#more things kei is responsible for enabling

[zillychu]

assorted brainrot from like 2 months ago

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Why Sound Design is so Important in Games

Sound design is a key point in games, though it is often neglected in college games where we do a lot of work without speakers on. Having some good audio in a game really helps elevate the experience beyond just being a solely visual medium, as much as audio changed silent movies. The games with the best sound design are often those with realistic sound systems, or ones that elicit the desired emotional response. Good sound design can make you terrified to turn a corner; it can make you cry in the game's saddest moments; it can turn a level from a selection of rendered polygons to a truly real-seeming experience. Obviously our game's sound design isn't that deep, but it doesn't add nothing to the game either.

The first game I am looking at is Thief: The Dark Project. This game came out in 1998, but I would say it still holds up today with a few patches to make it run on modern systems. The game has a unique stealth system that lets you hide in shadows, but the main thing we're looking at is the sound. Different surfaces are different levels of loudness when walked on - carpet is perfect for sneaking, but metal catwalks are loud and clank under your feet. This isn't just set dressing either, because enemies are more likely to hear you if you're clanking about on steel grating. Then there is the ambient sound, where you can hear nearby guards muttering or whistling (in a great bit of game design, this helps you keep track of them when they're out of sight), torches crackle, and strange ambient screeches echo down hallways. The ambient soundtracks in each level are interesting, and use a lot of electronic synthesiser noises, which gives them an 80s John Carpenter vibe. They help make the environments foreboding, but also help tell the story in a way that 90s graphics simply could not. For example, as you enter the deepest annals of an ultra-religious Hammerite compound, the ambient whirr of machinery gets replaced by solemn choir and hymns. Caves can have dripping water and the occasional crumbling rock, while more twisted forest environments have the endless chirring of insects and chuckling from unseen nymphs and satyrs. The actual sound technology is also really good for the time, because it supports sound cards, even though they aren't used too much anymore. With them enabled, you can listen against a door and gauge how big a room is based on the echo of the guard's voices inside. Even for today that is fairly advanced, and as far as I know, not present in many other games.

The next game I am looking at is Hunt: Showdown. It is a 2018 horror shooter taking place at the end of the 19th century, where you play as a bounty hunter trying to kill various cryptids and monsters. The game uses the Cry Engine, so it already looks good on a visual front, but the audio is also phenomenal. Most of the quality comes from its directional sound system, which is so specific you can tell where players are through buildings, which is useful for lining up shots when you don't have a good visual read on their whereabouts. Every gun also has a unique sound and echo, which allows an educated player to guess what weapon has been fired, from what direction, and even from what distance. The way that the game calculates sound waves travelling is a very unique and realistic system; a gunshot ringing out over an open field will be louder and clearer than a gunshot fired in the middle of the thick backwoods. I assume this is a built-in feature for CryEngine V because I know of no other games with this level of realism when it comes to sound - I can only assume it calculates for windspeed and other factors and then runs the sound effect through various in-engine filters.

Finally, I will look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the lesser-mentioned qualities of this game is its environmental sound design, which help the various holds of Skyrim seem like realistic places. The wind whistles about your ears, giving you a good sense of your player's altitude and the temperature around you. In the mornings and evenings, you can hear crickets chirring and birds chirping. The rushing of rivers sounds different depending on the course - swelling into a roar of white noise in the rapids, but dissipating to a trickle when the river becomes a lazy stream. Then there are more ethereal sounds, like the creaking of the aurora borealis on winter nights. Towns have their own soundscapes also, with the creaking wood of huts and the crackle of flaming torches. The ambient music by Jeremy Soule (the same guy behind the LOTR soundtrack) also adds a lot to the game's atmosphere, with majestic orchestras making even a simple walk through the valleys a much more emotive and captivating experience. However, you can play with the sound turned off and just listen to the layered soundscapes.

From my research, I can see that the main theme that makes a soundscape good is attention to detail. Not just having one sword hit sound, for example, but several, altered depending what material you strike, and echoing with a different resonance depending on where you are. I would say that with Wallpaper of the Mind, we have achieved this as best we can in four weeks, with the different footstep surfaces. The sounds I myself provided were more stock quality, but it doesn't matter, because how sound is used mechanically is just as important. I will make a blog post on this soon.

