piece loves this narrative, when you have things like Wano's unjust treatment of the Kurozumi Clan or Doflamingo's treatment when he was a child. Yes, Orochi and Doffy did turn out into terrible, horrible people, but the implication of those narratives is that it's the systems that failed them that created those monsters. It's not to feel sympathy towards them or anything, they really don't deserve that at this point, but rather to understand how they were created, and that the people who unwittingly turned them into such dangers were in many ways in the wrong as well. After all, Tama is also a Kurozumi, for example, and Wano needed to get over their treatment of entire clans for the crimes of a few. We even see that with Yamato being hazed for his father being Kaidou in the cover stories, only for Denjiro to scold the younger generation for this behavior. Not to mention, "the shame of Elbaf" does immediately make me think of "the failure of Germa" and such similar things. In fact, if we wanna push that parallel further, Loki being almost married off to the Charlottes' in a similar way, might have in fact been an attempt at "getting rid of the failure" and letting someone else deal with him, rather than an attempt at making amends with Linlin. I do think it's most likely that Loki will be a bad guy, but I think there will also be a narrative on how cruelty breeds more cruelty. Oda's favorite!

And here he is, the "accursed prince". Wow, what a panel! This is such a good drawing in sense of scale and danger. Incredible artistic work. Immediately leaves such a strong impression on who this character is, it's quite the introduction!

[nukanobody]

Funny Familiarity

For context: I posted a head-canon a few days ago, on how Danse actually ended up in the brotherhood of steel as a synth despite not being sent as a spy but instead is listed as "missing". It's probable he ran away from the institute where the railroad helped him escape, with Deacon knowing about the case.

I'm so obsessed with this idea now so read below for any thoughts or further hc's i had when making this. Or ask me anything about this hc i am going cray cray. sorry if this is ooc i'm bad at characters.

ty to @ericadrawsstuff for your addon btw!! it fueled me to draw this haha

For Danse, I don't believe he was a courser but maybe a failed experimental synth/synth meant for manual labor? The institute would probably be in a panic if a courser with a courser chip went awol, they'd probably take notice if the same missing courser became the poster boy of the people whose trying to destroy them.

Danse stayed in the railroad for a bit, like maybe 5 months? Formed a somewhat close bond with Deacon who was "Debbie" at the time.

Deacon loves collecting sunglasses, was toying with the idea of being a woman when he found novelty heart sunglasses. I see him as identifying as male but really flexible when it comes to presenting himself.

Obsessed with the idea that despite being reset/memories wiped synths may carry flaws or mannerisms. In Danse's case his fierce loyalty and self sacrifice are his major flaws, pre-wipe he didn't want to be a danger to the railroad and felt he needed to be wiped, post-blind betrayal he felt like he was a danger to the brotherhood and needed to be killed.

Deacon's a good liar sometimes, but in the cases where Danse says something against synths his hands clench and has to lean on a wall to catch his breath while the sides of him fight in his head. The first side is the railroad agent who has huge empathy for M7-97 and knows that if his identity is revealed it'll absolutely ruin him and get maimed by the brotherhood, the other side of him is absolutely disgusted by Danse and wants to put him in his place, the 3rd just thinks it'll be funny.

I depicted Nora as how I'd imagine she'd be. A woman from a pre-war era being dropped in a wasteland, it's kind of a culture shock for her and she has a savior complex, she assumes that everyone just needs to sit down and talk. Her main goal is to somehow "unite" the commonwealth, she's joined all the factions and some of her companions are kind of peeved about it. In the comic she introduced Deacon to Danse thinking they could have a civil conversation where Deacon could steer him to a better mindset (she sees Danse as a kid who got into the wrong crowd, despite being a fully grown man)

okay jesus, this took like 3 days of non stop drawing for me to do. Whoever designed power Armour i pray for your downfall what the hell. Sorry if it looks bad i study software so I haven't gotten the chance to draw in like, 7 months. Can you tell which pose I was able to find refs for and not the rest? lol

I ship them now too, i've been researching them and I love their dynamic and damn if the plot "Person A knew Person B before Person B forgot them and became a different person" doesn't hit like a ton of bricks.

[thegracefulknight]

O!Ciel, Lizzy, and Sterling Silver Roses

One of my favorite extra chapters in Kuro is the Book of Murder side story, where each of the characters turn into characters from fairy tales. My most favorite part there is obviously Ciel and Lizzy's, which represented The Snow Queen (also my favorite fairy tale). It just fits them so much!

