#im not overtly attached that one

[cryoverlife]

When you find a tag for some random ship that you haven’t seen before, and is also not something you thought of.

But you read the fanfic/tumblr post anyway

And then you read more

And in the course of a few hours you now really like this ship and have a billion of your own head cannons about it and will defend it with your life.

Bonus if the ship will never be cannon ever, but your delusion enough to think that it could totally work and might happen.

[blackangelism]

this is not quite so polished...

your god makes me feel sick

can you call hallucinogen divinity

when you know you can't trust history

you know you can't trust poets

what we say we feel but we don't know it

i see a ring of light, a baby halo

hollow from the inside

i feel sick around god's talons

he's petrifying,

he squeezes my ribcage, probes into my sternum

he knows i will love no one

i can feel your human hand shoving down the throat of mine

you think you'll indoctrinate the saturnine

with a coward god; a guilt pump you attach to my skull

you know you won't make me hurt

when his light heals me the moment it sears me

admit it, you're a snake under a bird of prey

i know better than you could ever pray

you cannot blind the blind

you should know better than to deceive the ones ablaze

my heart is massive but its empty

your god's light has succeeded in leeching off it

we poets only eat the soul

you know you can't go off what we spoke

our love lies with the degenerate

we see cycles of light and dark around the perverted

and i know you know that then, solely we pulsate

if there is a god

he'd have to beg for my forgiveness

on his knees like me

pray to me and ill bathe you in sin

my tears fend off the holy, you know ill burn eternally

i burn eternally, it burns, i burn eternally

i have attar dribbling from my pores

if there is a god

im the dirt clutched in his talons

if there is a god

my blood pressure is his favourite mantra

i feel sick around god's talons

he's petrifying,

he squeezes my ribcage, probes into my sternum

he knows i will love no one

suffering so rakish and debonair

suffering so good it feels religious

my teeth ache to be sharpened so i can bite

suffering so consistent and enforced

you know i cant take it anymore

you know you won't take it anymore

you know i won't want you anyhow

four headed and four eyed,

the local matrimonial suicide

your overtly ovine sweet divine

every step i take burns into your floor

you can only fan the flame for so long

you slit my nails so i dont grow

because if i do ill make you talons

and i cant feel sick

i will bite no tongue

i feel sick around god's talons

i will love no one

he's petrifying

i will not waste any hunt

he squeezes my ribcage, probes into my sternum

he knows i will burn—life eternal

[linaharutaka]

gen question but isnt dedegoon or dedesuka or whatevr a proship? ive seen some ppl calling it a proship cuz its abusive but your bio says proship dni so idk if its ok to ship or what (sorry im new to this)

hiya! thank you for your ask! it isnt and heres why

first of all i am /Not/ proship. i am not anti-anti or whatever either. what drives me to ship them is the fact theyre friends who like to be in each other's company. i like their sweet moments together. they bond over scamming an innocent population and bullying children. they're partners in crime. theyre besties who talk shit about others as a hobby.

i also don't think theyre already dating. i look at their relationship and im like. you guys have some kind of weird crush on each other and you're also selfish assholes. they're in the world's worst situationship.

"but dedede whacks escargoon a lot!" not only does escargoon get physical towards him too (the dynamic starts shifting in the dentist episode) but his "punishments" are often for a reason. escargoon is often very mean to dedede. in almost every episode he calls him hopeless or stupid or ugly or anything like that. and that gets him a whack. if i were dedede i'd do that too! it'd piss me off! having my lackey who i pay and who i consider my best friend insult me so overtly over and over LOL. but does escargoon ever try and stop him his evil doing? hell no! the guy helps him and gives him advice and ideas! he is NOT a good guy either. he loves being mean! he literally says it!

of course escargoon cares a loy about him. pretty sure everyone is aware. i don't even need to compile all the times he runs after him or worries about his well being. one time he "left" after he realised he'd have to do all the waddle dee's chores and didn't want to do his job. guess who's shown tearing up when seeing what poor state dedede is in after being left all on his own. he's always protecting him and defending him (sometimes backhandedly) from other people. he holds dedede dear. it's obvious he does. he's an old man, he's not being manipulated into liking dedede. he genuinely cares about the guy.

there are episodes where they bicker a lot but end up getting along, episodes where they're the best of friends and episodes focused on their resentment against one another. the show kind of yoyos with their relationship. it's not really anything to take seriously. if you get offended from their interactions you'd get a heart attack from watching looney tunes. the back and forth of their dynamic is part of the fun!

I *highly* recommend watching the original version of the show as the dub often replaces sweet lines they share with jokes that don't really hit the mark. it's a shame. (however i will give the dub some credit on occasion)

Actually, i have a [post] that compiles a lot of sweet screenshots of them together. it doesnt include the times where they hold on to each other in the cannons or in the whispy woods episode or when esxargoon said "isnt this strange? can't you feel we're striving apart?" and dedede says "what! that's ridiculous!" in a lighthearted voice. or when escargoon makes a joke about a late night drive being romantic and dedede just? laughs in agreement? there's a scene where they call each other stupid in the most friendly way ever. i actually have a handy twitter of fun scenes where escargoon gets away with some things (doesn't include when escargoon yells at him in the fireworks episode or orders him in episode 69), like saying *he's* actually the one in power because dedede isn't competent enough to reign. or dedede understanding escargoon's concerns of him becoming dumber than he is already.

they're just villains who are attached to each other and are a team no matter what.

escargoon protects dedede a lot, and he cares about him more than what his job entails, but people tend to forget he's got a special place in dedede's heart too.

dedede keeps an album of pictures they took together. he never threatens to fire him and, as far as i know, never even cuts his salary and is the only one in the castle to even have a bonus. he shares the food he keeps from the waddle dees with him in episode 93. he clarifies he doesnt want knuckle joe's monsters to attack either of them. he's fine spending large amounts of money on him. twice? he never calls him ugly somehow. he even thanks him for having put up with him for so long and serving him well when the world is about to end. and then he clings unto him because he's scared of dying alone. his way of showing affection is not the "im crying because i think you're in danger" type of way that escargoon shows a lot but it's there.

Of course i don't think they're perfect gay rep. that's literally so stupid. you think im gonna look at two dumbasses who are bitter towards one another from what, a parodic, satirical children's anime from the early 2000s, and go "hmm yes this is what every queer couple should aspire to be this is peak lgbt rep"

If we're gonna talk about them how about we talk about some issues this show has that no one ever addresses. the colorism of the uv episode that is not put into question, not even by tiff, the moral compass. the rising sun imagery that is very much intentional as dedede is a caricature. the fatphobia? the fact kirby calls kawasaki and nagoya homos??? straight up???

people often blame episode 88, and yeah, it's not my favorite episode either. everyone's weird in that episode, not just dedede! yabui is far from empathetic, even the ebrums are disrespectful, and escargoon taunts dedede into chasing him for laughs and teases him about his old age. even at the end he teases him. i think it's one of those episodes that you just have to blame on the writers kinda like 89 (for example this one has got the right message but the execution is painful to watch. poor tiff.)

now, if 88 had changed their relationship it'd be a different matter. there are some sweet moments they share outside of their general "partners in crime" dynamic past episode 88 in my post actually! my favorite is the one where dedede has his arm around escargoon who's curled up like a cat while they're sleeping and the waddle dees are tucking them in from episode 91. it makes me so happy.

i could probably talk so, so much more about them. they're a huge comfort to me. however i don't trust just anyone with them. i am very much aware some people like them for the wrong reasons. but if you have a brain you can see where i'm coming from.

the show makes fun of them because they're evil, self-centered cowards. not because they're "gay" or anything like that. i saw someone call them queerbait one time and i had to log off for a minute.

anyway, to answer your question, people who do not recognize their genuine attachment to one another are bound to have a twisted view of them. i don't like dedegoon because they're "toxic" or awful to each other. but because they're each other's best friends. that's all. it's fine if you don't ship them, too. i just hope i can prove to people that they do matter to each other and that they're friends :)

[littleeyesofpallas]

Hello! I come from your 2019 post (that I found on a Google search while doing some research) where you "disect" bleach character's names. I also want to create a very meaningful name for my oc, but I have no clue on the language. Do you have any advice on how I could go about this? Google is no help ):

(Im so sorry i started up a draft for this what feels like forever ago and it never quite took solid form and just sat in limbo for a while. Anyway I have a samurai TTRPG campaign I'm trying to piece together and came back to the subject, so it seemed like a good time to try and finish this... )

Oh boy, so I don't really know if i'll actually be much help with this, as I'm not a native speaker so I don't have the ear for Japanese that lets me just intuit when things feel "off" or "unnatural", but I can sort of walk you through some common tropes:

One approach is to take a core word/kanji and work the name out of them, fiddling with suffixes or pronunciations until you get something that "sounds like a name." Given that a lot of anime characters don't actually have "real" names this gives you a lot of wiggle room, but also there are definitely some sensibilities that --again I'm not personally a good enough judge of-- that make certain non-names sound more or less passable than others. This can be a tricky thing to play with, but there are a few shortcuts that might help.

