#ive got my powers/abilities mostly decided

[erythristicbones]

-smacks the top of murphys head- development be upon thee

fuckin. realizing i could adapt my fandom ocs into my original story universes really was the first step in my descent into madness huh

[gloomura1]

Do you perhaps do crossovers (like for example obey me x twst or sumn similar to that)?

If so, could you perhaps do the demon brothers or Diavolo with a Malleus!Male! Reader? Doesn't exactly have to look like Malleus (mainly just the horns and magic abilities, personality too if you wanna add that).

Maybe some fluff headcanons of Diavolo or the demon brothers just simply being around Malleus!reader and spending time with him, and Malleus!reader being somewhat shocked that they aren't really afraid of him?

I'm hope you have a wonderful day!

(Edit: After so long Ive realized that I never really went through with the ask and went with my own story. Im so sorry dude, i will fix my mistake and remake it in a bit)

TW: VERY small mentions of the event Glorious Masquerade in Levi’s Part, Mentions of hurting Belphegor during lesson 16 + small spoilers, let me know if more!

Malleus!Reader and the Brothers

Lucifer🦚

When you first came to the Devildom, his first concern him was your abilities, and of course, your appearance. Nothing could’ve really prepared him to see a tall man with large horns, especially one with the amount of power to actually harm them. Slightly though, I mean you couldn’t be compared to THEE Lucifer (is what he continued to tell himself for a long time).

Throughout the year Lucifer mostly left you alone. He had small concerns, but it was most likely just paperwork and his brothers stressing him out so he stayed in his room. You were kinda used to that kind of treatment though so you didn’t mention it much.

He eventually warmed up to you, and you did try to keep out of trouble so nothing much happened. His trust also kind of broke a bit when he saw you using magic on his younger brother, Belphegor during the whole… trying to kill you thing. He understood it was for defense purposes though.

When he learns that people tend to avoid you and are usually scared of you, he felt a bit bad. He likes spending time with you now, and isn’t that scared of you. Maybe a bit intimidated with your height but it isn’t a huge problem since the horns make up around 4-5 inches. He adores your love and interest for gargoyles, and is extremely impressed when he finds out what your power level. Nothing could really compare to the brothers though, not even Belphegor.

Mammon💸

He thought you were badass honestly. Maybe a bit intimidated since you were pretty tall compared to him (and also the fact that you just looked terrifying). You did kinda remind him of Lucifer though…

During the year though, you end up dealing with him like usual. Mammon would take all sorts of things from you and try to steal it, but it slowly stopped after a while (years). One night though, he decides to take your beloved Drago. I swear he’s never seen you so upset over some toy! Are you like Levi, all into those weird games? Didn’t seem like the type.

After explaining that it was given by someone special, he stops most of his teasing. You’d hear a whine or two about how you would just give away expensive items to fix it, but a small smile after it’s fixed immediately shuts him up.

Levi🐍

He was bored out of his mind when he was suddenly out of his little fantasy and he just sees this super scary guys that’s like, the exact replica of Lucifer! The horns, the glare, the terrifying but badass look that just screams “normie”! He couldn’t believe it, you were also an exact replica of the Lord of Corruption!

He pretty much avoided you but admired you after that meeting. He could compare you to so many anime characters! You really got his attention, he’d stare at you in class all day! And during breakfast, lunch, and dinner... He does get closer with you by the end of the year, you were eager to learn what he knew about TSL. Though, he called you “normie” a lot during his rant. Well, at least you were able to mention gargoyles. And he was completely fine with it! Unlike Azul and Idia who completely made a whole deal out of it during your trip to Noble Bell College… Though, you did think of Idia while Levi was ranting about TSL. Maybe they both would be friends?

(might get into writing again but oh well. This is probably just a spurt of energy after months of being done with everything.)

[bloodgulchblog]

It occurs to me that I've actually had new people showing up in the uh, months. Since the last chapter. So.

ZITA, WHAT THE FUCK IS TOUCHSTONE?

Last December I was goofing around with friends on discord and ended up with the absurd idea of writing a oneshot where a supporting character from Halo 4 Spartan Ops has sex with Master Chief. Because this was so ridiculous and funny to me, both because Miller is a nobody character in Halo and Chief is one of the most impossible motherfuckers to write a sex oneshot about that feels remotely in-character, the project quickly grew in scope and got out of hand as I figured out it was fun to work on and it turned out to be a great place to do character study nonsense about Master Chief. (My favorite guy.)

Also, Roland keeps worming his way in there and writing about AIs is also really fun.

WHO IS MILLER/WAIT YOU MEAN MILLER ISN'T AN OC?

Miller is a Spartan-IV who tells you new waves of enemies are showing up for you to shoot in Spartan Ops. Also, he gets bullied alternately by Commander Palmer and Roland (the Infinity's AI, if you don't remember) a lot. Miller gets nervous easily and is trying so hard at all times. He is kind of endearing if you are endeared by characters that have powerful was-shoved-in-a-locker-in-high-school energy.

Also, once again, he is a whole entire fully-augmented, armored Spartan-IV and he mostly has a desk job calling out objectives and pulling in mission data for other Spartans. And that is hilarious to me.

CAN YOU PLEASE SUMMARIZE WHAT HAPPENS BECAUSE THE AO3 SUMMARY ISN'T ENOUGH FOR ME AND/OR I DON'T HAVE TIME BUT REALLY WANT TO KNOW

Understandable. Can do.

It's set between Halo 4 and Halo 5, during a point in time where the UNSC Infinity is in dry dock above Earth for a shit ton of maintenance it needed after Halo 4/Spartan Ops/Halo comics events. The story is actually like right before the start of Halo 5.

Chief's in a really bad place emotionally between 4 and 5, not just from the events of Halo 4 and the obvious death of Cortana but also because the world got weirder on him while he was dead (he's still not used to Spartan-IVs or the new status quo post-Covenant war) and because his ability to cope with stress and doing badly is finally hitting its limit. There's something wrong with him, his bosses know he's doing bad, and he can't seem to stop.

Spartan Command has decided that Blue Team needs to be assigned a consistent Spartan-IV mission handler for ops. This is standard procedure for all Spartan fireteams, but Blue Team was a special exception because they're Blue Team for a while. On its face, Blue Team being assigned a mission handler is just the Spartans standardizing Blue Team with how things work and it's not a slight. But the subtext that's obvious to everyone is something's wrong with Blue Team. (And that something is whatever is wrong with Master Chief.)

Miller's involved because Miller, as one of the Infinity's Spartan-IV mission handlers, is a candidate for the role. So, Miller is one of several people doing practice simulation ops with Blue Team to see how well they work together. During this, Miller develops a stupid little crush on Chief because Chief is just so damn impressive in an op and treats Miller with basic politeness and decency. It's the worst.

Meanwhile, Blue Team is planning to use the time over Earth as an opportunity to take some well-deserved time off. They're worried about Chief, and frustrated with him because he doesn't want to go on vacation with them. (Because, again, Chief is doing so so bad emotionally and it's a canon fact that he keeps refusing to take time off during this period.)

So. A situation develops where Miller kind of blurts out awkwardly hitting on Chief, and Chief thinks about it and decides to pursue. They're not dating, they're not boyfriends, this can't be a romance, but what if this is something he does to be nice to another person? Can he do that? Is it okay if he does that? Is this the final not-okay thing he does that will make his world crash apart and force him to fix himself the way he hasn't been able to make himself do this whole time?

Also, meanwhile, the B plot is Roland likes Miller a lot and doesn't communicate that well, keeps teasing him, and is surprised that he's not better friends with Miller. Roland is trying to befriend Miller better/more genuinely despite the absolute gold mine of teasing material (the whole Master Chief crush situation) he has been granted now.

I get to write a lot of fun things I enjoy writing: An anxious character struggling and trying not to embarrass himself, an AI living an AI existence and approaching the world in a weird AI way because he's not human, and Whatever The Fuck Is Wrong, Psychologically, With Master Chief (it's a lot it's so many things he's going through so much so badly.)

In short: Master Chief has a dumb little fling with an anxious Spartan nerd. It won't last, and it will be so weird and awkward, but it's about two people trying to be kind to one another in a way that matters for a short time while they can.

WOW THAT SOUNDS GREAT, WHERE IS IT?

Over here!

[the-s1lly-corner]

hii

I've seen you're taking creepypasta requests ? I really like your Zalgo's concept ! so..

can you drop some of your headcanons about him?? I'm really interested!!

stay safe!

Zalgo headcannons!

hihihihi i promise i saw you send this in a few hours after you asked this and i truly didnt mean to push writing this off for so long ive just been going through it (2 new interests have been kicking my ass for the past 7 or so weeks) but we're back !!

CAUTION these hcs are heavily centered around my concept!! i wasnt totally sure if you wanted these as romantic, so i decided to go down a middle road and just make it how interacting with the guy would probably go down + other ideas!! warning this is a lot of scattered rambling because my brain is all over the place and its 7am

the main thing that my take on zalgo and the main fandom interpretation have in common is the fat that theyre both powerful entities capable of causing mass destruction and chaos

however my zalgo exists more so as a... weird half concept half tangible entity if that makes sense? like he indirectly interacts with the world around him instead of going out and wrecking things himself; a close comparison i can think of is mother mabuka from fran bow but even then it seems she has more direct influence in that universe compared to zalgo... or maybe my interpretation of her is all whack too but eh

exists everywhere and nowhere at once, in my au he's responsible for the creation of the other creepypasta characters. for demon characters like slenderman or the rake he hand crafted them himself to cause torment. for characters like ben or eyeless jack he plants the seed to cause them to become what they were. for ben he allowed him to come back as an angry ghost, and for eyeless jack he made the curse that eventually infects the guy (although jack was just the unlucky host, zalgo had no specific target)

and keeping true to the original zalgo comic stuff, he can corrupt media in anyway he wishes, and perhaps implant subliminal messages or 'viruses' to infect more people? that second part is mostly a concept idea but i vibe with it

so how does one interact with a being that doesn't totally exist?

well

you dont

at least you cant initiate it; no if zalgo wants to be perceived by you he'll come to you, typically if you can offer something to him (usually the ability to cause issues for others, ie general creepypasta character criteria)

injecting this really quick but admin is really into the concept of certain characters/entities being just a simple part of nature, zalgo falls under this idea. he just exists because of the laws of the universe

is he capable of forming bonds? sure he definitely has some sort of favoritism towards certain creatures thanks to how effective they are, but like, what about emotional bonds?

probably not, if im being honest; like sure he can check in on you more often than his other agents of chaos, but that doesn't necessarily mean hes your friend

but lets pretend you somehow made friends with the omnipresent and almost omniscient birthplace of wrath and doom:

you cant touch him but he can touch you, kinda. it kinda feel like being wrapped around with a huge freeing cold and immensely heavy blanket when he decides to grace you with his presence

you know how when in adventure time, the lich makes the screen go dark (ex. the fall meme) i feel like itd be something like that

though ive never watched adventure time/never got too far into it SOBS i plan on changing that i promise

oh he is so so so clingy and he so truly hates your mortality

even in death he wont let you go, he'll probably forcefully bring you back, and by extension twisting you into something you weren't before

like this dude is genuinely not someone you want to fuck around with

even if you dont end up dying hes probably going to change you in some way at some point

on a lighter note hes the type to tear the world apart for you, both in the "i care about you as much as a creature like me can" and a "if you ever leave me im going to find you, i already know where you are because i have eyes everywhere"

like i dont like writing stuff that can dip into yandere territory but like. zalgo would do that kind of shit

bonus hcs, he doesnt really care how people perceive him.. because they cant, and even if he allows it he still doesnt care. wanna use any pronouns for him? he doesnt give a damn. see him as a god? as a devil? he doesnt care. truly could not give a shit what you think, he is unbothered

i feel my hcs for him have shifted a bit since i last brought him up in a post but i think

out of all the creepypastas, zalgo is the one i have with the most changing hcs

esp since in this au hes like. the reason everyone exists as they are, and why everything is going on; he is literally the reason all the bad things happened to everyone and hes responsible for the monster-type characters existence

okay thats all i apologize again if this is a mess i simply got. silly and im running off two hours of sleep and im scratching my brain trying to remember my ideas since i havent really thought of zalgo in 2 months (thanks to other brainrots SOBS)

[rubyfists]

hello!!! is there an info post about elora?? their tag is super sick and id love to know more about em!

hello there!!! i do, but it mostly serves as an art gallery rn. here is the page anyways tho! it is on toyhouse, and has just basic info, but It Exists. ive been wanting to make a more detailed page but alas i am Grad Student. EVENTUALLY ill make an actual info page tho. eventually.

