#its because both characters are Very Strongly Associated

[transmasc-rose]

RULES: make a poll with 5 of your all-time favorite characters and then tag 5 people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite! (tagged by @seaweedstarshine)

Tagging (don't worry if you don't want to/have done it already!): @transgenderdoctorwhomst @27-27-gruff-triplets @quietwingsinthesky @lost-tardis-room @a-shard-of-quartz-lol

[cenvast]

Rin, Kabru, & Toshiro: On Asian Identity

I have a lot of thoughts about Rin's identity as a second-generation Asian refugee and how it impacts her relationships with other characters, especially Kabru.

I see Rin as being Indonesian specifically. The name "Rinsha" is of Muslim Arabic origin. In real life, Indonesia has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, so what might seem like a geographically incompatible name works if Rin is the Dungeon Meshi equivalent of Indonesian.

Rin also says that her parents came from an island that isn't Wa, and Indonesia is a series of islands.

In her Adventurer's Bible entry, she's described as having "no real knowledge or attachment to the East" because "she's second-generation." She also clarifies to Mickbell that she was "born here." From this character description and her dialogue, we get the sense that Rin doesn't really identify with being Asian.

As noted in this Rin masterpost, a large part of this is because she was denied her parents' cultural identity by the elves. They likely suppressed any cultural markers she had and denied her information about her heritage. Since she wasn't born in the Eastern Archipelago and her parents died when she was young, she understandably hasn't inherited a lot of cultural knowledge.

Rin seems to have internalized ethnic self-hatred. Her disconnect from the East and her unwillingness to remedy that disconnect suggests that she has shame surrounding her Asian identity.

Again, she doesn't have many opportunities to interact with people from her parents' homeland, and her trauma also impacts her behavior. Remembering her parents is probably painful, considering the horrible way they died, and since they're her main connection to her cultural heritage, it makes sense that she wouldn't broach the topic.

You could also argue that Rin identifies more with her Northern identity than her Eastern identity since she was born and raised in the North for the first eleven years of her life, and as a result, she doesn't feel the need to connect with her parents' culture. But considering her home was presumptively still steeped in her parents' culture and her main association with the North is probably her parents' murders, this seems unlikely.

It's important to note how different her experiences are from the story's other Asian characters', like Toshiro's, for example. Toshiro travels to the Island as an adult of his own volition (technically, his father's). He's completely culturally Eastern. In comparison, Rin's parents fled from the East. Her family had to assimilate into an unfamiliar Northern culture, and later, she was "raised" by western elves, who are coded as colonizers in text. She seems to have internalized the elves' suppression of her culture and the way assimilating to the North required them to discard parts of their heritage. Her lack of interest in her culture seems learned.

Her strong attachment to Kabru further complicates her relationship with her Asian identity. I see Kabru as Indian or Nepalese; his name derives from a mountain on the border between India and Nepal. On top of being the only person who treats her like a human being during her childhood, Kabru is the only other significant Asian person in her life. They share the trauma of their parents having been brutally murdered and being raised imperfectly (much more severely in her case) by elves. While in the elf's care, they're both othered as tallmen— this aspect is strongly emphasized in the text — and in the main story, they're othered as Asian people in its European-inspired setting. Their shared experiences as Asian refugees are the foundation of their close bond.

It's not a stretch to assume that Rin consequently views Kabru as her main connection to being Asian. While they're from very different parts of fantasy Asia, their experiences as Asian refugees still overlap significantly as seen above, and the way she clings to Kabru suggests she wants to connect more with her culture, but for the previously stated reasons, she doesn't prioritize it. Besides, she doesn't have good models for what embracing one's cultural identity as a refugee/immigrant looks like. Just like her, Kabru doesn't seem to have many cultural ties, similarly because of his upbringing with the elves.

Toshiro could completely topple Rin and Kabru's original dynamic. Rin doesn't seem to like Toshiro. Their personalities would probably clash at first, because just like him, she's prone to judgment, out of self-preservation, and she's quiet. One of their canonical interactions is being captured by the orcs together; they don't even speak to each other in this scene.

Kabru and Toshiro become friends by the story's conclusion. Deep down, Rin might feel threatened by this. She's been Kabru's closest Asian friend up until this point. Toshiro, as an Asian person who was born and raised in his culture, might seem like a "better Asian" and thus, Kabru's replacement for her. This would be the worst projection of her buried insecurity over her disconnect from being Asian and how it potentially separates her from other Asian people. Given her personality, I doubt she would express this beyond acting wary around Toshiro.

With time, Rin, Kabru, and Toshiro could resolve her fears and the deeper issues they point to by all becoming friends. Interacting with other Asian people would heal her. She appears unphased by Mickbell's microaggression, implying it isn't an uncommon occurrence; she seems to only hang out with Kabru and their party. Being around other people of color would lessen the amount of othering she experiences and grant her a break from defending her identity.

Beyond the potential for cultural exchange and bonding over being Asian in fantasy Europe, Rin and Toshiro are also very similar in character. They're both anxious, quiet, and caring. If they made a little effort, they'd relate to each other and get along well.

Ideally, Rin would also befriend Hien, Benichidori, and the other girls in Toshiro's party. Kabru and Toshiro have their own issues with their treatment of women, so without positive Asian female friendships, she'd have another issue on her hands. Still, Kabru could be the bridge to a friendship with Toshiro, and Toshiro could be the bridge to friendships with his retainers. And with mutual growth, they could all enjoy each other's friendships.

Rin herself points out the vast cultural differences and language barriers between different parts of the East. The Asian characters of DunMeshi might not always share culture, but because of the story's setting in fantasy Europe, many of them experience being nonwhite in a mostly white locale. A support system of other people of color could allow Rin the space to explore her identity and culture and begin healing from her childhood trauma.

[red-elric]

i think what a lot of ppl miss about the nuance when it comes to the retcon is that the POINT of it is that its a bad ending. homestuck is designed to be a tragedy and it was never going to end well; its frankly ridiculous to try and shoehorn in a scenario where none of the current main characters are dead when the story is ABOUT death. its not narratively satisfying at all like this! but thats not what the kids wanted (and, more to the point, thats not what the FANS wanted. newer fans DEFINITELY miss the fact that homestuck was written as a conversation between hussie and the fans, a conversation that turned into an argument halfway through and led to a lot of things being taken in bad faith on both sides. but i digress; this is a watsonian post)

the retcon powers are very VERY explicitly described as the ability to change the alpha timeline. the 'whats supposed to happen' of it all, the premeditated narrative the story was written to fill. conversely, when aranea used the ring of life to come back and meddle, she is explicitly described as 'causing a doomed timeline.' and like, the thing about doomed timelines is that theyre meant to happen as much as theyre meant to be fixed. theyre how paradox space accounts for and incorporates time travel, and the existence of the doomed timeline is often NECESSARY for the alpha timeline to function. thats how you get davesprite, thats how the aradiabot that brought gamzee's honkHONK code back from his crazy murder timeline contributed to doc scratch's creation, thats why every dead dave helped the alpha timeline dave figure out what to do. if vriska was meant to have never died in the first place the timeline wouldve been doomed long before game over. the ring went to the wrong person, and thats the kind of simple fix sburb was expecting to solve with some time travel to get things back on track

the ring was supposed to go to someone else. probably vriska! from the alpha timelines perspective, it wasnt that long after her confrontation with john that she really changed and grew as a character. that she became someone who deserved a second chance. imagine: john uses his retcon as normal time travel, the way sburb comprehended it through the limitations of its code. he takes the ring before aranea can, goes to the dream bubbles, and has another conversation with vriska. maybe she doesnt even really want the ring anymore, and thats exactly the kind of thing that would convince john to give it to her. and she agrees, because he tells her terezi is waiting for her. they go back, they have the final fight, and people die. maybe they dont come back. but its the group of characters who earned the ending, who we watched grow up for three years

but thats not what happened, and it was never going to be what happened, because as narratively satisfying as it could have been? john and terezi wanted something different. john wanted everything to be OVER and terezi wanted the chance to make a different choice, even if it was wrong. theyre selfish; theyre kids. theyre tired of being characters in a story, of someone else pulling their strings. thats what typheus's choice was about, you know? and john made the wrong choice. some other version of john could have fixed things the "right" way, had our john decided to die instead. to accept the consequences of the doomed timeline and let pardox space fix it. hell, between roxys first instinct to just sit and let the void take her and terezis pointy horns offering a counterpoint we have some pretty blatant devil/angel on the shoulder imagery! and john making the same wrong choice he did when terezi first told him to fly to the seventh gate, except this time there was no davesprite on angel wings, no one left alive he cared about enough to listen to. because as much as john felt like he was SUPPOSED to fall for roxy, the girl version of his fathers lover, someone strongly associated with his half of karkat's shipping chart but without the complication of being a lesbian, someone HUMAN to repopulate the world with cut out of his apocalypse movie fantasies...... terezis way of thinking has always appealed to him more. because as much as he pretends its not true, john doesnt like to take things lying down, and he doesnt like when other people do either. he gets bored! hes attracted to the danger and morally grey self confidence terezi and vriska exude, so. he listened to terezi, and they brought vriska back.... without any of the character development she had gone through.

and its a bad ending, because of course it would be. and thats the point :) it was stupid to think two kids could meddle with the fate of the universe and it was stupid to think that these kids could have a happy ending so easily. but can you really blame them?

[daytaker]

Sins, Virtues, and Motivations: A Critical Analysis of Characters in Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

In this essay, I will argue that each demon brother some of the demon brothers can be associated with a sin (no duh), a virtue, and a core motivation--and that this motivation is best pursued through a synthesis of that sin and that virtue. Hegel would be very proud. Yes, this is critical media analysis. No, I will not try to explain the twisted, broken path that led me to this point in my life.

I will be looking at Lucifer, Mammon, and Levi in this study. Their core sins are obvious - Pride, Greed, and Envy. Their accompanying Virtues and Motivations are listed below.

I used the Seven Heavenly Virtues for this little game. These are Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

They should not be confused with the Seven Capital Virtues, which are inversions of the Seven Deadly Sins. These are Humility, Charity, Kindness, Patience, Chastity, Temperance, and Diligence. I tried these first and damn were none of them easy to match up. Tell me, fandom for this mobile game designed for players to lust over hot demon men, which brother should have the "chastity" virtue?

Lucifer

Core Sin: Pride. Core Virtue: Fortitude. Core Motivation: To protect his family.

Lucifer's core motivation is to protect his brothers. He looks at this as a sort of penance for the outcome of the Great Celestial War. He knows that he's the reason they rebelled, and he feels responsible for their wellbeing. He is able to endure the relentless pressure of the responsibilities he puts on himself thanks to his core virtue, fortitude.

Fortitude is strongly associated with courage. Specifically, it is courage in the face of pain and adversity. We see him displaying this trait any time those he cares for are in jeopardy, and it often helps him make difficult decisions where neither outcome is ideal. Lucifer is decisive, canny, and accepts the consequences of his choices, good or bad.

His driving motivation is also bolstered by his core sin: pride. He views himself as ultra-competent, while his brothers consistently make mistakes; beyond that, it's only natural that he take responsibility for the choices of his brothers (like the choice to join him in rebelling) because he is so significant an influence as to virtually rob them of their autonomy.

This has led to Lucifer having a somewhat toxic relationship with his brothers. Lucifer often acts as a parental figure rather than a peer, while the rest of them are all in arrested development of some sort, often acting more like kids than the adults they insist they are.

Lucifer either doesn't recognize that by doing everything for the family on his own, he's stemming their ability to grow and learn, or he does know the consequences of what he's doing and he feels conflicted about it. He ultimately blames himself for the fact that they're all in the Devildom in the first place, living as avatars of sins to the extent that they struggle to function as independent adults.

So, while fortitude and pride allow Lucifer to simulate the act of protecting his family, it's a matter of perspective whether controlling every element of their lives is protection or harmful coddling.

Mammon

Core Sin: Greed. Core Virtue: Charity. Core Motivation: To be valued and valuable.

Mammon is simultaneously a vessel of greed and its inverse, charity. This is because his core motivation is twofold, and those are the rewards of greed and charity; to be valued - to fulfill a want, to be desired, to look flippin' cool - and to be valuable - to fulfill a need, to have inherent worth, to serve a purpose.

Setting aside his unhealthy relationship with money, let's examine how Mammon behaves and what his deeper interpersonal motivations tend to be. He clearly places a high value on his brothers and MC, and he has shown on multiple occasions that he is willing to put himself at risk to help or protect them. Early on in both the original game and in NightBringer, Mammon attempts to heroically rescue MC (and his younger brothers, in NightBringer). In both cases, though, Lucifer shows up and does it for him. Mammon's pursuit of his core motivation clashes with Lucifer's quest for his, and Lucifer is strong enough to simply take it from him. Although in NightBringer he and his brothers do earn the not-insubstantial reward of the title "Lords of the Underworld" after Lucifer's rescue, he appeared so dejected by Lucifer's oneupmanship that he spent a good portion of the next day sulking. In the original game, Mammon wants MC to promise that they won't be saved by anyone else besides him in the future. It appears that his greed for an improved status in his interpersonal relationships is left unfulfilled.