[megabuild]

hey megabuild can you elaborate on the complicated feelings re: bdubs apologizing to tango thing because I too have feelings about it that are complicated and i either need you to confirm I'm insane, confirm I'm not insane or make my insanity feel more enabled

(cracks my knuckles loudly and uncomfortably) the number one c!bdubs defender has logged on for another take hated by all

i think the most key thing to take away from this interaction is not that bdubs is being manipulative and dishonest but that it very clearly lays out the main issues with tuff guys' ability to function, that is, they all have different goals and ideals of what an alliance should function as, but also they have far too much baggage and history that they are all either unable to or unwilling to move on from.

looking at this conversation and taking it at face value- that is, bdubs went in with the intent to manipulate and lie, and then immediately caved when called out- is extremely uncharitable at best when similar behaviours from other players (such as scar) is often handwaved away as them playing the game correctly or exhibiting trauma responses. why these players are afforded such leniency while bdubs never is.. well, that's simply a mystery because i can't think of anything that immediately and obviously might set bdubs aside from the majority of his peers (hint: there is.). this coupled with the fact that bdubs has spent the first two sessions making genuine, if extremely flawed attempts at communication and problem-solving (see: horse discourse, which DID actually work though only after etho defused and approached it on his own terms, and the formation of tuff guys, which is an extremely flawed plot but also tackles the main issues at the core of the alliance- etho's commitment issues, tango's fear of betrayal, and bdubs' reputation) and i find it extremely difficult to believe that this conversation is entirely made up to gain some sort of leverage, because by saying that one must imply that retroactively both of those prior conversations were also probably in part manipulation- at which point we're painting bdubs as a multi-session plotting mastermind and that's just not who he is.

reading over the transcript there's a few key points that i think are really important-

bdubs comments that he's truly apologising, because he apologises in last life (poorly, but still) right after the matter, saying "he's sorry, but he had to". not in any way justifying his treatment of tango in last life, because moments before he also calls him fodder, but this gives us some insight into what bdubs is thinking- that is, it is likely he DOES feel genuinely bad about tango, or at least is able to acknowledge that they need to resolve their prior conflicts if they have any hope of succeeding. otherwise, there is little point in bringing such conflict to the forefront of tango's mind; that's manipulating him in the wrong direction by reminding him of his past traumas and giving him more ammo against bdubs. strategically i cannot understand why he would do this (outside of from a creator standpoint having more drama to mess with, because cc!bdubs is known for this, but if i get into the very murky territory between cc and c here it'll stretch everything out a million miles longer).

bdubs also barely gets a chance to defend himself after his initial apology is not accepted- tango is the one who builds up a "self reflection hole", both immediately dismiss it as manipulation (they are the first ones to suggest this, not bdubs!), and they pick on small tells such as him not having his head down and smiling as proof that he isn't genuine. indeed, when bdubs goes into the hole he asks them to come up with a plan since he won't be leading them, and tango openly laughs at them, signalling to Me that there was never any chance of genuine communication; tango has already made his mind up from the get-go that this is bdubs fucking with him and is unwilling to take it any further. (the phrase "i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed" comes to mind.) it's only after this sentiment is echoed (more unsurely) by etho that bdubs gives up. at no point does bdubs add anything of his own to the conversation past this, he only agrees with what tango and etho are saying about him. with his attempt at communication having failed he defers to "yes and"-ing all the negative things they are saying about him. when bdubs has just spent most of secret life imo proving that he doesn't need to be dependent on others after being dismissed as such for multiple seasons, i think that immediate rejection of his independence and ability to stand up for himself must sting, a lot.