ill ramble a lil bit to compensate

(art by @/inksycat)

this is miss elora lavain!!!! she lives a life on the run, so she goes by a few other names as well such as maris starseeker & nerine rubystar. she is a moon elf :3 she's also a bisexual trans woman (she/her)! as for class, she is a swashbuckler rogue w/ the pirate background

elora is a dnd character i made for a faerun campaign i played back in 2018... not as my pc, but as a major npc. i played that campaign as my other oc, arahana rubyfist. elora was her girlfriend that disappeared under ~*mysterious circumstances and served as arahana's motivation to adventure. there was other stuff going on as well, but the crux of arahanas story involved chasing elora thru her past & discovering the Truth of who she rly was

cause u see elora lavain was a persona made to conceal her past as the Infamous Pirate Captain Maris Starseeker (tm). yeah she got a pretty big bounty on her head from Pirate Crimes and so after her crew was destroyed, she decided to retire. despite losing her crew she had quite a lot of treasure hidden away and decided to Retire in Luxury, posing as nobility. she relocated to waterdeep and the plan was to lay low there as long as she could until Whoops. she fell in love. she was pretty torn btwn not wanting arahana 2 find out who she rly was & her Impeding capture (she had a lot of bounty hunters after her)... and so when she left it was Already too late.

she was captured & sentenced to death, awaiting her execution in a high security prison known as the dreadvault. arahana DID manage to bust her out with the help of her friends though. and they were able to reunite!!! and reaffirm their love for eachother!!! and swear to be honest with eachother from that point on!!! and it still kills me!!!

busting someone out of a high security prison garners a lot of heat tho and so arahana & elora hid away in a cozy lil mountain cabin. during that time they worked on their relationship and eventually got married!!! they're still married and i love them to death. they are my Favorites. that's where her story ends for now!

more on the personality side of things... so ill first of all say, that eloras personality is pretty Fragmented. shes got bits of herself split up among her various identities. usually each identity is based on one facet of herself, or a fantasy, and it develops into a Character thru that. for instance, maris starseeker is Definitely a power fantasy and is a pirate queen thru and thru... while elora lavain fits more of the Princess Role. her ability to Fully immerse herself in these roles helps her evade capture cause she is able to present herself as a Totally different person to most ppl. however, if you know her well enough, there Are consistencies. for example, elora is generally pretty extroverted. she's the kind of person that draws attention, and is a Born Leader. she is confident, bold, fun, flirtatious, ambitious, competitive, and adventurous. she is pretty charismatic as well! she is also a compulsive liar, as she's so use to having to Lie about everything that she is that its just Natural to her at this point. she's also crafted a life where she doesnt rly have to deal w/ hard emotions, so she's able to give an air that she is Above it all when really shes just bad at dealing w/ emotions LOL. she is the embodiment of this

only walking out means completely leaving the area and creating a new identity. #girl

anyways this is. a lot im so bad at summarizing shit but i think this serves well enough as a primer into the Elora Lavain experience. she is by far my favorite oc and is my Everything girl. and thank you so much for asking about her!!! :)

[kimicapucciny]

Your asks aren't open on your art blog so PLEASE tell me more about Zanthe, I love me a buff, long-haired manwhore

OUGH I NEVER NOTICED KDFBJKDSFBJKSDF fixed it now

ALSO EEK!!!! im so glad u like my tit guy,,,, even tho he kinda sucks KJBSDKJFBKSD ive got a LOT to say so ill put it under da read more

ok so Zanthe is the deuteragonist of a story I've got with my other OC Dom, whose ref i RLLY should rework because i wanna work on a small animatic with them KJBFJSDF

(this is him btw hehe)

anyways, Zanthe is an Incubus that, as per my world's lore, awoke with no memories of who he used to be or why he was sent to super mega gay hell. He only knew three things: his name, the fact that he was now a powerful demon, and that he was HOT AS FUCK!!!!!

He mostly spends his time doing whatever and whoever he wants. He's really bad at the whole "stealing human's souls" part of being a creature of the night because he'll just straight up ask for a sex pact with whoever summoned him, much to the annoyance of his boss lmaoooo

Zanthe is very boastful of his abilities as an incubus, and even tho he always focuses on his own pleasure (selfish lover smh) he actually does put his dick where his mouth is (in many ways) and his partners are always left quite satisfied when he's done SDKJFBSKJDFK asides from that, personality wise, hes an asshole LMAOOOO doesnt care for anything that isnt sex or himself, and will act with nonchalance when faced with human's tragedies or love declarations, unless he can use them to his advantage. however, hes not completely heartless, and if someone rlly doesnt wanna lay with him he'll sigh and complain about his time being wasted (not like he does anything importan in the first place smh) but respect their wishes. part of the fun is having his partners sing praises to his name, so doing it with someone who doesnt want to is just plain stupid in his self-centered opinion.

on to the story part of his lore KSBDFKJDSF

Zanthe was "accidentally" summoned by Dom in order to help him get revenge for the death of his sister. I say "accidentally" because Dom was actually trying to summon a powerful demon he could sell his soul to in order to gain the necessary power to hunt down the bastards that killed his sister, but instead got saddled with an glorified dildo KJBDSJFBSJDKF Sadly for Dom, he can't exactly summon anther demon without finishing whatever business he has with the first one (some bullshit rule from hell), and, though he loathes to admit it, Zanthe IS powerful. Enough to be useful.

So Dom decides to make a pact with Zanthe, much to his annoyance and to Zanthe's delight, because as soon as he set sights on the angry twunk he was dying to get his hands on that ass. Too bad Dom refuses to bottom for him LMAO

its ok tho, Zanthe said switch rights, and he has more than a good time whenever Dom takes out the collar and whip KBFJKBSDKJF

Their dynamic is rlly fun for me to work with because we have this big ass demon who looks like he could kill you and CAN kill you but is actually a lazy slut who would rather take part in massive orgies dedicated to inflating his ego, and then theres this angry mass of rage and bitterness who got stuck with this demonic asshole and cant get rid of him because he needs his powers lol

ANYWAYS SORRY NOT SORRY FOR THE LONG RANT AND I HOPE U LIKED IT

[nakedbibi333]

hi! im kind of new to law of assumption and old to law of attraction. law of assumption is not a hard concept but im a bit confused. i find myself reacting to the 3D too much and like i find it hard to persist? what do i do to make persisting easier? i think it’s because i don’t know much about what im getting into?? all i know is affirm and persist and etc. i hear things like time is an illusion, the 3D is an illusion, circumstances don’t matter, we are all gods of our reality. but WHERES the proof?? i can’t blindly follow people’s success stories because im not them and if we are truly the gods of our realities, doesn’t that mean someone else can manifest failure in mine? like i want to use law of assumption and i want to believe to get what I want fast and easily BUT i want to know how it works and that im not following a delusion to make myself feel better and in the end, I am just left with disappointment and failed attempts at manifesting that left me with the consequences of my actions. ive been in the community for almost 2 years and i don’t think ive ever gotten results. i am not usually agitated but it’s exhausting. i affirm and persist and nothing shows up and im worried im doing it all wrong so i ask and now I’m even affirming wrong?? I know manifestation is supposed to be easy and not feel like a chore but how can it not when everything I desire is of so much importance to me. I can even dm you, just please help me so I can actually manifest what I want. I’ve done self concept but I keep breaking. I don’t even know what affirmations to use to combat my limiting beliefs. Tbh I’m tired. I feel like if someone explained to me how this works and how to do it with no mistakes and how to keep faith in the unseen, I could actually get what I want. I keep failing and failing because I affirm and persist but I affirm wrong or I have a limiting belief that hasn’t been uncovered yet. I’m so exhausted and I just want to get what I want. I just feel like if someone told me how it works and exactly what to do, I wouldn’t be so confused and find it hard to persist

Hi! Okay, so since this is a very long post, I will try to answer each of your questions/concerns in the order you mention them.

So about persisting, I can understand how it seems a bit complicated. You persist when, after a certain period of time, you still don't see movement of your desires manifesting OR if you see the OPPOSITE of your desires manifest. Oftentimes, when you finally open up your mind to the idea that your mind creates your reality, then some past doubts and fears can manifest as well. Your mind will often try to manifest opposite things in order to make you feel like you are doing something wrong, which is why so many loa teachers say to persist. It can be very difficult for people to persist, which is why so many people feel like they can't manifest, or that manifestation isn't real, because their 3D reality has too much weight in their lives, so they take it as truth and end up giving up on their desires manifesting. It's important to begin to believe that your 3D reality is extremely malleable and is only a reflection of your inner reality. You need to take the power away from the 3D and give it to yourself and your ability to create exactly what you want.

Then you ask about proof of manifestation. It is very true and understandable that other people's success stories are not enough for many people because you want to be able to trust the information that you are going to be getting into. Personally, before getting into manifestation, I already had my fair share of unexplainable success stories in my life, so it just seemed like an answer to the questions I've had all my life. Even with these success stories and experiences, when I first got into manifestation, I still would doubt myself by wondering if it was simply a coincidence these things happened, or worse, that I was becoming delusional. I want to tell you that every single person who is now into manifestation has gone through this feeling. We all worry that we are just doing "wishful thinking" and being delusional because the world we have grown up in has always been so practical. It's not easy to believe in something that seems so impossible without any previous personal experience. So, the only advice I can give you for this is to try to manifest extremely small things to build your faith over time, such as seeing a yellow butterfly, getting your favorite food, or seeing some sort of sign, so that you would know that what we are talking about is actually the truth. Also, there are so many documents that go more in-depth on how our minds create our reality, including CIA documents and books about the science of manifestation, such as books by Joe Dispenza, and books about the subconscious mind, such as books by Joseph Murphy, and many many more. Since the only way, you will really believe in manifestation is by having your own experiences, then manifesting small easy things is probably the best route.

Then, you mention how you're worried about "someone manifesting failure into your reality." My view on this is that you are the only person who can affect your life and nothing can happen to you that you don't specifically manifest into your reality (whether it be consciously or unconsciously). Everyone can manifest, yes. Everyone has control over their reality. You can even manifest people acting in certain ways towards you. But that's in your experience specifically. If we are talking about quantum physics, time is not linear, technically all possibilities of all time, ever, exists right now. We also shift through different realities at every moment depending on our mindset, beliefs, and decisions. So, if someone manifests something in their life that would affect "you" but does not align with your thoughts and beliefs, then it won't show up in your reality. You have control over your own reality, nothing comes into your life without you allowing it, so that's a very empowering thought, in my opinion. I really suggest that you affirm this so that you don't have to worry about others manifesting negativity over your life because you would never personally decide to manifest it into your own life.

I also want to talk about how you worry about affirming wrong or simply manifesting wrong. It's Important to note that these beliefs can also negatively affect your manifestation because that is not you truly living in the end. If you were living in the end, you would know that simply deciding that you want this to happen, means that it will happen and that it has to happen. You never need to doubt your manifesting process because your subconscious mind is so powerful and it is so easy to make it do things for you! Just like what @divineangelbee says, you can COMMAND your subconscious mind and it will listen and give you exactly what you want. You don't have to visualize or affirm or do anything. Simply tell your subconscious exactly what you want it to do and trust that it listens! I really think that the reason that you have not been having too much success is because of this, that you are constantly doubting your methods which keeps you from truly living in the end.

Then, about limiting beliefs. It can be beneficial to people to be aware of their limiting beliefs. However, there has been such an intense focus on limiting beliefs in the loa community (mostly on youtube) that I see so much. Coaches keep you focused on the problem of limiting beliefs so much that they don't actually help you move on from them. Personally, I found that whenever I focused on my limiting beliefs, it was like living in the old story. (if you don't get this reference, I seriously suggest you read or listen to Neville Goddard's lectures in which he talks about the law of assumption. They are life-changing). Focusing on limiting beliefs keeps you stuck in that story you are telling yourself about your life. It keeps you from overcoming them and becoming limitless. It helps me to affirm that my limiting beliefs no longer have the power to hold me back. I don't have any more limiting beliefs because I manifested not having them anymore. Manifestation works in many different ways, and a lot of people don't realize that you can simply manifest your desired mindset as well. I suggest trying this!

So, to make this as clear as possible, I will tell you how I personally manifest (disclaimer: people manifest differently, many different things work for different people, I am not saying this is the only or best way to manifest, but this is just what works for me).

First, I get my idea of what I want to manifest. Usually, I want to manifest multiple things at a time, there really is no limit.