Several suffixes are extremely common in Japanese naming conventions and most of them are gendered. A handful of super common ones are things like....

-ko[子]: "child" but typically denotes a girl's name

-me[女]: "woman/female"

-mi[美]: "beauty/beautiful"

-ne[音] "sound" but implicitly a pleasant one, like a chime or a musical note

-ka[香]: "scent/smell" but again implicitly a pleasant one like flowers, perfumes, or incense

etc...

...for girls. Or for boys, things like...

-rou[郎]: "son"

-tarou[太郎]: "big/thick/fat son" (implying he's health/plump/robust, not obese)

-suke[佑]: "help(er)/assist(ant)" but more colloquially just denotes one who facilitates the appended thing.

-suke[助] actually a homonym/synonym for the above.

-maru[丸] lit. meaning "circle" or "whole/full/complete" (kind of functions as just "...one" in the English sense? Like the meaning "One who is XYZ" might comparably be rendered XYZmaru.)

-emon[衛門]: "defense gate" but it has a distinctly old-fashioned sound to it, and kind of evokes samurai or yakuza depending on the era.

Attached to these are a few other sort of commonalities. Ichiro[一郎], Jiro[二郎], Saburo[三郎], Shiro[四郎], Goro[五郎], etc... are common boys names that are just a # and "son" indicating order of birth...

[edit]: okay no I super underestimated how stupid long this post was gonna look in Tumblr format... Cutting here for length, more under the cut

...the -suke:"assistant" suffix is often appended to aspirational traits or values, sort of like how English Puritans had a habit of naming kids English words like, Charity, Temperance, Faith, Credence, Prudence, etc... albeit without the background radiation of the cultural baggage of the Puritans.

But these suffixes are also often used to make unique fantasy names that are pretty distinctly not real names historically. In Shaman King, the ghost of a samurai named Amidamaru[阿弥陀丸] is just the suffix -maru[丸] slapped onto Amida[阿弥陀], the Japanese name for Amitabha[अमिताभ] the Buddha. This is absolutely not a name any real person has, but in the context of the manga you wouldn't expect to question it, although it sounds a tad silly. -maru specifically is also a common name-ifying suffix for nonhuman names, things like naval ships and swords often get names that are distinctly not human passing, but still very overtly "namey" names.

Incidentally it should be kept in mind that depending on the sort of characters and settings you're dealing with there are certain restrictions that you might want to consider. For example, the real world Japanese Ministry of Justice has maintained a list of Jinmeiyo kanji[人名用漢字] since the 1950s which dictate which kanji are permissible in the legal documenting of a person's name. For the most part this is to prevent weird or stupid rude or inauspicious names; you cannot for example name a newborn something with the kanji for death[死] or shit[糞]. But plenty of anime characters absolutely do not abide by this.

Otherwise there are some common conventions you can turn to with anime in particular, as again there is a certain affordance for nonsense.

Names with obvious color associations are super common, often by proxy of Super Sentai as a franchise and derived tropes. This can apply to either given names or surnames, and often are worked in as puns rather than kanji specific readings.

aka[赤] red

ao[青] blue

ki[黄] yellow

ha/hakku/shiro[白] white

kuro[黒] black/dark

kin/kane[金] gold

gin/shirogane[銀] silver

momo[桃] pink, but literally "peach" as momoiro[桃色]: pink color(ed)" is literally "peach colored"

which brings me to another point: Japanese names refer very heavily to plants and flowers specifically. Most common flowering plants, be they cultivated for lumber, decorative flowers, or food have some notable presence in Japanese naming conventions and can be pretty readily turned to. These tend to be predominantly girl's names either alone or as a root, but not exclusively,

sakura[桜] cherry

tsubaki[椿] camellia

azami[薊] thistle

ayame[菖蒲] iris

sumire[菫] violet

kiku[菊] chrysanthemum

etc... (although not all of these can function as names on their own without some appended suffix/prefix) But also a wide wide array of other regionally specific and seemingly more obtuse plant names pop up all the time. Also, while flowering/fruit bearing plants are very commonly evoked for their beauty as girls' names, there is also hanakotoba[花言葉] the japanese flower language, which can be a quick reference for what features might be evoked by specific flowers more generally, and for both boys and girls.

Oh and a few more general terms also show up in a lot of names, ha/ba/wa[葉]:"leaf" in names like futaba[双葉]: "Twin leaf"; [梢]: "Treetop/tip(of a branch)" [枝]: "Branch", [幹]:"(tree)trunk," etc... Not all plants as names or nonspecific plant related terms are as flashy or romantic as you might expect.

Animals are also a popular motif, but I won't get into those because that's just an endless list of like every animal... You can probably think of some really obvious ones just off the top of your head though.

Typically they stick to very general types or families of animal and of course those most obviously native to Japan, or else those with names borrowed from Chinese, both for the real and the mythic. In fantasy settings these may be evoked directly, but more realistic settings may opt to reference more menacing or otherwise less dignified animals(vermin especially) only through puns/homophones.

Domesticated animals or those with virtuous/valorous associations would be easier to accept at a glance, real or not, while those with overt negative characterizations might be a little campy. (I actually totally forgot but Hiruma[蛭魔] in Eyeshield doesn't actually "evoke" the word for leech phonetically, it just straight up IS the kanji for leech in his name. [蛭]:"Leech" + [魔]:"Demon/EvilSpirit" in fact. Like, for every test he ever took all middle/high school he just signed "LeechDemon" at the top. Neither of those are legally approved jinmeiyo kanji in the real world of course.)

Also worth noting as an extra layer in all these considerations, is that most common Japanese names will probably average 2 or 3 characters, maybe 4. A handful of names are single kanji and as you'd expect are thus very straight forward in their meaning. 5 or more kanji to a name certainly aren't impossible but they can be unusual, and I feel like they tend to appear as older, outdated, and samurai-esque names, if not just weird or ostentatiously silly.

(for example, in Bleach, Marechiyo's whole family shares the root Mare[希] and as each family member is introduced the names kind of escalate in silliness, until we get the younger son, Marejirousaburou[希次郎三郎] which even comically uses the -rou[郎]:"son" bit twice. His name literally reads as "Rare NextSon Third Son." It sounds very stupid and kind of pegs him as a spoiled rich kid. I guess in a way we sort of have a similar cliche in English about rich kids from stuffy old money having multiple middle names and "Jr." or some roman numeral tacked on.)

Rather famously there is just a random living businessman in Japanese whose given name is Taroukizaemonnoshoutokinori[太郎喜左衛門将時能] which might more readably be broken down as Tarou-kizaemon-no-shoutokinori. Written this way you might notice that basically each individual section could itself be a name by itself.

There is also supposedly some record of a meiji era citizen registered under the name Egawafujifumishigozaemon’nosuketarō[江川富士一二三四五左衛門助太郎], Egawa-fuji-i-fu-mi-shi-go-zaemon-no-suke-tarou. You may note that thoes are like 3 separate nameifying suffixes just slapped onto the end there(-zaemon, -suke, and -tarou) and the middle bit is just "1,2,3,4,5." So as I said the tendency for super long names is a distinctly silly tone.

Once again there is a distinctive kind of aesthetic or familiarity to long names that someone who knows better than me can definitely just kind of tell when a long assemblage of kanji and syllables just does not sound like a name. No advice for how to sus this out yourself, it's kind of just a matter of prolonged exposure.

