#if berserker can’t lose to anyone because he’s the strongest in the world and you want him im not a cop

[switch]

oh yeah i feel the need to make this PSA now that a free heracles is available again and some people will still talk to you about fgo like it’s 2017:

heracles is still good, but the game has scaled to the degree that he is generally not quite the reliable unkillable soloist he once was. insane cq gimmicks, bloated healthpools, the emphasis on aoe/mixed waves, the inflated amount of damage he takes, the frequency with which bosses crit nuke, pierce/buff removal, and the existence of competitive soloists who can be used as support if you need while dealing more damage, taking less damage, and possessing more anti-debuff/gimmick/crit utility etc, all make him more of a backline emergency cleanup crew guy now. especially if this ticket means you’re getting him at np1. gun to my head i’d recommend getting or raising np levels on either saber or emiya depending on which one suits your general farming/wave clearing needs better unless you’re dying for a cleanup guy.

like again i’m not saying he’s bad or can’t still be used, but i don’t want people to ticket him hoping for gameplay carry and then be surprised at how frequently he can get shut down outright if you just throw him at newer content without a lot more prep and resources.

[boycottyashahime]

Hello! Anti-Sessrin person here. You said if this couple becomes canon it will ruin Sesshomaru's character development. I would love it If you could elaborate on that because you're always so eloquent and smart. It's ok if you don't feel like it, though. Have a nice day!

I've actually been looking for an excuse to sit down and write out a cohesive post on my thoughts about this. Contrary to what the shippers want to believe, my interpretation of Sesshoumaru and Rin's relationship doesn't have anything to do with my moral objections to child grooming. I happen to think there's plenty of evidence for a filial interpretation in the text.

First, I'd like to preface my little essay here by saying I'm going off the manga alone. I haven't seen the anime in a long time, because I dropped it when I got a little tired of trying to reconcile the inconsistencies between the two mediums. So, if you read this and have an impulse to say, "hey, what about that thing in episode such-and-such...", keep in mind that I probably just don't remember what you're thinking of.

So, let's go back, alllll the way back, to Sesshoumaru's first appearance. Here's a guy who tears off a dude's head for no other reason than to get the attention of his subordinates to demand a boat. Here's a guy who's spent a long time looking just about EVERYWHERE for his father's remains, not to pay respects, but to plunder them. Here's a guy who feels ENTITLED to rob his dad's grave for treasure he deserves simply for being his father's son.

Sesshoumaru begins his journey as a selfish, spoiled, entitled brat. He doesn't fit the usual profile of a kid throwing a tantrum on the street because he wants the expensive toy sitting in the window; he's very posh and very reserved, but fundamentally, his motivation comes down to the simple fact that he wants Tessaiga. It doesn't even really have anything to do with respect and admiration of his father, otherwise he wouldn't have been so eager to rifle through dear old dad's bones to get at a sword when he had another heirloom right there at his hip. Only Tessaiga was representative of the sheer destructive force he wanted to wield, so he ignored the fact that his dad didn't seem to want him to have it.

This is important, because at first, Sesshoumaru doesn't seem to think of his father in terms of the guy's intentions or the steps he takes for the sake of his sons. Like most rich spoiled kids, Sesshoumaru views the Inu no Taishou in terms of his prestige and how that priviledge can be appropriated for selfish ends. Sesshoumaru wants Tessaiga not because he needs it, but because it's a birthright, and reinforces his legitimacy. When it's clear that Tessaiga seals Inuyasha's youkai blood, keeps him from going berserk, Sesshoumaru loses interest in Tessaiga - it's just a crutch for Inuyasha, and there's no prestige in taking it from him or using it for himself.

Sesshoumaru doesn't start to REALLY consider his father's intentions for the swords until later in the manga, when it comes out that Tenseiga was originally part of Tessaiga, and Inuyasha was meant to get the Meidou Zangetsuha attack eventually as well. It's at this point that Sesshoumaru starts to question if daddy actually HATED him, to give him a rather neat power disguised in a lame shell, but only to develop it so Inuyasha can have it instead, even after Inuyasha already got Tessaiga in the first place. It kind of looks to Sesshoumaru that Inuyasha gets all the powerful cool shit their father left behind, and that there might have been some favoritism coming down HARD on Inuyasha's side.

Above, you can see Sesshoumaru has two interlinked but distinct issues that are addressed throughout the story - his lack of compassion and empathy, and how tied his identity is to his father's favor and prestige. These two are somewhat separated in the narrative; there's a kind of pause in Sesshoumaru's development while a bulk of the middle of the story deals more with other characters and their development, but there is a little bit of a thematic connection between the two halves.

We'll start with the development of Sesshoumaru's compassion since, well, that's where the story begins working on his character. Right before Rin shows up, Toutousai let's Inuyasha's group in on the sword Sesshoumaru carries around and what it does, indicating that Tenseiga requires a compassionate heart to function. A bit ham-handed, but RT isn't very subtle most of the time, so we'll allow it. This sets up the next few scenes in which Sesshoumaru is unable to move and must play captive audience to a little girl doing the literal opposite of what he's used to. Sesshoumaru's habit is to show up and kill things, with no thought to the years of history, relationships, thoughts, emotions, etc that he's snuffing out. But while he's reclined injured in the woods, Rin demonstrates actual LIFE and the preservation of it, that part Sesshoumaru never gets to see. It's made all the starker by how BAD Rin is at caring for herself, let alone the strange monster she found in the woods. She does exactly nothing to help Sesshoumaru, despite how hard she tries, and is even injured by others in her attempts. She is the very picture of vulnerability, the opposite of the strong and capable Sesshoumaru.

This is a stark contrast, because anything less wouldn't be enough to create the necessary awareness of Rin's struggles that Sesshoumaru needs in order to use Tenseiga on here. And I know I've said this before, but I really cannot stress enough how obvious I think the symbolism is when Sesshoumaru uses Tenseiga for the first time; a phallic object gives life to a child, and the object's owner looks after that life throughout the rest of the story. He's not very good at looking after it, and it's clear that he's not sure about taking responsibility for Rin at first, because she pleaded for him to come back for her when he and Jaken left her behind to requisition a sword from Gaijinbou. To me, it's reminiscent of a teenager who knocked someone up, and ended up having to learn to give a crap about the result.

But, even if you don't accept that symbolism as particularly significant, Rin being a child, and human, and weak, unable to survive on her own, are important characteristics to how Sesshoumaru's compassion develops. Sesshoumaru is one of the strongest characters in the series, and he rarely has to worry about his own safety. And since he's in the habit of just murdering everyone he comes across if they're in his way, he's never had to worry about the safety of anyone else, either. When Rin comes into the picture, though, Sesshoumaru is faced with the uncomfortable reality of vulnerability in general. Through her earnest and incompetent attempts to foster survival in a world that can and does crush her, she's opened his eyes to how the disadvantaged, those without a powerful youkai lineage to rely on, have to struggle.

Rin herself has nothing to offer Sesshoumaru within this context of supreme vulnerability. She's not a friend, because she can't offer mutual support or use a skill to their benefit as a team. She's not a lover, because, well, she's a child and sexual/romantic attraction are conditions that wouldn't allow Sesshoumaru to extend his compassion beyond just her. As a mostly helpless kid, Rin has to rely upon Sesshoumaru and his power to survive, and Sesshoumaru employs his strength to keep her alive, getting nothing but a sweet smile out of it all. She gets all the benefits, he has all the obligations. This is PURE compassion - using one's advantages to another's benefit because you care about them, and not because you derive something from it as well.

This is why making Rin into Sesshoumaru's lover is a REALLY thoughtless take. It puts conditions on the compassion and muddies the message.

Moving onto Sesshoumaru's continued character development in the latter part of the story, the sword drama starts back up with slow, when Toutousai shows up and offers to reforge Tenseiga into a weapon. Sesshoumaru discovers that because he got angry enough to break his primary weapon in defense of Kagura's honor, he's triggered the next evolution of Tenseiga into something that can murder. Which is what he wanted at the beginning, yay! I want to point out here that Toutousai says Tenseiga noticed a change in Sesshoumaru's heart - anger for the first time for the sake of another. This implies that what Jaken said about Sesshoumaru getting tangled up in the fight against Naraku because Naraku kidnapping and using Rin to manipulate Sesshoumaru hurt Sesshoumaru's pride is actually accurate; he just really hated the thought of Naraku trying to use him, even if it was a failed attempt.

After going through HELL to develop the Meidou into a full circle (literally), Sesshoumaru then learns that the Meidou belongs to Tessaiga and Inuyasha, and that it's supposed to be handed over. Now, part of Sesshoumaru's angst over this idea, I think, is not just "did daddy love Inuyasha more?", but also the assumption that Inuyasha would have to KILL him in order to retake the Meidou Zangetsuha into Tessaiga. Thinking that your father meant for your little brother to kill you at some point to take your stuff is a pretty disturbing thought, to be entirely fair to him. This is why, when Sesshoumaru jumps into the meidou to take back control of the Naraku-possessed Tenseiga and breaks it deliberately, he spends the rest of the time in there moodily resigned to disappear. He genuinely believes that his father meant for him to die at this point, and even after they get out of there, he seems genuinely depressed.

This is Sesshoumaru's lowest point as a character. He's lost something he thought his father had meant for him, at his father's own wish, and he can't help but question why his dad would give him something just to take it away and give it to Inuyasha. It looks for all the world like favoritism, and since the Inu no Taishou is dead, there's no asking him what the hell the meaning of all this is.

This is all leading to one of the most infuriatingly ridiculous scenes I have ever seen in a manga - when Magatsuhi has crushed Sesshoumaru and everyone thinks he's been killed/absorbed, Magatsuhi is blown apart and rendered unable to reform by the shiny new sword clutched in Sesshoumaru's newly regrown arm. I could talk your ear off about how having Sesshoumaru stop being an amputee is erasure of consequences for his actions, or how being given back an arm is kind of a slap in the face for actual amputees, and where the mother f*ck did that sword come from anyway, but that's not what this essay is about, so I'll just keep all that to myself. The point of this is articulated by Toutousai when he says that Sesshoumaru had to let go of Tessaiga and his father's heirloom to stand on his own as a daiyoukai.

We've already gone over how Sesshoumaru is one of the most powerful characters in the series, who rarely has to worry about his well-being. He's just really strong without having to try. Sesshoumaru had already learned that he didn't need Tessaiga ages ago - he knew this when he learned that Inuyasha needed Tessaiga to keep from tearing himself apart eventually. But when he thought he had been passed down something from his father that was truly meant to be his, only to put all this work into it so that Inuyasha could have it, that embittered him again. It's not that he wanted the sword necessarily, but the thoughts and consideration of his father, who seemed to be putting everything he had into Inuyasha.

But his previous experiences protecting and considering someone (in some cases, multiple someones) weaker than him should have tipped him off. During the very battle in which he got his new arm and sword, he was actively helping those around him avoid Magatsuhi and keeping them close because he had a plan and the strength to carry it out. He was willing to take the extra step to protect Inuyasha and friends before trying to take care of Magatsuhi though, and that was the point. He put everyone else's needs ahead of his own, even Inuyasha's, and he did it without even thinking.