Then, I will decide what will help me "feel it real" and "live in the end." This can include techniques, but I don't use techniques every time. I don't like to visualize because I am personally a maladaptive daydreamer, so visualizing makes me feel like I am daydreaming, which keeps me from really feeling like it's really happening. (But, if it works for you, by all means, go for it) I may print out a picture if it's a physical item in order to trick my brain into having something physical that represents this or adding it to a Pinterest vision board (I am a very visual person, so it always works for me). I also like to make a list of what I want just to keep it in a place that I can go back to and mark off in the future, telling my brain that this is a goal I need to achieve (I find that my brain loves to check things off of my goals, it makes my subconscious mind already start working towards the goal). But most of the work goes into my mindset. I don't affirm a lot because I feel like it becomes a chore if I have to recite affirmations all day every day. I may put up affirmations on my chalkboard or put them on my computer, but I don't make it a habit to really say them at specific times, etc. I really focus on making myself feel deserving of getting my manifestation and I also live in the end. Living in the end is where you feel confident that your desire is already yours. If it helps, which it does for me, I like to believe that I have it already in the "quantum field," or the 5D, or however you believe in it. It is not about being delusional and pretending like you have it, no, it's about feeling trusting in your own power to make this happen for you and it will come, no matter what.

After that, I "drop it." I don't forget about it or stop desiring it, that's not what letting go means. It means that I know that I don't need to do anything or force anything to happen because my subconscious, or the universe, will bring this to me and I don't need to worry about anything related to my desire. I also self-regulate my emotions by meditating, focusing on the things that make me happy, and reminding myself of how powerful and capable I am.

Then, eventually, it manifests. Or, if it doesn't come in the timeframe I wanted it to, or if something that would oppose my desire pops up, I focus on my own self-concept, making sure I genuinely feel deserving of and that I can get what I want, and I persist in that feeling that my desire is still mine. No matter if I got rejected, no matter if they told me I couldn't get the job, no matter if it looks like it won't happen. I still persist. and then it comes.

Finally, I want to mention that I am only here to give advice and I can't make anything physically happen for you. To see actual movement in your reality, you need to be willing to go through failures in order to find out what works for you. I have had manifestations fail, I have had MANY manifestations fail. It's not always a perfect process. I don't charge money, my identity is not on this page, I am not here to be a famous coach or to act like I know any better than anyone else. I am just trying to help you guys reach the point that you deserve to get to in your life. But I can only do so much. I really hope this helps.

[literaryobsession]

lost || mirio x fem!reader

summary: you saw Mirio Togata's journey from entering UA to the Shie Hassakai mission

warning: mentions of fighting and death

word count: 1205

chapters: ii , iii, iv , v , vi, vii , viii,

CHAPTER I - BEGINNINGS

The Big Three of UA came as a bit of a surprise for the entire school. They were not expected at all but once they made themselves known, they were unforgettable.

Beautiful and talented, Nejire Hado had the Wave Motion quirk. She utilizes her energy surges, allowing her to both be very mobile and unleash waves to defeat her enemies. Aside from that, Nejire has admirers all over the school because of her affectionate nature and her cute aura.

The shy and quite anxious Tamaki Amajiki often moves away from the spotlight. While others often scoff at his nature, his quirk Manifest is both formidable and unexpected. As part of the Big Three, Tamaki is very powerful albeit his self-doubts.

And of course, much compared to All Might, Mirio Togata. The bright and positive walking ball of sunshine has the Permeation quirk. He passes through everything and with the background of his training, Mirio has obtained great control over his unpredictable quirk.

And then of course, there's me. I'm not part of what everyone calls the Big Three because if I was, then we'd all be called the Big Four. I am simply friends with them, the three top students of UA.

But no, I am not as powerful as my friends. Even if Mirio says my quirk is useful, being able to find almost anything is mundane at best. He has always loved the fact that I was the only person who can beat him in hide and seek,  and being the only person to actually locate where Lemillion is regardless of his constant Permeation.

"I am Mirio Togata!"

I looked up from my book after hearing the loudest voice I have ever heard in my life. My eyes met with the bright blue ones of a blond boy. He stood in front of my desk, brave and confident.

"Uh, I'm... Y/N." I answered quietly, wanting to get back to my book already.

"That was so cool how you were able to find me earlier!" He grinned wide, obviously not picking up the cue for him to go. He has always been straightforward and barely picks up the meaning between the lines.

I stared at him, wondering what he meant and then it clicked. He was talking about the game we played during break time. We decided to do a quick game of hide and seek, mostly because most of the kids in our class has already gotten their quirks and many wanted to show off their new found abilities.

I ended up as the it for that game and easy enough, I found him first. Well... I found his face which got stuck through a door. He laughed when I saw him and told me that he got the ability to pass through walls like his dad.

He managed to grab my attention again when he repeated what I told him earlier, "You said it had something to do with your quirk?"

"Ah..." I could feel the heat wafting off my cheeks when he mentioned that. My quirk was something I did not expect at all. I wanted something more useful like flying or even intimidating like fire control. "Yes. I could see your trail so easily."

"My trail?" He tilted his head to the side in obvious curiosity.

I bit my lower lip, unsure to how to explain. "Well...you glow yellow." He does. "My quirk is that I see people's...glow. Well, not just people, I see glow." I smiled at Mirio when he repeated the word so I continued, "Everything in the world has glow. It lets me see the trail where it is."

"So you find stuff and people by seeing their glow!" Mirio exclaimed, "Wow! That's so cool! Hey Tamaki! Let me introduce you to Y/N! Come on!" He turned his head towards his friend, running off to drag him towards my direction.

Mirio glowed bright yellow, like the sun, and because he is everywhere always, he left his trail all around me.

He always made everything glow.

"Did you get it?" I laughed at Mirio's excitement even as we were talking on the phone, I can only imagine he was glowing even brighter than he already was.

"I did. I got in." I answered him with one hand holding the telephone to my ear and the other grabbing tightly unto the letter we were talking about.

"I told you, Y/N! I told you that you'd get in!" He did, countless times.

It was surprising to receive a letter of acceptance from UA, especially because of my not so useful quirk. It was just a good thing that I was quick on my feet during the exam. Mirio's strength (and his uncontrollable quirk) made sure he was also accepted. Tamaki got in too, I never doubted him for a second.

"I can't believe we'll be attending the school that All Might went to!" Mirio continued, always adoring our symbol of peace. "Let's work hard to become Pro Heroes, alright Y/N?"

"You can do that. The school will probably realize their mistake and let me go on the first day." I mumbled quietly but Mirio heard it loud and clear.

I could almost see the disapproval on his face because this kept on happening. "You have an amazing quirk, Y/N, don't forget that." He always turned serious whenever this happens, "You and Tamaki need to believe in yourselves more!"

After meeting them in grade school, we were almost often found together. I didn't have friends and Mirio simply decided to adopt me and Tamaki as his own. Suddenly, my quiet afternoons became filled with Mirio and Tamaki. Mirio often sunk through our floors and getting undressed in the process while Tamaki and I worried that he'd fall through earth.

All through middle school, I stuck by the two boys, with Mirio shining like the sun and Tamaki glowing like the moon. I was a witness to how Mirio got a better control at his quirk, allowing half of his body to pass through walls and sometimes, he won't get stuck. I watched as Tamaki trained with how he won't turn into a complete squid whenever we'd eat takoyaki.

And I? I had gotten better at focus, allowing my quirk to see a glow for a long period of time. I still could not see two glows at once but if I focus hard enough especially on my friends, I can almost do it but for only for a few seconds.

"All right sunny, I'll try and be more optimistic." I laughed, laying on my bed finally.

Mirio chuckled, "That's awesome, star."

I scrunched my nose at the nickname. "You don't have to keep on calling me that just because I told you and Tamaki about your glows."

"Ah, we can't not have the full set!" Mirio argued, "You're our star!"

"Alright Miri~" Yawning and glancing at the watch on my bedside, I almost didn't want to say goodbye to Mirio but I was super tired. "See you on our first day, sunny."

[ncat]

Class updates and revisions

I decided to have some fun and make some touch ups and updates for the sorcerer and warlock, so heres them here. 

These are mostly just for fun, so if something has a big hole in it that swallows up the entirety of the game with it dont be too mad (:

The intent of this revised sorcerer is to bring it closer to what the sorcerers original design was when the class was made in 3E: A spell caster with greater at will versatility, in comparison to the wizards overall better long term versatility

So, for this, this sorcerer works on a form of Spell Points rules. Metamagic wasnt really that strong anyways so its payed for from the same pool.

What this means is that you have better options for how you want to spend your resources, being much less rigid than other spell casters which use spell slots.

Ive also brought up the number of spells known from 15 to 20. This brings them better in line with other spell casters. But also, with my subclass touch ups (coming up in a different section of this post), this will mean a sorcerer will have at any point in time 30 spells known at level 20

This means that a sorcerer has a wider toolset at a given moment (5 more than the wizard), but wizards and other prepared casters once again, have a better variety of spells they can select from between days.

The cooldown on high level spells exists to balance off the fact that higher level sorcerers can cast more high levels per day if they choose to. Innate magic is more added for flavor things than any other reason

Magical guidance is a new version of a feature of the same name added in tashas, basically making it cost more to account for the increase in sorcery points

The capstone is strong, yeah I get it. But its a level 20 feature, so who gives a hell. Capstones should be crazy cool, and not boring. Letting sorcerers get a short rest restore on spell points is fine to me

Overall, this rework of sorcerer should bring it closer to the original purpose of the class: A spell caster with better on command power, in exchange for weaker preparational power

Alrighty, expanded spell lists. These were designed to work with both base game sorcerer aswell as my revised sorcerer.

Essentially, this is just an expanded spell list for each subclass, Tasha's style

This shouldnt require too much explanation basically. Divine soul gets the ability to chose a cleric domains spells rather than a set list because that lets them further chose what sort of divine entity their power came from. I got inspiration for this from the Favored Soul, which was a really old UA that was an early draft for what we got as the Divine Soul. Really weird how WoTC basically did the Tashas fix years ago in a UA then decided not to do it, only to do it again now.

Draconic bloodline changing the damage type of your spell to that of your draconic ancestor makes the fact that you have to choose one a more meaningful action. Most of the spells are elemental attacks, but some instead emulate a dragons abilities instead, like fear and polymorph. 

Shadow magic gets shadow spells, and a minor benefit for casting them while in darkness

 Storm sorcerer gets something similar to the draconic bloodline, but instead for thunder and lightning damage.  And yeah, burning hands is a weird spell choice for the list, but I enjoyed the visual. Since well, burning hands requires you to place your hands horizontally, thumb touching thumb, and since this feature has you change the damage type to lighting...  Yep. Force lightning (:

Wild magic gets more opportunities to use the wildmagic table, since it really really should get more chances to use it

Overall, straightforward additions for each of the subclasses to bring them more in line with the Clockwork Soul and Abberant Mind from Tashas

Lastly is the Warlock

An additional cantrip is given at level 15 so you can make up for your lower number of spells per day

Mystic Arcanum is replaced with Mystical Arcanus. The new one is practically identical, giving you a high level spelled known and a long rest means to cast it. The difference is that since this one is a spell slot, you can upcast your other warlock spells with it, or cast your Mystical Arcanus spells with your other high level slots. Additionally, this means that you are able to learn high level warlock spells aside from the ones added from this feature. So you could have two different 6th level spells, and could chose which one you would cast with the spell slot. Ive kept a bit of the old ones ‘soul’ in there by making it so you have to know a spell for each of those spell levels, but yeah. Overall, generally better and more versatile, but about the same

The warlock at level 20 will have 5 5th level spell slots, instead of 4. This has two reasons

A. Making high level cooler. With this, a standard day of adventuring (that means, two short rests) will have a warlock have equivilent power to other spell casters in a party. This also means that Eldritch Master is a much cooler feature, since unlike the old one, which mathematically only made it so warlocks were about the same strength as other spellcasters, this one actually makes it a super cool boost to your strength in a day.

B. Fixing low levels. This was actually the primary target of this fix. Im not going to actually pull up graphs and charts and tables, since this is tumblr and graphs are super unsexy, but generally, assuming the developer intended two short rests per day, warlocks for no good reason just have a real bad spot from levels 5-10. What this means is that a warlock needs more short rests than usual to keep up with other spellcasters. With 5 5th’s by level 20, this adjusts the total spell slots to give them their 3rd spell slot much earlier, which should fix up this bad spot from the warlock

Ah, and the capstone is kinda almost channel divinity, but on a warlock. Its cool. I think summoning your patron for aid is a logical high level warlock thing to do, just as it is for a cleric to bring out their deity. 