On the flip side of things, it's entirely possible to write names with no kanji at all. For example, despite the very obvious evocation of cherryblossoms in Sakura's name in Naruto, her name is just written SA-KU-RA[サクラ]. If you just like the way an existing name sounds and don't want to risk implying other meanings that picking a random existing kanji writing might, you can in fact just opt out of it. It'll still carry some connotations but it at least won't look like you were trying to hone in on one reading in particular.

In some cases I also think it's just a common practice for media aimed at elementary school kids, as it foregoes excluding anyone on the basis of their reading level, where as you're less likely to see this kind of thing in manga aimed at, say, young adults.

So after hacking our way through all that... the other approach is to take a real existing Japanese name's phonetics, and find kanji that can serve as a homonym to the more conventional root in the name.

So, for example, the name Tanjirou is a real name, but it's written any of a few ways, including [丹士郎]: "Rust-Colored Samurai Son," [丹次郎]: "Rust-Colored Next Son," and [丹治郎]: "Rust-colored Peace(&order) Son," but in Demon Slayer the protagonist's name is Tanjirou[炭治郎]: "Charcoal Peace(&order) Son" alluding to his family's job as charcoal artisans and his affinity for the fire and sun elements by swapping in an unusual character with the same pronunciation. (the "peace and order" part probably referring to like a governor being a peace keeper which makes it a partial synonym with "samurai" as a part of the ruling class)

Does that all make sense? I can't tell how easy to follow any of this is for someone without a kind of cursory familiarity with this stuff...

And then surnames... I don't want to get into this oneb bcause it's just too damn big. but they do tend to follow some pretty familiar conventions used in the west. Locational surnames are common, denoting landmarks:

yama[山]: Mountain

kawa/-gawa[川]: River

mori[森]: forest

tani[谷]: valley

ta/-da[田]: field

mura[村]: village

etc... Some also reference manmade landmarks like towers, temples, bridges, wells, marketplaces, etc... Or even more general elements like "stone" or "tree" without pointing to an actual singular and specific object in the landscape. These kinds of root words can then be modified by adjectives like colors, size/dimension, cardinal directions, (one of)twins, and very often eachother. (i.e. Yamada[山田], Yamamura[山村] Kawamura[川村], Yamagawa[山川], Tamura[田村], Kawada[川田], etc...) I don't really know how to cleanly or neatly break these kinds of things down into easily referenced categories... It's just kind of a broad range of things that can be applied, and that's just in regards to real names, the realm of fantasy settings, even mundane ones, opens things up substantially.

But unlike a lot of western languages, there aren't actually a whole lot of occupational surnames. i.e. things like Smith, Baker, Carpenter, Mason, Miller, etc...

(and... uh... I'm not getting into kira kira names... that's a whole other can of worms and a very modern/recent issue, and I dunno that I know enough to really comment on it meaningfully. you can google it though and you'll find stuff even in english discussing it in some detail.)

Oh and of course the last "method" is just that some creators will just straight up lift their character names from other characters entirely. Like, in Naruto Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru are all just the names of the characters in the 19th century folktale Katakiuchi Kidan Jiraiya Monogatari[報仇奇談自来也説話]. Like the names don't have any directly evoked meaning based on how they're written, they're just direct reference to the themes and motifs of preexisting characters. Same way Sasuke's name is just lifted from Sarutobi Sasuke[猿飛佐助], popular turn of the century fictional ninja hero.

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of this one. It tends to feel flimsy and shitty. The only exception being those characters that are actual in-world evocations of historical characters/figures, like Ishikawa Goemon XIII, in Lupin III, just straight up being a descendent of the legendary Ishikawa Goemon. Although in Eyeshield 21 Takekura Gen has a cool one where the name Takekura[武蔵] is written the same as Musashi[武蔵], and so he's given it as a nickname and given a reputation and motif evoking the samurai Miyamoto Musashi.

Anyway that was a lot of blustering about just to get to the point now where I can say: This all is extremely incomplete/unexhaustive, and of questionable real practical use to anyone as a guide to actually making up new names for a sort of anime/manga type setting. This really turned out to be less of a guide and more like a laundry list of just loosely adjoined/adjacent observations: Less a guide to bowling and more just a pair of bumpers to put in the gutters to help guide otherwise still utterly untrained attempts at success. It's as much as I can really muster in this regard.

[undercover-monsterlover]

Hiii!!! If it isn't too much trouble and may I have (male adult) attack on titan matchup please. (I am 19, not a minor) My pronouns are she/her. I tend to be shy around new people but I can be somewhat loud with people who im close to. My height is 5'0. I would describe my aesthetic as soft-ish/cottegecore, lots of long dresses and skirts.

Im not very athletic and im not a big fan of sports but I love to go roller and ice skating. I also love to read books and to also cook and bake food. I also like to garden. I've been playing the violin for 7-ish years, all though I haven't played in awhile due to college not having an orchestra club to be, despite that I still hold violin very dear to my heart. I love animals. I am currently studying in college. I like to Watch nature/animal documentaries. I also love sweets.

Somethings I dislike are people who bend or ruin my books and people who speak over me when im trying to talk.I love music, I can find music I like in any music genres. Sorry if I spelt anything wrong. Hope I'm not bothering you:)

Yay, first Matchup! Alright, I'd match you with....

Reiner Braun

The first thing that made me think of Reiner for you, was honestly your style. We know from the earlier seasons he seems to like overtly feminine girls, based on his teenage attraction to Historia. As an adult, I think he would at first be attracted to your style, and find you cute, with you short stature and flowery clothes. The real connection between you two might be formed when you begin to talk, as both of you may be reserved around newer people, but I think as soon as you start acting louder and more comfortable with him, he'll feel almost proud he managed to connect with you.

He may feel as though he can no longer make connections with new people, or be scared to since so many of his friends have died. So when he meets you, he's almost scared to become closer, even though he's already become so attached. He may even try to distance himself at first, but let's be frank, this man needs some love, so he won't last long, especially around you.

When you do officially become a couple, he'll throw himself into that protective, chivalrous role as your boyfriend, thinking he has to protect you, especially as you seem to have a very gentle, soft personality, but he'll eventually calm down. Though, he might always hold the insecurity that you'll someday decide he's too broken, too old, too much for you to handle. He thinks should be the one caring for you, he's the man, right? But when you hold him, soothe his anxieties, tell him you love him, that fear might be satiated, juuust a bit.

This man has been a soldier for his entire life, with not much downtime, so I would predict most of your dates or quality time at first would involve your hobbies. He may have not exactly been the academic type, but god does he love to listen to you read to him, (even if he thinks the book is boring). And boy, he will absolutely inhale any food you make for him. You make a meal you're worried didn't come out quite right? It's already gone. You bake something that you aren't sure he'll like? He's already eaten it and is now trying to kiss you with frosting still on his lips.

Above all else, he is enchanted by your skill with the violin. He never had much of an appreciation for music before, beyond occasionally enjoying a tune he heard in passing. But now, there's nothing he loves more than to hear you play. It's soothing to him, no matter what you're playing, it's as if the worries he holds, the weight of years of stress from war, the anxiety, paranoia, depression, it all fades as he listens. And how can he help it? You look so beautiful when you do, that focused look on your face, the intuitive movements of your hand, the clear enjoyment you have when playing, it's all too much for him.

You're his everything. You bring him so much joy, joy he didn't think he could feel anymore. You've given him so much to live for, introduced him to so many new things, he can't imagine going back to life without you. And he'll do anything to make sure that doesn't happen. He'll indulge your every whim, satisfy every need, fetch whatever you'd like, do whatever you wish, just say the word. He loves you, after all.