Toutousai just articulated what Sesshoumaru should have already intuitively known by that point. He never needed his father's heirlooms, the swords, his dad's power. They were unnecessary for him from the start. Inuyasha needed a leg up, because his own BODY could kill him after a while. But Sesshoumaru always had the capability of being great on his own. He just needed to finally separate his ego from who his father was and become his own person; stand on his own as a great youkai. While I don't agree with the execution, I can get behind the big lesson - don't rely on your daddy's wealth and influence to prop you up, and do the work to build a personality and identity of your own.

Which is ANOTHER reason why making Rin into a lover would be a thoughtless take. It would walk back Sesshoumaru's final lesson about being his own person apart from his father.

So, there you go. A comprehensive post regarding my take on Sesshoumaru's character development. I could add in a bit about Sesshoumaru coming to understand his father's consideration and the lengths he went to for the sake of protecting Inuyasha by having to give similar consideration to Rin, but I think this post is long enough, and that one statement on that aspect pretty much sums it up. Let me know if you would like me to elaborate on any of this, or if you would like to argue any of the points, I'm up for it. Might take me a minute to respond, mind you, but hopefully it won't take as long as it did to draft this behemoth.

Take care.

[rikiflowers]

sacrifice; levi

Playlist: call of silence – hiroyuki sawano, barber: adagio for strings, soldier – taemin, sayonara hittori – taemin, déjà vu – dreamcatcher

- 3.7 k words; smut with plot i guess; english isn’t my first language but i tried lmao; it gets a little sad 

-          I let myself go, just because it was you.

 In a world full of terror, fear, and no hope there wasn’t any room for something called ‘love’; Not, when humans are on the brink of death because of creatures killing them for pure fun. ‘love’ could exist, but even if so, the constant threats of losing someone so precious to you, comes to realization, that ‘love’ has not a place, mustn’t have, where you are. Being a scout in the survey corps didn’t come with a stable life. You have your life constantly on the border of losing your life; But that was the sacrifice you’ll be able to give. Your strong sense of justice makes it practicable, giving your life away for humanity. A little part in you wasn’t really attached to your own life, it was near to nothing in your eyes. You’re more concerned about the safety of your squad, protecting them like your life meant nothing to you. There was this strong attachment to these kids, especially Eren who resembled yourself in your early years. You see him as he is; a young boy whose fate is to save the humanity. A heavy burden for everyone, especially for someone his age. So, you see it as your task to safeguard him.

So, it wasn’t new that you would do anything for him, even if it was to let yourself go. You thought you died. You really thought, but you woke up, tried to look around with blurred eyes and the heaviest pain you had since ever. Your throat was so dry you thought you’ll would die because of dehydration but in this right moment, someone hold a cup with a straw right before your dry lips. You opened your mouth and when you tried to gulp down the saving water, you thought you’ll get into heaven. You recognize your room in the headquarters. “y/n, how are you?”, spoke someone to you so softly. It was Armin. You wanted to look at him, but he held you in place. “don’t move too much, you need to rest.”, he told you with concern in his young voice. “you were sleeping over a week.”, he said. You slept for so long?

You don’t want to rest. Flashbacks of the mission flooded your mind, making you anxious. “Armin is everyone okay?”, you whispered with a weak voice, every muscle hurt while you speak. He does not say a single word so you could only imagine. It makes you angry. You’re shouting and then you cough. So much you’re tasting blood in your mouth. “I’m sorry, I get the doctor. We lost many, but if you meant captain Levi… he’s okay don’t worry!”, he’s telling you and you don’t know what to say. What does he mean? Why should you be especially worried about him? He ran out of your room to get the doctor, while you are trying to remember what happened at the mission. Suddenly it was like someone punched you mentally. You sacrificed yourself for Levi. He was in the claws of an abnormal titan and you did not miss a second to help him. The titan took you, instead of him. You smelled his breath, his disgusting smell, and his giant hand, squeezing you nearly to death. Levi shouted your name. It was a cry you didn’t know to every hear. And the last thing you said while you looked at him, was…

“I love you”

You are not sure he even heard it but that was enough to make your skin crawl. In this moment near death, you wanted him to know this. Now you’ll need to face him after this. Your door opens and the doctor appears in the doorframe. He hovers over you while Armin stays now before your bed, next to him are Mikasa and Eren, who looked so guilty and sad. “y/n, you can’t stress yourself. You need rest. You were in coma.”, reproved the doctor and you only nod. “Several rips are broken and crushed your lungs. You had so much luck so don’t strain it. Is this clear?”, he murmured and you’re nodding again. He looked around to the three. “just a little bit and then you’ll let her rest.”, he said strictly, and they agree. The doctor was a scary man sometimes. He gave you some medicine, you should take, placed it on the table next to you. “I report your status to commander Erwin, he will visit you soon.”, he said while slowly leaving your room. “thanks doctor.”, you whispered, and he cuts you off. “thank your body, instead of me.”, he said and left.

“y/n.”. Eren looks at you and you smile at him. “why so sad? I’m alive, no need to look like I’m dead.”, you started to laugh, ignoring the pain in your chest. “it’s not funny. We thought you died and then the captain went berserk and sliced the titan to rescue you. He wasn’t himself. You willingly wanted to die, you wanted to leave us.”. His voice was high and aggressive. Armin tried to calm him down while Mikasa and you exchanged gazes. She doesn’t judge you, because she would have done the same in your position. “Eren calm down. She needs to rest.”, says Armin and Eren snapped out of his rage. “I’m sorry, I am always hurting you.”.

“no, you aren’t, don’t do this to yourself.”, you said softly. “You’re doing so much, and you never hurt me so don’t ever say that again.”. Your voice is full of honesty. “and now I need sleep so go away you brats.”, you laughed, wave them away. The smiled and did like you said. In a week you are on your feet again and you hope to see Levi never again.

“Thanks for being on our side y/n.”, says Armin while his head peeks out of the doorframe and you smile back.

 …

 Two weeks passed and you slowly getting back to your old self. Slowly. It was hard to walk and you feel like a burden. Hanji visited you regular providing you with intern information. Commander Erwin came and drank some tea with you, even the others from the corps visited you and the kids are your guests nearly every day. One person didn’t visit you after all the time. It was the Captain. You don’t to admit it, but it hurts deeply that he doesn’t seem to care about you, about your sacrifice you did. It hurts so much that you found yourself crying over this man, you always wanted to keep your distance. Now this distance was non-existent. Your mind was full of him, your unrequited feelings and the crawling hate you’re developing. You knew he wasn’t any better than you. He’s always in his own world, doesn’t let anyone in. The dark circles under his eyes are always there, showing that he can’t sleep, his demons keeping him awake. He’s the humanity’s strongest soldier, so much weigh on his shoulders. So, the thoughts of you are clearly non-existent. He couldn’t waste his mind on your childish feelings. You know this so why you’re escaping in in the thought of a man that would never see you in the same light.

After the third weeks you couldn’t stay in your room. It seems the walls narrowed so you need some fresh air. You take your props and when you want to open your door, someone is standing right next your room. You twitch because you didn’t see It coming. You looked at the person and you instantly frown. It’s Levi, with his cold, sharp eyes, looking down on you. The least on to expect. “Where you are you going, y/n.”. It wasn’t question, rather a judgement. He was cold as ever. “outside.”, you stated with the same coldness. You wanted to get away, your body shivers and you don’t want him to see. He holds your wrist, and your entire body is in flames. “don’t fucking touch me.”, you spit out, looked at him, like you’re going to murder him. “Tsk.”, he lets out, while not letting you go, like you told him. “I don’t think, you are allowed to go outside.”, he stated coldly, burning his eyes into you and you were on the brink of bursting into tears.

“Do I need your orders for everything? Should I ask you when I want to take a piss?”, you spat at him, anger balling in your body, making it impossible to calm down. “Stop acting like a child, you brat.”. You looked at him in disbelief. He was acting like you were ten years younger than him. You’re the same age and he has the audacity to call you a brat. “Let me fucking go or I’m gonna fucking hurt you.”, you said with so much hate in your voice that something in Levi’s eyes change. You couldn’t react too quickly, while he forced you into your room, shutting the door behind him.

He was a little too harsh, while he pushed you into your room, so your ribs hurt a little. He saw your pain, but you take a step back, wanting space. “What do you want.”, you yelled at him, your body trembles so much. “stop being so annoying, I wanted to check on you, but you seem too fine.”, he stated with pure arrogance and you wanted nothing more than to punch him. “yeah, I’m fine, go.”. You want to be strong, but you feel the tears burning their way over your cheeks. They’re the signs you’re weak.

“you want me to go?”

You looked at him, your inner fight was lost, and you let your tears go. How he asked the question, like he knew you don’t want him to go. “I don’t know.”, you choked, the tears won’t stop. He was standing awkward before you, watching you cry. “Did you regret it?”.

You were confused. What did he mean?

“Did you regret, sacrificing your life for me?”.

“I’d do it again, and again because it is you.”, you spoke the truth, without thinking. His eyes wide. He looked so shocked, that it makes you worried. “Don’t say that.”. It felt like you pressed a button in him. He was out of his mind and it was new. You see, how his hands tremble. Levi wasn’t an emotional unstable person, so this is new. Not only to you, but to him.

“Does it scare you?”, you asked but he was quit, only his eyes told you, how muddled he was. “Someone loves you and you want to escape into the construction, build of the lack of emotions and the denial that comes with it.”.

He ‘tsk.”, again but his eyes, they told you how right you are. “What are to judge me when you constantly denied yourself. You’re not any better than me.”, he lets out and you knew he was right. It hurts. “You wanted to die, so you used me, to let go.”. You fell back. The shock about what he said, made your body not react. He quickly held you. “Who’s the one at fault?”, he asked again, but you couldn’t answer.

He took you and placed you on your bed. You wanted to scream at him, but nothing escapes your lips. “scared to answer now y/n?”, he stated. You shake your head. “why should I let go, when I everything I wanted, was to tell you how I feel? I was finally able to tell you my feelings, after everything. I never thought I would speak so openly about myself.”, you shared this sensitive information with him, and he listens. “You’re right, I see no value in my life at all, but that changed a little. How long do we know each other?”.

“nearly ten years.”, he said, and you looked at each other. There was always something between you and him, but it always went in constant denial. “You never changed.”, they told each other, every time they risked their life, like it meant nothing. It will always mean nothing. “Did you never saw how I looked at you?”, you whispered, his contours change from the sharpness to something softer, but

still cold. He couldn’t help it. It was the way his life changed him. “I didn’t say it for nothing, Levi. I wanted to give you in the last moment of my life a piece of me. I wanted to pass you my feelings for you. They were special, so special that I wanted to say it out loud.”. Your heart’s beating so fast, like it needs to remind you, that you’re still alive. You’re still here and he’s here, looking at you, while you offer him a piece of you.