I know they're his teammates but jesus christ he could not have picked worse people to do this with. every character can be assumed to be extremely traumatised as is the nature of the game but etho and tango both have severe issues with communication and trust, both of which stem in part from bdubs' actions in last life (which again, i will defend him to the grave but that was fucking insane of him.) tango on the whole, however, is a character to me defined by his bitterness, especially in WL where he's acting out and being openly cruel to others (which given his previous experiences is honestly understandable). his immediate dismissal of bdubs is exactly what i would have expected of him given everything right now. meanwhile, etho is more cautious and unsure, only committing once he has tango's backing, because despite his issues with bdubs he has more reason to believe him (see: horse discourse once again) and also he's just extremely insecure. go girl.

little to say on this point but the bravado he exhibits after being dismissed also to me reads in line with other bdubs moments where he's putting on a show- he isn't gloating about pulling the wool over their eyes or laughing about how quickly he was found out, he's just.. bigging himself up for the sake of it? i don't know exactly how to word this point but i hope you understand.

tl:dr; i don't think bdubs is intentionally trying to manipulate people here, though i also don't think his timing and choice of apology was especially well-thought out; he's making a lot of attempts at genuine communication this season, for better or for worse, but it's coming from a place of recognising the necessity for it if he wants to get anywhere rather than a sign of genuine emotional growth. and while i wish they could have heard him out i do not fault etho or tango even for a second for assuming it was a ploy.

[kohakhearts]

goh parentified child syndrome. go(h)

my time is here at last. thank you for enabling me <3 apologies for taking months to finish writing this giant post!

welcome to my dissertation on this fucking Dynamic <3

ok! first thing, let's establish our criteria for Parentified Child Syndrome. this is obviously not like, an actual diagnostic Thing, but there are a million and one articles out there for us to look through. so i did the tough work of scouring those to find some Symptoms we can use as anchor points here. a lot of this is split into "emotional" (parents seeking comfort from their children, rather than comforting them) vs. "material" (parents assigning their children responsibilities that are not age-appropriate (e.g. grocery shopping, paying bills, etc.)) needs, but for simplicity i'll just merge them together - because realistically, they often go hand-in-hand. so the primary symptoms we'll work with here will be:

disruptive childhood behaviours (particularly at school)

stress and anxiety

reluctance to participate in play/age-appropriate activities with their peers

difficulty acknowledging and accepting one's feelings

insecure attachment styles

need to feel "in control"

distrustful of others/self-reliant to a fault

absenteeism and poor performance in school

passive communication style

the other obvious prerequesite here is the family dynamic. so let's dissect that one a bit!

goh's family situation isn't actually like...100% clear. but i have analyzed every episode where his family is even mentioned like it's my full-time job and i have no reason to believe his grandmother actually lives with him. so in the scope of this essay, i am assuming that she lives nearby, and most likely has a key to the apartment, but does not live with them.

otherwise, we are given enough context to assume that camille and walker have been busy with work goh's entire life (though i'd choose to believe for my own sanity that in his infancy his mother at least wasn't working...though given the type of job she has, that's actually...kinda hard to say for sure). we can also assume that they've at least been self-employed for the majority of his life. it's clear that they are fairly well-established in the city/in their field by jn, and since goh is supposed to be 10 at this point, it makes sense to me that they've been building that company up pretty much his whole life.

in terms of the work they do, goh tells ash, my dad is a system engineer and my mom is a programmer. they run a company together. granted, we don't see very much of their actual workplace, but what we do see is completely void of other people. as in, camille and walker do all this work BY THEMSELVES.

nothing in the anime otherwise disputes this! if anything, goh's explanations of his parents' lifestyle just reinforces it. he also suggests that during periods of harsh weather and heavy system use, his parents are busier than usual. this implies that they are most busy during holidays. this is actually further implied by the flashback in jn015 where they explicitly say to him that they're sorry for having to work through the holiday. his reaction, being completely unengaged, not even really even acknowledging it, tells us that this is the norm.

however!! he also shows off a special device to horace in jn032 that he says his parents made specifically for him, to help him learn more about mew. this suggests that they must have some amount of free time to dedicate to him...but they show their love for him through material gifts related to their line of work (his computer set-up, too; he tells scorbunny that his parents set it all up for him).