So I was rereading this chapter and noticed the panels below:

In the first one, we see Ciel seemingly giving someone a rose. At the present, we haven't seen any scene similar to this between O!Ciel and Lizzy, but since this is Lizzy's POV and she is talking about the protagonist, I'm assuming this is indeed a memory shared between them (or at least parallel of actual events that happened in their past).

O!Ciel's favorite flower, is coincidentally, sterling silver roses, as mentioned by Sebastian in Ch. 1.

Sterling silver roses are these lovely lavender or lilac-silver roses that represent nobility, elegance, and regality. Since I wanted to see if there would be any relation I could make between this flower and my favorite ship (the way I overthink about these two, really 😭 lol), I tried to look more into what these types of roses represent in a romantic sense.

And well— lavender-colored roses like the sterling silver rose represent love at first sight. They also "signify enchantment, adoration, wonder, and fascination. If you have a secret love, lavender roses can maintain a sense of mystery. The tone is also ideal for the first time you give your love interest flowers."

Giving lilac roses to your special someone, on the other hand, symbolizes your "subtle intentions for them in the future."

Going along with these concepts, and since we were never told of the reason yet why this type of rose was our earl's favorite, my assumption is that the silver sterling rose probably holds a special memory for him in the past. And as the only time we see him with a rose in the manga so far would be that panel from the special chapter (correct me if I'm wrong though), it could be assumed that this memory is something he shares with Lizzy from when they were little—O!Ciel giving her a sterling silver rose. It could be a hint that O!Ciel has liked our sweet Lizzy from the start, and possibly, has wished before that it was he would be betrothed to her instead of R!Ciel (who doesn't really seem that interested in her anyway, he's just happy and relieved she at least is cute and 'not scary'). He doesn't act on it however, as he knows she is never meant to be his.

One thing to note is that, while we have seen from his actions many times that he cares a lot about Lizzy, we are still yet to see O!Ciel actually talk about his true feelings for her. And I believe it's about time l we see just how he thinks of her, from his own POV. I expect that this is something we will finally get to see soon in this arc as one of the layers it touches are the conflicts between O!Ciel and Lizzy, and their relationship.

It's been shown at an earlier part of this arc that O!Ciel distances himself from people he cares about to protect them, and that he is afraid to accept the idea that he deserves love and happiness. I think bringing up this memory with her, and his sterling silver roses would be an emotional way for him to finally face these feelings, and give it a name. To acknowledge that Lizzy is someone that he loves, ever since, and someone he doesn't want to lose.

All of this for now are just my assumptions on what we may see once we finally get the focus back to O!Ciel and Lizzy, but it would be truly interesting to see it unfold, and also a beautiful way to see them acknowledge their feelings for each other when the time comes.

[goo-berz]

Talking about Vivziepops' weird art of minors

I've never been the biggest fan of Vivziepop, I've always knew about their weird behavior (since like 2018 ~ 2019) before they were as popular as they are now.

She has done a lot of weird stuff but the thing I mainly wanna focus on in this post is their character Addison. Addison is a 17 year old gay effeminate fox humanoid from Zoophobia, he's in a relationship with a 19 year old Teacher's assistant named Gustav. Many people get confused by this but Addison has been CONFIRMED to be 17 years old by Vivziepop. Someone had changed Addison's Fandom Wiki page back in 2019 to say they're 18, when this is not true, Vivzie has confirmed they're 17. I did go back and change the age to 17 on the Wiki with the correct age in hopes that people stop believing incorrect information.

Vivzie confirming their age: https://twitter.com/vivziepop/status/1128064633166712832

The tags in this post brings up the fact that Addison is nearly 18 - not 18 yet - They're still 17.

Edit: Oh yeah, I want to add on context to this tag: "I should mention the characters canon ages are higher then when I first made them because as I wrote the story any big age gaps were uncomfy"

I've heard multiple older fans of Vivziepop say that Addison was originally meant to be 14-15 years old, and I've heard that Gustav was originally meant to be in his 30s.

Addison was created 2010, She began shipping Gustav with Addison in 2011, and Zoophobia began in 2012. So the fact she shipped a 14-15 year old character with a 30 year old one to begin with, and encouraged her friend to draw intense NSFW art of them together is so.. weird.