And capstones should be badass. None this ‘1 minute sorta short rest’ stuff

Edit: This is coming in way after the fact for this post, but an additional change for the warlock is to add their Patron exclusive spells as ‘spells known’, rather than just additional spells on their spell list

Thanks for reading all this, I know its probably not perfect but these are just some ideas built off of observations ive made regarding 5e

Feel free to use these, edit these, take inspiration from these or whatever. 

yeah (:

[stellocchia]

So, since we got that revival stream there are A LOT of takes that I’ve been seeing popping up regarding c!Wilbur. From straight up wrong takes like “he was worse then Dream” and “he manipulated Dream and made him a villain” to some more understandable but still very much wrong takes like: “Willbur was never a villain” and “Wilbur’s mental health spiral means we cannot identify him as a villain”

Since I’ve already spoken on other posts of mine about the first kind of statement, I want to focus on the second today. 

Let me preface this by saying that c!Wilbur is most definitely not an irredeemable character (a redemption arc for him is most definitely POSSIBLE, though we’ve gotten quite a lot of clues by now that that’s not the route cc!Wilbur seems to want to go down). I honestly think that the only TRULY irredeemable character in the smp ic c!Dream and that’s because of a mix between the level of harm he caused and his reaction and motivation for it. 

BUT he was a villain. A sympathetic one for sure, but a villain nonetheless. Being redeemable doesn’t make him any less of one, just like having understandable motivations or his harmful actions being a response to trauma or mental health related problems doesn’t make his actions and their consequences any less severe.

I mean I don’t see anyone out here having a problem with calling c!Jack a villain even if the harmful actions he tried to do or did are responses to isolation and trauma, why is Wilbur different when he’s caused much more harm? 

Same with Niki: we all recognized that her planning and trying to kill a child in cold blood was most definitely villanous even with her being extremely sympathetic. And, once again, she suffered from similar conditions to those Wilbur was in: a lack of a system of support, loosing her country, isolation in a base underground and we can add loosing a dear friend to that for her. So why don’t we give her a pass for everything? Why isn’t (well, wasn’t, she seems to be better off now that she is with the syndacate) she JUST a tragic charact but ALSO a villainous one?

Well it all comes down to the goal and the impact of someone’s actions. While the declining mental health of a character is important to keep in mind when deciding if they’re sympathetic and to understand what motivate their actions, it’s irrelevant to establish if they’re a villain. 

Let’s take c!Jack again as an example: he griefed multiple buildings trying to pit Dream and Tommy against each other, pre Tommy’s exile, and cause an all out war between them because Tommy’s actions had caused (in Jack’s mind of course, as what Dream did is entirely Dream’s responsability and in no way the fault of Tommy) Dream to burn down part of Manifold Land. He was angry at both of them in an understandable way, but his goals and actions were both immoral. And his actions didn’t cause harm ONLY because Tommy had already been exiled, otherwise they could have been taken by Dream as a reason to exile him either way later on. 

Now, for another example, c!Quackity: his announced goal with him torturing c!Dream is taking away the power that grants him the ability to harm others while still within Pandor’a Vault. But, truth be told, he IS mostly doing it for selfish reasons, either be it because he lost a bet to Schlatt or because this IS part of the bet it’s still a completely callous reason for torturing someone. The person he is harming is undeniably a villain who’s hurt a lot of people, but that’s irrelevant when judging the morality of Quackity’s action. 

Now let’s talk about Wilbur’s actions:

- He abused and manipulated Tommy, there is no way around it. He was extremely verbally abusive towards him. He tried to isolate him from everyone else and he tried to control Tommy’s emotional responses. He’s still doing that as a matter of fact by straight up dismissing any emotional response Tommy has that doesn’t suit him (by, for example, ignoring his clear signs of dicomfort back during their conversation post season 2 finale and by ignoring and making fun of his panic attack in their discussion in the afterlife). We know this caused long term trauma for Tommy causing him to have night terrorse about him and being terrified of ever becoming anything like Wilbur. Trying to find a way to avoid Wilbur’s path was basically Tommy’s whole arc in season 2. 

- He retained vital informations from Techno (retaining information from him about his allies, and from his allies about him). This one is a bit more up for discussion to be honest, but Ive seen quite a few people make the point that Wilbur made sure that the info he gave Techno was the only one he had about Pogtopia’s intetions. He also was the only one who knew about Techno’s withers and about his anarchists ideals and he never revealed them to ther allies, which definitely helped in causing the rift later on.

- He mistreated Tubbo quite a lot as well (the whole scene at the festival is just painful). But, basically, he had him spy for them and basically treated him as a pawn. He described him, to his face, as just a “yes man” with no free will of his own. Then he used his death just to bring forth discord and violence between his allies. He also pushed on him all the pressure to decide on wether to blow up the country or not. 

- He kept keeping L’Manburg hostage to his allies, increasing the already incredible pressure on them immensely. When Schlatt said he moved the tnt to Pogtopia he started doing the same with that place by constantly clicking all the random buttons while they were all trying to plan. That is blackmail my dudes. Blackmail done to an extreme.

- There is the whole pit scene that deserves a point on it’s own where he literally kept spurring on both Techno and Tommy (all the while blatantly putting down Tommy in an extremely manipulative way) to beat each other to death (albeit non-canonically). Re-watch that one and pay close attention to him if you have any doubt about him being abusive towards Tommy.

- And, for last, he also did blow up L’Manburg and he had fully intended to do it also as a last slight towards Tommy, just to add on to how much of a d*ck he was to him.

It’s true that he needed help and that he had spirald. He had become self-destructive and paranoid, but that DOESN’T erase what he has done, nor what that paint him as. His actions were all done with the spcific goal of being harmful to others and have all had long lasting effects. He hurt A LOT of people. He is, by all intents and purposes, a villain. 

Also I want to add that if they do give him a redemtion arc it will have to be done carefully to be done well. And also none of the people he hurt with his actions should be forced to forgive him. As a matter of fact I’ll go further and say that Tommy in particular shouldn’t even be forced to TALK to him as he has already expressed extreme concern about ending up being manipulated again. No matter what he went through and what his mental state was, none of his victims owe him any understanding either.

[farfromsugafanfic]

Sutures - Chapter Two: Conjugate

Genre: Soulmates AU, Idiots to Lovers, slight Enemies to Lovers

Pairing: Yoongi/Named Reader

Warnings (chapter specific): invasions of privacy

Synopsis: “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” –Jean de la Fontaine

There was only one thing you and Min Yoongi had in common that night. You were both brokenhearted. You only intended to be together for one night, but when you both end up in the hospital the next day you discover that you are soulmates. It could kill you to be apart. As you and Yoongi attempt to sever the bond between you, will another be formed?

Notes: This was originally written and completed on Wattpad between 2018 and the beginning of 2020. I’ll be slowly posting the chapters here. I may make a tag list depending on if enough people want to follow along with updates. Leave me some feedback if you would like added to a tag list.

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You sighed as the nurse pulled the IV out of your arm. The muscles in your body relaxing for the first time in hours.

"There we are," the nurse said. "Looks like you'll be out of here in a few hours. Just make sure not to get too far from that man of yours."

You smiled up at her, not wanting to explain that he wasn't your man and that you'd only just learned his name from a news broadcast a few hours ago. When Eunji had texted you that he was an idol, you'd thought she was joking. She was drunk after all and probably would've called any guy flirting with you an idol.

"This is crazy," Eunji said. "What're you going to do?"

"I don't know," you said. "I guess I'll have to contact him somehow."

"Did you get his number?"

"No, we never intended to see each other again."

"Well, he's looking for you."

---

"Jang Sumi?" a man asked, knocking politely as he entered.

"Yes?"

He bowed politely as he entered.

"I'm Bang Sihyuk, CEO of BigHit Entertainment," he said.

Your eyes grew wide and you immediately bowed, feeling slightly embarrassed you hadn't recognized him and done so before.

"We would like to discuss a proposal with you. If you'd please sit down," he said, pointing to the newly made hospital bed.

You sat down and the man sat down in the chair Eunji sat when you first awoke. "We have reason to believe you are Min Yoongi's soulmate. I'm sure the doctors have already explained that this means the two of you must remain near each other."

You nodded.

"In order to protect his career, we would like you to move into the BTS dorm. We will pay you and compensate you for any trouble."

"What about my career?" you asked.

The man nodded, his shoulders relaxing as if he'd expected you to question him.

"We've done our research and you're an English tutor? You can continue online sessions and do occasional in-person sessions away from the dorm. We don't want to take away your livelihood by any means. We want to protect both of you."

Your mind overflowed with thoughts. You'd be living with seven guys. Seven idols. Would girls get jealous? Would their fans even know? You had too many questions for the man to possibly answer.

You could certainly use the extra money and without having to pay rent, it would allow you to begin saving money. Something you'd wanted since you'd moved out.

You'd have to work less though, but you were sure the compensation that BigHit offered would be more than enough to make up for the fewer hours.

"All right," you said. "As long as I can keep my job, I agree."

---

"Boys, this is Jang Sumi," Bang PD said.

You bowed to the seven boys in front of you, secretly wishing the much more charming Eunji hadn't gone home. Even though it was obvious they had rushed to the hospital based on the various array of sweatpants and messy hair, they all still looked gorgeous.

The boys bowed back and their gazes wandered down to your neck, their eyes wide. You hadn't noticed the bruises there from the night before. You shyly broke eye contact and looked over to Yoongi who sat with his feet dangling off the hospital bed.

You met his dark eyes. Instead of the mysterious and hungry look they'd held the night before, they now looked exhausted and slightly annoyed. His gaze left yours momentarily as his eyes looked down at the bruises on your neck. His face remained expressionless except for a small flick of his tongue between his lips.

"The doctors need to run a few more tests and talk with Yoongi and Sumi," Bang PD said. "We should leave them alone"

The six other boys filed out of the room and you took a seat on the bed next to Yoongi, leaving a large space between you, so that it would be nearly impossible to accidentally brush against one another.

"Hi," you said. "So, it's been an interesting day, huh?"

The boy didn't respond and before you could make more futile attempts to fill the silence two doctors walked into the room.

"Min Yoongi and Jang Sumi?"

You both nodded and bowed.

"All right, I know this is all a bit overwhelming right now, but once we all discuss and decide on the various options, I'm sure you'll feel better." The doctor flipped a few pages on his clipboard before looking back up at you. "So, as you both know, this is still a fairly rare condition. Finding one's soulmate and having it cause heart attack like symptoms is not well understood. Due to this, we request at least monthly check-ups for at least the first year for both of you to ensure your heart is okay and to check your overall health. The rest depends on how the two of you choose to proceed. Are you two currently in a relationship?"

"No," you both answered.

The doctor nodded.

"The easiest and best way to proceed is to attempt a relationship. While it might be awkward at first, for your overall general health, it will be the best way to adjust and will allow the withdrawals to be less frequent and violent in the future. If--"

"No," Yoongi said. "We can't do a relationship."

"What do you mean?" you asked, your head whipping around to face him. The last thing you wanted was to be in a relationship with a man you barely knew, especially the day after you'd officially ended it with your ex. But if the doctors said it was the best way to deal with the situation, you were inclined to listen.

"It's for both of our own good," he said. "You have no idea what a relationship with an idol would be like."

"Well, there are other options," the doctor said, glancing between the two of you. "If you truly don't want to be together, we can work on trying to weaken or even sever the connection between you. It is rare and difficult to do, but it has been achieved. You will have to stay in the same building as the other person most of the time. There do seem to be some exceptions such as work or situations where the other absolutely can't be present. However, at first, these withdrawals will be powerful and you may not be able to leave the building without the other person at all. For the first week, we suggest not doing so.

"In order to attempt to sever the connection, we will have to monitor your mental health and work to keep the relationship on track. While you don't have to remain distant from each other, it is important to not have feelings for each other, or else it will not work. You will have monthly or bi-weekly appointments with a psychiatrist who is trained to work with cases like this.

"You will also experience something we like to call urges. These are instances of extreme attraction to one another. It will be extremely difficult to be apart from each other during these times. It is important that you be together in these times, but if you are choosing not to pursue a relationship, you must do your best to resist the attraction."

After the doctor was done explaining everything and had recorded your decision to attempt and sever the connection, they drew blood from both of you and allowed you to leave.

---

You'd spent the rest of the day packing. Your things were going to be confined mostly to one room, meaning you had to downsize and choose what was most important to you.

You heard a knock on the door and before you could answer it, it was already open and Eunji and the entirety of BTS came through your door.

"Sorry if I scared you," Eunji said. "I let them in."

"Sumi," the tallest one said. He was the leader, Kim Namjoon, according to Google. You figured you should at least try to learn your new roommates. He introduced himself and the rest of the boys, other than Yoongi. "We decided to help you pack up before the movers get here. I'm sure it's quite overwhelming to have to move all of a sudden."

"Yes," you said. "This is very sweet. I guess, um, you could help clean up a bit? I haven't had a chance to clean the kitchen since I got home. And, maybe someone else wouldn't mind getting dinner?"

"No problem," Namjoon said, motioning to the members.

"I'll be in my bedroom if you have any questions or need me for anything."