[apollos-boyfriend]

im writing an au that is supposed to include everyone in the dsmp. but i am a humble enjoyer and dont know about lots of characters, purpled included. can i get a guidebook to writing cpurpled? any tropes to avoid, motivations you see people getting wrong, etc?

okay so. purpled is Interesting bc there's a lot of depth to his character in the sense that he himself is not self-aware of his own actions/wants, making for there being three purpleds: the purpled that he shows to others, the purpled he feels he is, and the true purpled he himself isn't even fully aware of. and depending on how deep you wanna explore into his character, that third one likely won't even come into play, because that is more of an instance of a character study/purpled-centric piece, but i'll go over it anyways, just in case! splitting this into parts below the cut to make categorizing things a bit easier :]

first, the basics:

purpled has a very. unique way of talking. in serious moments, he's calm, collected, and intimidating, and will act like you'd expect a broody teenaged mercenary to. most of the time, though, his speech pattern is the world's most ungodly mixture of teenage boy and starving victorian orphan.

in fight or flight, he chooses fight 100% of the time, even if that fight is not immediate.

purpled only cares about a handful of things: self-preservation, his image, and money. this doesn't necessarily mean he won't do "good" things, just that his motives are less about saving people and more about advancing his own agenda. during the red banquet, for example, he only saved the attendants because he was paid to. eret called him a hero for it, but it was nothing more than a matter of who paid more. his morals are extremely skewed,

but he's not inherently malicious. he's indifferent. his actions are logical, not emotional, so despite harming others for his own gain, he typically holds no ill-will towards them. for example, the wiki cites that he and bad have a negative relationship for betraying the eggpire during the banquet, but in reality, purpled really doesn't see bad in anything but a neutral way. there are very few people he holds either positive or negative emotions towards, as his default state is indifferent, but willing to go along with the other person's emotions if they pay enough.

the only people he does feel a semblance of strong emotions towards are: hannah, boomer, ponk, tubbo, jack, and quackity. he has positive personal relationships with hannah, boomer, ponk, and tubbo, seeing them as genuine friends. additionally, ponk, tubbo, and jack are fellow businessmen, which he very much admires. quackity, of course, is the one person on the list he has overtly negative feelings towards, something that possibly extended towards slime after the ln finale, as well. he has an Odd relationship with tommy in the sense that they're somewhat rivals, but not in the usual fandom sense where "oh they secretly care about each other because they're sworn rivals". purpled would sell tommy to satan for a single cornchip and not even blink. there's also dogchamp, his dog, which is i think the one True attachment he's ever had on the server.

business is very important to him! purpled only really cares to talk to people who he sees on a similar intellectual level as him, and business is the closest way to his heart, as seen with his relationship with ponk.

anyone he doesn't see on his level is "lesser". this is specifically highlighted with his viewpoint on slime, as he sees slime as nothing but a child who can't fend for himself and has to rely on quackity for everything. this viewpoint is, obviously, extremely untrue, because purpled is an unreliable narrator in every sense of the word.

he's very smart and extremely capable. if he sets his mind to something, he Will accomplish it through any means necessary, even at the cost of others.

he is also. just sillie. at least around those he trusts or is pretending to allow to get close to him (like fundy in ln). he pulls stupid pranks for stupid prizes. he's just a boy that really loves his dog. he's the server's strongest warrior yet he runs screaming from boomer because they threatened to child-leash him. do not be afraid to make him a freak (because trust me he Is one)

some deeper stuff! all of these things are unspoken, and things he himself is not aware of. a dive into his subconscious thoughts, if you will. if you're writing something deeper with him, these are things i recommend alluding towards/highlighting, but in a sense that only the audience is aware of. they're not things that should be Explicitly Stated, at least not by him/his pov. purpled has little to no true self-awareness, and when he does have moments of introspection, he Still manages to fuck that up, which i'll be getting into

purpled does not really feel any negative emotions other than rage and spite. or, more accurately, he doesn't let himself feel anything other than rage or spite. when lamenting about his loneliness on the server, he immediately spins it into a revenge plot, believing it'll be solved as soon as he gets his just desserts. he does feel and process positive emotions, it's just negative ones he pushes aside for the sake of anger.

this is because, inherently, purpled does not believe he is in the wrong. ever. everything is always the fault of others, which is why he results to anger, because that's what happens when he pushes blame onto other people. he doesn't ever accept that his actions can be detrimental to himself, and that his issues are always the fault of others. for example, he believes that the reason his legacy on the server was "ruined" was because of quackity's intervention. while quackity's destruction of his ufo certainly didn't help, purpled's core issue was himself. his own self-isolation is what started the downfall of his legacy, and his continued isolation is what sealed its fate.

his inability to process his true emotions/wants makes him very prone to self-sabotage, although he believes the path he chooses is the right one. due to quackity's intervention, he believes that he wants a legacy to have power and to be remembered. when he laid out his issues, however, his biggest hang-up was that "if he asked people on the server to name three things about him, none of them could". deep down, what he wanted was a sense of connection, of building a legacy through the bonds formed with others, but he was unable to realize that.

he's so fucking stupid. all of this is me trying to say he's a fucking idiot. he has the emotional capacity of a pet rock with angry eyebrows drawn onto it. he's hypocritical and not even aware of it. i don't think he has the emotional ability to know what hypocrisy is.

the most important thing, though, is to not woobify him into the "manipulated minors" trope. purpled was not manipulated, and although his age plays into the tragedy of his character on a meta-level, it has no true importance to his actions/story. and although i gush about him a lot, and there are reasons to why he acts the way he does, he is not a good person. i can explain why he does what he does all i want, but at his core he is flawed and antagonistic. that's what makes him so good!! he is not a good person, he knows he's not a good person, and unless he's purposefully playing that role in order to deceive someone, he doesn't pretend to be one, and is up-front with others about that fact.

[ketavinsky]

what was the impetus for the creation of ofluxe? did day and dusk always have children, drafting wise

hey anon! sorry for the late reply- i was going to wait until i had more art of Hymn to post here, but i dont, and ive been working on weird kids lately, so instead here's some art i commissioned of the family as i answer this question

pictured: dusk eats Her own heart in the center as Her husband, day, looms over Her shoulder; at the border is the exquisite distillation, upright, and Hys 'twin' the chimera, inverted. (art by wuermelein who was so awesome to commission, def recommend)

first off, ofluxe was the original name for the character- the title 'the exquisite distillation' is intended to feel sort of dehumanising and overtly grandiose. in another kind of story, where ofluxe was never built up into the villain hy currently is, hys name would still be ofluxe.

there have been heaps and heaps of drafts to get the exquisite distillation where hy is now as a character. the primary motivation was to have a character who represents, and is exalted as, the pinnacle of what the rules of hys story allows, a character that by design fills the narrative if not defining it entirely, who pushes against the boundaries of possibility; against the universe itself. a universe is something largely considered limitless, constantly-expanding, but in the context of a story, is of course regimented by lore and plot and how these interact with each other to produce conflict. i know that i'm just talking out of my ass here about what a story is, but seeing as im aiming for the wider pentanity meta to be a story about stories, im gonna parrot all of it anyways. in hys earliest iterations, the exquisite distillation was on the way to fully omniscient, more of a weather god than an automaton gold giant; i called hymn the director of tragedies, the character who uses hys unique awareness of the universe he occupies and exemplifies to simultaneously embody entirely and strain against the confines he's written into. hy was from draft one supposed to be something of a tragic character, a hidden final boss who learns from every world-ending threat before hymn, an entropic bastard almighty who can do as hy wants with reality but is ultimately undone by the ability to look directly upon hymnself and demarcate every single aspect of hymnself, and its flaw, and how the knowledge of this flaw does nothing to resolve the hurt of it. the earliest iteration, ofluxe, was way more comical, but also ultimately betrayed by a parental figure- this was something i really wanted to keep, and as hy changed as a character i became increasingly attached to hymn as this perfect, gorgeous thing, the alchemical magnum opus who represents the apex of what god and man are capable of, who is perhaps the most human due to hys many flaws and who becomes inhumanly destructive with each aborted attempt at addressing any of these flaws.

as my draft developed, i realise that there was no way hy could be anyone but day's child, due to their clear thematic parallels- the story im writing was always going to be one that endlessly repeats itself in all sorts of directions, and day and the exquisite distillation both fall victim to this horror of repetition, this deep fear that the past and future influence each other in equal amount and what is done in the present barely makes a blemish in this cycle. in this way, i guess the main impetus for the creation of ofluxe is my fascination with how rules and boundaries are defined in stories, especially those that deal with high-power concepts; the main impetus for the creation of the exquisite distillation is despair.