Anyways, Vivzie also hints at Addison being a minor, using wording indicating how young they are in age in their Blogpost introducing the character

"I finally created a few concepts, but the one I have been toying with the most is a young character much like Gale. An albino boy, with an identical albino sister"

If you need more proof, Addison is also preyed on by Mirage, a character that SPECIFICALLY goes after minors... that's basically her main personality trait, that she's a p3d0. She goes after Addison because he's a young submissive boy and easy to manipulate.

Anyways, back on topic. I personally I don't see anything wrong with the age gap of 17 & 19, however I do think it's weird to have this relationship between Addison and Gustav.. he's not exactly a teacher, but he still holds power over Addison due to the fact he's the voluntary teacher's assistant. Back when Zoophobia was popular there were people who found this dynamic weird & creepy considering the fact that Addison is basically a student under Gustav. Also, I just wanna bring this up because I find this weird, Gustav was originally under the impression that Addison was a year one student and much younger than he actually is, yet he still tried to flirt with him.. erm..? Yeah..

Anyways, that isn't the main point. The point is that Vivzie DREW NSFW OF HER 17 YEAR OLD CHARACTER AND HIS 19 YEAR OLD TEACHER... erm.. holy cracker balls? Literally how can anyone excuse these?

Vivzie also drew Gore of Addison too, but I won't post it here cus it's very graphic and weird and idk why she drew it!!

And .. possibly the worst drawing of them all.. Holy titties what is this... If you're wondering, the stuff under the censors is ACTUAL NSFW. It's not suggestive, or implied s3x, It's their ACTUAL WEE WEEs.

These accounts are poorly archived, so it's hard to find the original post and what it originally said. However after some digging I was able to find out the original text said

“ dollcreep: “ i can only see ‘dark-Günter’ exposing him and addi to a public area like so…so. yeah. Günter says; merry Christmas. god this question is super old. vivz reminded me about it"

So, I'm assuming that Dollcreep drew this, not Vivzie. However I was also able to find out from the limited resources there is that Vivzie reposted this to her accounts Vivzie-zp (unarchived) and ZPanswers, which are also now deleted, but if you view the accounts tumblr archives over the Wayback machine you can see that she did indeed repost this. http://web.archive.org/web/20120801182958/http://zpanswers.tumblr.com/archive

If you don't know, Dollcreep and Vivzie used to be best friends, however aren't anymore. Dollcreep originally designed Gustav, originally named Gunter, and Vivzie bought the design from them. Vivzie designed Addison back around 2010, and taking into account the old caption, this means that Vivzie.. allowed Dollcreep to draw NSFW art of their underaged character ;-; oh my gawd!!! Whatthe heck guys... like I said at this time Addison was still 14 - 15 and Gustav (Gunter) was in his 30s.

Also I want to mention that this drawing was from 2011, so that means Vivzie had this pedophilic ship with Dollcreeps OC for years, & after she bought the rights to the character she decided to.. keep the pedophilic ship and write it into Zoophobia by making him Addisons teacher. That's crazy..?

Anyways, because I brought up Mirage. Mirage is written pretty bad. She was a character meant to be in.. or scrapped from Zoophobia, she was meant to be a villain who preyed on the kids, mainly Addison. Her main trait is that she likes kids

Vivzie's made a bunch of drawings of Mirage preying on kids which I think is pretty weird, especially considering how poorly some of them represent it and make it seem like a joke instead.

and yeah, we all know about this infamous drawing she made of Mirage preying on Kestrel, a 14 year old. Pretty weird

Also when I looked at the web archive of Vivzie's ZPanswers blog (a Zoophobia ask blog) she accepted many weird asks about Kestrel, 14, and Addison, 17, like an ask asking if Kestrel had ever been fucked by a horse & how Kestrel, Addison & others would act when they were drunk. Which is also pretty weird to me I won't lie

Anyways that's all for now. Sorry if this is all over the place its 4am and I just wanted to get my thoughts out that vivziepop is kinda a weirdo

[kisses4mizu]

y’know I respect a fan’s choice about how they want to view mizu but tiny ramble about it here. this isn’t any sort of discussion or ‘matter of fact’ essay, just a simple rant about headcannons about her being TRANS and her SEXUALITY.