otherwise, we see camille and walker privately share their concerns about goh (a clear awareness that he doesn't have many friends, concern about him being lonely because of them, etc.) but never actually confront goh with their concerns or appear to go out of their ways to do anything about it. i wrote a bit about this and the symbolism of having him catch a cubone of all pokemon in the episode we're introduced to his family here but the tl;dr is that camille and walker demonstrate care for goh to each other but not to him - presumably to compensate for their physical absence, we get the impression he's given a lot of freedom and little to no discipline.

which brings me to the first criterion:

disruptive childhood behaviours (with a side of absenteeism, which presumably contributes to poor performance in school)

goh's school life is obviously inconvienent to the plot progression, so for narrative purposes the writers have him just not go to school. in jn049 we get the explanation that goh had made a promise to their teacher to show up to school for tests...but the weird thing about this scene is that chloe's surprised by it:

since in jn001 and jn002 we see that chloe is goh's only point of contact amongst his schoolmates and that she hand delivers schoolwork to him at her dad's lab, the only way this exchange really makes sense to me is if it's a new arrangement. even the fact that goh makes a point of saying "hey, i followed through, go me" to their teacher here gives that vibe.

so, we can extrapolate from that that...prior to whenever this agreement was made, goh just didn't go to school because he didn't want to. but given how schools operate, we can pretty safely assume his parents are aware of this. and i have strong reason to believe that they have at least been on the receiving end of phone calls from teachers or administrators, because of these lines from jn015:

all things considered, this is a weird assumption to make, especially about your hyper-independent introverted child...unless there's a history of disruptive or unfriendly behaviour to inform that assumption. and based on goh's behaviour in jn001 at professor oak's pokemon camp, i don't think it's so out there to say the pattern probably was there.

goh is actually a super sweet kid towards his parents and has a clear admiration for them both. even in flashbacks, his whole thing is kind of like...he doesn't want to bother them. they fall asleep on family vacation and don't spend time with him? well, that's fine! he'll just find something else to do! in that same episode in the flashback sequence, they pick him up on the side of the road alone in the pouring rain and he doesn't say a word to them. even though he was angry and upset before.

so, yeah. i think it would make a lot of sense if he were well-behaved at home and not so much so at school. but camille and walker, even when they learn about things that happen, don't seem to probe or discipline him. whether because of any combination of giving him leeway out of guilt or of not wanting to encourage him to act out at home, we don't know. but the disconnect obviously exists.

which then contributes to

stress and anxiety, difficulty acknowleding and accepting one's feelings, and passive communication style

goh is socially awkward, yes, and clearly very anxious socially especially early on in jn, but a lot of that seems to come from an inability to express his wants and needs. i think jn003 has some of the most succinct examples of this - ash having to realize he's struggling and to reach down to him when they're climbing the tower in order for him to even accept that he can get (and needs) help getting up, and then later one when he stumbles over his words trying to ask ash to be his friend.

i think another good example is in jn007, after he gets knocked out at the flute cup. passive communication relies a lot on shifts in body language and in, well, passive statements. when ash approaches him to tell him to cheer up, goh doesn't actually really...respond to that. he does this

and then runs off. which he does fairly often, actually, even as late as jn135. it's emotional avoidance 101. literally just run away from the thing that's bothering you. something else we see in jn135 is him backing out of admitting he wants to go on a journey - because he is concerned about ash's reaction (though i think it's a little more complex than that, but i'll circle back to that).

and of course there's jn062, which i wrote a lot about in this post. but the whole thesis of the episode is that goh has learned through his relationships up to this point that it's okay to not understand your feelings but you still have to feel them. and it's actually a really beautiful character development moment for him, but also reinforces the fact that he still doesn't know how to grapple with his own emotions. after finally finding drizzile and explaining how he knew he would find it there, he starts to cry and doesn't know why. but even aside from feeling vulnerable, it's kind of a culmination of this stress he's been carrying with him throughout the whole episode...and the sense of responsibility he feels for driving drizzile away. which is a great segue into

insecure attachment styles and need to feel "in control"

if there's one thing i feel like people sleep on regarding goh's character, it's how much of a mother hen he is. he's obviously very thorough and thoughtful when it comes to looking after his pokemon - as in jn062 where he spends all that time chasing down drizzile after it runs away, even to the point of telling ash and chloe that they should stay behind because it's getting late but that he's going to keep looking - but he's the same way with ash.