i don't post much of my writing here, and im trying to get back into posting it on instagram, but if the exquisite distillation does anything, hy despairs. hy occupies a part of the story, the universe, where all the tools are present for hymn to do better than his predecessors, and hy embodies all this universe's strengths and potential, and hy can do nothing but despair. im aware that this sends a Very Particular Message about my work and what im trying to achieve with it, but ofluxe, the exquisite distillation, the gold giant or porcelain gargoyle or whatever else i call hymn- hy is so dear to me for the reason that he embodies a core struggle i have been challenged by my whole life, and for me to write a happier ending for hymn, a happier story, i'll have to really undergo some major character growth. i'd like to, and i feel like hy deserves it -if not hymn, then certainly the parts of the world hy devastates- but im not there yet and im not certain when i will be. for this reason, i do worry a lot about when or if ill ever be able to publish the bulk of my work, especially as the exquisite distillation appears quite early.

as for did day and dusk always have children- no, certainly not. in my earlier concepts, day was a lot more childish. more ageless as in zany spirit, less ancient. parts of His old concept were recycled into the exquisite distillation and minuet; others still remain to be recycled into other characters. dusk had millions of children, whole races of monstrous behemoths, whole ecosystems of them. i definitely suffered from that thing a lot of new pantheon creators do when its like "ahh yes... my pantheon.... the earth one, the water one, the uhhh.... the war one... the woman one (mother) and the woman one (pure and innocent)" and i didnt really add anything to this or do anything interesting with it or even incorporate any of my own personal thoughts regarding motherhood, paternity, etc or even, like, what i consider god to be, so it was all kind of questionable as hell and very frustrating to build.

at the moment im still reworking parts of dusk, and how She manifests throughout the story but recently ive really been trying to be more honest with myself, and be more honest through my work, so dusk has changed a lot. originally i never envisioned for Her to have children She was particularly close to or coddled or 'mothered' in any sense of the word -it just didnt really fit Her character at all- but i came to realise the reasons why i didnt want Her to have this relationship dynamic were precisely the reasons she needed to. there's a version of the story, in-text, as time twists and slips and knots through itself where the exquisite distillation is nothing but a weapon to Her, and the creation of hys twin was an error, and then there are endless permutations where one of these variables taken to be true simply is not the case. i came to realise that i wanted dusk's relationship with the exquisite distillation to foil dawn's relationship with minuet, and seeing as sister turns against brother and child against parent later on, i think that these recent developments are more befitting of my wider messages touching on family, especially during the sydney arc (which i still dont know whether to write as a comic, a short story, or a book. rargh)

ultimately, day needs to have children here in this shitshow so the wretched cycle He's trapped in can be inherited by the undeserving, and dusk needs to have children to highlight what happens when the absolute and inevitable and incapable of ever erring are presented with the circumstances for wrongdoing. they're both characters who need to be humbled, desperately.

answer me this, is there anything as humbling as a child?

[arvoze]

hiiii can i just say i really really like ur characters and art and seeing it makes me so happy sorry if im coming off as weird or somethin

also who is ur favorite oc that you've made? or ocs if u have more than one u really like

i hope it's ok to respond to this publicly since u asked a q :-] thank u! i don't think it comes off as weird at all haha. i'm very used to it actually! (strangely? it just happens to me often for some reason)

my fav oc i've made for pmd specifically... varies. design-wise, i really like what i did with calamity (lombre), butcher (spidops), and violet (armarouge). i kinda like em all for different reasons, violet was a slight step out of my comfort zone haha. i actually like a lot of my pmd designs tbh. my number one fav oc ever would technically just be me! because that's me, and i like lookin like that. i rly like the design for my kerosona too bc he's kind of just a silly little guy.

for pmd specific favourites overall, my very silly unfortunate obvious answers are luwel (nuzleaf), keith (cacturne) and mike (breloom). even if they're pretty much just Guys With Clothes, they're very special to me, the last two specifically -- keith was my starter pokemon in a nuzlocke randomiser from ~2016-17 (not entirely sure) and i grew pretty attached to him. mike was the name of a competitive-ready breloom i was given during the gen 4 era, given to me by an old friend when i was maybe about 12 years old give or take (not entirely sure on the exact date, but pre-gen 5).

there's not anything overtly special about the two of them on the outside, but they're both just very important characters/pieces of my pokemon history personally. it's a little bit of being able to look back at two different eras of my interest in pokemon from when i was growing up, & being able to bring them "back" just has a Nice Feeling To It. i enjoy a lot of my ocs overall, i'm not really in the same boat as many other people who go "all of my ocs have a little bit of me in them" -- most of mine don't. i just make guys for fun, and sometimes i keep em and make stories with them. they're not all representative of me in some way, shape or form. some of them are! but most of them aren't. i just like messin around with funny guys. it's very difficult to give actual specific favourites haha

[bisexualnamjoonie]

Maybe I'm way off-base but I get the impression that the maknae line is favored by Big Hit/Hybe not just because they have more mainstream appeal than the rap line, but also because they're more malleable than them? I don't mean that they're easier to manipulate. I just mean that all 3 of the rappers have strong artistic identities and integrity that they aren't willing to budge on. We have seen that they will push back against the company when they try to make them compromise on it. Especially namjoon. In comparison, the maknae line do not have established identities as artists. Jimin seemed like he was trying to find one on FACE but didn't quite get there. The company can give them catchy, chart-topping hits and more easily mold them into whatever they want to market them as. I hope his makes sense lol. Of course we have no idea how much control the members actually have but I think the proof is in the music.

op idk what to tell u you've summed it up perfectly. like. holy shit you might have condensed in a few sentences what my brain has been trying to say this whole time what is your power.

joke aside i do not think you are off-base AT ALL. i think you are completely right. it comes back to ML not having an artistic identity and not having the same power over big hit (at the end of the day we can pretend all we want but it's rapline that made bts and rapline that made big hit. polarising opinion I know but. bts could exist without vocal line it could not without rapline. they're the soul of this band). so yeah I 100% agree with you on everything you just said. id add that im a bit curious to see what taehyung's solo is gonna come out like cause i feel like he doesn't fit into this pattern as much as jk and Jimin. he's always been kind of a free spirit and more overtly against a lot of stuff about the industry he doesn't like (especially when it comes to fan behaviours). he also didn't really plan on becoming a kpop artist so i feel like he's less attached to it. we'll see.

[wafflesetc]

I desperately need tracy to give some type of interview where she at least mentions this in some form. i cant tell if her lack of interviews past season 9 are her way of saying i dont link the way this is going so im just going to not say anything. I seriously cant believe shes on board with all of this knowing she gave them enough time to writer her ending which could have involved jay

I sound like a broken record but while the actors are attached to the characters they portray, it's a very different kind of connection than the one the fans have with the characters. It's a job for T, so even if she's not overtly happy with the decisions, she still has a job to do.

At the end of the day, I think that actions speak louder than words. So, I think her silence is louuuuud.

[onlyswan]

You asked about favorites here we go -

1. "in which you and jungkook go on an amusement park date" - everything about this just makes me want to cry, whenever I'm down i literally just keep re-reading this ❤️‍🩹

2. "i have created my own worst enemy." "jungkook, it's a plushie." - im just so emotionally attached to this because this was the first drabble i read from you 🥲

3. "in which jungkook loves doing nothing with you." - this was just so domestic, him being dramatic and singing euphoria on his knees for oc 😭

4. "in which cruel fate leads you and jungkook to bright places." - does this really even need an explanation? it's so well written and realistic in a situation like this, not overtly dramatic. you can feel the love and care radiate from this 🥴

5. "in which you give jungkook the silent treatment and he books a 5am flight to japan." - i remember vividly just giggling confusingly the entire time when i read it for the first time, it's just so funny and portrayed a rather sensitive emotion humorously 🤧

i couldn't choose 3 so i had to pick 5.

im in the car rn going back to the hotel from yoongi's concert and OH MAN it was so good the entire concert i was screaming at myself "ari, calm down or you WILL pass out" 😭 it was 10/10 but, oh lord im so tired i feel like i might die. and the traffic :/

anywaysss, i hope you're healthy art, hope you're taking care of yourself :)!