Mammon wants to be heroic - to be valuable - and he wants to be admired for it - to be valued. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies motivations like these is all that sustains a person with such a diminished sense of self-worth.

Speaking of a diminished sense of self worth...

Leviathan

Core Sin: Envy. Core Virtue: Hope. Core Motivation: To find joy in the things that give him joy.

Confusing motivation? Yes it is. But envy is a confusing sin. All the other sins--pride, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth--are enjoyable to indulge on some level. Losing your temper when you feel you've been wronged, or eating a bunch of delicious food, or sleeping through the snooze alarm: We know why we do those things. We might regret them later, but we indulge them in the moment because of the enjoyable side.

There is nothing enjoyable about envy. Wanting something that isn't yours, that belongs to someone else, be it tangible goods, talents, a partner, a job... is nauseating. And it makes you feel like a bad person, and it drains the joy out of things that you used to love. Speaking from personal experience for a second, when I was a teenager, I played music in a company with a much younger musician who was incredibly talented, and I was deeply envious of her. I wanted her talent; I wanted the praise she received; I wanted to impress people; I wanted what she had. But there was nothing I could do. I hated feeling that way, but I couldn't shake it. And it ate away at my desire to play music. It took the joy out of something that once gave me joy.

You see the connection?

Levi struggles to find pleasure in anything he does, despite how many interests he has, because, in spite of his blustering dismissal of all things "normie", he is deeply envious of those he perceives as his social superiors. Now, I am not in any way saying that Levi is or would be an inc3l, but there's an element of his character that has a strong parallel to inc3l culture. The idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with him that prevents him from achieving what he wants socially and that the only way he can protect himself from those who would ridicule him is with a defensive contempt for the group that rejects him... Does any of that sound familiar?

But Levi is not an inc3l. No, not because you're willing to **** him and his two *****, though I'm sure that helps. It's because he has his core virtue: hope.

Have you ever heard of the black pill? It's kind of like the final stage of inc3l culture, where you accept that you're not an alpha male, you'll never be one, you'll never be accepted by a woman, you're ugly and unloveable, and you might as well just stop existing. It is sheer despair.

Levi maintains hope for the future, even if he prefers not to admit it out of fear of jinxing himself. He is able to form a deep bond with MC, who he views as a "normie", without renouncing his hobbies or being mocked for them. In fact, I would argue that the anxiety Levi sometimes displays over the possibility of being made fun of (for example, in NightBringer when he considers trying out cosplay) is emblematic of the hope he has that he can be accepted.

"But wait, daytaker," you say. "That doesn't sound like he's making progress towards his core motivation of getting joy out of the things that bring him joy! Being self conscious is not joyful!" Well, you're right. What Levi needs is to somehow find the right balance between enjoying his hobbies and allowing himself to enjoy other people as well. As we can see from his effusive excitement in sharing his favorite games and stories with MC and his brothers, the social component of media consumption is a major component in making it enjoyable. If Levi loses hope, he loses that connection to the world offline, and if he loses that connection, he loses the joy.

@blackstqr (I did it.)

[drconstellation]

A Tale of Two Peacocks

The Relationship Between Gabriel and Michael

Some weeks ago I said I would take on the challenge of looking at the relationship between Gabriel and Michael, then I got sidetracked writing something else* - which is not always a bad thing. But I want to return to this because its too good not to do a post on it, and before I get too deeply involved in the other writing.

This is definitely going to involve some NSWF language - hey, I can't help this, its in the script - so the bulk of this is going to be below the cut. But the short of it is, they have a fairly low opinion of each other.

We need to go back to S1, where there is an interesting set of parallel scenes we should start our discussion with that spells it out for us. The first one is in S1xE2, and the other is actually in one of the deleted scenes from the cold opening of S1xE3, and they both use parallel characters to inform us of what Gabriel and Michael think of each other.

It turns out I've already talked about the first one, in this meta here, where I discuss how Newt is a parallel for Crowley.

Then [Frobisher] power-walks past. Newt is not even worth her time stopping for. "Need a hand, Dick?" *Snort* - and ouch. That's a below-the belt joke. She's just called him a wanker. In the US you might use the term jerk instead. Someone who's a bit egotistical and more in it for themselves than others. (and I never thought I'd be fact-checking the meaning of this word ever, but there's always a first time...) She's basically just equated him Gabriel, in my book (and in more ways than one.)

And I wrote all that months before I started writing my Crowley-Gabriel parallel/foil series, too.

The other thing about this first parallel scene is the character of Frobisher, who is dressed very much like a demon, but is actually the parallel character to Michael, as we see later on in the paintball fight at Tadfield Manor.

(Er, I know this is all a bit 2nd/3rd hand evidence, but the second scene is a bit more direct, so bear with me.)

The second one, in S2xE3, is the deleted bookshop opening scene.

Source: Script for the unaired scene of Aziraphale opening his bookshop in 1800

Oh, look at that. Somebody is being called a wanker. Again. This time it's Crowley calling Michael a wanker, however, and its only one step to the side with Crowley being a parallel character to Gabriel (and I challenge you to watch s1 again in this light after finishing this post, and see how many similarities you can see between Crowley and Gabriel showing through even back then.)

OK. So we've established that Gabriel and Michael both think each other are wankers at this point, but what else can we find out about them?

Peacock Fighting

I've written a couple of posts about peacock symbolism. Firstly, Michael is strongly associated with having many eyes - their Ophanim ring, their costume has eye motifs, and they are essentially head of surveillance for Heaven. So this made me think they might be the peacock referred to in the Job minisode.

But later, after more research, it became apparent the lines paraphrased in Job were definitely referring to Gabriel. (See also Judgement Day.) There are associations with both royalty and vanity there.

They are both peacocks, but for different reasons.

And they are also both in competition with one another.

Gabriel Doesn't Have A Desk

Desks are a symbol of power in western society.

The bigger, and more solid the desk in a corporate office, the higher up the person is.

The teacher at the front of the room, the authority in the room, has a bigger desk than the students.

Those desks offer protection to the person in authority sitting behind them. They mark a separation between that said authority and the masses they command on the other side. Only the most trusted get to come around to the same side that they are sitting on to be more intimate with them.

At work, your desk is connected to your identity there. Its your place in the organization. You may even individualize it with decorations.

Just take a look at what Newt was bringing on his first day to work in S1xE2:

Pens, a pen holder, notepads, a ball of rubber bands, a plant (a bromeliad, a plant that does well in fully shaded damp environments, just like Hell) and some rations. Er, I mean lunch. Given to him by God Frances his mother.

The travesty of the modern trend of "hot desking" is de-personalizing the employee. They are no longer a valued employee with a valued place, they're just another faceless cog in the grind.

We see Michael behind a desk as Duty Officer in S2. It's starkly clean and sharp and made of glass, as we would expect to find in Heaven. It's used a shield and badge of office when we see them fulfilling that role.

Michael doubts Gabriel has a desk, although Gabriel insists he does, even though we have never seen it. Yet he still requires the proverbial archive box for moving locations?

I'm just going to leave the parallel between Newt and Gabriel there for further discussion. Please do remember the bottom falls out of Newt's box in the car park, leaving him with an empty box, too.

(Muriel has a glass desk, too, but interestingly they don't have a chair. You might like to compare their encounter with Aziraphale in the Job minisode to the escapade with Crowley in the present day. There is volumes said without words.)

Just while we are on the subject of desks, thought you might like to compare Crowley's and Aziraphale's desks as well. They are always on about how much paperwork they have to do!

Sovereign versus Disciplinary Power

This is eventually going to turn into a discussion about fate versus free will at some point, but I do need to talk about the different types of power first, because I haven't done my long promised Power and Authority meta yet. The two concepts are closely related, and Gabriel and Michael are each acting as foils for a side of the concepts.

Gabriel represents sovereign power, the supreme legitimate power of the state. Power and action trickles down from the top, and punishment is almost a show of entertainment, but one designed to educate. "Oh, those angels Fell - if I do something bad, I might Fall, too!" And so Gabriel expects to Fall when he is given his trial, and Aziraphale when he lies to save Job's children.

Michael is representing disciplinary power, something that lies at the heart of society today. This is where power is spread among individuals, and individuals are more likely to do their own discipline merely because of an overhanging threat of a possibility they may get caught if they do.** Are they being watched? Who might see and report their transgression? Michael has eyes (and ducks) everywhere... So does Orwell's book 1984.

This is a very simplistic view, of course - reality is more complex than that, and is usually a combination of the two, but we have to start somewhere.

Now lets throw the fate vs free will components into the mix. Let us revisit the story of King Cnut and the tide.

The story, if you are not familiar with it, is that Cnut had his throne set on the beach and commanded the incoming tide to halt where it was, and not to wet his robes or feet. Of course, the tide kept rising and splashed the king, where he leapt up and declared his might and power as a king worthless compared to that of God. The story is meant to demonstrate his piety before Heaven, and that he was not the ultimate controller of all things - his sovereign power was limited.

They say time and tide*** wait for no man - we are at the mercy of what ever fate they bring us, and we can't manipulate that. That's decided by the supreme power, the ultimate sovereign power, so to speak.

Gabriel tends to take this line - he does not have control over the summoning of the Four Horsepeople, they are just happening as they supposed to, and that's not his department. Plausible deniability, baby! Back channels? What back channels, Michael?

So if you did want to have some power over it, some free will to control outcomes? But hang on - every one else has free will as well. Sounds a bit chaotic. Who's in charge? Nobody. Everybody. Welcome to Michael's world. They want the power, they're prepared to fight for it, for what they think is right - but so is everyone else.

But what if you were the creator of free will itself? Would you be The One to have control over time and the tides?

Tadfield Manor, Again

Michael is the archangel who throws Lucifer down from Heaven, and we see this play out at Tadfield Manor during the paintball fight, when we are shown that it is actually Frobisher/Michael who shoots the shot that hits Norman/Lucifer in the heart - although we are initially made to think its Nigel/Gabriel who did it. (One day I will teach my self how to make GIFs and make a GIF of this.)

Frobisher is the more competitive one at all times - she is the only other employee besides the naive Newt to put their hand up when Nigel asks who is looking forward to the Training Initiative and she asks Crowley and Aziraphale "Who's winning?" as she runs past them inside - to which Crowley presciently declares "You're all going to lose."

If you look at the extended scene in light of the above, you can see sovereign authority of senior manager Nigel/Gabriel is still floating around as a rather toothless tiger to the whims of fate, while everyone else is exercising their free will and disciplinary powers to try and control one another. And, as Crowley says, nobody wins. It's a lose-lose situation.

Michael is competing for an empty dream.

Gabriel is trying his best to survive something that is not what it seems.

And...I think I'll leave it there. Thanks for reading.

*I've started writing a multi-chapter human AU fanfic. But I'm a slow writer, and I'm not writing it in a linear fashion - because it has to be stuffed full of meta, of course - so I decided I better pull myself out of it before I got pulled in too far and finish a couple of things off so you didn't think I'd disappeared completely. I wasn't planning on doing one, but you know how these things go - one day an idea just pops into your head, the next thing the characters are talking to you and taking on their own life and a couple of thousand words later...

**There was a post about the oculus, (found it! thanks to gallup24) the round skylight window in the roof of the bookshop and the Panopticon, an infamous prison design where the prisoners can all see each other but can't see if the guard is watching them, but of course I've lost track of it, haven't I.

***The tides are controlled by the Moon and Sun, and ostensibly for this argument, by Heaven as well. They are fated to continue in their set orbit and/or path through the sky - or the Earth on it's orbit around the Sun, is probably the better way of looking at it.