“I could ask you the same.”, he lets out, after a heavy pause. You realize how dark it is in here, his statue throws a shadow on you. “I always looked at you, but I thought you never looked back.”. You started to chuckle. “I guess, we’re dumbasses.”, you told him. It was too much to handle right now. Warmth spreading your body and he was the reason. “You had the audacity to nearly die on me.”, he spat back, and you shrugged. “I guess you weren’t the humanity’s strongest soldier at all.”.

“jealous, aren’t we?”, he scoffed at you, but you know it isn’t serious.  

“pff- “, you let out. The tension between you two was unbearable, but nobody takes a step. “Don’t leave me.”, you whispered, and his eyes fixated your lips for a brief moment. “Then don’t leave.”. You wanted to say something, but he takes the space on your bed, lies next to you, your bodies don’t touch each other. It was quit in your room, only his and your breath filled the room. Your heart ached to touch him, but that was more than enough right now. “Levi?”, you asked.

“mh?”

“thank you for everything.”, you say, but he scoffed. “I did nothing. sleep.”, he gives back and you’re quiet.

 …

You didn’t know what time it is. It was still so dark outside, but you woke up and Levi was asleep, you thought. He doesn’t make a sound. It was like all the nights on missions. He faced you, his eyes peacefully closed. You found your peace while looking at him. Your fingertips ghosting over his skin, not daring to touch him. You don’t want to wake him up. Your body tingles. It’s automatically drawn to his. You want nothing more than to touch him, to feel his skin under yours.

You snap out of your mind, because deep black eyes are looking straight into yours, making you shiver. He’s awake and saw, what you did. His soft features looked eternal in this light; it makes you breathless. His body’s so near you, that you nearly lose your senses. Instead of pushing you away, he takes your hand softly and places it on his cheek. He offers you to touch him and it was everything for you. You feel your tears coming. Your fingertips brush tenderly over his face and you hear him sigh. You went through his hair, feeling the softness of this endless black in your hand. “Levi.”. His name escaped your lips.

You looked at each other like you were meant to be. His nose brushed yours softly, like he wanted to check, if you wanted this. You want this. You want all of it, until you don’t know yourself anymore. His lips found you, like two long lost souls connecting to each other after so many years. Maybe it is like this. After all these years of hoping nobody would die or go, you had hold onto each other. You feel so young now, like yourself ten years ago. As you would have kissed him back then. It was a relieve. You lean into the kiss, pour all your emotions in this touch. Levi draws you closer to him, his hand is on your waist, while the other strokes your cheeks. It was so unlike him, that you don’t want to miss everything. He’s so soft and you start to smile in the kiss. After a couple of seconds, he lets go of you, waiting.

You take the chance, pressing your lips onto his, savouring him, taking all of him. He’s surprised about your sudden attack, but his lips still moving against you, tasting you. Your finger pinches his neck hair, while you’re hovering over him, taking his body under yours. You sat on his lap, looking down on him. He stares at you, while his hand brushes your strains behind your ear. You want him, so press your lips on his neck, making him groan in sudden surprise. He held onto your body, cold fingertips, dancing under your shirt, across your heated skin and the battlefield scars covering you.

You’re sucking at the sensitive spots, kissing his collarbones. He takes the chance, pulling your shirt up, so you remove it, throw it to the ground. He looks at your breasts, covered by the BH, he wants to undress so badly. You rub yourself onto his lap, hearing him moan and you feel his erection through the pants. All your senses are on the brink to insanity. He gets up, having you in his lap. His lips found yours again and they’re going downwards, leaving a trace. Levi fumbles at the clasp of your BH, until it opens, and he could take it off. His lips found your breast, massaging one, while sucking in the other. You cried out, pressing him against you. You were already a mess, because of all these emotions you bottled up. His tongue circled around your nipple, feeling how hard they get. His other hand is ghosting to your pants, trailing over your clothed core. You open your button yourself for him, so he could easily slide inside you. He holds you on your back now, while his finger brushing over your heat, teasing you.

“Levi.”, you moan his name again and he pressed his thumb against the wetness. He breathed out, like he was surprised at how wet you are. His fingertips brush over your clit, making you shutter. He takes your moans with his lips, while he buried his finger inside of you. You cry out. The sensation of his touch is too much to handle. Your whole body wants more. You move yourself on his now three fingers, Levi stares  at you, enjoying your form. You want to feel him, everything you can get. “y/n.”, he calls your name between your moans.

“Lay back.”, he says, while he takes his now wet finger out. He takes them into his mouth, tasting you. It makes you nearly crazy. You did as he said. You undress yourself while he doesn’t take his eyes off. Levi also removes his shirt and the pants off and you stare at his figure in the darkness. He’s so eternal, it’s unbearable. You wanted him against you, so you pull him to you. “y/n.”, he scolds you, but it doesn’t matter right now for you. You want his body against you. He hovers over you, his weigh on you doesn’t affect you. His length pressed against your thigh, you took him in your hand, feeling how hard he is “please.”, you whimper, but he kisses your lips, your décolleté, your tummy, till he found your wetness. He bites in your inner thighs, a moan escaping your lips. He lips find your clit, sucking at the bundle of thousand nerves, while he hears your desperate cries. He’s sucking you, savouring your juices until you scream. Your hand claws in his hair, while he sucks the life out of you. You’re on the brink of an orgasm and you wanted to say, that he should stop, but he held his rhythm, brings you over the edge. You shutter, his name escaping your lips like a sin and you fall, Falling into oblivion until there’s nothing. You came on his tongue.

He lets off from you. He stares at your messy form and listens to your heavy breath. Again, he lies on you and he kiss you softly, while entering you. Both of you groan because of the new feelings flooding your bodies. His face is only millimetres away form your faces, your eyes stare back at his, swallowing all these emotions his eyes tell. He pulled completely out just to thrust into you again. It wasn’t quick, nor rough, you both just wanted to feel. He groans into your ear, muffling something you couldn’t quite understand. His lips took over yours, while his other hand took your cheek. You both are a panting mess. You move against him, wanting to feel him. Your finger brush over his back and you sense his scars, caress them as if they’re the most precious.  “I’m close.”, he told you, while his face is buried into your neck and you hold him to let go. He pumps a view times into you, until he pulls out completely and his semen spurts out all over your bed. It doesn’t matter right now.

He’s hovering over you, peppering your face with light kisses. You smile. He just lies beside you, instead of cleaning everything and himself like always. It his tick. His concentration is on you and for a moment he forgets it. He doesn’t say anything, only enjoying the silence and his fingers on your sensitive skin. Your hair and everything must be a mess but in Levi’s gaze I something that tells you otherwise. He takes you into his arms and you instantly feel his quick heartbeat.

This moment was more than everything you thought you deserve. I was the silence you both loved.

 “If you’ll die on me, I’ll kill you.”, he says and buries his nose in your hair. You chuckle. “same goes for me.”

Not long after you drift into a deep slumber. Levi’s awake for a while and he feels your heartbeat. “I love you.”, he whispers to your sleeping form, never telling you these words to your face. He doesn’t get to sleep. His mind is racing, because of the intimacy he never really experienced, but he tries; he would always try. 

[atopearth]

Fate/stay night Réalta Nua Part 6 - Heaven’s Feel Route (2/2)

Day 11-16 Aww, Illya was so sweet and thoughtful to wake up early and help suppress the pain on Shirou (from Archer’s arm) while he was asleep. I found it really cute how Shirou nonchalantly asked Sakura if it was all right for Illya to stay in the house forever, and that since she’s his partner and this is her home as well, he thought he should ask her for her permission and opinion. Sakura blushing was adorable haha. I loved how awkward it was when Sakura and Rin made lunch together, but I loved how Shirou gave Sakura the courage to call Rin “nee-san”, so that now they can finally kinda chase back the times they lost as sisters. I find it hilarious how Shirou always says unexpected things to Rider and it makes her put her guard down lol, he’s like her weakness since she can never keep up her cold exterior for long when it comes to him. It’s so cute how Rider was self conscious about her height haha. Shirou is right though, Rider is so tall and beautiful, it totally suits her. I also really liked how Rider seemed to appreciate Shirou going all the way to the shed just to give her his morning greetings (even though it was afternoon lol), it was funny when he admitted that he forgot about her until now lol, because I totally did too.

I feel like Shirou and Sakura don’t get to talk about much (aside from cooking and blushing at each other lol), so I’m kinda glad they got to have a little talk about how even though she and Rin weren’t really “allowed” to interact, Rin would still greet her at school and watch her practice at the Archery club. And it’s nice to see that Sakura appreciated her doing that. Lol at Sakura being subtly ruthless about Shirou being crappy at magic🤣 She’s probably right about Shirou being the “strongest” out of them three though, I think his pure determination and will is something that cannot be matched. Not sure what Sakura was talking about, but does that mean Shirou actually only has 7 days to adjust to Archer’s arm or he’ll die? Aaaand, no I don’t feel sorry for the piece of shit Shinji lol. I can understand why he’s the way he is, and sure you can blame the grandfather and his own father for raising him to be like that, but honestly he was a shit from the beginning. He always thought he was special and great because of their family origins even though he didn’t have magic circuits, but he always treated Sakura like trash and a servant because he was happy that he “was better” than her, that he was learning magic and she wasn’t. So when he realised that he was the actual trash that wasn’t the successor, and his grandfather and father stopped pretending to be nice to him, he just outright hated Sakura even more because she’s the actual special one, and she’s apologising to him for taking his place that was never his. He hates being pitied as trash and that’s probably why he hates Sakura, but really, even if Sakura wasn’t there, that place never would have been his either way. And he’s treated Sakura so badly her whole life, I honestly don’t care about him and never will. He’s so entitled and is like the epitome of everything I hate in a person, I would never feel anything for him tbh. I’m so glad Shirou took care of her right.