off the top of my head, things like buying extra scones because he knew ash would want them, making ash wash his hands after eating ice cream, chastising him about punctuality, you know...very parental kind of things. he actually does it with horace too, when they first meet, by bringing a lunch for them both when he goes back to the forest to meet him again.

anyway, being a Mom Friend is cute and all, but it also REEKS of parentified child. taking on responsibilities that aren't yours to fulfill? yeah. that's a need to feel in control. it's what he's used to! it offers him security!

the other side of this is...chloe. goh's first friend, who he refuses to consider a friend, or let consider him a friend. but, like, she obviously IS his friend. and yet our introduction to them gives us this exchange

goh and chloe have a pretty tense relationship at the beginning of jn, wherein she is clearly trying to help him (by you know. getting his homework for him and shit) and he blows her off in a text message, which she complains is a repeating behaviour. chloe is obviously very loyal to him, even though he doesn't seem to repay the favour. again, there's a big disconnect here.

insecure attachments generally stem from anxiety over potential rejection and/or poor self-esteem cultivated in childhood based on parents’ emotional availability (or lack thereof) to their children. by keeping chloe an arm's distance away, goh keeps himself safe from the dangers of vulnerability, taught to him through childhood encounters with emotionally unavailable parents.

i'm not here to armchair diagnose (ok, who am i kidding, yeah i am), but i think goh's attachment style is anxious-avoidant. his clear avoidance of making friends, the multiple times we see him break off his friendship with ash only to minutes later be like "me and the bestie"...yeah, that's avoidance. but he does crave intimacy, arguably even more than he fears it.

hence why even though he knows ash would want him to journey on his own...he still convinces himself that actually telling ash that would be, as he calls it, a "betrayal of [their] friendship." my theory is that he's not concerned that ash will be upset - he's concerned that ash won't be upset enough. which is why when then ash turns it around on him and says he's going on a journey, goh gets upset and pushes him away. he does the exact same thing with horace when they're younger. just a complete 180 - he wronged me once, so he's the worst and i can't forgive him, ever.

the difference with chloe is that she actually takes care of him more than he takes care of her - which changes the dynamic from "i have to do everything to keep this person in my life, including suppressing my emotions for their sake" to "i cannot express to this person that i have needs and desires because they'll think i'm too much and they won't stick around if i do." which is primarily avoidant, but insecure attachment nonetheless.

this is extrapolation, but i think his relationship with chloe is so different because we are supposed to get the sense that they have a more familial dynamic. so, she's the one person he can't push away from him - but as he learned in his actual family dynamic, he also can't be too close to her. he doesn't want to be smothered; he doesn't want her to feel smothered by him. so they maintain a degree of separation that only begins to go away after her father begins literally housing and feeding him, thus integrating him and ash into their family in some honorary way.

which brings me to the last point, i guess, which is

reluctance to participate in age-appropriate activities with peers and self-reliant to a fault

these are, i think, the traits that jn is most blatantly attempting to better in goh throughout his arc. so i won't spend too long hashing it out, because i think these are things we all know he struggled with!

in flashbacks, we see him alone at school; during the first episode, at professor oak's camp, he is always physically distanced from the other kids and chloe even points out that he's basically doing professor oak's job at one point! he's not on the same level as the other kids and it's clear he doesn't want to be. when he meets horace, we see that it takes him some time to get comfortable enough with him to go explore the forest together and become friends.

he doesn't go to school, but that doesn't mean he isn't learning things - he becomes a very self-directed learner early on, from what he see. he's not just like...rotting in his room playing video games. he's studying and researching. the only times aside from with horace that we see him in a flashback doing something that isn't solitary is with pokemon - and even then, he's like...reciting their pokedex entries. his abra story at the end of jn is precipitated by him saying he was going through his dad's old pokedex (which is a whole other thing - this implies walker used to be a trainer, but neither of goh's parents seem to have pokemon...perhaps they're too busy with work to look after them? a theory for another time, i suppose, but it has undeniably being gnawing at my brain since that episode aired lol).