[high-dragon-bait]

Is the Sad Wizard Depicted in this Drawing Caleb Widogast or Anders Dragon Age: A Guide

Caleb Widogast and Anders Dragon Age are shockingly similar characters on paper and sometimes when you see fanart of them, it can be hard to tell who's who because of this. Here is a non-exhaustive list of their shared features you can find in fanart or just in general:

Both Caleb and Anders:

Are wizards

Really like cats

Have reddish-blonde hair

Have anywhere from a stubble to short cropped beard depending on fanart

Referred to as "wizard hobo" by fans

Have burned down their parents property in their backstories

Hopeless romantic

Are from their fantasy world's version of Germany

Chronically just look so tired

Deal with extreme self-loathing issues

Are sad

Are often drawn paired with a white-haired brooding magical elf

Lots of similarities BUT there are enough differences that it's relatively easy to tell them apart once you know what you're looking for

Here is what you're looking for

It is most likely Caleb if:

His cat is brownish-orange with black stripes

He has any dialogue with a phonetically spelled out accent consisting of lots of Zs

He's wearing book holsters

Has blue eyes

Hair is tied in a LOW pony-tail, usually a bun

He is wearing a simple BROWN coat

Is very dirty

Associated VERY STRONGLY with fire magic

Is glowing but it's from crystals in his skin

His white-haired brooding magical elf has grey/purple skin, a long flowing cloak, and is floating

It is most likely Anders if

His cat is VERY orange, light orange fur and darker orange stripes

Has any dialogue where the word "justice" is used a lot

He's carrying a staff

He has brown or gold eyes

Hair is tied in a HIGH pony-tail, usually a very short one that low-key reminds me of Sokka's "Warrior's wolf tail"

He is wearing a somewhat elaborate orange coat with green sleeves and feathers on his shoulders (note: sometimes the coat is black but the feathers on the shoulders do not go away)

Is not that dirty

Associated VERY STRONGLY with healing magic

Is glowing but it's from the spirit living inside him and often very focused around his eyes

His white-haired brooding magical elf has normal human colored skin, a really big sword, and would not be caught dead floating but is sometimes glowing

I hope this comes in handy and also a moment of silence for Dragon Age or Critical Role artists that have had their art tagged with the wrong character I have seen it happen so many times its unreal

[yamayuandadu]

The real life inspirations behind new characters in Touhou 19 (Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost) While I haven’t been posting much about Touhou as of late, I felt obliged to put together the customary post about the inspirations behind the new characters. The new game genuinely renewed my interest. In contrast with similar write-ups pertaining to previous games the research is not entirely mine - some of the sections are a result of cooperation between me and @just9art. Without further ado, let’s delve into the secrets of the new cast. Find out if Biten is the first “Wukong impersonator” ever, when a tanuki is actually a badger, and why Hisami both is and isn’t an oni. Naturally, the post is full of spoilers. Also, fair warning, it's long.

1. Biten Son - sarugami + Sun Wukong

Sarugami means “monkey kami”, the monkey in mention being the Japanese macaque.To my best knowledge, the term is actually not used commonly in English - the results on jstor and De Gruyter are in the low single digits, Brill outright has nothing to offer. Translations are much more common.

Sarugami are particularly strongly associated with Mount Hiei. You might have heard of it because of its association with Matarajin, though in this case he’s not exactly relevant. Instead, it is believed the monkeys act as messengers of Sanno (the “mountain king”), Sekizan Myojin and Juzenji. Sanno himself could take the form of a monkey according to medieval texts, while Juzenji can be accompanied by a deity depicted as a man with a monkey’s head, Daigyoji, known from the Hie mandala. Sarutahiko is also associated with monkeys based on the similarity between his name and the word saru. Bernard Faure notes that despite the clearly positive portrayal of monkeys as semi-divine beings in service of these deities, their perception in folklore and mythology can nonetheless be considered ambivalent, because they could be viewed as aggressive. There are even examples of sarugami being portrayed as monstrous antagonists to be defeated by a hero. The best known tale of this variety is known simply as Sarugami taiji. It is preserved in the Konjaku monogatari. Here the sarugami is a fearsome monster who terrorizes a village and demands the offering of one young woman each year.

In contrast with the sarugami, I do not think Sun Wukong, one of the protagonists of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, needs much of an introduction. We reached the point where even in the west he is recognizable enough to warrant toys based on him (there’s a Lego Wukong on my desk right now). Biten's design has many callbacks to traditional portrayals of Wukong, including the staff (which in the novel is a pillar stolen from the undersea palace of a dragon emperor) and a very distinctive diadem (in the novel making it possible to pressure the unruly Wukong into obeying the monk he is meant to protect). As a curiosity it’s worth noting that “fake Wukong” is not a brand new idea - in the novel itself, one of the enemies of the heroes, Six-Eared Macaque, actually impersonates him for a time. Wukong is effectively himself a “divine monkey”, seeing as despite his origin as a literary character he actually came to be worshiped as a deity in mainland China, Taiwan and various areas with a large Chinese diaspora. The topic of Wukong worship itself came to be an inspiration for literature, starting with the excellent The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal by Pu Songling, a writer active during the reign of the Qing dynasty, in the early eighteenth century.

2. Enoko Mitsugashira - “immortal yamainu” + Cerberus

Enoko gets the least coverage here, because there really isn’t much to say. Yamainu, “mountain dog”, isn’t really a supernatural creature, it’s an old term for either the extinct Japanese wolf, a type of feral dog, or a hybrid between these. It can also be used as a synonym of okuri-inu, a youkai wolf believed to accompany travelers at night.

There’s actually a distinctly Journey to the West-esque component to Enoko’s backstory, but I have no clue if this is intentional. In the aforementioned novel, many of the antagonists, who are generally demonic animals, are motivated by the desire to devour the flesh of the protagonist, the Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang, because it is said to grant immortality. Granted, given the obscurity of the figure Zanmu is based on - more on that later - perhaps this is an allusion to something else we have yet to uncover. Cerberus, being probably one of the most famous mythical monsters in the world, does not really need to be discussed here. The illustration is included mostly because I like Edmund Dulac and any opportunity is suitable for sharing his illustrations. I do not think it needs to be pointed out that Enoko's bear trap weapons are meant to evoke Cerberus' extra heads.

3. Chiyari Tenkajin - tenkaijin (+ mujina) + chupacabra

While my favorite animal youkai not yet featured in Touhou is easily the kawauso (otter), I was very pleased to learn we sort of got a mujina since I wanted to cover this topic since forever, but never got much of a chance. Technically Chiyari is actually meant to be a tenkaijin, which is not a mujina but a slightly different youkai (a will-o-wisp or St. Elmo’s fire-like creature, specifically) who in the single tale dealing with it takes the form of a mujina after dying, but as there is not much to say about it beyond that you will get a crash course in mujina folklore instead.

Today the word mujina is pretty firmly a synonym of anaguma - in other words, the Japanese badger. The animal does not substantially differ from other badgers, so I do not think much needs to be said about its ecology. However, historically the term could be used to refer to the tanuki regionally, or interchangeably to both animals, so in some cases if insufficient detail is provided it is hard to tell which one is meant. This ambiguity extends to the folklore surrounding them, and generally if you know what to expect from tanuki tales, which I’m sure most people reading this do, you will instantly recognize many of the plot elements typical for mujina ones. In other words, it is yet another yokai which typically takes the role of a shapeshifting trickster. Some supernatural phenomena could be basically interchangeably attributed to mujina, tanuki, kitsune or kawauso. Mujina are commonly described taking the form of Buddhist monks, which is one of the many similarities between them and tanuki.

The most famous depiction of a shapeshifting mujina comes from Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past). The accompanying text compares the creature to the supernatural versions of kitsune and tanuki, and states that the artist relied on a tale according to which a mujina was able to successfully impersonate a Buddhist monk until accidentally revealing its tail. 

What makes the mujina special is that it is actually the oldest recorded example of a youkai of this sort. A mujina tale already appears in the early Japanese chronicle Nihon Shoki, dated to 627. It reports an incident of a mujina transforming into a human and singing somewhere in the Michinoku Province. I feel like this alone is a good example of why you should be wary of people who seek to present Nihon Shoki or Kojiki as historical truth. Western audiences as far as I know were first introduced to mujina by Lafcadio Hearn. To my best knowledge, the fabulous shapeshifting badgers however failed to gain the popcultural recognition enjoyed by tanuki and kitsune. They did appear in Shigeru Mizuki's stories every now and then, and I found a mascot character based on them, but overall there isn't all that much beyond that.

Naturally, there isn't much mujina in Chiyari's design, and she instead most likely owes her distinctly spiky appearance to the other inspiration behind her character, the chupacabra. Mujina are not really portrayed as bloodthirsty, but the poorly documented tenkajin apparently is, which is presumably why ZUN decided to connect Chiyari with the chupacabra, the best known modern blood-drinking creature, who first appeared in tall tales from 1995 and subsequently took popculture by storm after spreading from Puerto Rico to mainland USA and Mexico. I am not a chupacabra aficionado so I have little to offer here, sadly.

4. Hisami Yomotsu - yomotsu-shikome

Judging from what I’ve seen on social media and on pixiv, Hisami is shaping up to be one of the most popular new characters (she’s my fave too). In sharp contrast with that, her basis is pretty obscure. So obscure that there isn’t even any historical art to showcase, as far as I can tell (note that this blog claims night parade scrolls might have something to offer, though - I was unable to verify this claim for now, sadly). As we learn from her bio, she is supposed to be a yomotsu-shikome. They’re called the “hags of Yomi” of Yomi in Donald L. Philippi’s Kojiki translation. The term shikome can be literally translated as “ugly woman”. Nothing about them really implies femme fatale leanings we are evidently seeing in Touhou but I’m not going to complain about that. Yomotsu-shikome appear only in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, and in both of these early chronicles they are portrayed as servants of Izanami after she died and came to reside in Yomi, the land of the dead. Nihon Shoki states there are only eight of them. The distinct grape vine motif present on Hisami’s clothes seems like an obvious reference to Izanagi’s escape from Yomi following his meeting with Izanami, portrayed in the myth recorded in both of these sources. When the yomotsu-shikome started to pursue him, he threw a vine he used to hold his hair at them. The plant instantly bore fruit, which the entities started to eat. They later resumed the chase, but were once again held back, this time by a bamboo shot. According to the Nihon Shoki, they eventually give up after he creates a river from his piss (sic) to keep them away.

Yomotsu-shikome are sometimes compared to oni by modern researchers. Noriko T. Reider in her monograph about oni argues that alongside hashihime and yamanba (pictured above) they can be effectively grouped with them. Another researcher, Michael D. Foster, is more cautious, and states that despite clear similarities it’s best to avoid conflating oni-like female demons with female oni proper, especially since the latter have a distinct iconography and a distinct set of traits. Norinaga Motoori, the founder of kokugaku or “national learning”, a nationalist intellectual movement in Edo and Meiji period Japan, claimed that oni were based on yomotsu-shikome, which is a pretty dubious claim. It is ultimately not certain when the term oni started to be used, but it is safe to say it has continental origin. And, of course, oni permeate Japanese culture in a way yomotsu-shikome do not.

5. Zanmu Nippaku - Zanmu

This was the toughest mystery to solve, and I am fully indebted to 9 here, since they figured it out, I am merely depending on what they directed me to. Research is still ongoing, and it feels like we just started to untangle this mystery, so you can safely expect further updates. Zanmu appears to be based on the Buddhist monk… well, Zanmu. You can learn a bit about him here or on Japanese wikipedia; it seems there are quite literally 0 sources pertaining to him in English, and even in Japanese there is actually very little. Their names are not written the same, ZUN swapped the sign for “dream” from the original name for one which can be read as “nothingness”. If the unsourced quote on wikipedia is genuine, the reason might be tied to the personal views of the irl Zanmu. What little we’ve been able to gather about him is that he was active in the Sengoku period, and apparently was regarded as unorthodox and eccentric. This lines up with Zanmu’s omake bio pretty well. Seems the real Zanmu was also unusually long lived, and was able to recall events from distant past in great detail, though obviously the figure of 139 years attributed to him in a few places online has to be an exaggeration.

Yet more puzzling is the reference to Zanmu’s familiarity with Ikkyo you might spot in the linked article. Whether the famous Ikkyo who you may know from the tale of Jigoku Dayu is meant is difficult to determine. The chronology does not really add up; on the other hand the logic behind associating one eccentric semi-legendary monk with another in later legends isn’t particularly convoluted. As 9 pointed out to me, if ZUN was aware of this link, and the same Ikkyo really was meant, it is not impossible the connection between Zanmu and Hisami is meant to in some way mirror that between Ikkyo and Jigoku Dayu. As you can easily notice, it’s pretty clear the historical Zanmu was male. It does not seem his Touhou counterpart is, obviously.  I would say we should wait for more info until declaring that we have a second Miko situation on our hands, with a male historical figure directly reimagined as a female character without any indication we are dealing with a relative rather than the real deal. There’s still relatively little info to go by so I would remain cautious (though naturally this is not meant to discourage you from having headcanons).