Umm, I hope Shirou isn’t being controlled or whatever and is doing some of those killings at night… Or maybe he’s just losing his memories due to the effects from Sakura draining his magical energy? I feel for Sakura though, she can tell that she’s slowly losing her mind but she doesn’t want to lose Shirou to anyone and wants to be beside him as much as she can because she loves him more than anything else. It’s just heartbreaking that he’s the thing that’s giving her some sanity but at the same time, his existence is causing her to want to destroy everything in their way so that she can keep their life together. I’m starting to think that Sakura might be a yandere and kill Illya and Rin to keep Shirou to herself though, very worrying… And is she turning Shirou into a sex craving monster?? Loll. Like, just as she needs to do it for magical energy, will it in turn consume Shirou to the point that he’s going to die if he doesn’t do it with Sakura or something?? It was saddening when Illya told Shirou that it was impossible for them to live together forever, because they both don’t have long to live… It’s also pretty saddening to see how much Shirou wants to ignore the fact that everywhere the shadow lingered, it smells and reminds him of Sakura. I guess that’s understandable though. Initially, they believed that since Sakura hadn’t killed anyone yet, she could be saved and should be saved. But if he were to realise that the shadow is actually Sakura, he’ll have to accept that Sakura has killed lots of people, numerous people, and she continues to kill people as long as she exists and there’s nothing that can really stop her. Not only will he then have to accept that he must kill her to stop her, he will also have to accept that it was because of his decision to save her instead of kill her back then that has caused all these people to suffer and die. How many people can really accept such a thing? I feel like Shirou’s gonna break at this rate… On the other hand, Sakura’s already broken lol. I guess by getting hurt by Gilgamesh and then swallowing him whole she’s finally realised that these “nightmares” of a monster walking around town was really just her going on a feeding spree. Not sure if she can accept it though, since she only seems to focus on the fact that for the first time, Shirou asked to have sex with her and not the other way around, so she thinks that she has to do anything she can to preserve and protect the life she has right now. By allowing her to live this long, Shirou has only caused Sakura to become more greedy and desire him more, and that’s probably facilitating her desire to need to “eat more” and never feeling satisfied, because in the end, what she wants is Shirou, and she needs to survive as long as she can to experience this happiness as long as she can…

I was wondering when Rin being fond of Shirou due to her seeing him high jumping would be relevant, and OF COURSE it would be heard by Sakura to further agitate her and think that Rin is stealing everything from her, whether it be the “good life” she could have had or the guy she likes the most. Not to mention Rin is telling Shirou that if it comes to it, she won’t hesitate to kill Sakura and told Shirou to think about that too, so yeah… Honestly though, at this rate, I feel like Rin dying might be the only way for Shirou to “wake up” and force himself to realise that he can’t let Sakura stay like this any longer. Or I guess killing Illya would also cause the same effect. Zouken took the broken fragments of the holy grail from the last war and embedded it into Sakura??? I’m surprised there was anything left that could really be put into someone but okay… I guess that’s why the shadow exists to “collect souls”, since it’s basically the holy grail that wants to complete itself by consuming souls? I’m not sure what Zouken wants by telling Shirou to kill Sakura before she becomes even more berserk? Is it because she’s not the holy grail he wants now, so it’s best to get rid of her? But anyway, I guess it’s making more sense now as to why Sakura is losing her human functions such as not being able to move etc, since she consumed so many Servants, and the more she consumes, the more she’ll need to use her functions to maintain them rather than to maintain herself as a human. She is losing herself at a rapid rate and there’s no way to really save her… It was kinda sweet to see Shirou being happy that Illya was fine and would still be able to retain herself as Illya even if she consumed Rider and Assassin as the holy grail. Or maybe Zouken is trying to get Shirou to kill Sakura just to get her to be even more out of control lol.

Honestly, when Shirou wasn’t able to kill Sakura, rather than resolve, I felt apathy and acceptance. Apathy towards Sakura killing so many people, and acceptance of the fact that protecting Sakura means betraying all his beliefs and his whole reason for living all this time. It felt like he accepted that there was no going back after this, and I guess Sakura felt that, because she laments about how her weakness is causing Shirou to break and be in pain for every step he takes in protecting her. Although I do blame Sakura for causing Shirou to have to make such difficult decisions and break himself over it physically and mentally, I was really happy when she forced herself to stay awake and not sleep, so that the shadow couldn’t go around feeding like the “nightmares’ she always had. I was also happy when she used her last Command Spell to order Rider to protect Shirou until the end. Even though Sakura is the cause of all Shirou’s problems, I can see why Shirou is willing to sacrifice everything for her. The fact that she can remain so pure and thoughtful despite her experiences is somewhat of a blessing, and honestly the problems she causes are out of her hands most of the time and is all because of Zouken, so I can understand why Shirou would be so adamant on saving her when the world has always been so unfair to her. Well, I guess I’m not surprised that this "impurity” within the holy grail is what “created” the black shadow and it’s now practically consumed Sakura enough for them to be like “one”. But her sanity restricts it, so as long as she’s Sakura, she can still restrain it~ but that thing that will be “born” from her with the collection of all those souls the shadow is eating sounds dangerous… Hmm how interesting that in order to save Sakura, the only way is for her to completely become the holy grail, and then for Shirou to use the power of the holy grail to eliminate the crappy stuff inside her while she’s still sane for those few seconds or whatever.

I have to say, seeing Sakura desperately want to protect the secret that Shinji was raping her all this time from Shirou was pretty saddening. Saddening that it was what ended up breaking her sanity and forced her to numb herself to the fact that she had killed her brother, and that killing someone could be so easy, as long as she wanted it, she would have the power to kill them. It was saddening to see that happen. As expected, Zouken wanted Shirou to break Sakura by betraying her, and in the end although Shinji was the one who pushed her into it, her love for Shirou contributed to it. Honestly, seeing Illya sitting down on the porch thinking about whether Sakura would come first to kill her/take her as the holy grail or whether Shirou would come and take her away with him was saddening. She’s accepted her fate that she’ll die no matter what, but I’m sure she really wants to spend whatever time she can with Shirou instead. On the other hand, I’m pretty disappointed in Sakura, understandable but still disappointed, because from her talk with Rin, you can tell she’s still her, she’s just allowing her negative emotions and thoughts overtake her and it’s honestly disappointing to see, mainly because all I can think about is that Shirou sacrificed himself for “this”, he sacrificed everything he was to help her and yet the one that isn’t helping her the most is Sakura herself. Although I kinda feel that she’s doing all this so that Shirou can be thoroughly disappointed in her and “give up” on her and kill her to prevent any more innocent people from dying, but still, I’m annoyed at her always being the one to give up when Shirou never gave up. I know she thinks it’s too painful to see Shirou compromise his morals and beliefs for her, but at the same time, now that he’s already done it, I really wanted them to power through it together to find a way to save her instead of resorting to this. Nice reassurance to have Rider save Shirou from herself though~ it’s kinda funny that even though Illya is the “youngest”, she’s probably the most mature and understanding one (despite how childish she can be when she’s with Shirou lol), she knows and accepts what her role is and is not one to falter against it. Illya’s farewell to Shirou was pretty heartbreaking.

I loved their interactions when Shirou reunited with Illya at the castle. Shirou’s pure desire to save Illya from all this even if it’ll end badly was honestly touching, mainly because Illya is obviously trying her best to do all the risky stuff so Shirou doesn’t need to, but seeing Shirou come to save her from it was just sweet. Illya’s smile is definitely worth it, and if I have to be honest, I much prefer and enjoy Shirou and Illya’s relationship in this route than with Sakura lol. LOL at Illya and Kotomine thinking Shirou was insane for jumping from the third floor of the castle without magic (although he did strengthen his feet) even though he just followed them because he didn’t want to fall behind haha. Although I knew Kotomine isn’t one to really sacrifice himself, I didn’t expect that his teachings of God was something that could kill Zouken. Now that I think about it, I think one of the reasons why I like Saber, Rin and Illya more than Sakura is because I feel like despite how logical they are, they would always prioritise protecting Shirou even at the expense of themselves, and that’s something you see in Sakura at times but I feel like most of the time it’s Shirou who does that instead.

I liked Shirou’s fight with Berserker, it was pretty cool how he was able to take off the cloth on Archer’s arm and project Berserker’s own weapon and fend him off, obviously it wasn’t possible for Shirou to really win, but it was Berserker’s hesitation in hurting Illya that allowed Shirou to actually win though. I’m surprised that Kotomine actually had a wife and child in the past because he wanted to experiment whether he could love another person, and she even killed herself to try and prove to him through her death that he loved her. Honestly, even though he thinks he didn’t love her, I think in a certain sense, he actually did, not necessarily romantically, but I think through her, he was able to understand that although he enjoyed seeing them when they suffered, he stopped experiments like these after her death. Regardless of what he truly feels, I think a part of him wasn’t interested in seeing such a thing happen again, and in a way I guess that was his kindness and love after dealing with her death? Or maybe I’m just thinking too much haha. Although, I do believe so, mainly because when you watch Fate/Zero, when he saw how devoted Maiya and Irisviel were towards Kiritsugu, I think aside from his hatred of Kiritsugu having everything he wanted (emotions etc) yet discarding them for saving humanity, it also reminded him of this wife he once had that possessed the same undying devotion to him as they did for Kiritsugu. I think even though he didn’t really “feel it”, he was touched by it in his own way. White hair Sakura looks all right, but yeah honestly, Kotomine is right, this “evil personality” of Sakura’s is really just herself. She just can’t accept that she has such dark thoughts and hates everyone so she tries to make it as if all these disgusting parts of her aren’t actually a part of her, when really, they’ve been a part of her all this time. It really shows how pitiful she is and how saddening her life is though. She’s been wanting to keep herself “pure” and kind so as to be good enough for Shirou, but really, Shirou would embrace her darkness if she allowed him to.

Ohhh so the thing Sakura is “giving birth” to is the eighth class of the Holy Grail War that the Einzberns broke the rules to summon and tainted the Holy Grail… Hmmm, I knew that since the Servants just get absorbed back into the grail when they die it didn’t really matter whether the Masters fought and died or whatever, but I didn’t realise that everything about the war is actually done to achieve this immortality miracle called Heaven’s Feel, which is some sort of sorcery (something that cannot be achieved with magic) that is the ultimate goal of every magus, and I guess that’s why Tohsaka’s dad was so intent on winning the war previously. And I guess we can see why Zouken wanted to achieve this so much, since Heaven’s Feel elevates the soul to a higher dimension and allows them to still influence the physical world, so I guess basically he’ll be like some kind of god or being that won’t die, but would still be able to stay in this world as a “human”. And hmmm I see, the Great Holy Grail is the magic circle that uses the land administrated by the Tohsaka family and it is with the combination of this and the Holy Grail by the Einzberns that they can use the absorbed spirits and everything to open a hole to the land where they can get unlimited magical energy. The story of the anti-hero Angra Mainyu where he was used as a sacrifice in a small village to be viewed and tortured as the epitome of all sins and evil in this world in order to create the impression that everyone else must be good because he embodies all evil already was just ugh. Not that it’s not believable, just…bland and unnecessary imo. And this embodiment of evil is the shadow of Sakura wanting to kill all humans because that’s what his role is I guess.

Initially, when Shirou took Rin’s pendant with him to hold onto whenever he felt like he would lose consciousness, I thought it was just his way of thinking about the person who saved him and getting some motivation from that, but now that he’s talking about it with Rin without realising what it actually is anymore (due to the side effects of using projection with Archer’s arm, which leads to him being unable to retain a lot of memories), it might actually be because Shirou is being influenced by Archer’s memories and emotions as well. Archer really cherishes that pendant alongside Rin, and seeing Shirou cherish it so really made it touching. Even if Archer is gone and only his arm is here, Rin remains the most important person in his memories. I’ve been waiting for Rider to do something again, so I’m happy that she’s cooperating with Shirou because she understands that Shirou’s goal has never changed, he will be on Sakura’s side until the very end, just like she is. Honestly though, Tiger Dojo 38 was pretty cool, you get to see Saber and Shirou face off against each other and Shirou actually wins! Well, he sacrifices his life to keep Saber there and allow Rin to go save Sakura, and we don’t know what really happens, but I think it was nice to see that Shirou was able to fight so vigorously and win. I thought it was really sweet how Shirou went around the house before the last battle and was able to recall all those precious daily memories of Sakura and how important she is to him in his daily life. Even if his memories are foggy and even if he is in pain, Sakura drives him on and renews his resolve for saving her. Even if he’s forgotten everything, he won’t forget her and I think that’s really heartwarming.