Eunji was already bonding with the younger members of the band and showed them where all of the cleaning supplies were kept. You smiled at her ability to make friends quickly and headed back to your bedroom.

Your suitcase laid open on your bed as you sorted through your clothes, trying to decide what to keep. You'd already packed the essentials, the rest of your closet spread out around the suitcase.

You felt something soft beneath your foot. You bent down and picked up the fabric, recognizing it as the dress you'd worn out the night before. You hated to leave it behind it, but you weren't sure you would need such a nice dress again. And if you did, you could just borrow one of Eunji's. You folded the dress and were attempting to make a decision when a knock sounded on your door.

"Come in."

The door opened and Yoongi walked in. He wore a beanie, a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans. You almost liked the more casual look on him more than the slightly more dressed up look he'd worn when you first met. You weren't sure if you truly liked it better or if it was just the connection between you talking.

"Sorry to intrude," he said. "I was just wondering if you needed any more help? The rest of the boys pretty much have it handled out there."

You tried to put aside the resentment you felt for the boy from earlier in the day when he so bluntly decided not to follow the best option and try the relationship.

"You can pack up my knitting stuff," you said pointing over to your desk in the corner where you kept yarn, knitting needles, and the various guides. "Just be careful not to tangle the different yarns together."

He nodded and grabbed an empty box and carefully placing each skein in the box. You turned back to the dress in your hands. You fingered the soft fabric and sighed as you went to set aside. Before you could set the dress with the rest of your discarded clothes, you felt a hand take it from you. You looked up at Yoongi, who held the dress and placed it into the suitcase.

"It looks good on you."

---

"You like to knit?" Yoongi asked, a few minutes later.

"Yeah," you said. "It calms me down when I'm stressed."

He nodded as he placed the rest of the items from the desk into the box.

"Sumi!" someone called from the hallway.

"What do you want us to do with this?" one of the boys asked, you believed his name was Jimin, followed by a blond-haired boy, Taehyung. Jimin dangled your stuffed cat in the air, a smirk across his face.

"Hey!" you said. "Don't hold Kitty that way!"

The boy laughed as you snatched the stuffed animal from him. One of Kitty's button eyes was loose and dangled slightly, causing her eyes to look uneven.

"You named it Kitty?" Jimin asked laughing.

Eunji came into the room. She seemed slightly annoyed with the two boys who had run off from their duties.

"I was four!" you said, looking down at the stuffed cat. "Besides, it's an English name!"

"All right, all right," Jimin said, relenting his taunts. "Do you want to take Kitty or not?"

You made eye contact with Eunji who's eyes were wide. She knew what Kitty meant to you, but Kitty was also falling apart. Her eye was the least of her trouble, you'd sewed the majority of her seams back together multiple times. You didn't want to risk Kitty getting lost or falling apart altogether. You knew it was time to let her go.

"She is pretty old and I'm getting too old for toys anyway. Um, I guess put her in with the donation pile." You handed the stuffed animal back to Jimin who took it and hesitantly walked from the room.

You felt tears pricking at your eyes, but you held them back and went back to sorting through your clothes. The task felt harder all of a sudden, but eventually, you finished, zipping up the suitcase.

---

It was late by the time you arrived at the dorm. It was huge, the biggest apartment you'd ever seen. It was surprisingly clean for being inhabited by seven boys, but you figured they were just too busy to cause much of a mess.

The extra bedroom they'd been using as storage was already clear for you. You made your bed and then opened your suitcase and began emptying it into the dresser.

"Need some help?" Namjoon asked, standing in the doorway.

You smiled at the boy as he began sorting your clothes, making it easier for you to put away.

"Thank you," you said. "I'm exhausted and I'm honestly dreading the rest of the boxes getting here tomorrow."

He nodded.

"We've moved a lot," he said. "Sometimes I feel more tired after moving than dance practice."

You both laughed lightly.

"They told me you're an English tutor?"

"Yeah," you said.

"It'll be nice having someone else who can speak English."

"None of the other boys can?"

He shook his head.

"No, they all understand a little. But none of them are fluent."

"We'll have to change that then," you said, laughing.

"How'd you learn it?"

"My mom grew up in the US. Her parents were from here but moved to the US when my mom was a baby. She met my dad when she was here visiting family and she ended up moving when they got married. So, I grew up speaking both Korean and English. My parents recently moved to the US actually, to be closer to my grandparents."

"Wow," he said. "That's a better story than mine. I just watched Friends."

You laughed.

"That's more impressive though. You taught yourself. I kind of just learned it the same time I learned Korean."

You felt some of the nerves you'd felt coming into the dorm beginning to leave you. While you were sure it would talk longer for you to adjust, the boys had all tried to be as helpful and welcoming as possible. Even Yoongi. Despite the fact he'd barely talked to you, he still helped pack up your apartment.

"Sumi," you heard another voice say. You turned around and saw Yoongi standing in the doorway, his eyes focused on his phone. "We have a problem."

"What?" you asked, your eyebrows knitting together.

"Someone found your shoes."

"My shoes? You mean, the ones I left at the bar last night?"

Yoongi nodded.

"Someone is selling them online. They're using the connection to me to get attention. The bidding ends tomorrow."

You grabbed onto the dresser and tried to steady yourself. You'd expected something like this to happen eventually, but just twenty four hours after you'd even met Min Yoongi?

You heard Namjoon say something to Yoongi, but you didn't catch what it was. You felt a hand on your shoulder and saw the leader looking straight at you.

"We're going to get this figured out."

All you could do was nod.

[chibimyumi]

The Circus Arc

Last week somebody asked me what my favourite manga arc is, and without a second of hesitation I answered 🎪. As I have already publically declared my love, it is only natural for me to write a love letter to the Circus Arc.

Why do I consider the Circus Arc the best still after more than a decade?

I. The true story

First of all, the Circus Arc is in my opinion the first arc wherein we truly get to meet the characters, as well as the series itself.

A protagonist who is dispensable in their own story is not a true protagonist. As touched upon in this post, before the Circus Arc O!Ciel was actually little more than a plot device to show off Sebastian’s many assets. “The Watchdog has a case because the Queen said so, Sebastian solves it.” “The Watchdog was kidnapped because Yana TOLD us he made life for the mafia a bit hard, so Sebastian saves him.” When Sebas said to his master “you truly have no other talent except for getting yourself abducted,” it sure rang very true until that point. It wasn’t as much a story of O!Ciel’s revenge as it was Sebas saving the day because: demon powers.

In the Circus Arc however, we truly got an insight on why this little boy could indeed have made life for the mafia hard, and why after two years the Queen still hasn’t fired him. As discussed in the post mentioned before, almost as a compensation for his prior starfishhood, O!Ciel had insisted on doing the investigation himself, even at the cost of his own health. We saw him actively cooking up strategies as well as dealing with any situation as they were met. O!Ciel really displayed a commendable aptness at playing the cards he has been dealt in the Circus Arc. In contrast, while Sebas did make many accomplishments, all his actions were the undertaken because of O!Ciel’s orders. In the Circus Arc we truly got to see how the boy is the chess player, and demon the black knight.

II. Our protagonists - into the core

The Circus Arc is likewise the arc wherein we actually get to meet our two main characters outside their token function.

We have seen Sebastian’s establishment as “the pawn that can move across the entire chessboard in one single move”. But without O!Ciel’s input or any price that the master would have to pay, Sebastian is easily just an ‘instant-win card’, an ironic “deus” ex machina, if you will.

As discussed in this post and this post, in the Jack the Ripper Arc Sebastian was quite dissatisfied with his master and therefore decided to teach his master a lesson at the cost of more innocent lives. However nasty, it had been O!Ciel who ordered for a subpar move, and technically the pawn “did nothing wrong.”

In the Circus Arc O!Ciel became meticulous about decisions regarding his chess piece. Principally there was nothing wrong with the order O!Ciel had given his butler about releasing the snakes before the first stringers would return, and Sebas who was bound to perfect completion of any order also didn’t do anything wrong, technically. However, it had already been established that as long as Sebas sees the interest himself he would find any loophole in orders to still benefit his master in one way or another. As it is, considering how Sebas did decide to release the poisonous snakes while his master was in the danger zone, we are left with a chilling conclusion that Sebas simply ‘did not see the interest’ of shielding O!Ciel from danger. For the first time we truly learn the extent of Sebastian’s nondiscriminatory nastiness; how indeed all humans are the same to him. For the first time we truly understand that O!Ciel is paying with much more than his soul for Sebastian’s services. This demon is a double-edged sword, but much more than swinging outwards, this sword has a tendency to swing inwards the moment the wielder allows for any opening.

Previously discussed in this post, we also see the full extent of Sebastian’s manipulativeness and toxicity in the Circus Arc. Sure, in other arcs Sebas is also manipulative, but all of those actions could still be categorised under “merciless honesty”. In the Circus Arc however, O!Ciel objectively did nothing wrong to be triggered and exhausted from the Circus shenanigans, and yet Sebas was unnecessarily re-triggering and victim shaming his master for some extra “flavouring”. If there had been any doubt whether Sebas is bad for O!Ciel, then surely the Circus Arc put all doubts to rest.

For the first time in the manga we also see a genuine obstacle for Sebastian that is for not also the final hurdle to overcome, like in the Ripper, Curry, Campania or any other arc really. In the Manor Murder and Werewolf Arc there were of course Earl Grey and Wolfram respectively, but in those cases Sebas mostly tried to outrun the obstacles. In the Circus Arc however, William is likewise a supernatural being, and Sebas knew very well that he can’t just neutralise William without causing more trouble than good. Hence we saw how Sebas tried to negotiate with William, and we learned that even Sebastian cannot just avoid hurdles. Negotiating with William did not work of course, so the story forced Sebas to be creative. It truly was great to see Sebas use his brain rather than demon-muscles to overcome a problem for a change.

While getting “creative”, Sebas displayed his aptitude for preying on humans in our weakest of moments. As explained in this characterisation of Sebastian, Sebastian is not terrifying because he has super powers, but because he understands human weaknesses like no other and uses our own weaknesses against us. Click here for an analysis of Sebas’ cross-media manipulation of Beast.

In this same arc we likewise truly understand the looming threat O!Ciel is dealing with, an explicit revelation of the monster Sebastian is. This scene from underneath is the most explicit moment telling us that Sebas is not just dwelling on Earth comfortably; he is holding out under a cover. This scene almost served as an alarming reminder to us: “beware, the demon can snap”.

What about O!Ciel? In our boy we saw his tremendous dedication to his job. Except for purposes directly related to the investigation, never once did he order Sebastian to make life easier for him. He never made Sebas secure food for him or do any of the chores for him. Surely Earl Phantomhive would consider himself above wrestling for food or scrub some floors, and yet he was willing to just take on any task without complaining. In no other arc do we see just how effective O!Ciel is as the Watchdog exactly because he is so versatile both in playing the ‘cute little boy’ card as well as the ‘feared Watchdog’ card.

Doll was an exceptionally well chosen “obstacle” for O!Ciel (more about her later). When Doll briefly wondered about why a peasant boy like Smile would speak in flawless RP, we saw O!Ciel’s ability of thinking on his feet, giving a very logical explanation of: “I served in a Lord’s household where I learned to speak proper.” When Doll caught him red handed when he sneaked into Snake’s tent O!Ciel also immediately pulled the “I didn’t steal anything!” card, skillfully tying it into his previous story as ‘the page boy who was fired for stealing’. We learned that the Watchdog really is willing to carry out his job through any means necessary, not just ‘the cool and edgy means’.

One of the best ways to get to learn a person is judging from their gut reactions. When O!Ciel was triggered in the final showdown he no longer had any energy to put on a strong front or think about matters rationally. He was in emotional pain and his gut reaction was to want that pain gone.

Even Sebastian who would not directly benefit from the case being completed advised his master against burning down everything. Even with the Queen’s commission as leverage however, the boy still yelled to have everything reduced to ashes. In this moment we also understood just how traumatising everything was to O!Ciel personally. This trauma response didn’t come from nowhere; everything that happened up until that point had been a logical build-up towards this inevitable result.

III. The Side Characters

A story cannot be told with just the main characters; you need to care about the interactions they have with others too. In my opinion the Circus Arc has delivered the most memorable side characters that linger with us even after death. In particular Joker and Doll.

Joker is a very fun, charismatic character as well as a person with many different sides. He is lawfully inexcusable, but we cannot help but sympathise, or at least understand how he too is a victim compelled into evil. Rationally we reject Joker’s actions, but partially it is because we have the luxury to do so. “Is this self defense? Would we, or how would we have done anything differently had we been in his exact shoes?” is a question worth considering.