Warning: extremely long.

Given the numerous limitations that would arise from traveling as a woman, I find it very difficult to understand why some people believe Mizu is transgender when it's obvious that she is hiding this information in order to survive. This was particularly true during the Edo period, when women were dehumanized and treated like objects because we only ever see them as a slave or working in a brothel (majority of the show at least). They were also seen having to depend on men for nearly everything, as demonstrated in the episode where the mother and daughter were left outside to freeze to death since her husband was not present to accompany them. Along with that subtle hints were presented to us that show how comfortable she is when in touch with her femininity like a few moments in the episode where she came back to Swords-father Eiji’s hut. Though, I can definitely see why people would label her as transmasc with the theory that she must’ve grown so accustomed to this sort of lifestyle, she’d perhaps just become transmasc in the later episodes. We’ll never know!

Next, not gonna lie, I’m insanely guilty of viewing Mizu as a bisexual women despite feeling that she is leaning more toward heterosexuality in terms of her sexuality. I have the biggest fattest crush on her so I have no problem stating how much I'm crying and wailing over this. Like c’mon, let's be real, I guarantee that 98% of simps are female, and I’m sure every single one of us has mentioned once that we can all treat her better than Mikio and Taigen. Speaking of Taigen, I HAVE to admit that him and Mizu do have the best chemistry compared to everyone in the show. It’s clear in the way she pulls him away from those shooting arrows, knocks him out becahse she fears for his safety if he follows, saving him from Fowler's castle even though she could have easily just left him to die and slain Fowler, etc. At first, I would’ve assumed she’d have trauma with men especially after Mikio’s betrayal which might’ve led her to stray away from any romantic attraction with men—or anybody in general. Honestly, I have dedicated my time to search for ANY hint (ok not rlly) that she might be attracted to women, but the only time I ever see her become flustered by one is when she appears to be taken aback by the prostitues she tried to ask for directions to the Shindo Dojo. Plus, there were only two occasions where she interacted with Akemi that people use to automatically ship them which is when she saw Akemi in her carriage (not sure of the specific name) and pinned her down in Madame Kaji's brothel. I can’t imagine them as a couple in later episodes, something I’m been dying to see. Though, it’s hard to determine what was running in her mind during the scene where they both stole glances at each other, especially since there was no sort of indication in her inner thoughts or emotions, so it’s normal to assume the above as well. (Despite that, I’m still rooting for AT LEAST bisexual Mizu because for the love of god and for the sake of all of the gay women here, PLEASE. /j)

I may make jokes about these headcannons like playfully hating on the TaiMizu ships. All in all, I’m sure the fans are mature enough to understand that these are meant to be lighthearted jokes and that people interpret a character and show in various ways and it’s normal! Even if I can’t comprehend the theory or feel as though it is a little too complicated/really negotiable, remember to support what you want, ship what you want, make whatever headcannons, nobody’s stopping you! Don’t be too afraid to just announce what you feel about the show. All I ask is to avoid SERIOUSLY cancelling someone just because of their own feelings and opinions. In the end, they’re stilll fictional characters (😞😞) who have no sort of physical form of any sort so do whatever, as long as it isn’t really THAT problematic in a sense (e.g. romanticising rape), go for it.

(Sorry for bringing her sexuality into this, I’m aware of how the show is definitely not centering on this and not every single thing has to be LGBTQ-related but I noice it’s something constantly brought up in the fandom. As someone whose phrasing and essay writing skills suck, I’m still learning bit by bit about how the world works in terms of differing views on things. I may not support your idea of a character but I RESPECT it! If I came off as rude, I’m sorry, remember it’s just my random midnight thoughts🙏)

[buddiebeginz]

Considering how annoyed I get when I see comments about bucktommy endgame I can see why they’re combusting because that comment section is 90% Buddie 😂 when we flood a comment section we’re crazy and harassing people and will be punished by Tim for it but when they do it it’s just because BuckTommy deserve all the love. When we do it we’re “biased and showing we only watch the show for Buck and Eddie”(proven wrong considering like half the Buddie comments also include comments about other characters like Ravi and Henren) but when they are clearly only watching the show for a guest star with minimal screentime that’s perfectly fine.