Ooh so Zouken’s main body is still alive, I was wondering how anticlimactic it would be if Kotomine really killed him in the forest lol. I think it’s more fitting for Sakura to be the one to kill him, especially since he’s the one who tortured her all these years and is still doing the same thing right now. Honestly, Zouken’s end was pretty cliche, but it was pretty satisfying to see Sakura squish him like the worm he was. To think that the worm inside of her was his real body though. I’m glad he’s done though, Zouken was a pretty boring villain tbh. Tiger Dojo 40 was pretty saddening! Like, I can so imagine Shirou not being ruthless enough to kill Saber even though he has the chance, but his kindness ending up leading to Rin’s death is so real and sad. Rin deserves better!🥺 I love how in the Tiger Dojo, they tell Saber fans to give up on getting a good ending for Saber in this route because there’s none, and that if they want one, they need to go to Saber’s route hahahah. Time to do the normal ending first! I really felt the pain and grief when Shirou stabbed Saber though. It was honestly heartbreaking to see all his memories with her flash, and see how in order to save Sakura, he needed to harden his heart and sacrifice others that he could not save. He chose the path of killing others to save Sakura, and he killed someone that was once so faithful to him. I guess one of the reasons why I don’t like Sakura as a villain is because in a sense even though she’s not as disgusting as Shinji, she’s similar to him in the sense that everything she does is as if she’s throwing a tantrum. Throwing a tantrum that she’s the only one suffering, that no one cares about her and that everyone is living a good life when she has to suffer. And just like Shinji, she doesn’t really use her brain to fight, she just uses whatever powers she has accumulated through her hatred to deal pain on all the people around her until she satisfied, it’s just that she can never be satisfied.. Honestly, I feel like the way Rin is towards Sakura throughout this route has felt rather…awkward and a bit unlike her imo, but I guess maybe it’s because of how awkward her relationship with Sakura is. The only obvious thing was that at this point, even though Rin excelled against Sakura in battle experience and brain in using the gem sword against her etc (which I’m honestly surprised that Sakura’s use of magic is limited by her weakness as a mage even though she has an inexhaustible amount), with Sakura crying at how painful her life had been, and with how much Shirou had all this time shown to Rin his resolve to save Sakura, it was expected that Rin wouldn’t be able to kill her. It’s just terrible that it took Rin to die for Sakura to realise that everything she wanted was already there, she just allowed her negative feelings to take over her.

Honestly, I felt rather dissatisfied with the normal ending. Using a projection of Caster’s Noble Phantasm to break Sakura’s contact with Angra Mainyu was nice and interesting though, didn’t really think it would work that way for this too. Anyway, my dissatisfaction! Maybe it’s because it played out as expected with Shirou sacrificing his life to save Sakura, or maybe it’s because I was dissatisfied at how Sakura chose to live her life after Shirou sacrificed his for hers. I think it’s probably the latter tbh. I just keep thinking about everything that happened across the 16 days, about everything that happened between Sakura and Shirou, about how difficult it was for him to give up himself to save her, about how much he loved her and gave her his everything, and yet what happened in the end? She spent her life protecting his house and wallowing in their past memories! Like, yes it’s romantic in a sense, and it totally suits Sakura’s personality to do that, but it killed me! I feel like Sakura’s love is just so “blind” that it fails to grasp what Shirou wanted for her. He wanted her to live a life of freedom, and a life of happiness with others like her sister. But instead of achieving that, Sakura just felt estranged by something new (instead of her past, it’s now Shirou), guilt at being the one who survived and feeling like she needed to stay in his house and isolate herself. Honestly, it felt so much like a bad ending lol. I guess as Rider said, Sakura needs Shirou to be there with her in order to really live, but seriously I’m still annoyed though, because it felt like such a waste. I understand that Sakura isn’t someone that can stand up by herself or be supported by anyone aside from Shirou, but sigh, such a waste. I felt like if she at least tried to fulfill things Shirou wanted to do with his life or what he wanted to do with her after saving her etc, it would have been much nicer. Sigh.

Ooh so for the true ending, Kotomine is there trying to protect Angra Mainyu. Before this, I didn’t really understand why he wanted it to come into being, but after his talk with Shirou, it’s understandable. Kotomine has at a certain point onwards always thought that it’s because he had a defect from birth that caused him to become a person that can only live happily by seeing people in pain and in grief. But what if he’s wrong? And I think that’s what he wants to explore. What if all along he was blaming it on something outside of his control, but really it actually was within his control? And I think that’s what he wants to see from this birth. When it’s born, will it have the emotions to understand what it has done all this time (killing people) and grieve over it or laugh at it, making it “evil” because it can differentiate between good and evil. Or will it instead just continue to be what it is not knowing emotions, and thus unable to be “evil” because it doesn’t understand what evil really is and only does what it has been born to do? I mean, it’s crazy for Kotomine to give it a chance to live and kill people, but it is something to be curious about haha. Honestly Zouken still being alive was so suitable for the worm that he is, but I really didn’t care for him finally coming to terms that he had to accept the Makiri line ended with him because he was lacking rather than because the land wasn’t suitable for them, and that living was more painful than death anyway. Like, at this point, he better be dead! Lol. I’m so sad. I honestly didn’t want to see Illya have to be the one to die instead of Shirou, but I know that if Shirou died, Illya probably wouldn’t be able to have the same happiness she has now anyway, but still!😭 Oh wow, Rider in casual clothes is certainly different lol, still beautiful though. Hmmmm so even though Shirou’s body died, Illya was able to use the Third Sorcery to revive Shirou’s soul and give him a body free of wounds, so even though that body isn’t really Shirou, it is Shirou since it’s his soul, so basically he’s just in a new form but he’s who he is haha. Although the ending felt lacklustre, it was really nice to see a more mature and beautiful Sakura and Rin, they look so good!!

However, I find it difficult to describe my feelings when I think about Heaven’s Feel overall. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either, and I personally think it’s due to the lack of emotions I felt towards Sakura. In terms of the story, like others have said, it is the “darker” route, but in all honesty, I felt like that was it all it was. A lot of the route involves building up Sakura as an unconscious killer that isn’t redeemable, yet Shirou chooses to sacrifice everything for her, which is all right, because I really felt his feelings of love and resolve, but that was only in the first half. In the second half, I felt the story was lacking, and even the emotions it rode on was lacking, the only thing that wasn’t too disappointing would be the fights, but since the first half is literally just Sakura eating everyone, there aren’t that many fights to begin with, but at least they weren’t as frustrating as the fights with Caster in UBW lol. Anyway, I really wanted to relate to Shirou’s strong determination towards saving Sakura, but I couldn’t. Sakura felt so much like a two dimensional character to me that I just couldn’t relate to how much he loved her and was willing to sacrifice for her, and unfortunately since the whole route is focused on that, the ending and everything didn’t move me at all, I felt so apathetic. I honestly felt more for Illya than Sakura. I feel like Sakura’s route wanted to show something like bitter happiness with Shirou’s physical and mental sacrifice of his whole being for her, but it’s hard to relate when Sakura isn’t worth it lol. I’m sorry, Sakura. 

I also think the thing with Angra Mainyu and the Great Holy Grail etc was boring and unnecessary. But I do acknowledge that Sakura was never meant to be a great villain or last boss kinda thing since it has always shown that this was all caused by her immense suffering and negative feelings that couldn’t be controlled, she’s really just a nice girl. But that made it boring imo. I related to her desire for an ordinary happiness, but I got a bit tired of relating to her needing everyone to die or suffer for it. Heaven’s Feel just really didn’t have the same relatable pain that Saber and Rin’s routes brought out within me even though their respective routes had their own problems. But I guess that’s what stories are like, none of them are flawless, but if they affect you, then they’re usually good, and I could very assuredly tell you that the Fate and UBW routes portrayed the goals of their routes very well, but HF didn’t. I also think HF is lacking because it doesn’t build up Shirou’s thoughts and emotions as well as the other routes too. In HF, he’s constantly losing his memories due to Archer’s arm etc so all he really does is recall his past with Sakura in the first half which can be nice and emotional in itself but it’s repetitive and bland because they’re just flashbacks lacking depth imo, and since most of the second half is Sakura kinda finding a way to die with Angra Mainyu without hurting the others, you really don’t see any more development for Sakura. So yeah, sadly, HF has more cons than pros and I can’t find it in myself to like it even though technically it seems to have less problems than the other two routes haha. Oh well.

[italicwatches]

Wanna be the Strongest in the World - Episode 12

Holy shit, last time. Just, holy shit. Let’s see if they can stick the landing. It’s the big finish, in Wanna be the Strongest in the World, episode 12! Here we GO!

-Start right where we left off, with Sakura in a vicious sleeper hold and trying to keep awake, when she goes unresponsive…!

-Opening!

-Episode Twelve: To the World!

-Elena keeps on the hold, as Sakura goes utterly limp…When Misaki slapping the mat snaps her awake! You’re not through yet, kid! A flash of adrenaline hits her and she’s up like a rocket, standing with Elena still hanging off her neck and shoulders! One hard drop manages to put them both flat on the mat and get Sakura free of the Spider’s Web…

-But with both of them so exhausted, the match just turns to big, messy throws, Elena managing to get a pin…A pin that Sakura forces her way out of, countering Elena in a move that she barely escapes…Only for Sakura to flip it back against her, slamming her into one of the corner posts and then giving her a ferocious jump-kick that sends her right over the ropes and to the ground! She hits hard, and finds Sakura looming above her, perched like some vicious predator atop the post…

-And she comes down on her hard, both of them left sprawled out just outside of the ring as everyone watches! The hype is unreal, the drama is overwhelming, and Jackal is eating this shit up. These two have an instinct for this, their story is for real…God, it makes you wish Elena hadn’t put her career on the line, because this rivalry could’ve put asses in seats for a generation…

-So they get back into the ring, where they’re both just exhausted enough that they’re too easy to get open, as Sakura eats a vicious series of throws, and gets her left leg put into another agonizing hold! Elena’s reading her, now, she can see the fire in Sakura, that core yearning to win that drove her here in the first place…It’s overwhelming, it’s awe-inspiring, but it’s that fire she has to snuff out!

-Sakura manages to get the rope, but Elena’s right back on her, picking her up to do a drop right onto her head! Sakura’s left upside down, forced to flail her way out of a pin…But with her left on the mat, Elena races for a corner post, going for an amazing leap…

-One that Sakura reads, and brings her legs up so Elena hits them hard. But not just Elena…The sheer force that it puts through Sakura’s legs puts her knee into agony. At this rate, there’s a very real chance she’ll cost herself both her careers by trying to protect this one… (Well, look on the bright side, Kanae could totally use an assistant and then we could do a season all about sports reporting and cute girls with cameras! …Okay that’s only really a bright side for me. Shut up.)