and of course, there's the fact that in jn062 he tells drizzile he was never comfortable with confiding in his parents or his grandmother...suggesting that he never confided in anyone, because we don't really get the sense from the whole "i don't NEED friends" exchange in jn001 that he considers chloe a reliable confidant, either.

the other place we see his flawed sense of self-reliance, aside from like...everywhere in the first 10 or so episodes, lol (something that is reflected pretty beautifully and symbolically in scorbunny's story, too!), is in project mew. he has to learn how to work in a team - and he clearly hates it. at this point he's found one person to rely on, but that already feels like too much. the raid battle with articuno is the most obvious example of this. he isn't good at being a leader, but he also isn't good at being a follower. because he's only ever been responsible for himself, and he doesn't trust anyone else to know how to direct him, but he also has no clue how to work within the parameters of a team.

i also want to say, as a final note, that i actually think this is all extremely intentional writing. obviously in the west we have a strong capitalism culture too, but the work culture in japan is very toxic (just google "japan work culture" and you can see right away how intense it is lol) and i'm not actually surprised at all that pokemon would make such a direct commentary on that - a lot of japanese kids could probably relate to goh and his emotionally absent, work-obsessed parents! they are clearly pretty well-off, but their dedication to work supercedes matters of home and family, because that's how it's supposed to be. as a result, goh admires them a lot for this dedication - but his arc is primarily about letting go of the "work" part of interacting with pokemon and learning how to have fun and make the most of his experiences. and i think that's a really lovely message for modern pokemon to be sending to kids :')

[sugar-grigri]

Chainsaw Man only exists through you

The principle is simple with Chainsaw Man: there are no revelations. The keys to understanding are to be found in the previous chapters. That's why, to get the most out of your reading experience, you need to keep rereading this work. 

This chapter is just a condensed answer to the question that Part 2 sets out to answer:

Who is Chainsaw Man ? 

Let's take this chapter apart, because nothing is left to chance. 

First of all, Fujimoto reminds us that Denji is a spectator of his own reputation, that he doesn't use or instrumentalize it, unlike Fake!CSM, which relies on it.

Since the beginning of the manga, Chainsaw Man has been a controversial figure, but this point is shown more clearly in part 2, notably through the adoration young people have for him, making him a hero, and the fact that he is a dangerous demon for older people. In just two pages, this framework is recalled. 

He's not only a scapegoat (he's blamed for actions for which he's not responsible = the buildings are the result of the falling demon, and the disappearance of the aquarium is Asa's doing). 

But young people also trust him blindly. The two high-school girls don't take Nostradamus's prophecy seriously, to the point of mistaking the man of the cloth for a demon, as if they'd been passively listening to the news, not taking the threat seriously. 

This shows that Chainsaw Man is a figure, a reference point for society, on which it holds its balance. An image that fuels debate while channeling concern. 

Moving on... The next pages are just as interesting for their staging. Because TV is never shown. Denji focuses solely on the Nayuta he looks after, as if convinced that she is his sole objective. 

Nor is it insignificant that Nayuta, Makima's reincarnation, is the one who challenges this dream of normalcy.

For symbolically, her former self was the one who exploited this dream to manipulate for Denji. For me, the closer focus on Nayuta, who repeats her question, serves to emphasize that her very existence is the answer. Not only did Makima dream of normalcy too, but it was Denji's realization that he could afford to raise her standards that enabled him to fight her while saving her.

Let's go forward two more pages. Once again, not a single detail is insignificant. Meowy and the toilet make sense because they refer to a specific scene.

Power had promised Denji to touch her breasts if he saved her cat, the fulfillment of a venal dream that Denji had defended to the bat demon as a valid dream. However, it was at this point that Denji experienced his first existential crisis.

A dream is a way of projecting oneself. The more little things you dream, the quicker they come true, and the more aimless you become. This is what follows Denji throughout Part 1, the absence of meaning. What he finds in the love of his peers. 

Denji also confirms his dream in the way he zaps TV shows. Banalities bore him, and magnetically, he can't help but follow the shows that are about him. Once again, Chainsaw Man is on the other side of the TV, a spectator. 