100% nonie. I'm constantly amazed by their level of hypocrisy. Like they relish in calling us delusional. They say we're seeing something with Buddie that was never there and or will never happen. Yet many of them used to be Buddie shippers so they clearly saw something there. They've built this thing between Buck and T*mmy up to be something so much more serious than it's clear the show has ever intended it to be. No one on the show has even called T*mmy Buck's boyfriend at this point and they're sending stuff to Tim about how T*mmy is Buck's soulmate. But we're delusional for thinking that Eddie putting Buck in his will means something important. 😒

They also have the nerve to call us homophobic and fetishizers yet they're the ones who have harassed people (even journalists) for shipping Buddie or seeing Eddie as anything but straight. Not to mention so so many of the things I see them post is about sexualizing Buck and T*mmy's relationship. And there's nothing wrong with envisioning the sexual relationship between two fictional characters you love but without a doubt I know that whenever there is a post about Buck they'll come post on it and make it something sexual about B/T. They literally just commented the other day on a pic of the medal ceremony with Buck, Chris, and Eddie on what if T*mmy was under the table (giving Buck a bj I assume they meant). Yet we're fetishizing Buddie because we've seen the love that has developed between these two men and the family they've built together and we want to see them take that next step.

Oh and about them having a problem with us flooding the comments with support for Buddie at least most of that is actual individual people. Our fandom doesn't have to create burner accounts to pretend there's more support for our ship than there actual is because there is a ton of real support for Buddie including people that work on the show.

You're also right about us showing love for Henren and Ravi. I've seen tons of Buddie shippers talk about how we want Ravi to be a main character this season yet the B/T stans have said repeatedly that T*mmy should be a main, T*mmy deserves a begins episode, T*mmy should even be on the s8 poster. They seriously care about him more than any other character on the show.

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 47 Yaoibachi Posting

Hokazono-sensei really slammed the gas this chapter, man. No search and rescue mini-arc here- just going back to the series' roots by having our good guys slaughter nameless mooks in suits. Excellent decision! But goodness it feels like he's trying to rush through this set-up to get to what he really wants to say this arc. I trust the emotional impact to land so I guess this really is the Kunishige lore/flashback arc since that's where the narrative focus went.

First off, I got the official arc name wrong last post. It's actually The Sword Bearer Assassination Arc. So, uh, maybe don't get too attached to any of the guys Chihiro will be trying to save. Might be difficult though if they're all as endearing as Uruha.

This Fucking Manga, Man

I just can't even this chapter. I CAN'T. I'm sitting here drafting this on Thursday and I'm in awe of the spreads. Cover and color pages? Stunning. Fanservice? Immaculate.

Yes, we got onsen fanservice after all!

Now accepting bets on who Uruha will be shipped with more: his personal guard guy or Kunishige.

Of course it pulls double duty to give us insight into Uruha and, by proxy, Kunishige. I was right on the money about Uruha being a free-spirited dude with a unique perspective last week... but I didn't imagine he'd basically be a wholesome AF version of Sojo. The Kunishige worship from this guy is off the fucking charts (and so are the Hakuri-Chihiro parallels)!

"This blade suits you" from Kunishige is a callback to Hakuri's words to Chihiro in chapter 20. I love it when authors do this shit. Can we infer that Chihiro felt the same level of awe for Hakuri? Probably not, but he did need to hear that affirmation quite badly, so it's still significant.

You don't get to comment on other guys being weirdly obsessive over a Rokuhira on sight like that, Hakuri.

THESE DUMBASS GOOBERS. Poor Chihiro's still collecting weirdos while Hakuri has no self-awareness at all. I'm in tears this is just too good. Hakuri, I love you. You're perfect.

I don't wanna get hyped after just one chapter for something that probably won't be happening. I get just about everything wrong week after week anyway! But I wouldn't mind Chihiro and Hakuri's relationship being compared to and developed through Uruha and Kunishige, just sayin'... Please... Hokazono-sensei went through the trouble of making sure we know that Uruha is obviously meant to parallel Hakuri, so that won't go to waste right?!

TFW the light of your life dies and leaves you behind.

'Cause this feels like a set up... I don't know, man. It's impossible to guess how the story's going to go but I get the sense that Uruha is going to have a lot to teach both of these guys- Hakuri in particular.