Neither me nor 9 were able to find any connection between the historical Zanmu and oni… so far, at least. Therefore, what motivated ZUN to make Zanmu an oni remains to be discovered. As a final curiosity, on a semi-related note it might be worth pointing out that while not as common as their male peers, female oni are not a modern invention, and already appear in setsuwa from the 13th century. A particularly common motif are tales describing a woman turning into oni due to jealousy or anger. Further reading:

Jason Colavito, The Secret Prehistory of El Chupacabra (2011)

Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1-3 (2015-2022)

Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore (2015)

John Knight, Waiting for Wolves in Japan. An Anthropological Study of People-wildlife Relations (2003)

Noriko T. Reider, Japanese Demon Lore (2010)

[least-carpet]

Jin Ling and Hensheng: Weapons and Power in MDZS

Alright, I saw a post float by about Jin Ling inheriting and using Hensheng, and I have thoughts about it. Not to be a hater—like if you love this thought, get down with your bad self and have fun, I wish you every enjoyment—but I disagree strongly that Jin Ling would ever use Hensheng, or even that Jin Guangyao would want him to.

Thoughts about Hensheng's name

All of the weapons in MDZS have highly symbolic names and Hensheng is no different. "Hensheng" apparently means "hatred or resentment for life" which seems like kind of a wild name to give your sword, although, what do I know, it's not like I'm a sword-naming expert. In all other aspects, Hensheng is unusual, since it's a soft sword which is meant to be worn concealed. It's a perfect tool for Jin Guangyao's time undercover, and he uses it to assassinate Wen Ruohan and end the Sunshot Campaign. However, I assume it's a dishonourable sword to carry, since it's not worn openly, although I have to admit that I don't know much about this genre or its conventions. As evidence, I want to point out that we don't see any other characters carry this type of sword. It simultaneously makes him a hero, beginning his ascent in the Jin Sect, and marks him as an outsider.

Jin Ling, on the other hand, is associated with father's (legitimate) power both through his weapons and his martial skills, i.e. his inherited sword and his archery. I think this is the ONLY instance we see of a named sword being inherited so this association is unusual and very important. (The sword also has a Big Symbolic Name, Suihua, "the passage of time." Why do you need subtlety when you can have BADASS SWORDS instead.)

While Jin Ling is in a delicate political position at the end of MDZS, I still don't think he would take up Hensheng, and to explain why, I think we should look at his refusal to take up Zidian in the second siege of the Burial Mounds.

Zidian as a symbol

The Watsonian explanation for this refusal is that he associates Zidian's transfer with the owner's death and he absolutely refuses to consider the idea that Jiang Cheng might die. But from a Doylist perspective, Zidian is a symbol of power under duress or constraint, in a similar way that Hensheng is a symbol of socially unacceptable power.

Zidian is associated with Madame Yu (constrained by gender and social position, access to power based on skill and a reputation for ferocity) and later Jiang Cheng (constrained by the decimation of his sect and his age, access to power based on skill and a reputation for ferocity). It's also associated with trauma linked to both the duress and the power—trauma associated with "what must be done to survive." Like it's legendary for sure, but at what cost, you know? Not even getting into it taking the form of a whip.

Jin Ling looks at it under immediate threat to life and limb and goes, No, thanks! I will do brave things without it! (And gives Jiang Cheng, like, five simultaneous heart attacks.) Even under duress, Jin Ling is still in a better position than Jiang Cheng was when he inherited Zidian, because he still has his uncle's support and knows it. He is secure enough in Jiang Cheng's love and protection that he doesn't need to take Zidian from him.

Jin Ling and his many inheritances

With that in mind, I can't see Jin Ling taking up Hensheng either. I also see it as thematically incoherent for him to use a weapon called "hatred for life," when his arc is about struggling with past events to work towards forgiveness.

He's not in the same situation as Jin Guangyao. He grew up in peacetime, as the heir to a wealthy sect, and his guardians loved him and supported him and were able to protect him. He just doesn't need to be as well-armed—emotionally or literally—as Jin Guangyao or Jiang Cheng.

(It also occurs to me that both Zidian and Hensheng are barriers to physical closeness. Hensheng is worn concealed in the wearer's clothes and Zidian is worn as jewelry—trauma functions as a barrier to closeness and intimacy. You can ALWAYS zap or stab a motherfucker if they get too close to you, which is good in unsafe situations and bad, emotionally, if you live like that forever. It's important that Jin Ling doesn't have to do that!)

Anyway this is why I hate this concept for thematic reasons, especially when Jin Guangyao did explicitly arm and protect Jin Ling—with Fairy, who is capable of discernment, who is a source of love and support, and not with a "hatred for life."

Although Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng's combined parental efforts were, uh, a little idiosyncratic, it seems like they were both trying to be mindful of what they passed on to their shared nephew. Jin Ling is a spoiled brat but also a very good and forgiving and brave little guy! He is so much more secure than either of them were basically ever in their lives! He doesn't need to resort to resentment or to Hensheng. (Thematically. For practical, in-text purposes, he doesn't need them because Jiang Cheng is still around and will kill anyone who touches a hair on his head. I'm sure Wei Wuxian would also be happy to help.)

TL;DR it is really important thematically that Jin Guangyao did not transfer his hatred for life to Jin Ling, who, along with Lan Sizhui, is part of the novel's hope for the future. Jin Guangyao looked at his nephew and he gave him a puppy (who can protect him AND love him) instead.

[pistatsia]

so thoughts on kaiser's... can't stand white drinks sentence?

Hi anon! Sorry for the late response

Ignoring possible ordinary lactose intolerance and my fractured by the "Kaiser and Ness, Ness and Kaiser" psyche, I'm betting on the…

Church. Take me to the church

(just in case - I'm an atheist and very poorly educated about religions, so I apologize if there are any inaccuracies here)

First of all, why would Kaiser be connected to religion? In addition to @echari3 stunning post here, where she draws some amazing parallels we have:

Kaiser's name itself is "Michael, God-given."

White is a color traditionally associated with Christianity, churches, praying, and faith;

The Bible is directly related to obedience.

Also? The Bible and the scriptures themselves are associated with milk.

Highlighting the main point from several articles I've read, the Bible is associated with milk both directly (in the religious scriptures) and indirectly consistently declaring the following (you can read the quotes from the Bible and scriptures here, and I'll just summarize below):

According to the Bible, one who is fed with milk is undeveloped and weak;

"I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. And you still aren't ready," - Letters of Paul to the Corinthians 3:2;

A baby does not eat bread, a baby does not eat meat, a baby does not eat anything at all but milk. And the Bible associates man with the baby, whom it teaches its dogmas;

And finally, we come to a conclusion:

Milk is the word of God. And believers who comprehend it are helpless infants.

And what could a man like Kaiser, who by his own words used to be a weak and easily submissive and surrendering person, hate the most?

Helplessness.

The Bible and religious writings teach in many ways precisely submission and humility. Don't take more than you need, give to everyone who asks of you and to the one who took yours, don't demand anything back, give the other cheek and so on.

And little Kaiser, who grew up in a very religious family (most likely obsessed with religion enough to even give him a name associating him with a god), couldn't have known any different. Children are easiest to control until they reach the age of transition - but once they do, they learn to think critically and question authority and the order of the house. If you follow my theory, then noticing this disobedience his family could have pressed on him even harder …

But Kaiser, with his incredibly strong character, did not obey, but instead resisted even more strongly - putting all of his rage, anger, and resentment into it.

You wanted me to be kind and merciful?

Then I will destroy.

You wanted me to be a god?

Then I will be the devil.

[magpod-confessions]

I really strongly associate the song "Take Me To War" by The Crane Wives with Gertrude Robinson. I know that she's not angry enough for it to really make any sense but I love it so much.

Like I swear this doesn't come from a place of misunderstanding her character, I know that a big part of her is *not* being particularly angry and having this calmly ruthless for the greater good attitude. I'm just capable of ignoring the really angry parts of that song and associating it with her?

Like the whole "I watched a weed usurp the garden and it poisoned the rest of the crops" verse feels a little bit like it's about Emma and Gertrude's reaction to her betrayal but it feels even more like it's about Gertrude's general okay-ness with collateral damage in a way thats so incredibly fitting. And "I'll be the sweetest thing to ever scare you" sounds like her with both Gerry and Micheal.

And obviously "I've built myself the reputation that my bark is much worse than my bite" works really well for how it her lifetime Gertrude spends a lot of time leveraging how she seems harmless to people. Both through her actively faking that and people just assuming a little old lady will be harmless. And that continues after her death even if it's no longer her actively perpetuating that idea.

And "There's no god to award me a crown"???? That's SO GOOD for how much she tries to avoid embracing the Eye even when she's in the role of Archivist. Like yes admittedly Gertrude does have a god but it's a pretty big part of her character how she's

A) aware of the risk of being consumed by the Eye and

B) seemingly not very drawn to either knowledge for its own sake or hurting people with the Eye

Like. I know this song is too angry for her but dear god it works so well in other ways.

*I also think it's an s5 Martin song, but that doesn't feel like a confession worthy take because it works with much less glaring complications and he actually is angry. And he also has a lot more of the underdog helplessness that the song is about while Gertrude spends more time feeling in control. So like. S5 Martin is my good take for that song, Gertrude is my bad take.

.

[cationicflood]

“I’m scared of you already, and I’m not even real.”

This quote from Brain Ghost Dirk never did get much follow-up, I think. Many of us certainly don’t think of Jake English as one of the scarier characters in Homestuck do we? One of the sillier ones maybe, or one of the more tragic ones.

So, for a change of pace I’m taking this opportunity to voice ideas about how Jake could be portrayed as someone to be respected and even feared in fanworks, someone who wields the kind of power that makes people think twice about getting into his bad books. And why not? The seeds for it are there, even if undeveloped. In canon alone we’ve seen him do the following at full power:

Destroy a sizeable section of Derse as angels coalesce out of the raw Hope he’s putting out uncontrollably

No-sell grimbark Jade’s Witch of Space / First Guardian powers

Make his mental image of Dirk real, complete with corny movie references the real Dirk would never use

(Possibly) copy Prince of Heart powers for said imaginary friend to use. [Inconclusive, might just be a Dirk-splinter thing.]

No-sell godtier Caliborn’s clockwork majyyks — the rainbow flashing aura so associated with god tier resurrections, mating cherubs, and especially Lord English

It isn’t much to go off of, but the sheer destructive power of Jake’s Hopesplosion, as well as how his power is able to hold its own with (and handily dunk on) the rawest energies associated with Space and Time themselves, seems to indicate there’s a wonderful, terrible, blazingly bright abyss at the core of the Page of Hope if you dig far down enough. The only catch seen so far is in how much control Jake had over his powers on both known occasions — none in the arc leading up to Game Over, and up for debate during the Masterpiece showdown against Caliborn. That only raises a question fanwork is free to explore: what happens when Jake finally gets a grip on this awe-inspiring power?

Post-canon furnishes something else interesting regarding Jake, in HS:BC’s second May 2024 upd8. In a fit of righteous rage where candy Jake finally gets to go off on candy Jane, he mentions that Tavvy Crocker has been free of his peanut allergy since he was 13, and the panel and pesterlog where he explains how it happened strongly suggests Jake’s desperate wish for his son to be cured of it came true. This is an unconscious use of his Aspect’s power just like the time he started glowing while dancing with candy John, but this one is long-lasting, and possibly permanent. Far from being mere illusion with solidity (as some might propose by citing Brain Ghost Dirk faltering in existence as Jake’s Hope field dissipated in the pre-Game Over arc), the implication is that Jake English has the potential to be a full-fledged reality warper just by believing hard enough in what he wants.

This is why I want to see the scope of Jake’s powers — the very potential that scared Brain Ghost Dirk months before Jake ever reached the godtiers — explored in fanwork. How does someone like Jake grapple with that kind of power, whether within his active grasp or eluding his reach in unconscious use?

Give me a Jake that has shades of Haruhi Suzumiya to him, able to change reality without him realizing it just by wanting something so hard that paradox space obliges.

Give me a Jake conscious and fearful of the danger he poses with his powers, fleeing into solitude on instinct because he’s scared of hurting others if he lashes out — because after all hasn’t he done it before? Couldn’t he do it again?

Give me a Jake who treats the awesome power of Hope as a godly nuclear deterrent, who keeps the peace on Earth C with the threat of unleashing all the terrible things his movie-and-comics-saturated imagination could conjure up.

Give me a Jake who revels in newfound nigh-unlimited power after so long feeling powerless, and who sets about remaking his corner of the world — or perhaps the entire world — in his image. And why not stop at just one planet? Why not go further beyond? Won’t it be a grand adventure, perhaps even The Ultimate Adventure?

Fittingly for one of his aspect, there’s endless possibilities to work with, so many ways things could play out.

[alovelyburn]

There are Thoughts that I don't have the language to vocalize about how Guts and Griffith have very clear animal imagery. But I feel like said imagery is also often used to highlight moments when they're losing their humanity. It's not just 'Guts is loyal, and that's why he's associated with dogs!' It's 'whenever Guts is losing himself to battle and dark emotions, the helmet of his Berserker armor is hiding his face'.