Doll too; we see a child who lived a relatively happy life in the recent past. In the anime they made it explicit that Doll was complicit in all the kidnappings of the children, but in the manga it is more ambiguous whether Doll is fully aware of Kelvin’s agenda. This gives the effect that with the revelation of Joker always having taken most of the bullets, we understand that the torment Joker has been suffering was the price he paid to buy his siblings a more-or-less normal life. If O!Ciel sold his soul to the devil in the literate sense, Joker did so in the figurative sense in exchange for his family’s happiness.

IV. The Antagonists?

We do not spend too much time with Baron Kelvin, and he is a relatively simple character. But that is not bad as long as the villain’s threat reaches us. The horrors of Kelvin have always been quite clear; when children are harmed it triggers a gut reaction of disgust in most viewers. But the kidnapped children were not the functional victims in this story, it is the first stringers with Joker in the centre.

Kelvin has made a bunch of crippled children fully dependent on him, and used their own dependency as a currency to satisfy his own greed. Never once did he allow these children to forget how he could easily return them to the gutter from where he collected them. The kidnapped children were just numbers in the newspaper, but the first stringers are characters we spent time with. We have seen their suffering and we know they are just trying to get by. So it is all the more heartbreaking that children who merely wanted their basic human rights were turned into the antagonists that had to be exterminated. In the showdown between Joker vs Watchdog, the dynamic is shifted from “heroes vs child-kidnapping villains” to “villain-protagonists vs anti-villains”.

The Circus Arc is very special in how the villain impacts the readers, because the people affected matter to us. In the earliest arcs we didn’t REALLY care about O!Ciel, but he was the main person who suffered from the villains. With Sebastian around however, we don’t really worry. In the Ripper, Mansion, Campania and Potter Arc the main victims are characters we don’t spend any time with, so emotionally we don’t really care whether “evil gets vanquished”. In the Werewolf Arc we do have Sieglinde and Wolfram, and it is heartbreaking to see Sieglinde discovering that all her happiness had been a big lie and that to even her own mother she was nothing but a tool. But in the very least she did grow up happily, she survived and has a fresh chance to start a new life, and the person closest to her (Wolfram) is still with her.

For the first stringers however... all had been meaningless, all is finite.

As expertly described by Sebas in the musical adaptation of the Circus Arc, humans are pathetic because we are merely “accumulating sins in the version of hell [we] have chosen to live.”

V. From foil to team members

The servants at the Phantomhive manor were originally just designed to be foil for Sebas to demonstrate his awesome butler skills. I don’t know whether they were liked at first, but for one I do know that many found them quite annoying or pointless too.

The Circus Arc is the first time we see the significance of the Phantomhive servants, that they’re not just there waiting to be fed by O!Ciel because... he’s a philanthropist of some sort? Yana had made some questionable decisions at first, and she clearly regretted those ‘choices’. I personally see the Circus Arc as her first demonstration of her skills as story writer, and her public proclamation of: “this is Kuroshitsuji’s potential!”

Had the entire series started with the Circus Arc, then surely the animated series would have gotten a much higher budget and a better time-slot for airing.

VI. Humour

The humour in the Circus Arc is also great, but nothing was shoehorned in there for the sake of laughs, neither do these moments disturb the tone of the story.

Everything was funny because they were the inevitable consequences of putting these people together. William had been established as a demon-racist plank, and when made to cooperate with a demon, of course he would say: “my hands will rot”. When called “four-eyes”, of course he would say: “it’s SUIT”.

Many of the comedic moments are centred around our protagonists’ inconveniences, but nobody is inconveniencing them for the sake of inconveniencing them. When Sebastian was not trying to leave the vicinity William mostly let him at peace. O!Ciel for example also couldn’t do many things simply because Doll was clinging to him. But she did not know what was at stake and her actions were well grounded in her immense desire to make new friends. “You are young, I am young. You lost an eye, I lost an eye. Let’s be FRIENDS!”

This is in stark contrast with how ‘funny inconveniences’ were staged before using Lizzie or Grell for example. Lizzie was a drag to O!Ciel because... she’s a girl who wanted everything to go HER way... and Grell was a drag to Sebas because she... is a girl who wanted everything to go HER way.

VII. Ending

The ending of the Circus Arc also carried a bitter-sweet tone that most other arcs do not present. The thematic of “demons dwell in the human nature of stepping on others” is perfectly addressed in the Circus Arc, but it does not end with: “so don’t be evil!”. The Circus Arc simply highlights the issue and reminds us that ‘stepping on others’ does not exist in a vacuum.

Had the objective of the series not been established as “boy who swore on revenge”, and instead be: "rethinking evil”, then the Circus Arc alone would have told the story sufficiently.

The finale of the Circus Arc resonates with its audience because the core principle on which Kuroshitsuji is built is a narrative humankind has always wanted to externalise, but without success: “demons are only as evil as humans allow their own evil to show”.

[transhawks]

Hawks and the Trolley Problem

I. What is the Trolley Problem?

The Trolley Problem is an ethical thought experiment, mostly testing outcomes and methods of achieving them. It goes like this:

There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. 

You have two options:

A. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track. B. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

What is the right thing to do?

There are schools of thought that attempt to explain this problem. A common response is to divert the trolley, actively making the choice to kill one person to save five. In this scenario, you are making an active choice to kill someone for the ‘greater’ outcome, which assumes that the best outcome is to save as many as possible. We will call this choice the Utilitarian option.

The second option is to do nothing and let the five people die. Why? Because then it’s a matter of letting the trolley do what it intends to and not actually pulling a lever and condemning a person to death. By choosing inaction in order to not murder anyone, you could stay true to a moral of never killing anyone. This is the Kantian option.

Of course, the Trolley Problem is customizable - people add all sort of features, like instead pushing someone in front of the trolley to stop it, or including knowing someone in the line up of potential dead. It doesn’t even have to be a trolley - all it asks is what is the right thing to do? And, of course, what is the value of a human life.

II. What is Hawks’s Dilemma? 

Hawks has infiltrated the Paranormal Liberation Front and managed to manipulate Twice into befriending him and providing him with information leading to a preemptive strike by the Heroes against the PLF. However, he feels that Twice is a greater harm than just an information source and thus has used his friendship to kidnap Twice, keeping him and his quirk away from a battlefield where he would easily be able to overwhelm the hero forces. Without Twice, the villains are far more easily beatable. 

BNHA 263 ends with Hawks threatening Twice with his feather-knives and asking himself the question, internally: What is the right thing to do?

Let’s break the options down:

A. Hawks kills Twice to effectively ensure he cannot escape and help. The villains are not able to use his clones in the battle, leaving them vulnerable. Hawks ensures heroes survive the battle (assuming no unexpected things happen), and that the status quo the PLF want to topple is maintained. Low amounts of civilian casualties, hero casualties. The problems that caused this issue in the first place continue.

B. Hawks lets Twice go. Twice uses his clones to defend the PLF, ensuring more casualties for both the heroes, and possibly the PLF. Eventual massive civilian casualties. Status Quo is broken, system is broken - the problems that created this are addressed, either by further perpetuation or reduction.

There are also other factors.

Hawks knows Twice. Heroes are not typically supposed to kill villains. Hawks has referred to Twice as ‘good-natured’, and reflected it made it easier to accomplish this, yet he also seems surprised by how much Twice genuinely likes and trusts him. He also knows, on both sides, many of the people likely to die from this.

Miruko in 262 mentions that heroes hold back fighting villains - killing is not usually an action heroes are allowed or suggested to take.

And, lastly, Hawks’s choice is not solely his - up to now he has performed his duty as a tool to the Hero Public Safety Commission.  

III. How the Hero System Would Tackle the Problem?

Let’s talk about what it means to be a hero.

From what we’ve seen in the manga and spin off Vigilantes, there’s an actual calculation, maybe even algorithm in how heroes get paid. It is a clearly a numerical one.

The question is how exactly should anyone looking at a catastrophe begin to count the worth of human life? We don’t have exact confirmation, but it’s likely the ‘Specialty Organization’ is none other than the HPSC, or the Hero Commission as fandom likes to call them. 

From previous encounters, we know that they are utilitarian in outlook, hence the way they sent Hawks to infiltrate the League. To the HPSC, the consequences of an action matter far more than the morality of the action itself. As a organization that, then, depersonalizes choices in terms of numbers and metrics, a simple calculation that five people over one intended casualty is acceptable.

Remember, the HPSC also comes out with ranks. Heroism is numbers to their system and they got the calculation.

In Japan, Professional Heroes are officially ranked by taking in account several factors such as the number of cases solved, general popularity, and level of social contribution. (bnha wiki)

In their view, Hawks would choose A. There’s no option for him otherwise. The HPSC continues to exist as long as everyone accepts their metrics and calculations. Lives, to them, have an internal quantifiable logic. So do hero actions.

Villains do, too, but only in ‘resolving’ them. As incidences. 

IV. What are Lives Worth, Anyway?

The more factors we include in this problem, the more complications. A kantian viewpoint might come from someone in the Liberation Front - Twice’s quirk is amazing and far more valuable that most quirks. If we put Twice in the Trolley Problem, it’s unlikely that the five other people would have comparable quirks. Thus, simply on that basis, Twice’s ‘worth’ would be more than the others and no lever would be pulled.

For Hawks, it would be the action itself. Heroes do not kill, and while he has been conditioned into taking the HPSC’s metrics into the forefront of his decision-making all his life, the active choice to kill Twice would have consequences.

Hawks has already shown to struggle with guilt - besides the words he said after the Jeanist incident, manipulating Endeavor into coming with him just to use him as a shield against whatever the League had did disturb Hawks, just from facial expressions. He does even question that he has to perform immoral actions in order to do as the HPSC wishes. At the same time he has generally gone along with the idea that the ends justify the means.

It’s very obvious what would happen if any of us ever encountered a “trolley problem” in real life. We would panic, do something rashly, and then watch in horror as one or more persons died a gruesome death before our eyes. We would probably end up with PTSD. Whatever we had ended up doing in the moment, we would probably feel guilty about for the rest of our lives: even if we had somehow miraculously managed to comply with a consistent set of consequentialist ethics, this would bring us little comfort.  ( Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs. 2017)

As I wrote this, someone mentioned The Good Place, a show that showed explored the Trolley Problem in depth. One of the conclusions it came to is that nevertheless of the circumstances it is horrifying. No matter the ethics, faced with such a problem, most people would not come away of it well. Hawks included because he is not a machine and is capable of feeling guilt either way.

If he kills Twice, he kills and betrays a friend, and saves the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions, and betraying people he has gotten to know over the course of months. But that’s a weight he’ll have to bear for the rest of his life, if he manages to survive. He’ll have to know he did what Heroes are avoidant to do; kill. 

If he doesn’t kill Twice, Twice will help lead a revolution that, while addressing many of the issues Hawks sees with society, will kill Hawks’s thousands of colleagues and many innocents in the crossfire.

V. A Different Question?

The issue then is not what Hawks does, but why he has to ask this question of himself in the first place. The thing is that there are rarely only two options in any given situation.

The thing is situations are created. And so are choices. They do not come out of thin air. They are not in a self-contained vacuum. Twice was created, and so was Hawks, and so was the Commission. The choices Hawks faces right now are not removed from hundreds of years of other decisions, and powers that enact them.

If I am forced against my will into a situation where people will die and I have no ability to stop it, how is my choice a “moral” choice between meaningfully different options, as opposed to a horror show I’ve just been thrust into, in which I have no meaningful agency at all? Let’s think a bit more about who put me here and how to keep them from having diabolical power over others.  ( Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs. 2017)  

The thing about ascribing morality, too, to individual actions is it misses the powers of institutional forces upon our lives. What does that look like in BNHA?

It means we see Ujiko and not an Empire AFO has been building for at least a century to make sure there are systems in place creating noumus, and people like Shigaraki who exist in this world. 

It means we see Endeavor and his heroism and brilliant record and not a system ignoring that a man who bought a woman to force her to have children in a genetic experiment is now the symbol of Peace and Stability for that system. 

It means we see Twice as a regrettable casualty of society whose only option for acceptance was among murderers fulfilling a murder-empire and not a consequence of both AFO’s system and the Hero System to make sure people like him have no safe place in the world.

It means we see Hawks poised to kill Twice and not the organization that bought him as a child and raised him into a soldier who has to decide whether to kill one or many.

And once you realize that none of these questions, none of these options are fair or right in these terms - not the one for many, not the sparing to absolve personal guilt, you can ask the question what is right thing to do.

What I mean is maybe there shouldn’t be heroes or villains. None of that conflict should exist. There’s no rights in either view. Yes the hero system should be eradicated. But the lack of future Shigaraki envisions, and the dystopian plans AFO and Ujiko actually have, and the Liberation Army plan for, are also wrong. 