Neither Hakuri nor Uruha put a lot of value on their own lives until a Rokuhira showed up to praise them. And they're both freakishly devoted to the image of their savior to the point that they're willing to fight and possibly die for them. So we could be exploring that aspect of Hakuri's mindset as a subplot while the larger machinations swirl around them, since it's a pretty potent character flaw and all. I need Sazanami "defend to the death" Hakuri being convinced to give a shit about himself so, so badly.

Goddamnit, please stop hurting yourself.

Hakuri's also unable to use Isou due to burnout, as expected. Still wondering if the Kamunabi knows he can use two sorcery techniques but I won't hold my breath on getting answers for that. It's not necessary for this to be addressed unless it would cause some kind of friction, after all. And for as much as I would like to see the council's reaction to Hakuri and his circumstances, I don't think it'll be relevant. We'll just have to assume they either don't know his last name or are completely fine with a Sazanami being included in the plans. I wanna be wrong though. I really do.

Contract, Powerscaling, and Naming Conventions

We learned some interesting things this chapter. One, the theory of the Lifelong Contract erasing a Bearer's innate sorcery is confirmed. So if we are ever going to learn what Chihiro's sorcery is, Enten will have to be an exception to the other six swords, or he has two sorceries and the contract only nullifies one. I'm not sold on the second one since Hakuri only overworked the storehouse but is limited using both of his, implying there's a common pool of spirit energy they draw from. Looking forward to more details on how this works!

It also seems that the Bearers weren't tucked away in "safe" locations until Kunishige's death three years ago. So they probably got to live their lives as they wished until the Hishaku ruined things... which would explain how Sushi guy ended up at a restaurant. I feel like each location could have special meaning to each Bearer so hopefully we see more about how and why they ended up where they did.

Hiyuki also wasn't lying about the Kamunabi's forces being spread thin. Just 14 talented sorcerers to defend each Bearer, and even then Uruha would have felt more reassured if Azami or Hiyuki was there.

Nice going, Azami! So we know you're hella strong since Hiyuki's the best fighter in the Kamunabi- the only one in the force who can contend with Kunishige's WMDs (ch. 18). I think a Bearer would know how strong an enchanted blade is, so we can assume that Uruha's assessment of Azami's strength is accurate. Azami can't be sent out on the ground like the rank and file as a higher up now, but I'm highly anticipating him demonstrating that fearsome sorcery of his.

We also got another name! Kuregumo's original bearer was named Misaka (巳坂). This is most probably a family name like Uruha (more on him in a bit). 巳 (mi) means "snake" for wisdom and intelligence and 坂 (saka) means "slope/hill" or "embankment" for steady progress, a peaceful life, security, and/or strength and resilience. We'll definitely learn more about them- it's just a matter of when. The upside of Hokazono-sensei being stingy with names is that we all know to sit up and pay attention when one gets dropped.

We also got Uruha's given name this chapter (Youji [洋児]) and the name of his blade (Kumeyuri [酌揺]). Strange names for a strange fellow, but that's expected of someone whose family name implies a free-spirited nature with a unique outlook I guess. 洋 (you) is a kanji that specifically describes the ocean in an expansive, almost foreign sense. Not just the sea in general, but vast waters extending far away from one's current location. It has a ton of possible interpretations, naturally: courage, ambition, adaptability, limitless possibilities, harmony, inclusiveness... on and on. 児 (ji) means "child" in a straightforward way and carries connotations of joy, hope, and potential. So Uruha Youji [lacquer feather ocean child] is quite the character in his name alone.

Kumeyuri's name doesn't really give us any insights into it's potential abilities or theme, unless Kunishige was drunk (or wanted to be) when he made it. 酌 (kume) is the kanji used for pouring sake and implies generosity, abundance, and celebrating joy. 揺 (yuri) means to shake, sway, or jostle and connotes a sense of energy, playfulness, enthusiasm, and fun. I'm getting a lot of entertainment value trying to imagine how a sword named after a shaky pour of sake works, let me tell you. Somehow it seems very apt for Uruha already though.

Dead Dad Trivia

So Kunishige himself requested to hold on to the blades- it's very certain now that whatever happened during the war changed him into the man we met in chapter 1. Seitei war flashbacks please, I'm dying over here! But keep up the layering and scattering of little details! Don't feed me too fast! Make me wait and get all impatient every week! Torture me-

Curious that many people who seem to have known Kunishige doubted his potential as a father. Whether they see him as a savior or a selfish prick, most of them scoff a the idea of him having a kid. Maybe Kunishige was just a guy with layers like his son, so only those who actually knew him well would believe he could be a decent dad. We saw him goofing off with Shiba and Azami when they were Chihiro's age in chapter 12 so it's not like he was a stoic since birth (he said himself that Chihiro inherited that trait from his mom). We're going to slowly piece together the real Kunishige this arc and I can't wait!