And like. That's not the only thing. There's also stuff like, the entire time Griffith is at his lowest, between his imprisonment and the Eclipse, his face is never shown. Then he becomes Femto and his mask kind of, becomes part of his face. And then I saw a post about how when Guts thinks about Griffith, there are times when he remembers Griffith's face, and other situations where he only visualizes the mask with nothing beneath it. Only when Griffith is 'reborn as a human' again do we start seeing his face again, and it's largely been with no mask to cover it.

I remember you've done a lot of analysis about Berserk analyzing the positives and negatives of 'humanity'. Humanity is not portrayed as an inherently good thing, it's tied up with a lot of negativity and messiness. But shedding your humanity is kind of. Cowardly? Or not cowardly but. It's not better? It's something the Godhand do because their negative emotions are so overpowering that they freeze their emotions rather than deal with it. And even reborn as a human, Griffith claims his heart is still frozen (even if it's implied he's not being entirely truthful or accurate.)

But? Just? Humanity themes. And animal symbolism. And animal symbolism being also strongly associated with Griffith and Guts' flaws. Griffith is a falcon because of his soaring ambition, but his ambition created troublesome situations. Guts is a dog but this is first introduced with parallels between him and the dog that followed Gambino around, and later the Beast of Darkness takes the form of a dog.

And! I feel like there is a thing! There is more stuff to analyze here! But I cannot summarize it in a pithy thesis. And also have not read/studied Berserk enough times to. Crystallize. It. I think it's maybe cool though.

Okay there's a lot to unpack here, so bear with me. Also... I'm never going to use Falcon, I'm sorry, I just can't, lmao.

First! Berserk absolutely goes all in on animal themes, particularly for Guts and Griffith but some of the side characters get these references as well, e.g. Charlotte is a duck, Isidro is a monkey, and Casca I think was recently referred to as a red raven. In most cases it seems to primarily just be a comment on the character's personality (remains to be seen with Casca). But in Guts and Griffith's case I think it's often used to demarcate the place where their full self is vs. their... primal pieces? For lack of a better term.

What I mean is, Griffith himself is a complex human being full of virtues and flaws and loves and hates and self-doubts and confidence and fear, etc. His ambition, his ruthlessness, his general loftiness are parts of him, but only parts. The Hawk, even when he's still human, is more of an embodiment of his high vision, his ambitions and his ruthlessness - he sees everything from above, he aims for the sky, and he is a bird of prey.

When he becomes Femto part of what's happening is that the parts of him that soft and messy and human become buried (or removed, or frozen) and what's left is The Hawk - in both its most malevolent and most aspirational forms. When he's at his absolute worst, his face is obscured by shadow and all you see is the Hawk as represented by his helmet (or "helmet" in Femto's case).

The thing about his low point (post torture-pre eclipse) that's interesting to me is that, yes his face is largely obscured, but the parts you do see are the most expressive parts - his eyes, his mouth - and what's obscuring his face is no longer the helmet that represents the Hawk, but a mockery of that helmet. If you want to really read into it, you could say that his being literally locked into a cruel imitation of his iconic helmet represents where his head is at and, unfortunately, his ultimate fate. Because while he is trying (with some success tbh) to adjust to his new situation, he's still unable to fully release the image of what he was (as shown by his wanting to be dressed in his old armor, and his repeated attempts to step back into that role by grabbing a sword, or by comforting/coming on to Casca depending on how you read that scene).

And ultimately he never does let it go - instead, he just gets rid of all the things that aren't that image,

The Dog imagery with Guts is very similar although obviously it's been more explicit during his human periods and hasn't gone as far/eaten him. Guts is like a feral animal in some ways but also like a domesticated dog in other ways - he has unconditional love and loyalty to those who give him the affection and attention he craves. I'll also point out that mistreated dogs are also infamously loyal to the abusers, I'm looking at you Gambino. Even with Griffith he's unable to let go of the love and loyalty, it just changes form.

So, like Griffith, Guts himself is a complicated person, but there's also the Dog in him - currently manifested as the Beast of Darkness. More than any other part of Guts, it's the Beast that urges him to forget all the other things that he cares about and throw himself wholly into the obsessive pursuit of Griffith - a demonstration of the same love and loyalty he always had in its most extreme/twisted form. And like Griffith, the implied threat is that if his spirit breaks, the beast inside him will eat him alive, devour everything that isn't Itself, and leave him inhuman. Honestly the Beast's thing about Griffith isn't much different than say, post-Eclipse Griffith's focus on his vision and ambition - they're both pumped up to extremes, the biggest difference is that Guts is still fighting it and Griffith is long gone (unless something changes).

And, of course, as you pointed out, when Guts is at his most feral, his face just disappears into his animal-motif helmet which, you know. Griffith echoes.

Which brings me to the thing about whether giving up one's humanity is portrayed as a bad thing. I think...

Okay, I'm sure 90% of people will disagree with me, but my main impression is that giving up one's humanity is portrayed as neither a good or bad, right or wrong decision but rather a very human decision.

Because it happens when a person has reached the point of no return - the abyss of true despair from which there is no return. It's the part in a survival story where people kill and eat the weak to survive. Not to be gross about it, but when you put a person into a situation where their only choice is to do something that would, in most circumstances, be absolutely reprehensible... they will usually choose to do the thing. And while a lot of people deny it, studies suggest that most of them are wrong, because most of them would.

Even so, when the survivors of a shipwreck come back into human civilization but they're the survivors because they ate their cabinboy, what does society think of those people?

It's not that dissimilar from the way people react to Sacrifices honestly - there is a recognition that the choice was understandable, but also a repulsion that the choice was made.

I chose those circumstances specifically because it really happened - in 1884, Edwin Stephens and Tom Dudley, who had survived a shipwreck, killed and ate their cabinboy to survive... and they did survive. But while the courts recognized the necessity, the attitude was basically, regardless of that you should've just died because some things are unforgivable regardless of the circumstances.

Anyway that's a bit of a ramble to get around to this: the sacrifice of one's own humanity in that moment is a result of that humanity, and the way they're viewed thereafter is analogous to the way actual people who do extreme things in extreme circumstances tend to be viewed. The fact that they often don't actually lose all of their humanity sort of bears this out: going all the way back to the Slug Count, Puck calls him out on being, rather than free of his humanity, just incredibly human - which he proves by being unable to kill Theresia. I'll never forget the Egg of the Perfect world and how he sorted through all the disposed corpses and laid them out one at a time or the way Rosine tried to save her best friend from her painful life. Even the way Ganishka is still driven by his bone-deep terror even when he's one of the most powerful beings in the world. They are, as Daiba says, hated and hating, but in the end they still act to protect humanity and the world they inhabit.

Godhand are a little different - just based on what we know about Griffith and Void's motivations it seems as though their stories are far more extreme in every way - their suffering is more prolonged and profound, their sacrifices are bigger and more destructive, their impact is incalculable. But like apostles, they try to escape their humanity, but they still carry its scars.

Hopefully that was coherent.

It's funny because, to me at least, Griffith's choice comes after such an extreme battery of suffering that I frankly find it more understandable than someone sacrificing their wife because she's an orgy-having heretic.

[marrowcrunch]

What are your top 3 favorite vtm clans (or bloodlines)?

Bonus: which clan do you think you'd fit in with? :3c

Oh boy, this is going to be long lol

Favorite: Tzimisce 

Gosh, what a surprise :O

But yeah. I mean, firstly, the cool factor is undeniable. It's always such a joy designing Tzimisce characters because even toeing the strictest borderlines of canon they're allowed to get real weird with it in a way that most other clans aren't. I don't mean this as hate at all so I hope it doesn't come across like that, all clans are beautiful <3 but if you're playing Ventrue, Brujah, Tremere etc to some degree you'll always just be playing as Some Guy. With a Tzim it’s like…Do you want some sick-ass bone blades on your arms? No problem! Another pair of arms to put more bone blades on? Sounds good! Do you want to be bioluminescent like a squid? Great! Go crazy! 

Second: Full disclosure, I am the “My fursona is my TWOO SELF” flavor of furry. And the idea of having near total freedom of form— to be able to give myself a tail, claws, fangs, horns, [long censor beep], whatever I want, to abandon my human shape, fills me with Yearning. 

In the complete opposite direction, I also find personal meaning in the clan as someone who suffers from chronic pain. Shamelessly copy-pasting a reply to another post: 

The flavoring of Vicissitude as a creeping infection, as the actual body of the Eldest spread from generation to generation, able to rise up and consume its bearers at any moment, resonates with me very deeply as someone whose pain is caused by congenital tissue defects and which will inevitably get worse over time.

The idea that…there’s something horrible lurking inside your body. It can’t be cured. It can’t be removed. It is part of the very fabric of your being. And it is going to eat you alive, it is going to eat and eat until there’s nothing left. That no matter how you struggle, eventually it’s going to win. But you struggle anyways, because what the hell else is there to do?

The clan also has its revenant families, who are all collectively my most Specialist Little Guy in the world. I am a huge sucker for ye old trope of Special Family Bloodline Technique, and they scratch that itch for me in a really fun and interesting way. 

Second favorite: Giovanni. I actually don't have any deep reasons for this one, I just think that “fucked up necromancer vampire crime family” is such a fun concept lol. I like organized crime stories. It's also another one for the “bloodline technique” category— in v20, they even have their own associated revenant family, the Rossellinis! 

Third favorite: Salubri. The vibe I get is that they’re deeply underappreciated because people feel like their designation in both fluff and crunch as “the nice ones” means that they’re boring and clash with Masquerade’s overall tone. But I STRONGLY disagree— I think that's exactly what gives them so much potential for the sort of personal, existential horror that is supposed to be at the heart of Masquerade. I actually want to write a much longer post sometime that really gets into why, but part of it is this— being a magical pacifist unicorn prancing in a sunny flower field isn't “horrifying,” but being a magical pacifist unicorn in a dark forest where the only other animals are wolves that want to eat your face sure is. I also think the contrast between mainline (healer) Salubri and Salubri antitribu is a really rich thematic vein— again, I want to write more on this later. 

Bloodline lightning round:

Ahrimanes: Cat-themed woman power. I like the concept of Gangrel in tune with the spiritual elements of nature. Spirits in World of Darkness are fun because they can be anything. 

Ventrue antitribu: Knights in modern settings are cool.

However, if the question was “Which clan are you most like?” instead of “What's your favorite”, the answer is far and away Toreador. I love making art, and while I mostly just write now because my body has kind of fallen apart, I used to dabble in a bunch of different mediums and loved them all. That and I already do the “oh that flower/painting/ random pattern of light on the wall is really pretty *zones out and stares at it*” thing in real life lol so that would just be business as usual. If I couldn't be a Meat Criminal this is actually the clan I'd choose to be embraced into. 

Thanks for giving me a chance to talk :)

[ai-the-broccoli]

The Resignation and Resistance of Yukika Nanase, an analysis

Last Friday (September 29th, 2023) was the 15th of the Eighth Month in the lunar calendar, which is the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival/Chuseok/Tết Trung Thu/Tsukimi/Uposatha, festivals strongly associated with the autumn moon in Asian countries.

Since I happened to have some ThoughtsTM and writings on Yukika Nanase (whose release event, "Otsukimi is After an Elegant Tea Party" was about, well, [O]tsukimi, and who's got a lot to do with Yukika in general), I thought this might be a really good excuse for me to finally officially begin posting on Tumblr! So...

Here is the first one out of a few (perhaps?): a little something I first wrote earlier this year, though now refined, organized, and extended by... maybe over 5 times its original length, for posting on here.

(official CG of the full moon, as it's depicted in the Yukika-narrated event Otsukimi. why exactly there is a rainbow around it is solely up to interpretation)

You may or may not be aware that Yukika Nanase is one of my favorite characters and main blorbos in Magia Record, and while I'm sure personal preference (and her being Relatable™️ for me) counts for a good part of it as it usually does, I would personally argue that she is also just an exceptionally intriguing character in general.

Typically, the fandom at large seems to view Yukika as a daredevil ojou-sama of sorts and some thrill-seeking gambler (and a character that her designer Masugitsune really likes), etc, etc. Now, it's clear where that image comes from, and by no means is it totally off either, but once you really get around to watching or reading any of her stories, you basically immediately see an entirely different side to her than what you might've assumed from her fandom reputation. almost like... the back side of the moon, so to speak

Now, in the canon story content itself, Yukika is often treated as a somewhat comedic character by the narrative, especially in stories where she's not the main protagonist. By no means is this a complaint or a criticism: Elements of comedy don't make a character any less well-written (unless said comedy is implemented in a way that's ineffective or distracting, but that's another matter entirely), and with Yukika in particular I've found that she often works with comedy excellently.