-So instead of it being a perfect counter, both of them end up actually rising at the same time…Elena eats a pin and escapes it, and both have to stop to recover…But it’s Sakura who rises up first from that one and starts pulling on her influences! She puts Elena through one of Rio’s specials, the Northern Lights Bomb! And she does it so smoothly that even Rio is fucking impressed, and do you have any idea how hard it is to impress a Rio type?

-Somehow, Elena manages to get out of it, but the moves keep coming, back and forth, back and forth…The crowd is going nuts, the cheers are wild, idol fans are being turned into wrestling fans live here on this stage…

-And then Sakura ducks down hard for the Somersault. One that she puts it ALL into…But it’s not done yet, either! Elena doesn’t take enough force to flip and eat the mat, so Sakura springs herself up onto the corner post, and while Elena’s still flat, Sakura comes down with a whirling, corkscrew drop into the PIN! One, two…

-THREE!!!!

-It’s OVER! The bell rings, and Sakura claims victory! She comboed out of her Somersault into a triple-twist press that put Elena down for the COUNT! It’s done, it’s decided, and the audience explodes into cheers, Kanae just has her camera shooting on full-auto bursts like a goddamned machine gun so she doesn’t lose a second of this…And off on the sidelines, Ryo is the only one seeing these two have some shit they need to sort out, and just the ring isn’t gonna be enough.

-But back in that ring, Sakura manages to rise, and helps Elena up in turn…But an honorable defeat, a failure of everything she was striving for, leaves Elena standing there quietly sobbing, unwilling to lose Sakura after everything…She’s left just begging, despite the terms put out, begging her longtime partner to come back to the stage, to come back to her! She’s only half a soul without Sakura there to fight with and against, she doesn’t know how to achieve her dreams without Sakura there…She NEEDS her!

-Everyone goes utterly silent…And then, the cheers start, as this heartfelt display of emotion has people taking Elena’s side…Especially when the rest of the core Sweet Diva crew show up…!

-And thus is their heartfelt plea, begging Sakura to return to them…And Sakura finds herself at a crossroads. There are two core groups of fans in this audience. The set that want Sakura to return to being an idol, and the set that have fallen in love with her as a wrestler. There are not enough hours in the day to do both, not if she wants to achieve either dream. No matter what she does, she breaks someone’s heart. Her friends from Berserk cry out to her in turn, wanting her to stay in the ring, to chase her dream of reaching the top…And through it all, the only one to really know what’s going through Sakura’s head, Misaki, stays silent…

-Up in the stands, Sakura’s longest-time core fans ask themselves what to do, looking to their most dedicated leader…And all he can say is that it has to be her decision. He won’t try to sway this girl who inspired him so much, because the only right answer is the one that comes from her heart!

-And that’s when the doors open…And Jackal Tojo steps down into the arena, a microphone in hand!

-The audience goes silent, and Jackal throws more shit into this, because she thinks Sakura proved herself…You don’t belong in the Japanese women’s wrestling circuit, Sakura, you belong in Shangri-La, wrestling women from all around the world! Come with her when she leaves this place, and make your world debut!

-God dammit Jackal.

-I know what you’re doing but god dammit Jackal.

-So yeah the audience is losing their fucking minds because now there’s three factions. The ones who want Sakura to go back to Sweet Diva. The ones who want to see Sakura rise up through Berserk and top the Japanese women’s wrestling circuit. And the ones who want to see her skip a grade and go up to the big leagues of Shangri-La.

-And through it all, Sakura is frozen…Because…She, she can’t just abandon everyone. No matter what she chooses, she hurts someone, and she can’t allow that. The one choice she can’t make right now, is Shangri-La. No matter how tempting it is, that means abandoning Sweet Diva and Berserk, and nothing is worth that. But, to wrestle or to sing…

-Jackal, thus, decides there’s only one answer…Stand at that center, Hagiwara Sakura! You’re an entertainer, a star, your heart is already fully devoted to putting on a grand show…So live it, breathe it, squeeze yourself dry to have enough to fill both vessels! She knows you, Sakura, and knows who and what you are. The choice was made the moment you fell in love with wrestling…There was no path for you but to find a way to stand atop two worlds, to become an ICON! The strongest wrestler, the most heartfelt idol, the queen of Japan’s culture is your fate…If you can become great enough to grasp it in your hand!

-And the audience goes WILD at the idea, cheering for her, chanting her name…And Elena, Elena wants to see Sakura do it. If anyone can, it’s her…

-Who the hell said anything about you getting out of this?

-Cue Juri, who’s made a decision. The Blue Panther retired this day…Not Miyazawa Elena. You’re nearly as good as Sakura, and your gap is entirely because of lack of time in the ring. You have the potential to both be world-class, and you proved yourself able to live the double-life. Represent Miyabi to the world! You would never have gotten this far here if you didn’t have the fire, the love for the ring…! You’re a pro in your heart!

-The only way they can do this, is together…Rivals and comrades across two worlds, each able to help the balance of the other…And Elena once again breaks into tears, as the audience chants her name, and Jackal whips them up into a frenzy…!

-So, they both face that impossibility…And grasp it with both hands! Two souls who love nothing more than to inspire those before them. Two who have fallen in love with the stage and the ring. Two who will live both lives, for as long as they possibly can…To become legends.

-And when Juri goes to take her leave…Misaki and Kanae are there. Three who once stood together, who have some long-standing issues to clear up themselves…

-But before that, Jackal brings in the Sweet Diva group, and they do the credits song and dance live right there for Sakura and Elena’s incredibly hype fanbase! Oh, and Moe’s pretty hype too, seeing how amazing her mentor truly is.

-Aftercredits! So several months later, it’s a brief shot of their life a few months later…Literally seconds after the curtains drop on a Sweet Diva show, Sakura and Elena are sprinting off to the arena a few blocks away, having a big match…And then their encore concert after that good god. But they’re somehow, making it work!

Well, I suppose there was only one way it could end…I don’t know how long Sakura and Elena can maintain that kind of lifestyle, but that’s bringing perhaps too much realism to a feel-good tatty-wrestling anime.

And in the end, this was definitely really fun. While of course it had to present wrestling as unscripted, because a story about scripted wrestling would be very different, it still got a lot of the…Heart, I guess, of that world across. Even if it perhaps sometimes spent too much time on women screaming while we zoom in on chests and groins.

But is it all over? Not quite yet! Tomorrow I’m gonna try and track down all the OVAs and burn through those…And then after that, well, I’ve got some big shows planned! Just you wait!

[prompts-and-micro-stories]

More about writing awesome characters with satisfying development made easy!

Quick disclaimer: Everything I said in the previous post about this topic still applies; this post here expands on my insights from last time. If you haven't read it yet, it might be a good idea to do that first.

So after the last one got so popular I decided to pick up from there and not only expand on the four properties, but also give you a more practical example by creating a few characters from scratch and demonstrating how you can use this knowledge to create opportunities to grow. Long text ahead!

But first let us revisit the four properties:

Empathy: The ability to know how others feel, to interact socially adequate, being able to be nice, the desire to do so

Intuition: To be aware of your surroundings, do things on the spot without mental preparation, a certain elegance

Control: The ability to make things work the way you want without brute force, to feel not overwhelmed by your surroundings, also reacting smart

Power: Highly effective at doing stuff that shapes the story in your favor, very physical

While empathy and power normally come from within, intuition and control relate more to the outside.

Empathy and intuition are part of the Anima and normally more associated with females, while control and power as traits are part of the Animus and commonly attributed to men. This does not mean these are gender exclusive, just that you might need to reinforce the characters with stereotypical details if they are mainly defined by counter-gender properties and you don’t want them to come of androgynous or to much leaning towards the other sex. (On the other hand this also means that you should have an idea to make a character more androgynous.)

Those four properties can have different levels; technically it‘ s more of a scale, but for simplifications sake we‘ ll divide them into three distinct steps. Because the four properties are so wide, one might partly stand on one step and partly on another; but for grading a character it‘ s probably best to culminate all related aspects into one big mean score; but not without weighting things that have a higher relevance for your setting higher.

The three distinct steps are:

- Low:

The character struggles in exercising this property and will probably fail when relying on it in a time of need. These are the properties your character will be able to grow. A character is also low if they can use their full level only in limited occasions.

- High:

The character has mastered the property and produces reliable results. Other characters might look up to the character because of this, and it’s something that is framed as desirable and good.

- Dark:

This is when a property gets TOO high. It’ s somehow twisted and obvious that it is not good. While a high property is something one wants to have, the dark form means paying a price for it – not necessarily the character possessing the property in the first place. Dark properties are normally reserved for villains and edgy protagonists (which does not make them necessarily bad).

I’m simplifying a little bit insofar that a high leveled character still can surpass a dark one in that area; but that should be something special. Dark properties should always be treated as something that needs to be overcome; it does not need to happen, but the reader needs to be able to recognize them as harmful (otherwise you simply have the high level, not the dark one).

I think the low and high level are pretty obvious, when reading the former descriptions. Therefore we will focus on the dark versions of the properties.

We start with the easiest Animus’s property to make dark: Dark Power

Dark power means that instead of shaping the world in a positive way, it tends to make things much worse. This can be because the wielder has no real control over it or doesn’t really care about the consequences of using it. Good signs for dark power are:

- massive causalities and/or property damage

- high personal cost (like a shortened life span, enforced isolation, mental scars, etc.)

- over-boarding effects on the people it’ s intentionally used on (contrast for example a quick painless kill with drawn out torture)

Creating someone with dark power is really easy and does not necessitate more characterization than super strong (and maybe big); which would directly translate into your run on the mile monster. You can always go a mile further and put extra characterization into it, but the more a character has of that, the less it can come off as a vicious force of nature.

Next property is the second male one: Dark Control

Dark control means extending your control massively beyond your personal space onto your surroundings. Where someone with high control feels like they have the ability to shape the world in a certain way, someone with dark control actively controls others to ensure that things go their way. Characters with dark control might tread other characters like puppets; suppressing their own ability to express their control in the meantime. While a character with low control might feel overwhelmed by the world, a character with dark control tries to turn it the opposite way. Good signs for dark control are:

- the character may be obsessed with minute details that don’t have an adequate significance (and don’t turn out to have it over the course of the story).

- the character feels it knows everything better than anyone else, even if he does not have the actual skills to back that up

- if things go awry the character might easily break and throw a tantrum, possibly using means that are completely out of proportion in an attempt to rectify it; failing to do so can result in a massive crisis

Dark control tends to go hand in hand with dark power and can make for a truly terrifying villain.

On the Anima’s side we have dark versions, too, the first one also being quite straightforward: Dark Empathy

While someone with high empathy has the ability to reach out to other people and might feel a genuine need to help others in pain, someone with dark empathy twists this ability to manipulate. High empathy has a certain selflessness attached to it, while the dark version feels the most empathy for the self. Good signs for dark empathy are:

- emotional blackmail

- extensive use of lies

- positive signs of affection are mainly motivated by self interest

A character with dark empathy is able to see deep into the needs and desires of other characters and can use this knowledge to twist and turn others to do what they intend. They are not necessarily direct about it and tend indeed to be often very sneaky; which is because this sort of twisted property is most often found in female characters that are often not provided with high power (because power belongs stereotypical to male characters) – but they don’t necessarily need it, they can still be highly devastating influences on the protagonist; dark empathy is also easier usable in modern settings if you don’t want to use open violence. Imagine a “dark mother” or a “dark seductress”.