omg i didn’t expect most of these 🥹🥹🥹 thank you so much beloved !! and the second one seems to be the first drabble many of you have read from me my heart is so full :( i’m not 100% happy with it bcs of course i wrote it long ago but it’s special to me as well because of you. thank you for reading my works all these time <3

the silent treatment is one of my favs too it was so much fun writing 🤭 my babies are just two free spirited souls

OMG YAY IM SO HAPPY YOU HAD FUN !! take care and stay safe !! the only time i’m ever happy about feeling tired is when it’s bcs i had the time of my life at a concert 😭🫶🏼

i’m tired and sleep deprived from school but it will be over soon so i’m just hanging in there <3 thank you my love

[scienceoffiction]

Hey guys! I need some help with coming up with one piece tattoo ideas. Im working on getting a sleeve and I want it to be one piece themed! So far i have the X on my wrist from when they're in Alabasta. I would love some help coming up with other tattoos as I want my sleeve to not be overtly obvious that it's one piece (like just tattooing characters). I've been a fan of one piece for almost 20 years now and I've just have such a strong attachment and love to it that I want to dedicate a whole arm to it lol. Any ideas are SUPER appreciated ❤

[ghostofhallownest]

listen idk if it’s worth the discourse but like…y’all remember in 2014-2016ish when queer infighting on this site was at a new height? how “activism” was bullying asexuals and aromantics and “weird” genders and neopronouns (well, except the “acceptable” ones)? how respectability politics turned into a reason to tell kids to kill themselves, or that being raped would fix them, or that they were straight/“basically” straight and therefore unwelcome, how “the A stands for Ally” was a preferred position to including aroaces in the LGBT umbrella…i could continue, but the trauma our own community inflicted on its own members isnt the point.

i think we act as though that era of purging our community of unwanted members under the guise of “activism” tapered off and was relegated to extreme corners of the internet. however…tumblr’s leftist politics don’t seem that different to me? the posts i see are reactionary, with little willingness to accept that even overtly bad things are complicated. they’re excuses to be angry and to have that anger fueled and validated because so many of us are angry and feel powerless, and posting feels like doing something; it’s “activism” as “spreading awareness” but…i don’t think it’s productive?

so many of the posts i see spouting leftist theory buzzwords are just…repackaged purity culture and respectability politics and are so far removed from the way the real world operates as to be useless except as ragebait.

it’s not only morally wrong to encourage imperfect allyship, it’s a symptom of gaslighting from said potential ally. anyone with a lukewarm opinion on queers is just as bad as the fascist who wants us dead. children refusing to cut their parents off because of their queerphobia and conservative beliefs are blinded by attachment to an abuser. “he’s a little confused but he’s got the spirit” is dying out; if your dad is conservative but working on your pronouns and slowly working on your friends’ pronouns but he still thinks Reaganomics will save us all, he wants you dead actually and you should cut 👏🏼 him 👏🏼 out👏🏼 !!

everything that happens online is obviously 100% reflected in real life, so you can’t write or draw or even think that; did you know op of this fandom gifset is a terf, aren’t you going to delete it, aren’t you scrupulously checking yourself, it’s your job to manage who sees every single user’s content btw, and if you dont ur probably a terf or at least as bad as them.

idk guys. is this not what conservative echochambers also sound like? their radicalism is morally reprehensible, ours is pure and good and necessary, right? right? because Evil and Good are the only two categories and everything fits neatly into each, right? “the reading comprehension on this site is piss poor” as a badge of honor is funny haha but when conservatives get facebook brainrot that’s a symptom of conservatism and not something we could ever fall victim to ourselves…right?

god, im so tired.

[punch-love]

I don’t know what you mean by para social relationships, could you expend on that?

Also, I would love to know what reason I think it could be before seeing what I wrote? I’m curious to know where ur headspace is at for it

But honestly, I just don’t know. I don’t know why I’m interested. It’s probably because I’m lonely and under a lot of stress? I recently moved out of the state for grad school and it’s super intense, and I’m probably just attaching my love for your work into interest on you? I also am naturally an inquisitive person so that is how I communicate w people I like talking to in my own life so it’s no different than how I normally am. You also are really honest, and I tend to enjoy talking to honest people? But u are the most difficult/challenging person that I have communicated w, I feel like in person maybe I set down peoples defenses or maybe I naturally will pull away who are just kinda difficult overall so maybe I’m just intrigued? But that wouldn’t make sense if I pull away from people who are that way then it wouldn’t be a contributing factor to why I am interested? So idk. (Is it offensive for me to theorize that possible assessment? Maybe ur just that way on here, I couldn’t make an assessment on the spectrum of how difficult it is to deal w u in real life. It feels offensive for me to say it or say I’m making or made that assessment. But maybe it’s because I would hate for someone to say im difficult, but I can’t imagine anyone that would like to read that about themselves, so there’s no way it wasn’t offensive? But I can’t ignore the fact that u are that way on here, but I also don’t know if that is a contributing factor or it’s just happenstance? But I def do get nervous every time I send a message out to u lol. I just never know what ur reaction is going to be lol) But then again why am I not doing it or interested in other spideypool writers, or anyone else in general? Could be doing the same w other people on tumblr but I’m not? I just don’t know. Feels like I’m psychoanalyzing myself. And you’ll prob hate at least one thing I’ve said on here, because I seem to be very repellent to u lol. But ya, I just don’t know.

Also, I’m totally gonna send u another message because I don’t want everyone reading that so if u want u can respond on that message? Unless u do really want my words out there, but I can’t imagine u would because again, I’m sure u hate something on there that I wrote lol

And I’ll prob think of more things too later to consider into the equation, but I do need to get back to studying

I think that you don't often experience pushback to this degree, and it irritates you as much as it engages you. I imagine you're used to people (especially on this site) being excited - if not overeager, to talk about themselves without boundaries. If you're a personality who is used to getting what they want in regard to your curiosity, finding someone who won't adjust their boundaries to feed your habit probably is surprising as it is challenging.

"You are the most difficult/challenging person I have ever communicated with" is such a high compliment. I know you personally struggle to see it as one, but I truly appreciate that perception. I always find it surprising when people enjoy my work but expect the person behind the difficult and challenging writing to be something of a pushover or, at the very least, overtly friendly with malleable boundaries. I don't think all writers reflect their work, but I think my personality is reflected well in what I produce. I think, as I said, you're used to people bending to your questioning because many people are easy to flatter into oversharing. I'm not driven by flattery or attention. I don't overshare about myself in my real life either, and I get very similar responses to that as I do online.

I think I've become something of a character in your mind - you've realized that there is something interesting in me and you, someone who enjoys excavating, thinks that you should be allowed to see what it is. You're not, and it upsets you. If I'm not a personality type that you normally engage, then likely you feel similar to me, as people do with reading about characters they wouldn't necessarily be friends with. I don't display traits you'd befriend, but they are traits you find interesting in, say, a book character and so, like a fictional personality, you are trying to learn more about me out of selfish interest.

It is interesting to me though that no matter how many times I try to establish a boundary around talking about myself, you are consistently looking for loopholes and then find me defensive. Do you think that if you ask the right question in the right way, then you will unlock the answers that I have purposefully made it hard for you to access? If I said, I won't answer personal questions two days ago - why would you ask me personal questions again? Did you think that my boundaries would change overnight, and because they didn't is that what you consider defensive behavior? I find your entitlement to my personality puzzling, but also, if you've always had people open to your natural curiosity, maybe it's not surprising that finding someone who isn't would make "cracking me open" so to speak a challenge you are interested in. The fact that you found the door shut on this blog, and then immediately sought for a new door on another, makes me think that you see this as a game. Did it not cross your mind that, perhaps, I really didn't want to talk about myself and that was okay?

It makes sense that you find defensiveness a negative trait. With the way you have tried to circumnavigate my boundaries, it feels like you think that everyone has a breaking point and if you just approach it from the right angle then you are given the answer you (for some reason) think you're owed. I don't consider myself a defensive person so much as a person with very firm, clear boundaries and a solid perception of myself that doesn't need the affirmation or attention of others to feed it. I don't need to tell you about myself, but you really want to know. It bothers you that I don't want to share, so you label me as a defensive instead of someone displaying a boundary.