Besides, the fact she often has a comedic-ish role is largely in line with (and partly because of) Yukika's own extremely effacing perception and framing of herself—however, it also makes it quite easy for one to simply completely overlook her own emotional complexities and problems, both in-universe and among fans in the community. Which is fair, even she herself does it! ...But I do want to draw attention to it here, since it's an aspect of her that's quite interesting to me.

So today I'm going to talk about... Yukika's fatalistic mindset and her mental health.

Long informal analysis under the cut:

[cw: major spoilers for most Yukika-related stories, vague reference to Ashen Revolution's themes and motifs (nothing actually spoilery aside from AR's short very first opening section, which will be directly quoted), clinical discussion of mental health issues, mention of addiction]

A Magical Girl who has lived without ever straying from the rails laid out for her since childhood. Raised as a young lady, she is able to handle everything with ease, but her self-esteem is extremely low because of all the talented ladies who surround her. Though she was fed up with the boring life she was leading, her life has taken a sharp turn since she became a Magical Girl, and now she is constantly caught up in trouble.

Yukika's Extraordinary Everyday Life

If you're already familiar with any of her canon stories (or have read her official character description above), you must know that Yukika's "main thing" is that she's always involved in all kinds of trouble on an extremely frequent basis.

Like almost any other playable character in MR, she has her moments™️ (and, the fact that she is in constant stress and anxiety due to the passive effect of her wish; when nothing is wrong she keeps worrying something is about to go wrong in no time and she apologizes for it in advance, and when something is wrong, she blames herself for no matter what it is and tries to take responsibility at top speed), but overall Yukika seems generally surprisingly "fine" as in, we pretty much never see her get into any particularly negative emotional outbursts over anything, at all. Despite all the troublesome situations that she never stops finding herself in, she seems decently adjusted and stable (that is, "stable" on the grand scale of things, since everyday instability is her stability), at least among the MR girls we know.

But when you look into why that is the case, you'll kind of see that it's because Yukika actually has her own unique sense of a fatalistic mindset—in that, typically speaking, (there are some notable exceptions, such as when she made her wish) she completely accepts the state of herself and the state of her life as they are, even though they are by no means what she genuinely sees as ideal.

For instance:

[Though with all that said, I am, so to speak, in the role of "Villager A". - Yukika]

Yukika: (As I was one of many “Black Feathers”...) Yukika: (I didn't have any desire to advance and become a White Feather someday.) Yukika: (Because those White Feathers who manage the Black Feathers are more suited to shining...) Yukika: Yes, like the pride of Mizuna Girls Academy, Akatsuki Tsukuyo-senpai…! Yukika: Even in Mizuna Ward, where many wealthy families produce polished children, Akatsuki-senpai is a genuine charm... Yukika: ...Just like the full moon. Yukika: (While I get saddled with Student Council Officer duty almost every year because I seem "sort of" ladylike, whatever that means...) Yukika: (Akatsuki-senpai has an aura leagues above mine.)

she looks weirdly happy in the last two (pretty self-deprecatory) lines here and then goes on to talk about how her presence is so faint that Akatsuki-senpai still doesn't know she's a Magical Girl yet, whi— ANYWAY I digress

From this early part of Otsukimi, we see that Yukika has a crush on Tsukuyo (for legal reasons this is completely? a joke) a pretty set idea of what her "role" in this world is supposed to be (i.e. she has a "fixed mindset", as some may call it, as opposed to a "growth" one), and that is the role of a "Villager A"—basically meaning an NPC character, to put it in more common terms.

Yukika: (Looking for a substitute for Akatsuki-senpai and being mistaken for Akatsuki-senpai…) Yukika: (Despite her absence from beginning to end, she's got the sense of presence of a true protagonist!) Yukika: (It's getting more impossible by the second for a minor role like me to pretend to be her...)

And this attitude is very telling of her outlook on life as a whole.

Student Council President: That’s right. Will you accept? Yukika: Please leave it to me. Yukika: Our already-busy President shouldn't have to deal with this kind of hassle. Yukika: As the lowliest Student Council Officer, I think that I'm the right person for the job. Girl A: ...Oh, I’ll help you too! Student Council President: Thank you, it’ll be a huge help. Yukika: By "the lowliest Student Council Officer", I mean the Student Council Chore Officer, of which one is selected from each class. Yukika: My job is to gracefully prepare the tea in the student council room, help pour the tea for the exchange parties, and so on. Yukika: ...That's a tremendously misleading description, of course. Yukika: But in short, since it's hardly comparable to the Student Council President, who's elected by the whole school, and the Class President, who's elected from her class's honor students... Yukika: The job naturally gets foisted on me, the vaguely cultured-ish girl with no aura and hardly any presence!

From her rank in the Wing of the Magius as a "lowly Black Feather", to her duty in the student council as the "Student Council Chore Officer", Yukika views her roles and positions of insignificance as essentially predetermined things that she—as a self-perceived NPC figure—is simply matched for by nature; and she never even considers the idea of breaking out of this status quo, because, to her, it is simply a fact of life.

and you may notice this in the way Yukika presents/frames things—anything—in general, too; she's basically got an attitude of "ah well, of course, things are how they are; now let me deal with it so it doesn't trouble anyone else" toward basically everything, ever.

This brings me to my next point...

A Bunny Caught in the Tracks of Orbit

Yukika: Speaking of the moon, I used to wonder when I was a kid... Yukika: When the moon faces the Earth, it only shows the side with the rabbit and its mochi. Yukika: Why doesn’t it show the “other face” on it’s back? Yukika: According to my physics teacher, this is because the moon’s cycle of “revolution” and “rotation” is the same. Yukika: It’s apparently quite common in space. Yukika: (I don’t know what the standard of “common” is in space, but...) Yukika: Ah... I am Yukika Nanase, a first-year student at Mizuna's Girls Academy and a Magical Girl. Yukika: Yes, I am one of those who reluctantly set foot into the world of Magical Girls— Yukika: the "other side" of common sense, that most people will live their lives without ever knowing.

(excerpt from the start of Otsukimi, slightly condensed for format)

It is very clear from Yukika's Magical Girl attire that she's associated with rabbits/bunnies—partly for the casino aesthetics, partly for the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reference, and partly because of the Moon, which is heavily associated with rabbits in Japanese culture. Namely, there is the legend of the moon rabbit, a mythical creature said to live on the moon, as Yukika herself references in the excerpt above.

Now, the next part is going to look like a bit of a stretch if taken to be actual speculation of canon, but to be clear that is not my intention; it is merely a connection I made/similarity I noticed, and I figured it would be interesting to bring up.

(...Actually that does remind me, I should probably clarify here that this entire analysis is, in fact, of my own personal interpretations of the content presented in the game itself, rather than what I theorize to be the deliberate intention of the writers.)

With that out of the way, let's look at the opening section of Ashen Revolution:

Rabi: We can never stop the never-ending movement of the starry sky. Urara: However much I practice, I can never defy the gravitational pull drawing the diabolo. Alexandra: No matter how much I raise my voice, without this atmosphere, my melody will never resonate. Asahi: Yes, we are forever under the control of the unseen. Asahi: Like this rabbit, it lost its life at the hands of my unseen self. Asahi: Everything is made by the natural order, and being at the mercy of it is a fate we must resign ourselves to...

I won't go into details about AR here since on a technical level Yukika is entirely unrelated to it, but it is an event about the struggle of Magical Girls, who help people in secret but remain completely unknown, unacknowledged, and not understood. Which...

compare Yukika's previously quoted monologue, in which she compares the world of Magical Girls, which "most people will live their lives without ever knowing", to the backside of the moon.

Coincidentally, Yukika's own character is also all about helping people in the background and never ever being acknowledged (to a higher degree than the average MR girl). Relatedly, she also notably possesses a level of figurative invisibility/unseenness similar to the AR girls, through her entire recurring "faint presence" thing.

So, as seen in the AR excerpt above, the rabbit motif is used to demonstrate their helplessness in the hands of fate—or in their specific case, "fate" as in what they perceive to be the "Will of the Universe".

Well, funnily enough…

[Yes, I believe it's all due to the Great and Terrible Will of the Universe... - Yukika]

Yukika: (Here it is, the new hassle..!) Yukika: (The schedule has returned to a blank slate…) Yukika: (Rather, things have actually gotten worse thanks to the passage of time.) Yukika: (How can I put this? It’s as if...) Yukika: (It's as if some great and terrible will of the universe is at work,) Yukika: (and is specifically targeting me and creating trouble.)

…alright, so this is 99.1% a coincidence, especially because the two terms don’t use the same word for “will of the universe” in the original Japanese text, but it’s pretty crazy nonetheless.

In any case, the themes of fate and fortune are indeed actually heavily featured in Yukika’s own character. There’s her gambling motif as seen in her story, design, and gameplay alike, and her entire “keeps getting caught up in troublesome matters” thing, which is the result of her wish.

And how does she see it?

Girl A: Wouldn’t that mean you’d have more work? Yukika: Please don’t worry. Yukika: Dealing with trouble is my fate. Girl A: …Fate? Yukika: Ah, nothing! Let’s hurry! Girl A: Yeah, got it! Yukika: (Yes, I am involved in trouble on a daily basis.) Yukika: (It’s the “fate” that has been decided for me ever since I became a Magical Girl.)

"Fate". Once again, we see a certain degree of fatalism in Yukika's worldview, especially in regard to herself. Rather than a choice she's made on her own, she sees her behavior/self-imposed duty of helping everyone out as the luck of the draw, something that is "decided for" her.

And this part is extremely significant because it offers us a particularly revealing look into her mindset:

The truth is, in spite of everything she goes out of her way to do daily in order to resolve trouble and help/save other people, without actually being forced to do any of that by anything or anyone, Yukika sees literally all of those actions as passive acts rather than something she's doing out of her own free will (and isn't actually obliged to do, really)—because, no matter what she does she only thinks of it as the predetermined consequences of her own choice, for these issues are always the fault of the wish she personally made (or so she thinks), thus the responsibility to resolve them naturally always falls on her shoulder, which is why there's really never anything to brag about about this, according to Yukika.

As for why and how she made such a wish in the first place, that is explained to us in her MSS:

Yukika: …I do think that I was blessed in many ways during my upbringing. Yukika: But one day, um… In spite of all that luxury, Yukika: when I thought of how from then on, rather than moving forward with my own strength, Yukika: I would instead be riding the train toward the future on the tracks built by my parents, Yukika: I started to feel like I wasn’t really “living” at all…

Not necessarily relevant, but for a bit of a linguistic context, the word for “tracks” (in the sense of “rails; train tracks”) and the word meaning “orbit” (as in the trajectory of a celestial body around another; the curved course of a satellite) is the same word in Japanese (and various other languages. Which makes sense, since even the English term “orbit” was derived from the Latin word “orbita” meaning “tracks; course”); hence my title for this section. anyway this ties into the motif of gravity as seen in Urara's line above

Very interestingly, the original line here too explicitly uses train and train track imagery as a metaphor for the course of life and fate, similar to how it's used to symbolize these things in Kenji Miyazawa's The Night on the Galactic Railroad, and by extension Magia Record, which takes a lot from Miyazawa's works.

Speaking of which, that brings us to our next, largest, and final section...

A Thin Ice Between Life and Death

buckle up guys, it's got three parts

Pt. 1. The Rabbit with a Death Wish

Earlier on, I said Yukika accepts her life as-is, but really, she also fully accepts her death as-is. While her heart does desire to feel "alive", and it is for that, rather than any active desire to actually die, that she longs to be at the brink of death, it is... actually a bit worrying, how little she feels like she has to live for.

Well, let's look at the part in Otsukimi when she thought she was going to die to the powerful Witch:

Yukika: (Ah… There’s blood coming from my mouth. This is called hematemesis, right?) Yukika: (I'm... definitely a goner at this point.) Yukika: (But despite that... No, maybe because of that...?) Yukika: (My head's perfectly clear, and I'm getting tons of adrenaline.) Yukika: (Way more than when I bet all of the coins I have…) Yukika: (I feel like I’m alive!) Yukika: Hehe... Yukika: (...Wow. I must be kind of crazy.) Nanny Witch: …………!! Yukika: Kwaah…!! Yukika: Hehehe... I've got plenty where that came from! Yukika: ...Is what I'd like to boast right now. Yukika: But my battery is dead. [the image of Hotori and Rion flashes before her eyes] Yukika: (I’m going to die without being able to do anything…) Yukika: (I wonder if that unknown White Feather felt the same chagrin…) [the image of Hotori and Rion flashes before her eyes] Yukika: I’m sorry… Yukika: I won’t be seeing you two at the moon viewing party. Yukika: .............

...maybe it's just me, but it strikes me as unusual and almost alarming how little she seems to feel like she has to live for, you know? Like, Rion and Hotori are a pair of girls who she literally just met this afternoon. And they (and her not being able to defeat this threat on other people's lives) are somehow her biggest regrets.