Neither of the systems proposed have the right answer or the right to posit one. 

The real answers are not in the right or wrongs. They’re in every other sentence. They’re in Jirou’s encouragement of Kaminari, in Shigaraki telling the League he wants them to be happy with what they love, in Keigo’s unsure smile as Jin looks at him and tells him he’s a good person for caring for his friends. The answers are in the love that ordinary people have for each other, that no manufactured conflict and institution can quantify or destroy. And that hopefully, someone will voice this.

VI. What will Hawks Answer?

The thing about this is that we aren’t sure if Keigo will fully make a decision right now. There’s a likelihood he will be interrupted. Or he will put off his decision-making and spare Twice for the moment, delaying his choice. And that’s just ignoring the fact that there isn’t one choice to make here; no, lots of them. 

However, Keigo has made one personal life-changing decision in before; the HPSC has taken that choice and removed free will from it. 

Self-sacrifice, after all, is both the will of the HPSC and Hawks’s true nature. If quirks are to show us the nature of the person, why not Hawks’s feathers, deceptively soft but deadly, maneuverable and revealing, and yet, ultimately consist of him breaking his only ability to fly free until he no longer can? What’s more self-sacrificial than breaking off pieces of yourself to save others?  

The Good Place has an answer to the problem that accepts that no matter the options, and the questions, someone will lose something. Die maybe. The solution is that if someone must die, why not yourself?

The one comfort is that for all the lack of choices Hawks has been given in this situation - this is the one solution he can come up with on his own.

[365days365movies]

May 6, 2021: The Martian (2015) (Recap: Part One)

We’re leaving lo-fi sci-fi, people. Kind of.

I mentioned before that films like Her are what I define as “lo-fi sci-fi”, which is a category that I’ve kind of made up. Basically, it’s the science fiction version of low fantasy, meaning it contains science fiction themes contained within an otherwise contemporary setting. In the case of Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character, along with many others, live in a world and setting basically like ours, but with technology advanced enough to generate AIs (like Siri) that are intelligent enough to actually ascend our reality. Because we live in a society.

You give me Joaquin Phoenix, I’m gonna make a Joker reference; it’s in the contract of my existence. Anyway, that is admittedly kind of broad, right? I mean, that has the capability of crossing over with a BUNCH of sci-fi genres and themes. And, considering that we’ve already seen magic, speculative technology, time travel, monsters, and artificial intelligence, we’ve already touched on quite a bit.

And with science fiction, the sky’s the limit. Literally. So, I think it behooves us to re-examine lo-fi sci-fi a little bit. Specifically, we should note that it can also be defined as an extension of currently existing technologies and possibilities. Writers would call this “speculative sci-fi”, assuming in this case that it’s set within the present or a near and attainable future. Her definitely fits in this category, as does Westworld. But, let’s crossover to another genre by speculating upon another possibility. And it begins with this man. Probably.

Hey, Elon, what’s up? Now, Mr. Musk here is a...controversial figure, for COMPLETELY understandable reasons. Instead of touch upon the man himself, I feel like touching upon one of his recent focuses: space travel. With SpaceX and the various upcoming space trips and journeys that they’re planning, Musk has made it clear that he plans to shoot to the Moon. Again, literally.

In fact, this full plan is to go even further than that, and to fuel potential commercial space flights in the future, which is admittedly very cool. And of course, if you’re going to shoot for the Moon...

Guys...guys, that’s Mars. THAT’S FUCKING MARS

Is that not amazing? We have sound and pictures from FUCKING MARS! THAT’S A DIFFERENT PLANET, GODDAMN IT! It’s cooler than I have the ability to properly express, but it IS goddamn cool. And this means that, easily within my lifetime, we could (and likely will) land on Mars. Which is amazing. God, I really want to see that happen.

And so, landing on Mars is BARELY science fiction, but since we haven’t yet done so...yeah, it’s fictional at the moment. And so, any film about landing on Mars falls within this category. Well...to an extent.

2000′s Mission to Mars, for example, was a Disney-funded film (to my IMMENSE surprise; and it’s based off of an old Disney World ride, WHAT), and a movie that I saw a LOT when I was a kid. I also barely remember it, to be honest. But that film is straight-up science fiction because of, well...aliens. The idea of Martians is, as far as we know it, fictional. And most fiction involving Mars includes these aliens somehow. Whether it’s DC Comics’ entire civilization of Martians, as seen in Justice League, Supergirl, or Young Justice...

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s heavily mythologized civilization, as seen in the Barsoom series of novels (and another Disney film)...

...Or one of the best Looney Tunes characters.

Mmm. Yes. Isn’t that lovely?

But, yeah, Mars and aliens go hand-in-hand in our media. So, to properly look at lo-fi science and speculative science fiction in relation to the Red Planet, we’ll need a movie that goes to the planet, and doesn’t touch upon the concept of aliens AT ALL.

Enter...Ridley Scott?

Yeah, the director of Legend, Alien, Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner, Gladiator. Also the director of Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and...ugh, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. I’ve talked about his mixed record before, in my Recap of Legend right here.

In 2014, he was brought on to adapt a book by Andy Weir called The Martian, which is a great book! I’ve listened to the audio book, and I whole-heartedly recommend doing that. And because of that, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to watching this film, especially seeing as it’s often called one of the best science fiction films made during that year, and was critically acclaimed then and now. It got seven Oscar nominations (although it won none of them), amongst other awards. So, enough navel-gazing, huh? The Martian!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

On Acidalia Plantitia, at the landing site of the Ares III mission, a group of scientists are gathering samples. These scientists are commander and geologist Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), systems operator Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), surgeon Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), German chemist Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie), and overly talkative botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon). 

The group seems to have a good dynamic, but that dynamic is interrupted by a massive dust storm, which is large enough to cause the entire crew to evacuate. However, in the chaos of the dust storm, Mark is hit by debris and lost in the shuffle. Although Lewis goes back to find him, she can’t get to him before they need to leave, and Mark is believed dead. This is reported (pretty callously) by NASA Director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) to the press soon afterwards.

But of course, that wouldn’t be much of a movie, now would it? Mark’s alive! And Mark’s alone. With his suit damaged, and low on oxygen, he trudges back to headquarters, which is intact and still contains breathable oxygen. He gets inside, and realizes that he’s been stabbed in the abdomen by some debris. He removes it, and stitches up his own wound. Which is...god, it’s fucking BRUTAL just to think about, nevertheless watch.

Once he’s finished, he records a log for the future, if he doesn’t make it. It’s day 19 of the 31-day mission at this point, and Mark’s basically screwed. He needs lasting oxygen, water, and food, and he might need that for 4 years, when the next manned mission can come to the red planet. Additionally, he has absolutely no way to contact NASA, leaving him completely stranded. Another dust storm rolls in that night, and Mark looks over the belongings of his colleagues, packing them up for their eventual return. It’s somber, to say the least. However, Mark affirms that he’s determined not to die on the planet.

After doing the math, Mark should have enough food to last him for about 300 days, especially if he rations it. Until then, he’ll need to figure out how to grow his own food, on a planet where nothing grows. Which is, of course, going to be a difficult feat to accomplish. But Mark Watney’s a botanist with botany powers, and he’s gonna do it.

It’s day 31, and Mark’s brought in dirt from the outside, and uses the bio-waste from the crew’s stay there for a form of compost. After 5 days, mostly full of him watching Happy Days on TV and trying to farm, he realizes that he needs water, both for himself and for the soil. To do that, he goes chemical and decides to use hydrogen-laden rocket fuel, wood from Martinez’s belongings, and good old-fashioned fire to make water! And since hydrogen + oxygen = water, it should work. With a minor side-effect.

So, yeah, he blew himself up. As as he records a video log, the sound mixing makes itself impressively known by subtly and realistically generating a tinnitus sound. It’s VERY well-done, holy shit. Anyway, he makes a stable fire, and the place is soon covered in condensation, moistening the room and the soil successfully.

We get to day 54, and Mark’s planted leftover potatoes from the crew in order to grow them. And while he’s being mourned at a funeral on Earth, and in NASA, he’s seeing the fruits (or shoots) of his efforts.

Back on Earth, Mars Mission Director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is trying to convince Director Teddy to let him lobby for another Ares mission, despite the risk of bad press for the callousness of the proximity to Watney’s death. Meanwhile, satellite technician Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) looks down at the Ares III site, and realizes that the site has changed visually, meaning that Mark may actually be alive.

Shocked by this, she tells Kapoor, Teddy, and media director Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) about this, and they realize the absolute clusterfuck that this whole thing is. They can’t tell the other members of the Ares III crew about it, because it’d devastate them for the 10 months they have to get back to Earth, at the VERY least. They can’t tell the WORLD about this, because they just had a funeral for the guy, and they’d reveal that they left him stranded on Mars accidentally, destroying faith in the Mars Missions Program. And they can’t save Mark, who they’re sure will starve eventually. It’s a mess. And Kapoor also wonders what’s happening to Mark psychologically through all of this.

And yet, they reveal this to the world regardless, causing the clusterfuck reaction that they think it’s going to cause. But Mark’s busy on Mars, figuring out how to get to the site of the next Ares IV mission in 4 years, at the Schiaparelli crater about 50 days travel away. This is a struggle, as his Rover has only so much power and fuel, and he can only get more power by cutting out the heater is risking death by freezing. So, problems. However, he figures out a potential solution: radioactive isotopes! In a move that is, let’s face it, COMPLETELY INSANE, he digs up a radioactive generator from the ship in order to heat the ship.

On Earth, they try to figure out Mark’s moves, as well as how to resupply Ares IV sooner for Mark’s benefit. This is with the director of JPL, Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), and the flight director of the ship Hermes, Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), who insists that they tell the Ares II crew. They continue to monitor Mark, and note that he’s been travelling for 17 days in his Rover towards something. Kapoor figures it out, and flies to California.

See, Mark needs a way to contact NASA, and he believes that the way to do so is through Pathfinder, the first probe ever sent to Mars in 1997, lasting for 9 months since landing until they lost contact. Mark digs it up, and the people at JPL in California start their own efforts for contact. And despite communication being extremely rudimentary, initially limited to yes/no questions that use a still-frame camera, it fucking WORKS! WHOO!

To boost this communication hurdle, the two camps figure out a hexadecimal system for communication, allowing them to communicate using a circular table of numbers that represent an alphabet. That allows them to teach Mark to hack into the Rover, allowing it to piggyback off of its broadcast signal and send them messages via keyboard. Nice! Now that communication is reasonably possible, Mark’s able to ask how the crew is handling his death. But upon learning that they haven’t told him. He’s understandably a little goddamn enraged. And so, they FINALLY tell the Ares III crew about this.

The news breaks the crew, even though Mark continues to stress that he’s all right, and that it wasn’t their fault. Meanwhile, Mark’s able to survive for 912 days with his potato plants, and things improve with the help of technicians on Earth. They plan to launch a supply rocket to him in the next year, and things are looking fine! Unless, of course...something goes horribly HORRIBLY wrong.

Well...fuck. Good place to pause for Part Two, then?

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki SSL - Hakuo Gakuen Q&A

This is my last post of the month, so I’ll end by asking you to please support me if you can through my ko-fi, and paypal or patreon which provides access to my hakuoki blog translations and early access to my postings. Also, please let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my Lookout List since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that I can share.... and if you are able to remove watermarks from a video, please contact me.  

Anyway, for some odd reason, ive been thinking about how lazy i am with editing sometimes, and it really shows on some of my older posts (alternatively that just might be fatigue since i used to mostly translate in the late evening/extremely early morning [like 3amish])... tho i will say that the degree to which i edit something relies heavily on what the content is. Like, I will be pretty thorough when I’m working on a subtitle file, but when I’m working on something else... my interest in properly communicating the English language plummets like a rock..... lol. 

one day, i should probably go and edit my older posts.... also, i havent been working on any videos lately since im trying to fill up as much of my queue as possible before things get busy...

Hakuo Gakuen Q&A

This translation is for content that was originally from the Dengeki Girl's Style 2014 April issue.

Translation by KumoriYami

Q1. Why did you enroll at Hakuo Gakuen or chooses to work there?

Q2. What do you think are the benefits of enrolling/working at Hakuo Gakuen?

Q3. Which course from the school do you recommend?

-------------

Hijikata Toshizou

A1. Because Kondou-san said that he was going to establish a school. I just couldn’t let that go could I……

A2. When I knew that this school would be promoting a traditional school spirit among the students, I thought this was fairly good.

A3: Of course that'd be classical literature.

-------------

Okita Souji

A1. Of course that's because Kondou-san is here.

A2. Although Hijikata-san is skilled, Sano-san and Shinpat-san who are excellent swordsmen, have also gathered here.

A3. I'd recommend all of the courses aside from classical literature.