Also a bit odd that few people see the resemblance between Chihiro and Kunishige until Chihiro's passion shines through or they get a good look at how he carries himself. Won't hang my hat on the blood test showing that Kunishige wasn't his bio dad after all, but the groundwork is there if it does. Regardless of what happens, though, it's pretty obvious that Chihiro is Kunishige's son thanks to the ideals he took to heart.

Hishaku Theory

RIP bandanna guy you were too cool to live.

Yeah, "enemies of the state" isn't a term you use for a regular criminal gang, no matter how threatening they are. I'm more convinced than ever that the Hishaku are primarily a political threat to all of Japan (though still very willing to admit that I might be reading too far into things).

Kyora's conversation with an unknown Hishaku member in chapter 22 referred to "dissidents". That's also a very pointed descriptor for people with differing political ideologies, especially ones agitating against the "legitimate" ruling group.

Could Soya come back to finish what his dad started? Meh.

This implies that Kyora and the Sazanami clan were aligned with the Hishaku's goals beyond merely business. The Hishaku probably have sympathizers in and outside of mainstream society, and likely within the Kamunabi itself as well. And then there's the kiku flower -which has strong ties to Imperial imagery- in the vase that's shown up twice now, arraigned alongside other flowers symbolizing deep desire and patience.

So I think the Hishaku lost the war and have been plotting their comeback for a long time now. How does this tie into Chihiro's personal journey beyond the revenge mission? We'll have to see. John Hishaku's goals and methods are shrouded in secrecy right now, so I look forward to learning about why he needed to foster Chihiro's hatred to enact his plans. Cool job making the core plot hook so compelling, author-san!

HakuHiro Brainrot

I have to, I'm sorry. This chapter was a godsend.

Give me an inch and I'll run a thousand miles with these two.

Chihiro acknowledging that Hakuri is special! Feels like a very deliberate reference to the language used in Chapter 33, especially by Tenri. Makes sense since Tenri was a parallel of Chihiro's devotion to his father and his legacy.

"Hakuri- my older brother by a year- is different." would have flowed a little better, but it's a clunky sentence no matter what...

The reference was probably made in order to imply that Chihiro sees Hakuri as a brother (or family in general) via the Tenri connection. However, that won't stop me from shipping them romantically because I'm illiterate as fuck.

ANYWAY.

FOOD IMAGERY WITH HAKURI FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE ICE LADY!!

Hakuri's sharing snacks with Chihiro on the train- he feels so safe with his samurai! And this is the first time we've seen Chihiro accept food since he reluctantly (metaphorically) shared dango with Sojo in chapter 17! He's rejected Shiba's offers, provided one-sidedly for Char, resigned himself to connecting to Sojo to understand him, skipped getting ice cream, and missed the gaming session, but he accepted Hakuri's small gesture...! I'M GOING FERAL

Hakuri is canonically the only character Chihiro's accepted emotional comfort and support from since his dad died. On screen so far, at least.

Hakuri, who was deeply traumatized when he last tried to connect with someone, feels secure enough to do it with Chihiro...

Chihiro, who is only at ease with providing comfort, accepts it for the first time from Hakuri...

The first time we see them exchanging the comfort/security visual metaphor is while they're on their own...

And it's just so casual for them to do this...!

I sounded confident when I called Hakuri the heroine of Kagurabachi in that long-ass post I made a few months ago, but... I was actually right?! Hakuri is Chihiro's first and only emotional safe haven. He's got plot-related utility and can hold his own in a fight, but he's not going to be outshining the likes of Chihiro or Hiyuki any time soon. His faith in Chihiro has been his most valuable contribution to the story- even moreso than awakening to his storehouse ability. The only thing that's missing at this point is the chance of HakuHiro being canon! Seriously!

Alright void... thanks for letting me yap again. Definitely not going to go back to writing fan fiction for the first time in 10+ years because this stupid edgy sword manga broke me. Nope, never, not me...