The last property is the other one from the Anima: Dark Intuition

I’ll be honest here: I think twisting intuition into a dark form is pretty hard if you don’t want to end up with a completely mindless character. Because that is basically dark intuition; a character that is completely lead by his instincts, dropping conscious thoughts completely aside. Such a creature does not think, it solely acts. Think of zombies or raging berserkers. Typical signs of dark intuition are:

- no fear

- no true individuality

- can’t be reasoned with, only subdued or destroyed

Dark intuition with dark power is another popular combination to make a villain; but even with a regular amount power is someone fueled by dark intuition a terrifying enemy.

That were the four dark forms of our properties and because I know that reading this huge wall of text without pictures would be boring I’ll give you an example. I’ll go again with the Daughter of the Lillies by @bludragongal (colors by @yokoboo), because the first (and currently only) major enemy is a prime example of a great dark character. Spoilers!!

Meet Brody: 

(Easy ways to spot a Drath: Twists its host’s body and is a total douchebag. Also black speech balloons. The guy with the big ears is a teacher, Professor Fike.)

Brody is a Drath, which is some kind of demonic entity, that can overtake the body of a host (in this case a frog). Mages can summon them when providing a fitting body; without one they quickly dissolve.

(Creeping out of their hole and directly falling apart. Also they have something extremely determined while without a host which clearly dips into dark intuition territory.)

Brody is an extremely well made example for dark empathy: He initially – unable to do anything else – tries to persuade Professor Fike to step into the circle that constraints him.

(First he makes him an offer – not without pointing out how great he is himself, and using the best bedroom eyes a frog abomination can make.)

(Then he insults Fike and reinforces how awesome he finds himself.)

When refused, Brody immediately gets angry, a good showcase of how weak his control is in that form.

(His insulting also gets more insulting.)

(But he is also desperate, losing control so much that he just shouts “NO” over and over again.)

But empathy IS Brody’s strongest trait, so he regains his control by utilizing it again – and ultimately succeeds.

(Brody finds that one insult that really burns.)

(Here we see him at the highest point of his dark empathy. Look at how much he enjoys teasing and tormenting the Professor.

Also the “Ho Ho Ho!” reminds me of Santa Claus which is a great touch, because there are few characters that are so high in empathy without clearly crossing over into the darkness. It’s a cruel twist on one of the most iconic beloved characters – great stuff.)

(And… stuff hits the fan, or rather boot the Drath. The repercussions are serious enough to show Orrig’s eyes, which might be the DotL-equivalent of loud shrieking sirens.)

With a high quality host, Brody immediately grows in power and control – but that doesn’t mean that his dark empathy is no longer in display.

(He acts like a teacher, which quite openly rubs salt in the wound that professor Fike’s sudden absorption left: and cracks open a hole so his buddies can escape, too. Then he leaves.)

(Leaving not only a huge hole in the wall behind, but also causalities. One of the several displays of his dark power.)

What Brody clearly stays low all the time is his intuition.

(He does not know that his pustules are full of acid before they get forcefully popped - which means that he isn’t even fully aware of his own capabilities. Notice how he looks at them and not at his victim.)

(Brody also gets surprised over and over again; the example her showcases Brent, who went for a short amount of time into berserker mode. Because they don’t last long he never dips into dark intuition; because in the end he stays in control.)

Finally, while overwhelmed by someone more powerful, unable to do anything, he again displays his dark empathy, by demanding to be killed.

(Brody is clearly unable to recover on this point; by being killed he would still stay victorious in a certain way; his hosts would die, while he as a Drath would probably return to his  home – at least I think that’s what’s happening when they reach their end in this realm.)

Let’s summarize: Empathy is Brody’s strongest quality, but he uses it to manipulate others, which makes it dark empathy. His power (after aquiring Fike as host) is clearly immense and he destroys people and property alike with ease – again a dark property.

His control is in his powerful form also high-ish. He has a clear plan what to do and feels certainly quite content and confident. Last is intuition, which he totally lacks, making it a low property. This might be a result of his froggish nature; those animals are not very associated with thing like elegance and watchfulness.

In the end, Brody leads more to the Animus; although as a Drath it’s not certain if “he” has a gender in the first place. At least for me he reads as a male character – which makes the dominance of an Anima property all the more awesome.

Now to the fun last part, a practical application! (Fun is subjective and might take the form of a large amount of text.)

For this I chose to build upon one of my own prompts for the setting:

You hit Murphy’s jackpot, when you not only have to attend a family reunion, but the zombie apocalypse starts at that weekend. But you soon start to appreciate your family much more, especially your grandma, who turns out ridiculously adapt at the whole zombie slaying business.  

As most would agree, the zombie apocalypse is kind of an instant plot: You have your heroes who don’t want to die and the story ends with one or more survivors reaching a safe space or getting a cure there. (If you want a happy ending. We’ll deal with downer endings in the next installment.)

The other part of the prompt also offers some basic information: The protagonist looks down on his family in the beginning and the granny has a hidden side.

Because one can’t keep up with dozens of characters at once without either sacrificing deeper characterization or slowing the story down to a snails pace, we’ll focus on a core set of characters that got split from the main group and must find the way trough the hordes of zombies on their own.

Let’s say we have a group of six people, including the protagonist and the grandma, who we’ll flash out to get a nice base for our little story:

Protagonist Sam

Grandma Gabby

Uncle Uwe

Aunt Ann

Cousin Clint

Niece Nora

I went mostly with alliterations with their respective family status to make it easier to remember them.

So, let’s start with the easiest character to start out: Grandma Gabby.

We already know that she is adept at zombie slaying, which directly translates into power in our setting. Her being a grandma also implies that she probably is old. Old characters are the only ones where you can go safely with all properties high from the beginning, because that’s the only situation where something like this seems plausible and does not let them look like an instant Mary Sue.

But going with all properties high also does not allow for great character growth – and also could lead to the character to sacrificing themselves in a highly dangerous setting like the zombie apocalypse. So guess what: We will make Gabby incomplete.

We know she must be powerful; but because her age is an obvious restriction without a good counter (we don't want magic or science-fiction shenanigans) it would be highly strange for her power to reach a dark level; so that’s one property we need to have at a desirable level, which means her deficit must come in either control, empathy and/or intuition.

Power is part of the Animus, so our granny is currently leaning to the male side. We know that her power comes as a surprise, so we need to stress her Anima side, so that we can hint at her power before that without giving it straight away that she is not your regular grandma.

To strengthen the Anima we need empathy and intuition, which leaves control as the fourth property as the one we should corrupt.

Getting empathy high is easy: She’ll simply care deeply about her family and be an emotional anchor that keeps everyone sane in the apocalypse.

Intuition is rather easy too, because we can tie it into her high power: She’s very experienced and has seen stuff before. The zombies themselves may be something new for her, but the resulting chaos and fight for survival are an old hat to her, she’s unfazed and simply knows what to do. (And as easy as that we have some important aspects for her backstory.)

Lastly is control which we need to corrupt. At first glance you might consider giving her a low level; making her overwhelmed with the whole situation and anxious. But in that case would it be plausible for her to be ridiculously adept? If you don’t want to write a comedy (which would be a legitimate choice, but none we’ll explore here) it’s better to go to the other side of the spectrum and give here a too high control, the dark variety.  

This can tie again nicely with the characterization we have: Gabby loves her family so much that she only wants the best for them, and because she is the one who has seen stuff it’s obvious to her, that she is the one that needs to call the shots. Her power also serves as a legitimization; she obviously seems right in her assessment, so in her opinion it’s only natural to follow her lead.

But her control ultimately poisons her; she’ll not realize the times when another solution would be better suited; her family will find her overbearing and resent her for it and it will also be one obstacle that needs to be overcome by the protagonist to facilitate their growth.

Letting go of the excess control and reaching a healthy level will be the way Gabby grows. This could fittingly result in an attempted self-sacrifice, so the others have the opportunity to improve – which could be promptly rewarded by everyone (including her) being saved by the protagonist fully reaching their highest point.

(And now we have a great climax for the story, just by thinking how to flesh out grandma.)

Next character is Sam, the protagonist, who we want to have a big impact on the story and the most drastic growth and who will serve as the point of view. I purposefully don’t assign Sam a gender now, but will rather explore the possibilities after we determined the four properties.

The prompt gave us a little glimpse into the character already, namely that they don’t appreciate their family in the beginning, or to phrase it more direct: Sam looks down on them.

People normally don’t look down on people who are better them them in an ability they value (that would rather result in adoration or envy); which means that Sam needs to be good in something the other family members are bad in and Sam must also keep that thing in high regard. The abilities the others have must be things that quickly turn out as useful, so that Sam realizes their value; but we need to have Sam’s skill on the other hand to have a key role in resolving the climax, because that will give the story a more natural feel.

(Imagine e.g. a Sherlock Holmes story where he does not resolve the case by using his incredible smarts, but with some random not-smarts-related skill that he acquired during the story. That would result in a very strange read; it may be plausible, but not feel very much like Sherlock Holmes.)

Okay, we are still operating on a very vague level here. We dig in a layer deeper and determine if we want a more mental or a more physical skill.

The setting is shaped by the constant danger; which makes it kinda plausible, that in the beginning, physical skills will be much more valuable, to get out of the immediate danger. When out of the hazard zone any mental skills might have their time to shine, because then the characters will have the necessary time to actually use them properly. Which translates into our protagonist having either control or empathy high and the other characters probably being stronger in power and intuition.

Having high empathy sounds quite at odds with the initial despise of the family; so the logical choice would be that Sam has high control. As Gabby has dark control this is actually quite nice, because it immediately translates into a fitting reason for conflict for those two.

Sam’s empathy will be low, which we could for example express in them being very self-centered, which would also explain a low level in intuition. Our protagonist is not open to their surroundings which weakens their capability. These two things need to grow to let Sam archive survival; and the growth of empathy is directly implied in the prompt itself.

This leads to power as the fourth property. We could give Sam a high level, but that would weaken Gabby’s impact, which we don’t want. So Sam should get low power – but with the hint that it will be strong when circumstances are right; for the best impact, ideally their growth in empathy and intuition and access to their high control will enable them to finally yield their full power.

Okay, we are still kind of vague, so let’s dig even deeper. We need a skill for Sam that needs high control, which applied under the right circumstances has a high impact on the environment and can utilize a moment where someone else gives you a certain amount of extra time (which means that you have the empathy to recognize it and the intuition to grab the chance). The skill should also be something that needs dedication to learn and is nothing too mainstream.

For me that sounds like a technical skill; knowing the inner workings of machinery and/or being knowledgeable in programming. It’s completely useless when you don’t have access to machinery, but can have literally a huge impact when you (ab)use them.