-------------

Saito Hajime

A1. I was first attracted by the campus atmosphere, and I admire Kondou-san and Hijikata-san who are also here.

A2. To foster the students ability to think independently the corresponding penalties for students have also been established.

A3: Classical Literature.

-------------

Toudou Heisuke

A1. Since there a lot of teachers that I know here, I felt that I would have an easier time here, and it's also close to home.

A2. Although the kendo I was involved with before going to this school was quite different, the kendo club's activities are very interesting.

A3. What makes me the happiest is physical education.

-------------

Harada Sanosuke

A1.  Well, although it was a long time ago, while I was in the process of becoming friends with Shinpachi..... that ended up happening.

A2. This isn't just a place for teaching, and is also a place where the independence of students has great importance attached to it [gave up on rewording].

A3. Well...... Otori-sensei's English class is surprisingly interesting.

[ tn: that was the first time i saw Otori’s name in CN... was only able to translate it since one of the translators i’ve bookmarked translated all the Zuisouroku sakura ephemera stories and i was able to reference it from that.]

-------------

Kazama Chikage

A1. Of course that is to find my wife. Although this is a Kazama family tradition, it's made me wait for so long...... far too long!

A2. Aside from [needing to meet/]meeting my wife, there are no other problems.

A3. I believe it is necessary to use the power of the student council president to have courses on tea ceremony offered.

-------------

Sanan Keisuke

A1. When I heard that Kondou-san would be opening a school, I wondered if I would be able to help with something.

A2. Naturally…… it gives me a place to freely do my research.

A3. Ito-sensei's music course, it's quite decent.

-------------

Nagakura Shinpachi

A1. When I was closing to graduating from university, Kondou-san invited me to work here as a teacher.

A2. The food at this school is great! Since I came here, I haven’t needed to worry about having three meals.

A3. It goes without saying that it's naturally math!

-------------

Nagumo Kaoru

A1. Because my younger sister has to go to school anyway, since I'm her elder brother, it's natural for her to follow me.

A2. That'd probably be the disciplinary committee here. Hehe...... it's so much fun.

A3. A course? All the courses are boring.

-------------

Yamazaki Susumu

A1. Although the school's philosophy is a bit old-fashioned, I heard that the students' independent thinking is emphasized, so I decided to enroll at this school.

A2. Meeting Hijikata-sensei, you can say it's that.

A3. I'd personally recommend the classical literature course, but the science courses are also hard to turn away from.

------

 mwahahhaa ive got 2 dramas done for may~! 

also i translated track 6 of shinsengumi oni-tan lol. sorry but it was a lot shorter than tracks 3, 4 and 5... 

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Breath of Fire IV

I think we’re closing in on the end. But in good ole BoF fashion, the last leg is taking the longest. Also, Nina is totally the main character of this game.

NINA

I’ve only ever beaten BoF 3, 4, and 5--though I’ve played 1 & 2. It’s a constant that Ryu is the main character, and that Ryu is the player. Ryu is never (to rarely) given dialog because the player is meant to imagine the voice of Ryu. And while this definitely works for BoF 3 and 5, Nina is clearly the main character in 4.

1. We Start the Game as Nina

In both BoF 3 and 5, we start the game as Ryu, and that’s basically where we stay for the whole adventure (occasionally controlling other characters). BoF 4 has us start with Nina. It’s a simple distinction, but sets up my next point.

2. Nina Makes All the Decisions

My screenwriting professor said the main character makes the decisions that drive the story. In this sense, Ryu is extremely passive. He’s mostly just along for the ride. It’s Nina that offers to help him, Nina that decides he should tag along, and it’s Nina’s quest he joins. Later, Nina decides to rescue Cray. Nina goes to her father for help. Nina asks the gods for assistance. Nina insists they save Ryu. Nina encourages Dies not to abandon Ershin. Nina insists on the helping that furry...thing. All the while, Ryu is just like, “...sure.”

I vaguely know how the game will end, so we’ll see if this all holds up.

3. It’s Nina’s Quest

The game starts with Nina and Cray on a mission to find/rescue her sister. While Ryu is integral to the plot, he doesn’t have a lot of skin in the game. Nina is also royalty, and this game has some Games of Thronesian politics going on. While Ryu’s actions carry little weight beyond the act itself, everything Nina does has the ability to affect policy and international relationships. We see this when the Empire pressures the Alliance to cede territory post Nina’s rescue op failure.

Also, Nina just told Ryu that she loved Cray. Ryu isn’t even the love interest in this game.

I’m actually really happy that Nina is the star. Female characters aren’t normally given the respect they deserve. Maybe instead of Breath of Fire, they should have called this “Wings of Destiny”...cause Nina has wings.

Back to the Plot

So, Ryu went super-Dragon and killed some imperials. The gods have offered to help Ryu, (as long as he plays hide and seek first), and Fou-Lu has escaped the village in which he had started to feel at home.

Nina and the team discuss things and decide that if it’s Ryu’s destiny to meet up Fou-Lu, they might as well confront him proactively. They seem to be under the impression that the empire is using Fou-Lu gain power (if they only knew).

Ursala is the Imperial captain that captured us, but now she’s our captive. The team asks her to help them get into the Empire. She’s confused. It was her mission to bring the dragon to the Empire, so this kind of works out...She agrees and is now a playable party member.

I like her.

Heading back to the warp gate, we learn that it’s broken because of our previous activities (and because we were attacked by Captain Jackass). Ursala tries to make us feel bad, but she works for an evil Empire--so jog-on. We have to head north and need a sandflier but don’t have the cash. This is comical, cause I put in a cheat for infinite Zenny way back when...

We’re supposed to ask a merchant sandflier for help, but we’re too late. Ursala immediately jumps to action and without a word, Scias follows her lead. They take the merchant ship like a band of pirates and it turns out to be a French-accented froggy friend from before that sexually harassed Nina, Marlok. He tries to make use feel guilty, which works on Nina and Cray--but the rest of us know he’s a POS. He offers us a bond to buy a ship, expecting that we’ll do great things and thus able to cash in on our success.

We get to a checkpoint, but it’s blocked. Ursala wants to fight the guards, but Nina is against it. We do the non-violent solution of trampolining over the wall. We get to a ship yard...I only now realized in the game that the oceans aren’t water--but mud. weird...where’s all the water? So the only seas are up north.

The captain doesn’t want us on without the blessing of the sea god. We got to coastal cave and find the Sea Dragon there...I think. We get his blessing and are good to go. The captain now doesn’t want women on board. The women insist that they are tough and have been through a lot. The muscle the dude we keep fighting shows up, and it’s implied that his defeat would prove we’re tough. Ursala shoots him and falls off the mass of the ship. So  a new test of courage is needed. Ursala and Nina must stay within the hull of the ship over night with ghosts and bugs. They succeed.

As we travel across the sea, we fight muscle dude again (he was much stronger this time). And then the wind stops. The sailors think this area is haunted, maybe by a god. We go check it out. The dungeon is interesting, but frustrating. You have to walk across planks to get to the other side, but the planks break and drop you down into the hull. There’s a light over your head to warn you when you’re about to fall, but I still fell a lot. In the hull, as you walk, skulls that are spread about rattle and vibrate: it’s eerie and entertaining. Eventually we find a rock creature that thinks of itself as a god, but it’s just a rock powered by god-power. So we kill it.

No remorse.

The wind returns and we make it across the sea. After traveling through a jungle, we meet a furry thing. I feed it some food and it seems happy...I think. At the end of the jungle we find a treehouse and are attacked by more furries. The previously furry comes to our defense and we meet Beyd. He has married one of the furries and maybe these are his children? Cray had my reaction and was like, “Well...uh, anyway--how do we get to the empire?”

One of the furries gets sick and Nina vows to save it (cause she’s the main character!). This brings us to an interesting, but not super fun mini game. We get to sail the boat, but you have limited supplies. Every second you’re on the seas, the supplies get used, but they’re used faster if you row. Rowing is necessary because the wind doesn’t always blog in the direction you need. So you have to decide whether to burn supplies by rowing, or wait for the wind to change directions. There’s places to find and treasure to discover. It is, kinda fun...

While we’re out here collecting medicine on the high seas, I also find the sea god: SCORE!

We save the furry and are guided to some islands that are available to walk across when the tide is low. So we venture a cross some tropical keys. It’s pretty. The group gets tired and Nina insists on taking a break: cause she’s the main character. After our rest, the tide has risen and the group is trapped. Cray is pissed and Nina feels responsible.

This is an interesting part of the game cause the group has to survive on an island and reflect on their mission. Ursala warns it could be months or years before the tide recedes. Chill Ursala. The group explores the island and finds both water and and great fishing spot. We’re gonna be fine. Just delayed.

Scias likes the island, as he just sleeps all day. After a while, Cray chills out and apologizes for his temper. While Ryu is casting a line, Nina reveals that she’s in love with Cray, causing Ryu to trip. Nina reflects on her feelings, unsure if they’re true and doubtful that Cray feels the same.

The tide recedes and the team escapes. We come to a riverlands that requires some log riding and log dodging. It’s cute, but I want to get out of here...

Fou-Lu, after escaping the village, receives a direct hit from the hex canon. They apparently used the friendly lady that help Fou-Lu as a “sacrifice” to power the canon. EVIL! Fou-Lu survives and arrives at the capital. He meets statue guardian that recognizes him as the first emperor. Fou-Lu orders the guardian to destroy the imperial city. Fou-Lu is pissed, and just doesn’t seem to think humans are worth it...

As the guardian destroys the city, Fou-Lu cleans up loose ends, finally killing the general that ambushed him on the night of his awakening, and then killing the current emperor. The Emperor first tries to act subservient to Fou-Lu, but then stabs him with the “dragon slayer” sword. It doesn’t work and Fou-Lu laughs in his face.

Similar to Breath of Fire 3, the game has reached a point where it doesn’t have more story to tell, but wants to add hours. So there’s tons of little quests and obstacles that have little to do with the overall plot. It’s sad, because the minigames and mini-nations they’ve created are really interesting.

I tried to think back to how Final Fantasy 7 handled this. I think, for the most part, the game doesn’t make its endgame clear until much later. Most of the game is, “What should we do now?” So I don’t feel there’s as much a “rush” to get to the end. Also, much of the game is about tracking Sephiroth, so you’re really looking for clues as you find obstacles, vs having an end destination and just running into a million reasons why you can’t get to it. You feel out of control and inconvenienced. But these obstacles would make really interesting and fun side quests. Having them as options would absolutely make them more interesting.

Another thing that Final Fantasy 7 really succeeds at is making each new area a new piece of the puzzle. You’re always learning history about the world or a character. So while it might be a brief obstacle, it’s also an interesting deeper dive into the world. Breath of Fire’s diversions don’t feel as enlightening.

Still, BoF4′s diversions still feel like progress cause we inch closer to the goal...it’s just that we’re not getting much character or world development in the process.

Combat

I do prefer the combat over BoF3 (and many RPGs). I like that the other characters are always on-call in the battle, and it’s easy to switch out (more so than Final Fantasy X -- how I remember it anyway). I’ve done zero grinding, and I’m pretty proud that I’ve survived so far. After crossing the sea, it seemed like the enemies were getting ahead of me, but I got better at using the spell combos (which are cool!). So surviving a few battles usually meant getting a few levels up. When I first played the game, i was cool with grinding, but I’m glad I don’t have to now. The only thing that is cheating: I gave myself 99999+ zenny. So I’m able to stock up on healing supplies. Though it helps, I’m sure a few hours of grinding would have me being just as well stock on healing supplies.

Is it better than Breath of Fire 3?

I’m a little torn. Breath of Fire 4 is “epic”. There are multiple nations that have a strong sense of culture and history. The mythology around the dragons is of the galactic scale. World War is in the balance and my party includes two members of royalty and two semi-gods. The world feels huge even if the story is pretty linear.

In contrast, Breath of Fire 3 had three nations--that I could tell: Wyndia, Eastern Kingdom, and across the sea. Strangely, Wyndia had gangster cities, gangster markets, and amoral lab that was accidentally making mutants. While eastern kingdom seemed pretty chill and peaceful--but lacked a ruling entity. Hmmm...

Where Breath of Fire 3 feels “better” is that it feels more personal. The story starts small: a lost dragon-boy found my starving thieves. We live in a small town and solve small-town issues. This slowly grows to include local gangsters, a kingdom, and a dragon holocaust before we battle God. I like Breath of Fire 4′s characters, but I feel like I have a stronger bond with BoF3′s. Also, I felt like BoF3 tried to explore the grey area: killing monsters that had feelings. I felt emotionally challenged in the different scenarios. Whereas, BoF4 is always: “We’re the good guys, and we do the good things!”