You get nervous because you know I'm not going to lie to you and because I'm not going to lie to you I'm going to be honest about how your words affect me. If you're not used to that, it can be scary to see how you actually exist in the minds of other people. I'm not going to sugar coat my response, I'm not going to lie, and I'm not going to feel bad about it (even though, I do not seek to be mean/unkind to people online I just am not nice when people are being inconsiderate to me and my limits) I've noticed the less you share with others, the more they want to know about you. It's why people break into reclusive celebrity houses or internet stalk pretty girls who don't have Instagram. It's invasive, it's fucked up - sure - but if you think that other people's lives and experiences are something that you're owed - of course you're going to try it.

You're not the only follower I have that's upset and/or intrigued by my nature, so I am publishing this for that reason. I know you will read this is as rude and uncalled-for, but you have to remember - imagine setting up a boundary over five times and have someone still knock at the door. It's exhausting. I really love the questions you had about my writing/stories/characters, and wish you respected my desire to just only talk about it. You might take this messages as me never wanting to talk to you again - it's not - I just really, really, very literally - just want to talk about my writing. I don't know how many times I have to say that for people to take me seriously, but this is all I want to talk about.

I don't think you're a bad person, probably just someone with not a lot of experience with strong personalities or firm boundaries. I respect that, but I really wish you would respect me too.

[infizero]

pokespe reread: yellow chapter - closing thoughts! 🟡

that's the end of yellow and gen 1 as a whole!! before i (very excitedly) move onto GSC, here's my closing thoughts ft. me talking way too long about blue for some reason

(before we start i want to reiterate that i use they/them for yellow. i just cant use anything else sorry. i also use "yellow" and "amarillo" interchangeably 👍)

ok, i wanna start by talking about yellow's personality bcuz MAN! i am so glad i reread this chapter in particular bcuz i really forgot so much. as a child i 100% woobified yellow very badly and basically any trait of theirs that wasnt "sweet nice pokemon-loving healer" got destroyed in the process

there's so much else to them!! they're headstrong, they're brave, they're determined.... and while inexperienced, they're literally stated to have power on the same level at red's at certain points!!! amarillo is not just a little cinnamon roll or whatever, and i really appreciate being able to remember that via this reread.

i also really love their pacifist streak! i like how they're kind and prefer not to fight not out of naivety or stupidity or cowardice, but as a conscious decision that they make because that is what they want to do. and i think that's really admirable! sticking to ur principles while being informed and everything. and it def leads to a lot of interesting situations where they're able to win without actually attacking, which is cool to see

ok you know me. ive gotta talk about yellow's gender.

i love yellow bcuz they're one of those characters where everyone has different interpretations of them gender-wise but we all sort of agree that they are not cis LOL. those kinds of characters are fun to me

i def can read yellow in different ways, but i personally see them as an afab non-binary person. (tho i dont think they would've had the words for it until later) that's just how they read to me. and im definitely even more attached to this hc now that i myself am trans LOL (not that i wasnt before. you know how it is)

anyways, when it comes to what's actually in the text, i actually like how yellow's gender was handled! i really like the fact that as a reader you go through almost the ENTIRE ARC thinking they're a boy before it's finally revealed. i think that's definitely preferable in this situation to the audience knowing from the start.

not only does it come as a surprise (i mean. if it's your first time reading obviously lol) but it sort of asks you as a reader to inspect your own perceptions of characters when it comes to their gender, esp probably when this came out. how does your perception of amarillo change once you find out they're actually a girl? should it change? idk i just find that interesting

i also do appreciate that yellow's abilities and personality (at least for this arc) dont change between before and after the reveal. like thats a low bar lol, but i appreciate that they're still shown to be strong in their ways once you know they're a girl, and they also still act the same. again low bar but it would've been easy to treat yellow more like A Girl afterwards so im glad that doesnt happen.

(im a little wary for the future since yamamoto definitely draws yellow more overtly feminine-looking than mato, but lets hope that stays about the same. ok?)

^ while im mentioning that btw. i fucking loveeee how mato draws yellow so much. they're so perfectly androgynous looking it makes me happy :) and again that doesnt change at all after the reveal so yayyyyyyy

but anyways. i also rlly like blaine's reaction to finding out in particular. he asks about it, a little bewildered, and when they request that he not ask about it right now, he obliges and does not bring it up for the rest of the arc! and doesnt treat them any differently! its fucking awesome i love blaine so fucking much guys

amarillo's gender in general was a lot less of a big deal than i remembered/expected it to be? like it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things and i think thats pretty cool ^_^

on the subject of that scene though...

bro im sorry this is not the reaction of a cis girl who's only been caught pretending to a boy 😭 the "dont ask right now" thing i could understand, but this line??? this feels wayyyyy more personal. fym you feel naked without that hat? the hat that hides your ponytail and girlness?? you feel exposed and bad without hiding the fact that you're female? interesting.

like to me. yellow might've had some preexisting feelings, but blue telling them to pretend to be a boy (i'll get to that later) and getting to go around like that was their trans awakening for sure.

but what i find interesting is that despite blue saying that, yellow doesn't... actually ever introduce themself as a boy? like literally not a single time. they hide their ponytail and dont correct people when they refer to them as such (although now that i think about it i actually cant recall if anyone actually calls them a boy or uses he/him for them in their presence, but it probably happens) but never do they actually call THEMSELF a boy or anything like that

like despite blue's instructions, yellow doesn't really pretend to be a boy so much as just go around with their ponytail hidden and have everyone just assume they're a boy. which i find interesting, and its why i so strongly see yellow not as transmasc but as non-binary. they're a "girl" but everyone assumes they're a boy, but yellow themself doesnt ever comment on the matter. truly goals oh my god if i could go around and just have everyone think im a boy even if its technically more complicated than that my life would be blessed. anyway

that's the sort of subtextual reason as to why i view yellow as non-binary, but in terms of my actual hc, this experience is their awakening not because of them getting to be a boy, but rather them getting to not be a girl. and i think once they get to live like that for a little bit that's def what leads them to think about it more and eventually figure all that out :)

ANYWAYS. getting back to the actual text. i wanna quickly talk about the other characters bcuz i really like how everyone was incorporated into this arc

i thought this arc did a great job handling all of the different characters. i like how each of them gets a chance to shine without it feeling too crowded, and it's really cool seeing what everyone's been up to in the 2 years since RGB.

obviously you've got blue leading yellow, green training them, and the whole thing with red (which i'll get to in a little bit), but also the gym leaders (both good and bad), bill, blaine and mewtwo... they all felt important in their own way. no one felt glossed over or anything.

that little peak we get of green's childhood + him teaching that little boy was cool :D i love green so much.

i particularly liked seeing blaine and mewtwo's bond after 2 years of them healing and training together, and the twist of giovanni being the one to let red out of the ice genuinely had me shocked, i did NOT remember that. him showing up at the end to save yellow (and using the same move red beat him with!!!!) was a really cool moment that had me freaking out

the elite four were also really fun (and very intimidating) villains! i like how they each had their own point of intrigue, they never felt like just one unit without their own personalities. lorelei is the one who froze red, bruno was being manipulated, agatha mostly sticks to the shadows but has her past with professor oak, and of course everything with lance. their goal is insane but they really do feel like actual threats so it never feels ridiculous

speaking of lance, he is the PERFECT foil/antagonist for yellow. having them both be from the viridian forest, both with the power to read pokemon's minds and heal them, but with vastly different outlooks on the relationship between people and pokemon is just suchhh a good dynamic

amarillo uses their power for good to help both people and pokemon, while lance uses that same power in pursuit of helping pokemon but via a plan that would've surely only ended up hurting both..... very very good...