And like, Yukika isn't just like this here. Whether you say it's for thrills or for other people's sake (it's usually initially the latter with the extra bonus of the former sometimes), she never even hesitates to put her life on the line. It's kind of sad, really.

This makes sense, though; this sort of attitude tracks perfectly with the abysmally low value she attributes to herself and her existence (again, in her eyes, she is literally just the most basic NPC ever, and who cares about what happens to a random NPC? well actually several people in this fandom do care, including me, but it's not like Yukika Nanase would know that).

In fact, let's look at the legend about the moon rabbit that I mentioned earlier. A quick online search would tell you that it's a mythical figure in East Asian and indigenous American folklore, based on pareidolic interpretations that identify the dark markings on the near side of the Moon as a hare or rabbit

As a side note, this is (accidentally?) fitting in the context of her own perceived "lowliness" (+ faint presence and all) against Tsukuyo's full moon-like brilliance... but I should probably leave that for another analysis oops (assuming I ever write one)

who (in East Asian folklore) pounds the elixir of life (according to Chinese and Vietnamese interpretations), or rice cakes such as the mochi (Japanese and Korean interpretations).

But how come the Moon Rabbit arrived on the Moon?

There's a story behind it that originates from Tale 316 of the Buddhist Jataka tales, and a derived version of it appears in the Japanese anthology, Konjaku Monogatarishū.

According to the Japanese folklore:

The rabbit, as well as the hare, have long been associated with moon deities, and may signify rebirth or resurrection. According to legend, an old man who lived on the moon decided to visit Earth. A group of animals saw what they thought was an old beggar who was starving. “Poor beggar, he looks hungry and has no food. Let us give him some food”. First, the monkey plucked some fruit from the trees. He brought the fruits and laid them in front of the old beggar. Next, the otter collected some fish and brought it to the old beggar. The jackal was too lazy to find something that the beggar could eat, so he caught the first animal he could - a lizard, and placed it in front of the old beggar, along with some water. The rabbit did not know what to get for the old beggar. He was not good at catching animals or fish, nor could he scale trees and get fruit. He only knew how to gather grass, but humans didn’t eat grass. Having nothing to offer, he sat in a corner unhappy. Suddenly he remembered that humans like to eat meat. So he got up happily, prepared a fire and jumped into it, having decided to cook himself for the unknown old man. The fire did not burn the rabbit! The old man revealed himself to be Sakra, the ruler of Gods. “You have been very kind and selfless.” he said to the rabbit. Touched by the rabbit’s selflessness and virtue, he drew the likeness of the rabbit on the moon. “Henceforth, for all ages, all those who will look at the moon, will see your shape in it and remember your kindness.

(the story of Tsuki no Usagi, from here. lightly adjusted for formatting and such)

Most versions of this myth have roughly the same story, with the identities of the rabbit's companions varying. Interestingly, the legends of Moon Rabbits among some indigenous cultures of North and Central America often tell an extremely similar story as well. For example:

According to an Aztec legend, the god Quetzalcoatl, then living on Earth as a human, started on a journey and, after walking for a long time, became hungry and tired. With no food or water around, he thought he would die. Then a rabbit grazing nearby offered herself as food to save his life. Quetzalcoatl, moved by the rabbit's noble offering, elevated her to the Moon, then lowered her back to Earth and told her, "You may be just a rabbit, but everyone will remember you; there is your image in light, for all people and for all times."

(from Wikipedia)

The Jakata version of the tale relates that this event took place on Uposatha, which is the same night as Tsukimi. And while it’s hard to say for certain that this was 100% a deliberate reference, it’s definitely not farfetched to connect this legend to what Yukika does on Tsukimi in her debut event, and in general.

Deeming herself a thoroughly unnoteworthy person with nothing special to offer, she's extremely willing to throw herself into anything from minor inconveniences to life-threatening dangers, as long as it's to help someone else. Because, as noted by Tsukasa and Mifuyu in her MSS...

Tsukasa: I mean, she says she’s "dragged into it" by the effect of her wish... Tsukasa: But really, isn’t she taking on this lost child of her own volition? Mifuyu: She’s the type of girl who could never leave someone in need alone, no matter what. Mifuyu: So, from her perspective, it’s the same as being dragged into things. Tsukasa: …What a kind girl.

...So, honestly, I have no doubt that she would have no hesitation in doing the same thing as the original Moon Rabbit did in the legend, had she been in his/its situation.

Yet the thing is, as Mifuyu analyzes above and according to Yukika's own words about "fate" prior, Yukika never sees what she does as anything exceptional because, in her eyes, she's only doing what she's naturally supposed to do, and what she probably (incorrectly) assumes to be what anyone in her circumstances would also do. Thus, she never sees any merit in those actions and she refuses to take credit for them, trying to remain in the background because she firmly believes that's just where she belongs by nature. but more on her self-effacement next time.

Now, onto the secondary reason she's eager to throw herself into danger:

Her thrill-seeking instinct.

Though it's a well-known fact about Yukika that she is quite a reckless gambler, have you ever wondered...

Why is she like this in the first place?

Pt. 2. The Psychology of an Ennuyé Bunny

in which I accidentally turned the analysis post into a psych diagnosis of a mostly unspecified mental condition I swear as a distinctly not STEM person I went out of my way to do scientific research this time, please bear with it if you don't mind

Of course, there's a canon explanation for this in Yukika's MSS, where it is discussed.

Tsukasa: …medal games? Yukika: When I abandon myself in an all-or-nothing, do-or-die game, I can forget for a moment about my boring daily life. Yukika: So… going to the arcade after school to play medal games became a hobby of mine. Yukika: I even secretly bought a casino set, and now stare at it at home every night…  Mifuyu: …Your escape from reality, I see. Yukika: Exactly. Tsukasa: If that’s the worst you can do, then you really are a true lady.

(Seen in her MSS and personal memoria, this is the casino set she secretly keeps in her closet but only ever stares at, without actually doing anything with it.)

As Mifuyu puts it, Yukika finds in small acts of gambling an escape from her boring reality, and as she said in her wish, what she wanted was "the feeling of being alive".

This is, statedly, due to her boredom* more on this later from following a predetermined life path (hence her wish being an act of defiance against fate, one which she is shown to be deeply ashamed of), but also...

...you know how substance abuse, excessive gambling, and other forms of addictions often co-occur with mental health issues?

Yeah.

In many such cases, said addiction can be the consequence as well as the cause of these issues

because for people with symptoms of depression, anxiety, executive dysfunction (and any other kind of stress or motivation issues, etc.), activities like alcohol and gambling provide them with a temporary source of ease, escape, and/or brain chemicals of the likes of catecholamines* see explanation later, any of which they might lack otherwise.

Besides, executive dysfunction (which is seen in many different mental conditions) can also mean worse inhibition control in both thoughts and behavior, which makes people with executive function issues particularly susceptible to addiction to physiological-rewarding behaviors, in more ways than one.

So... while I'm not going to pin anything particularly specific on her (okay I lied I'll say here she clearly does show symptoms of general anxiety at least, even if that's solely induced by the effects of her wish and not something originally innate to her, but that's mildly beside the point here since I'm more talking about the cause of her wish instead of the consequence), I don't think it's that much of a stretch to speculate that Yukika might have a mental condition or two that contributed to her unbearable "boredom" with her routine everyday life at that time.

Many studies have shown that executive function problems (as seen in various different conditions including neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and ASD, or mood disorders such as depression and bipolar) may be caused by imbalances and deficits in certain key neurotransmitters, such as:

dopamine, and

noradrenaline (a.k.a. norepinephrine)

...both of which are among the 3 catecholamine hormones & neurotransmitters, alongside adrenaline a.k.a epinephrine.

for reference, common ADHD meds like amphetamine (Adderall, etc.) and methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, etc.) are often catecholamine analogs or serve the same function, that is to say, they're used to increase the amount of dopamine and noradrenaline released by the patient's adrenal glands.

You may have realized that this isn’t exactly the first mention of adrenaline in this post. Indeed, Yukika herself brought it up in the earlier excerpt from Otsukimi where she experiences a rush of adrenaline at death’s door.

Adrenaline and noradrenaline both fall under what's considered “stress hormones”. Along with dopamine, they're a big part of what activates the fight-or-flight response (or to put it in more medical terms, the "acute stress response") in a person, as the catecholamines increase heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, muscle strength, mental alertness and more.

Between the two, adrenaline is released by your body when you experience acute or chronic stress, in preparation to protect itself against real or perceived danger.

On the other hand, noradrenaline is continuously released into circulation at low levels, but the amount produced also increases in response to stress and fright.

(By the way, adrenaline is made from noradrenaline, and noradrenaline is made from dopamine.)

...Right, well, all this neuroscience stuff and I still haven't made my point yet. But basically, what I mean is that there's enough canon evidence for me to believe the odds are that Yukika Nanase is not precisely a neurotypical individual, no matter what her problem(s) actually is in exact.

This is evident in her...

Chronic boredom (sometimes synonymous with "ennui") prior to making her contract, indicative of a depleted reward system

Attraction toward gambling and other risky behaviors that act as stimuli and generate the release of catecholamines in her brain

Possession of a certain level of impulsivity, and engagement in reckless & risky activities

Novelty-seeking attitude and behavior

As previously discussed, those traits above are primarily observed in Yukika's wish, the circumstances and reasons behind her wish, and her thrill-chasing attitude and behavior, including her fondness for medal games.

Like, if you read what Biser Angelov says about the connection between ADHD and boredom (the article is about ADHD specifically, but you can apply this particular section's info to other conditions with cognitive dysfunction as well):

As you can see, the screenshotted paragraphs discuss similar ideas to what I've been talking about in this subsection, and I'm sure you can see from here how the situation described indeed applies to Yukika, especially with her state before her wish.

In addition, let's examine the psychology of a thrill seeker. Yukika fits the description of what we would call an "adrenaline junkie", being particularly into thrills and dangerous situations. But what exactly makes thrilling sensations so appealing to a so-called "adrenaline junkie"?

You may or may not have heard of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS), originally published by psychologist Marvin Zuckerman in 1964 as a measure of sensation seeking that encompasses and evaluates an individual’s personality traits of thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition, experience seeking, and susceptibility to boredom. A study about the brains of people with high scores on the SSS shows that under chaotic/dangerous/troublesome circumstances, these people tend to excrete less cortisol and more dopamine in response to the situations, compared to those who score low.

Now, cortisol is also a stress hormone, but it generally generates more feelings of what we actually consider "stress" compared to dopamine (and other catecholamines), which is instead more associated with feelings of pleasure and attention. So, during those highly chaotic experiences, those with a thrill-seeking constitution are more likely to feel good and elated instead of feeling burdened by stress, and the experiences thus become exciting to them rather than suffocating.

Considering the factors analyzed above, this might be the case for Yukika as well. If her brain suffered from a deficiency of catecholamines on mundane days but could produce much of those energizing neurotransmitters and hormones under stress and fright, it would explain why she enjoys high-risk/near-death experiences (and gambling) and finds being in chaotic troublesome situations to elevate a good portion of her boredom.

Moreover, the need for higher stimulation in children with executive dysfunction is backed by scientific research, according to this article on the link between ADHD and high-risk behavior.

Other studies (Zentall and Zentall 1983 and Douglas 1983) indicate that children with attention problems need a higher level of stimulation. According to the research, children with ADHD are under-aroused by dull or repetitive tasks and will seek out high-interest or high-risk activities to compensate. Further, (Farley 1981, 1985) children that are under-aroused will search for more intense activities and will be more open to different experiences. They will prefer complex tasks to simple tasks; will seek new and novel experiences that include the need for high energy and high risk. In short, Farley found that children with hyperactivity seek high stimulation. His recommendations for children with hyperactivity included modifications to education to include more interactive and creative experiences to provide the extra stimulation needed.

Many other scientific studies, such as this one conducted in 2021, have also proven that ADHD, a major symptom of which is executive dysfunction, is "uniquely linked to a pervasive pattern of engagement in risky behaviors", spanning across various domains, including gambling.

Moving on, Yukika also has the tendency to:

Ramble a lot (in her head and otherwise) while jumping from one topic to the next, sometimes in ways that would be considered... whimsical?

Accidentally think aloud, or vocalize things that she has no intention of letting the other party hear about, without realizing it until she sees their reaction

Despite her own opinion, Yukika actually stands out to me as quite capable, intelligent, and resilient in various areas (especially when you consider how honestly difficult her everyday life is like).