So let’s summarize: Sam is self absorbed, has some highly technical skill and is quite smart. They can get shit done with the right tools, but lack them the most of the time. They probably feel overwhelmed by Gabby’ s controlling nature (which reduces Sam’s control); which probably is made worse by the fact that Gabby is so good at this stuff. I think in the end all what Sam wants is to be useful; and when our protagonist learns to be intuitive and emphatic, others will ultimately enable Sam to fully utilize their strengths.

Okay, our protagonist clearly leans to the Animus with the high control and high potential for power. This makes it very fitting to make Sam stereotypical male; which would result in a focus more on his controlling side and result in the lesson that you should not look down on female aspects if you want to reach your full potential. The conflict with Gabby could also be pronounced by him undervaluing her leadership because she’s a woman; resulting in her needing to be more assertive in return to stay in charge.

But I think making Sam a she would make for an even more interesting story. With a high Animus seemingly at contrast with what is expected for her gender we can easily make the rest of the family quite “normal” and have her resent them for that, because she wasn’t able to achieve normality on her own and copes by overvaluing her technical skill. In the end her lesson would be kind of the same as the one that male!Sam has; but her theme would be more about accepting that it’s okay wanting to be “normal” than about accepting you feminine side.

As you can see, both genders can work perfectly fine, but you shift the implications a bit by either choice. Of course a non-binary or trans character would also be perfectly valid; but in that case you might want to delve a lot more deeper into the character first, because having one deviate so much from the norm should only be done if you actually want to do something with it, otherwise it might come of as gimmicky for gimmicks sake. (And even in our zombie setting there are ample opportunities. For example imagine the problems to get hormones.)

Last but not least let’s think about the age of our protagonist. I think it’s important that Sam is legally an adult and therefore has a certain sense of being their own person, making taking orders a lot more demeaning, but also let’s others evaluate Sam more critically, because people expect from an adult certain abilities. We also want Same to be quite young, because it serves on one side as a contrast to the elderly Gabby and on the other side kind of elevates the technical skill in its value; it’s one thing to be good at something when you had a lifetime to learn it, but to get good at something at a rather early age means either having a tremendous talent or extreme amounts of dedication to the exclusion of almost everything else (or a combination of both). This would underline the self-centered attitude of Sam and why this skill is so important for them. So that makes early twenties seem like a good choice.

Okay, the last four characters have a more supporting role, so it makes sense to look at all of them at the same time. Their family status (in regards to the protagonist) already suggests certain ages; these are not universal (e.g. an uncle can be younger than a niece) but we’ll keep it simple and go with the usual.

Uncle Uwe and Aunt Ann are older than Sam and younger than Gabby; so we put them into the 40-50 year range which does locate them cozily between those two generations. Cousin Clint is roughly as old as our protagonist; if we don’t make them more than a few years apart we can easily build up some sort of sibling rivalry and portray him as direct foil to Sam. Nora at last is a child; so somewhere around 10 seems fitting. That makes her not to much of ballast in the first place, but still makes her comparatively vulnerable.

We’ll start to characterize Clint, because as a foil we can easily find out what we need; Sam is high in control, and low in everything else; so we make Clint the direct opposite: he’s high in power, high in empathy and high in intuition. Because Sam’s skill is technical they might come off a bit nerdy; which means that making Clint a popular jock would make him an obvious opposite; and using a manly sport like football would also underline his maleness; something he needs with his Anima stronger developed than his Animus. His low control means that he feels overwhelmed easily and might also be a bit slow mentally; I can easily picture Clint leaning heavily on Gabby as a crutch and following her advice without second thought. This would of course be a great conflict point with Sam; but by having Clint high in empathy also enables us to fix their relationship over the course of the story, by him being open and inviting. Clint’s control does not necessary have to improve much over the course of the story, but it would be a good move to widen the sources he uses to gain it. Instead of solely relying on granny, he learns to trust also in the judgment of Sam and the others.  

Next one is Nora. Nora is a child and therefore had not the time to develop any of her properties much. It would be easy now to make her low in everything, but that would lead us directly into a trap. Because the only character worse than one that can do everything (aka a Mary Sue) is one that can do nothing. We want our readers to root for the characters which in return means that the character needs at least some things that are in some way attractive and desirable.

Therefore it makes sense to give Nora one property in which she is high. Power is the one which seems the most unlikely, because of her age; control is a good choice to keep low, too, because as a child it’s very relate-able that she feels overwhelmed. Which leaves one of the properties of the Anima to be strong (and makes it easier for us to portray her as a girl). We could go with empathy and make her a cute little thing that tries to cheer everyone up, but I think we would fare far better with going with intuition and making her sensitive and nimble. That way she can convincingly display more zombie escaping and/ or scavenging skills, by using routes only open to someone flexible and small. We also gain a great way to evolve Sam’s empathy. We get a child that might be a bit bullheaded and direct; and that might be something with which Sam can on some level connect; it can also be something that challenges them directly to improve their empathy to make the child open up to them. Looking after a child is also something that could be considered a stereotypical female thing which again ties nicely into the character arc of growing stronger by accepting your Anima.

That leaves us finally with Uncle Uwe and Aunt Ann. I think it makes sense to characterize those both according to the gender Sam has; if we use male!Sam, Uncle Uwe should have a strong Anima, therefore displaying characteristics male!Sam looks down on in the beginning. If we use female!Sam we want that Aunt Ann is very feminine, and displaying what female!Sam would need to have to be normal.

To make both characters at the same time lean to the Anima would be a bit boring, so we should make the other one more Animus leaning, so that both of them can together display something whole, a subtle reminder that one needs both sides to become a complete being.

The constellation needed for our male!Sam is a bit more challenging, so we will go with this one (but I want to encourage you to think about what you would change for female!Sam as a little exercise for yourself). We still don’t want high control characters, and we even more don’t want them to have a high technical skill.

I think it would be nice to still have Uncle Uwe have some stereotypical male attributes, to give the reader a reason to not find him kinda strange on the first glance and directly side with Sam’s dislike.   Okay, he needs high empathy and intuition, he is low in control and we don’t want to make him necessarily high in power (we already have Clint in that constellation).

Teaching is an occupation that is considered very feminine (and in fact historically one of the first jobs a woman could get a formal school education for), until we get to the highest level where the men are suddenly in the majority: professors. So it’s an easy choice to make Uncle Uwe a professor for something; because we want to avoid technical skills it makes sense to pick something even more unpractical in the zombie apocalypse; like literature or philosophy. In fact I like the philosophy angle very much here, because it’s a domain that has many prominent males in it, that most people probably have heard of, but almost none female. Teaching philosophy he can use his female properties without looking not male enough; and because he is a professor we can safely assume his proficiency in it high enough to have passed into intuitive territory. Him having no control would also be a very nice touch, because he spend all his live trying to understand the human condition and is completely baffled when trying to make sense of the current mess. A very nice opportunity for some character driven comedy.

(But please don’t fall into the trap of suggesting that women can’t be philosophs, professors or an combination of both. Just because women have been systematically exluded from science for a long time. does not mean that we as writers should propagate such stereotypes. If you make great efford to develop good characters you should also spend some time to think over implications. A good writer makes a positive impact with his stories.)

Him having no power is also simple here; a professor does not need physical strength to be good and accepted in his job; and the things that would make him powerful in his natural setting are quite useless when dealing with mindless zombies.

No we go to Aunt Ann. We want her Animus pronounced and her Anima lessened, which means overall that we probably don’t want to give her more than on Anima property, because we can’t give her control. Power as the other from Animus is obviously needed for her, and a simple way to get that is giving her pure physical strength. We want empathy or intuition low; and like with Nora I think intuition is more valuable in our setting, so we let her empathy suffer.

I think this combination would make nicely for a rather brash character, that leads a simple life, maybe something farming based, and is very direct. She does not need to be unsociable, but she is not at all good in making other people feel better. For some comedy and to not let her come off as dumb she should display profound and deep knowledge in her chosen profession, while still staying brash and unfiltered. Having her be impulsive would be a great way to show of her lack in control, while it also would underline her intuition, because she can react fast and swift.

To round both characters off it would be nice to have them both understand each other on a subconscious level and be very sympathetic towards each other (even if they are from different sides of the family and not already related in their regular life); which would give Sam a constant reminder that you don’t have to share directly values to be friendly and appreciate others. (Although  it should not be pointed out directly ;))

And that concludes our little exercise. I painted the characters in rather broad strokes, but they are concrete enough that one could easily walk through a list with common flaws and/or positive traits and determine if one is something that suits the character.

We end this section with a little list how to approach character generation from the ground up, using   our knowledge about Anima and Animus:

- Start with a central character; this can be the protagonist or an antagonist; or simply one character where you think that with the idea is the most predefined one.

- Use the properties of that first character to define other central characters. Keep in mind that you can counter a high property not only with making it low, but also with making it dark. But don’t use that all the time, dark properties should be something rare, that needs to be overcome.

- If you want to give a character a strong leaning to their counter-gender without them being read as that you probably want to use stereotypical things that are clearly associated with their own gender. (Santa Claus is a great example. You can’t probably get higher than him in empathy without slithering into dark territory, but he still reads very clearly as male with his prominent beard and male fat distribution. But it also helps that he needs an insanely high, but not dark, level of control.)

- Try to mix up the supporting cast. You may not want to have any regular significantly stronger in the most defining property of your protagonist, unless you want to have a clear rival or an antagonist; even if your story is about growing in certain aspects. Every character needs at least one thing they are good in unless you want your audience to despise that character for all the wrong reasons.

- No characters that are whole, unless they had the opportunity to earn it (like old characters). Such characters should not be the central focus of your story, if you want it to be character driven (if the plot is mainly driven by outside influences such a character can work. Think a general defending his homeland or something like this. But in that case you probably don’t want to make the story about their growth in the first place...)

- Use the defining trait of your protagonist to solve the climax; ideally they have access to their full potential only because they have grown and learned in other areas first.

- Try to keep in mind how certain properties from the supporting characters can be used to let the protagonist grow. If you want a side character have distinct growth, too and can’t find a good way to do it, try to repeat this whole venture but make the side character the protagonist. This might give you a better perspective.

- Power is the easiest property to change on a superficial level, just take away or give them the right tools. To get “true” power make its source internal and bound to the character itself. (Which does not just simply mean muscle growth.)

- Growing in one property does not necessarily mean that it comes easy from then on to the character and is natural; on the contrary, they just succeeded because it was hard – otherwise they would have been there from the start.

- The boundaries between the properties are flexible; each property can enable the others; and being at a certain level does not mean that the property is expressed the exactly same way in both of the characters.

- And last but not least: Have fun! If you think something feels right, then do it; in the end every story you tell is also an opportunity for you to grow!

This is it for today; I’ll probably talk next time about how stories end and the reason it is that way and why letting a character fail in their growth can still make for an enticing story that still honors the wholeness concept.

If you have any questions or want me to analyse a few other characters feel free to send an ask, I’ll happily answer them :D

Daughter of the Lillies belongs to their owners, all picture were used to explain better.  

Also you should totally read it, the faces Brody makes as a teacher are genius.