i like how the story does sympathize with lance's cause and points out that YES, humanity has problems, and their actions and pollution and everything have hurt many pokemon. but that's not a reason to wipe out ALL humans; it's instead something to try and improve so that both people and pokemon's lives can be improved and they can live in harmony. lance's motivations are noble but obviously the way that he goes about it (attempted global genocide) is uh. not

i also like how its shown near the end that lance's efforts won't just hurt pokemon if he gets his way, but are actively hurting HIS OWN right now. his dragonite was suffering in silence in pursuit of his goal, and thats not to mention all of the trainers opposing him's pokemon who could've gotten seriously injured battling with him. and of course that's not even getting into the fact he FOR SURE killed at least a FEW people in the midst of destroying an entire city. and partially destroying several other cities. noble cause, but bad actions in pursuit of that cause. i always find that kind of thing interesting

rq before i talk about red and yknow. the main plot. i wanna circle back and go on a small tangent about blue because she makes me insane and even though i already said some of this in the tags of a previous post i need to get it out here

this line made me spiral into my years-long sadness about blue and the loss of her childhood and i just. need to talk about it. going ahead and giving the disclaimer that a lot of this stuff was definitely not meant to be that serious (because this story is written by a man who was definitely not thinking about the implications of stuff like this) but the way that it ties into blue's larger backstory makes me want to grab someone by the shirt and shake them violently

blue saying "until you can use the fact that you're a 'woman' as a weapon" is soooooo fucking sad dude. blue is a girl who has been using flirting and her position as a "woman" in the world to her advantage since AT LEAST 11 years old in RGB. literally in order to survive on the street

we can assume (and hope) that nothing bad ever happened to her, thank goodness, but that's still a very dangerous position for a little girl to be putting herself in. and it's always been really sad to me that she's had to learn how to weaponize being a girl from such a young age.

how did she learn that? somehow blue had to learn that she could get her way by flirting with men and making herself look and act as appealing as possible and i really dont want to think about a little blue out on the streets learning to play into the desires of men to survive, something she should NOT have to be dealing with that young. she should be getting to play!! to discover who she is!!

and this is AFTER already getting kidnapped, groomed into being a perfect trainer, and having to basically raise a kid only a few years younger than her in the midst of all that trauma. unintentionally or not, blue is literally like a personification of what it's like to grow up as a girl and how awful it can be and it makes me SO fucking sad.

blue had to grow up far too soon and i feel like this can even be seen in her want to get her own pokedex in RGB. she has had such a hard life and she's only 11 fucking years old (at the time). she's either had to play mother or be an object of desire to make ends meet, OF COURSE her deepest wish and motivation would be just to go on her own pokemon journey like other kids her age!!

so while again i could just chalk up blue telling yellow this to "a man wrote this and it wasnt meant to be that deep", i do genuinely believe blue WOULD say this. because this is what she's had to do to survive and she thinks it's fucking normal!!!

OK. ANYWAYS. SORRY. this chapter is not about blue i just had to rant for a second bcuz she makes me so sad and im not normal about her. let's move on and wrap this up lol

red's disappearance is such a fantastic event to base the story around. i totally forgot that we see him in the very beginning, but i like that all we get is him getting the battle invite, and then it cuts to oak and misty discussing how he's gone missing. (for whatever reason i thought that he was missing for way longer than a month? i guess my child brain just exaggerated that lol)

i feel like not seeing red at all before he goes missing could've been interesting? but i think getting that small glimpse at the beginning is good for reestablishing his character, especially since you've gotta account for people who are just now tuning in.

but anyways, the mystery of what happened to red is really well done. i like how it's really unclear what happened for a long time and even after getting hints like learning he was frozen by the elite four, it's still unclear exactly how he got out, where he went afterwards, why they froze him, etc.

you don't even SEE him in action besides the opening for quite a while, which i reallyyy like. all the information is coming from people OTHER than red, which gives him a really interesting, vaguely "haunting the narrative" type role in the arc as a whole. esp since the protagonist this time is yellow, someone who's only met red once or twice briefly when they were younger and therefore doesn't really know him.

the scene where we finally get to see red and bruno's battle is sooo impactful too. you watch as it starts off normal, as red is able to overcome challenges over and over again like normal, and then in an instant it all goes wrong...

watching red accept that he's not gonna be able to get out of this one by himself and sending pika away to get help.... his sad little smile before he falls..... him struggling on the ground, realizing that it'd be basically impossible for pika to be able to properly communicate with anyone, before he finally succumbs to the ice....

it really does hurt, ESPECIALLY considering his previous role as hero. he always manages to win in the end, but not this time. and his last thoughts before getting frozen are literally him starting to think that it might be hopeless. and reminder that he's literallyyyyy 13 during all of this. lorddddd

LAST THING I WANT TO MENTION

this arc does a reallyyy good job at subtly setting up for GSC. like throughout the arc, blue mentions how she's still working on trying to figure out who kidnapped her as a child; it never becomes relevant during yellow's plot but it keeps it in the back of your mind.

and then of course you get silver's cameo midway through + the direct tease for GSC with him showing up at the end and everything. obviously a very minor part of the chapter overall but it does a great job at keeping this plotline fresh in your mind so that it can be really delved into later. very awesome

AND SPEAKING OF GSC. I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED THIS FUCKING POST oh my god its like 3am. i really did not mean to write this much but i just love pokespe so much and i have thoughts. ok?

ANYWAYS. it's officially time for GSC babey. i was thinking of maybe splitting gold & silver and crystal into two separate arcs? i know they're technically the same arc but this is also the longest arc in the whole series so maybe that would be good.....?

although then "gold & silver" would only be those first two volumes, and i also dont remember if those leave off on a good point.... idk i'll probably just put them all together. "gold & silver reread" and "crystal reread" just look better than "gsc reread" ....... T_T

oh well i'll figure it out tomorrow when i continue onward. it's finally time for SILVER BABEYYYYYYYYYY (and gold and crystal i love them all dearly. but i do have a favorite)

[hxlda-hxlda]

Okay so I have just finished reading the last chapter that u just uploaded and if u dont mind im gonna rant about It .

First of all Remus and Sirius being paired Up was soo unexpected but im totally here for It . And the pure silence is seriously making me suffer I totally understand why Sirius was being dramatic cause i cant handle awkward silence , It will be the death of me i swear.

Secondly I loved the dorcas and Sirius interactions , well the whole slytherin skittles dynamic tbh .

And the way that Sirius and James hate each other more than Remus and Sirius ...

Thats soo weird and different but for some reason I really like It and am pretty interested in seeing more interactions between them .

Welpp thats all , to lazy to write more .

THANKS FOR THE UPDATE

Cant wait for the next one

thanks for reading dearest!!!!! i do not mind at ALL nothing is more fun than ppl talking to me abt my own self-induced brainrot, so rant away (as i’m now going to)!!!!!

it’s shocking to me it was a surprising turn of events. but then again it was one of the first things i KNEW was going to happen in this fic when i came up with the idea over two months ago, so it’s been rattling around my brain for a while. a lot of this fic is going to be based around those prefect rounds, which i am so thrilled to have play out.

and YES, the awkward looks and silences are everything to me!!! for me high school drama was a lot of just,,, i don’t want to talk to you,,, so i’m gonna sit here in bitter silence,,,, and it will be so fuckin weird,,,, and i love forcing that onto sirius and rem (and all of you) bc ugh. it truly is PAINFUL.

cas and sirius have become one of my favourite dynamics so unexpectedly, but i actually adore them with my whole soul - writing them is so easy and fun.

same with all our skittles. rejoining the marauders fandom after years of absence as i did, the concept of the skittles is something i’ve been discovering slowly (as it fully was not around when i was) and i was in no way expecting to write something so them-centric, but i’m enjoying how my characterisations are turning out (even if they’re a bit different from fanon)!!!!

good god i have so much to say abt sirius, james and remus in this fic. at the end of the day i’m going for this kind of mirror to fanon/canon where sirius and james are THE relationship (obvs they hate each other rn, but it is still a defining duo) and remus feels kind of on the outs as a result, seeing himself as something seperate and perhaps less of a priority as a result.

i could write a whole character study on james just for this fic. one of my main writing considerations is a sirius without a james who has shown him unconditional love. sirius in gryffindor is so different bc of JAMES, the first person to love him so overtly. when he doesn’t have that (even in his skittles in this fic, not in a way that isn’t attached to his family identity (at least in his own mind)), where does that leave sirius? bc then it also means, how do james and sirius develop a relationship when it doesn’t start with a foundation of ‘i chose you as my best mate in yr 1’, yk??? they hate each other already, where do they go from there in the future??? just. ugh. platonic prongsfoot. kills me every fucking time.

cannot wait for the next one as well, she’s a big one!!!! i’ll tell you that.

xx