That said, the way she thinks and talks does sometimes give off the impression of some sort of scatter-mindedness, and when we spend time in her head we see that Yukika kind of zones in and zones out of conversations sometimes because there’s always so much going on in her brain (partly thanks to her full awareness of her own trouble-attracting nature, but I kinda get the feeling she was probably kinda like that even before becoming a Magical Girl), causing her to blurt out to people things she doesn’t mean to tell them about at times.

There are several instances of this in Otsukimi, including the “dealing with trouble is my fate” comment she didn’t mean to let that random girl hear about in the earlier excerpt, and the Great and Terrible Will of the Universe remark (as seen in a previous screenshot) wasn’t meant for the Tea Ceremony Club’s leader’s ears either.

As for her erratic thought patterns in general, you can probably see the way her internal thoughts are always constantly racing throughout the entire event. In fact, one can just look at the very start of Otsukimi for an example. And in a different scene, we see Yukika suddenly wondering to herself, while very sincerely navigating the problems in an attempt to solve them:

Yukika: (This time, I’ll find the cause of the trouble!) Yukika: (I’ll definitely reveal it...) Yukika: (Just what the Great and Terrible Will of the Universe (Tentative Name) actually is!) Yukika: ………… Yukika: (I doubt it'd happen, but just imagine...) Yukika: (The moment I step into the old school building, everyone yells "Happy Birthday!",) Yukika: (and this mob of well-wishers swallows me whole.) Yukika: (If nothing else, please let me be spared the embarrassment of such a turn of events...) Yukika: (Ah, and maybe even Akatsuki-senpai is in the act.) Yukika: ...Yeah, I think not. Yukika: I mean, it's already past my birthday for starters...

...yeah. Doesn't particularly read like the thought process of a neurotypical kid to me, but hey, who knows, maybe that's just me.

Moreover, she also shows signs of:

Anxiety and restlessness (the former of which was either caused by her wish or marginally increased by it)

Low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, and (debatably) inappropriate guilt

...etc, etc.

Overall, I believe that more than sufficient evidence is present in canon for one to see Yukika as having one or more mental conditions that come with executive dysfunction, and interpret her behavior and thinking through such an explanation.

Pt. 3. The Girl Who Wants to Live

On a note directly related to my conclusion in Pt. 2, I'm going to take a moment to compare and contrast Yukika to one of her better friends, Yuuna Kaharu.

Now, I personally believe that Yukika is quite a parallel to Yuuna in various ways, and Yuuna in The Flower that Blooms in a Hollow Heart definitely reads to me as having depression. I'd say the parallel is most obvious (to me) in like, Yukika's "I feel like I'm not really alive because all I'm doing is living the boring luxurious life to the future that my parents planned for me" (Yukika MSS, paraphrased) vs Yuuna's "I'm an empty shell blessed by the lucky life handed by me by my parents on a golden plate, only living because I'm not dead yet" (Hollow Heart, also paraphrased).

Yukika and Yuuna are also character foils, however, in that Yuuna has an arc centered on growth and she is able to advance forward because she finds herself a clear and defined goal in Mami, whom she sees as a role model that she aims to become like one day. On the other hand, Yukika establishes right at the very start of Otsukimi that she had never any desire to advance upward, whether in WoM or in school, because it was supposedly people like Tsukuyo who were suited for such better roles, and to Yukika, that's simply how it is.

There is another striking difference between them, and that is that Yuuna is unabashed in taking credit for when she's done something good, whereas Yukika times and times again brushes off any help she's offered with an "oh it's nothing special / it's already over with so let's not talk about it" kind of attitude, because that's really just how she sees it.

As examined earlier, this is largely due to her low self-worth and her perception of everything as her own natural responsibility. The unfortunate thing is that this self-effacing attitude, on top of her already faint presence and all, makes her even more unnoticed and her deeds completely unacknowledged.

And then, by further preventing most people from recognizing Yukika and her efforts, it reinforces her mindset about her lowly faint presence and further contributes to her lack of self-worth, which in turn makes her value her life even less, altogether creating a vicious feedback loop.

Yukika speaks of having friends in class, but with the way she talks about it, they don't seem all that close to her and they're definitely not people she could fully open her heart to.

see the fact that she's very concerned that her classmates and school friends mustn't hear about her visits to the arcades; she is never really seen thinking much about them on-screen, going to them for help, or worrying about any particularly important school friend when the whole school is in trouble, etc.

In canon, there are like only three named characters who consistently notice Yukika and actively try to pay attention to and care about her (Rion & Hotori, later Yuuna), and none of them even go to the same school as her.

And because Yukika has this somewhat fatalistic mindset, no defined aims or goals in life, and effectively actively discourages people from noticing her, she is likely to just... stay this way, unlike Yuuna.

Like, Yukika is just a weirdly really static character in her default state. As someone who's tried to work with her as a major character in a story, it's honestly kind of crazy how I always absolutely have to throw her into some odd situation where another character actively tells Yukika that she (and she specifically) should try to change or grow, as long as I want to make her undergo any dynamic character development. Otherwise, her usual mentality typically completely blocks any possible self-development of the introspective kind from happening.

To me, there's something rather... subtly tragic(?) about this, but...

Yeah, so, I for one do believe that Yukika still has the quality for future growth. Not sure if it could happen in the game or not, but like, I do think that can still happen to her as a person. And more than that...

In spite of everything I've been saying up till this point, Yukika's core desire is "to live".

It's in the wish she made. It's why she chases excitement the way she does. Indeed, Yukika is relatively easily self-sacrificial as a result of the "low self-worth + too kind" combo and she seeks to experience the brink of death for a wholly different reason, but truly, her overall main subconscious drive is to feel alive.

And the most paradoxical thing here is the fact that her longing to experience a brush with death stems from her desire to live, rather than a desire to die; not only thanks to the catecholamines rush, but also because it is through the fact that the chance of death exists for one that their life is so meaningful. (or so goes my personal opinion, in any case)

After all...

Yukika: Wow... Student Council President: What do you think about it? Yukika: Yes... Yukika: I'm so glad to have been born on a planet with a moon! Student Council President: You… you're that moved by it? Yukika: Yes. Yukika: I thought that I wouldn't live to see it again. Student Council President: Okay…?? [...] Yukika: The same old face of the moon as always. The same boring world as always... Yukika: Tonight, they both shine brilliantly to me.

...

Even though her everyday life is tedious, her self-esteem dreadful, her mindset somewhat fatalistic, and something's up with her brain chemicals too...

Deep down in her heart, the thing Yukika Nanase truly wants is to be alive.

And I don't know about you but... man. I find that very moving, you know?

And...

That's all, folks!

This concludes my essay. Basically, my big main point is that Yukika is certainly one of the most characters of all time and should be cherished at all costs.

Thanks for reading this (very long) propaganda analysis post to the end, and I’ll see you next time o7

[drbased]

A lot of people who 'unlearn' their homophobia, racism etc. only ever really do so at a surface level. Because their bigotry was something fundamentally irrational and reactionary, all their 'unlearning' needs to be is for them to stop having such strong feelings of disgust and stop vocalising their criticisms. And because we live in a society that allows for covert bigotry, people see that surface-level change in character and are perfectly happy with it.

That's why you see people change from being homophobic and transphobic to saying things like 'love you wanna love, be who you wanna be, and who the fuck cares, just do what you wanna do, y'know?' To them, they never really have to consider that their homophobia is more than having a weird obsession with what specific people do with their lives. They unlearn homophobia at the time when it's popular to do so, and simply learn that the cure for being a reactionary bigot is just to stop worrying about how people live their lives, so then it makes sense for them to stop caring about trans people too; both of these 'minorities' are crudely lumped under the umbrella category of 'just let people do what they want!'.

And yes, it's better to say 'love is love' than to bully gay people; but unfortunately they never learn about the ideology that underpins their reaction; that regardless of strong emotions, their system of logic is socialised into them by the society we all share. Homophobia is learned, and it's learned not just because 'people are mean' but because an oppressor class have something to gain from it. So then, unlearning homophobia on only a surface level means that people never have to truly examine what homophobia actually is, and its combination with misogyny under patriarchal thinking that strongly associates gender identity, sexuality and gender-nonconformity.

Liberal thinking allows someone to reject an ideology whilst still believing it; in a Christian mind, a satanist is someone who ultimately believes in everything they do but flips the morality so that 'bad' now becomes 'good'. Actual theistic satanists are very rare, but liberal ideology is everywhere; liberal ideology will see conservatives believing that dress = female, and agree with the premise, but be uneasy with the moral qualms. It's the easiest and most accessible way to engage with ideas and communicate them; everyone already knows the underlying reasoning, but if they feel uneasy with the implications of the reasoning, all someone needs to do is to validate the conclusion of the reasoning and say 'but it's good, actually. Let people do what they want!'.

[shakesthewizard]

Are y'all ready for my niche content

Deltarune characters as Knights Radiant from the Stormlight Archive let's go

Susie - "I will seek self-mastery." The Order of the Dustbringers. Susie is brash and self-destructive, and learns early on that her potential for harm won't keep her safe - it might just get the people she cares about killed. In the latter half of chapter 1 and the entirety of Chapter 2, we see Susie not only learning how to harness her great capacity for good, but we also see her defy the will of the narrative. Dragging ralsei away from time with Kris, and in the snowgrave route she even demonstrates the power to avoid a cutscene. The theme of self control (narratively and literally) is abundant for her.

As a Dustbringer, Susie controls the surges of Division and Abrasion, which are perfect to the point of redundancy. Do I even need to explain how they fit her character and themes?

Ralsei - Ralsei is tricky. You might say that Ralsei is a spren of some kind - maybe an honorspren, or even a highspren? This makes sense for a Darkner, being a kind of spirit that exists on behalf of human/monsterkind. If you go down that route you may even go so far as to call him a voidspren, or corrupted spren of some type. Maybe a corrupted Highspren? Serving the law of a malicious power against his will.

Ralsei has associations with both Knowledge and Healing, making him a good candidate for a Truthwatcher. He's even a lonely, bespectacled Prince! He fits the Renarin-alike bill pretty nicely - which would also make sense, given that his game-knowledge and apparent desire to tell secrets to Kris, but not Us, reminds me a lot of Renarin's future sight and its effects on Odium. Ralsei is undecided, largely because of how little we actually know about him.

Kris - "I will speak my truth." The Order of the Lightweavers. Kris has a LOT going on in terms of their identity, secrets, and fiction. Like Shallan, I think Kris is very close to a lot of powerful forces in the story that they're not showing us, and they know a lot more than we let them tell. Kris literally spends most of their time nowadays pretending to be someone else, even if they don't want to.

Here's the thing, though - I think Kris is possessed by a cognitive shadow, with Bondsmith powers. Whether through Ishi's honorblade or something else, Kris demonstrates the ability to bring people together for a common cause - but only while we control them. Otherwise, they're a weird, lonely kid who has historically struggled to make and keep friends.

As a Lightweaver, Kris commands the surges of Illumination and Transformation. This makes sense, given that they are our window into this world, and they shape our understanding of it. They also literally perform transformation on a number of occasions - opening at least one dark fountain, and seriously squishing their own identity around with all the stuff they pull with our SOUL.

Noelle - "I will reach my potential." The Order of the Elsecallers. Or at least, she will be at some point. I'm really tempted to assign her corrupted Truthwatcher, given her propensity to stumble backwards into knowledge and secrets, and her possible connections with HIM. But I don't think this resonates with her character very strongly. Rather, I think Noelle has a lot of potential stored within her, and she needs to learn how to access it and command it for herself. Right now, she's being controlled by a host of powers; her mother, Us, Queen, and the aforementioned HIM. Many of whom are in agreement - this kid is going places. They all want to harness her for their own gain, and Noelle will swear the second ideal when she finally musters up the courage to ask Susie out.

As an Elsecaller, Noelle will command the surges of Transformation and Transportation. Truth be told, I don't see these as especially relevant to her character, besides their enormous breadth of utility. Ignoring everything else, I'd probably give her Edgedancer surges, but ces la vie.

Berdly - "I will seek justice." Order of the Skybreakers.

Okay, hear me out. He's a lot like Szeth.

I swear I'm serious, just bear with me, okay? He begins his journey by blindly following the strange laws of a strange land. Eventually, after doing nominal bad guy shit for half the story, he realizes that the law he was following sucked ass, and that he has no excuse for his behavior. As a first step towards growing, he pledges his service to the goals of a more protagonisty leader type while he figures himself out. Do you see my vision?

Berdly cares a LOT about the metrics of those in power. Grades, IQ, the law. His fatal flaw, in fact, is that he uses them as a tool for measuring his worth. His arc will be about reconsidering those things, and finding an attitude towards power that seeks justice instead of order.

As a Skybreaker, Berdly commands the surges of Gravitation and Division. He's a bird who people tend to avoid. What do you want from me?

Lancer - Lancer is Susie's Dustspren. Fight me.