But the page I find ABSSOLUTELY brilliant is here, the clearest answer to who Chainsaw Man is, or rather how he came to be, is here. 

These are the people who created Chainsaw Man. When Denji fights, he simply follows his instincts, not pursuing great causes. It's the people who decided to make him a scapegoat for everything that's wrong with him, the people who decided to make him a hero.

Chainsaw Man is just a machine that constantly dies and suffers, scaring away demons and bringing humans closer together. He's a figure who can't make up his mind by choice, because he's diffuse. These are the people who made Denji Chainsaw Man. In other words, the choice is not his to make.

That's why fake!CSM is profoundly an imposter.

Becoming an actor with his face uncovered, instrumentalizing the attention of humanity, speaking to it orally as such, is not Chainsaw Man.

Declaring one's goals and demands is not Chainsaw Man, since it's the public that finds them (which is also what I literally do). Involving the demon of justice when Yuko is the first to understand that having nice ideals isn't enough to become like Chainsaw Man is dishonest. Fake!CSM is Yuko's assassin, the first to understand CSM is ironic. 

Fake!CSM is there to sweep away the essence of Chainsaw Man, who is not an embodied being. Chainsaw Man is a feeling, whether of anger or admiration. He's something more diffuse and immaterial than he appears, transcending Denji himself.

Chainsaw Man is at once this television, this audience, these arguments, these demonstrations, this gossip in the corridors.

So Denji is more Chainsaw Man than impostor.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

I have a few jumbled thoughts about the ending of the Long Night, especially as it would relate to the whole idea of “the dragon has three heads”. The Long Night represents a disruption in a larger, cyclical framework—a period where imbalance overtakes the natural order. And within this context, I see each ‘head’ of the three-headed dragon as uniquely responsible for restoring balance and bringing the world back into harmony. Each ‘head’ embodies a distinct facet of restoring balance to the world, yet they work together, either in tandem or sequentially, to set things right once more. So I’ve been trying to tie together some thoughts I have regarding what each being in this triumvirate is uniquely suited to do. Because I personally don’t think any one person will be responsible for being the hero, as that just seems so antithetical to this series; and I also think the Long Night is just way too multifaceted to be ended by a singular action or person. 

This is what we know about the Long Night:

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north.Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.” “You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously. “The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?” “Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only …” Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.” (Bran IV, AGoT)

We focus so heavily on the Others—understandably so—that we often overlook some crucial details. The Others don’t exist in isolation. They arrive in the wake of an extreme winter, which enables their existence for they are “demons made of snow and ice and cold” (Samwell V, ASoS). And with the sun and its heat gone, they move within the darkness. So confronting the Others in battle, in and of itself, does not end the Long Night. The true struggle lies in addressing the elements that allow them to exist in the first place. To fully defeat the Others, our heroes must first restore light and the balance of the seasons.

No single character in this series has the ability to achieve this on their own. Even the key magical protagonists are only equipped to address certain aspects of the conflict. That’s why the dragon must have three heads, each embodying a crucial responsibility: one to restore the natural cycle and end the long winter, another uniquely positioned as the antithesis to the Others, and a third tasked with confronting darkness by bringing light back into the world.

By now, you can see where I’m heading with this, right? I believe the three heads are Bran, who represents summer and stands as the antithesis to winter; Daenerys, whose dragons are the direct counter to the Others; and Jon, who occupies a more complex role as both the one who harnesses light and embodies it. Beyond this, each of these characters has been positioned as a chosen one, with distinct yet mirrored magical destinies that set them apart from the other POV characters.

I’m reminded of a quote from Arya’s POV in Dance:

One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor’s Wife had walked her rounds with her and told her tales of the city’s stranger gods. “That is the house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don’t know what the middle head’s supposed to do….”

While I have more detailed thoughts on this passage, for now, I believe Daenerys represents the first head, Bran the third, and Jon the middle. Each head is tasked with a unique responsibility—one that is specific to them, that the others cannot fulfill. To end the Long Night, the three heads work together, but each plays a distinct part. There is some overlap, particularly with the middle head, who might serve as the balance between the extremes, yet each figure is positioned to occupy a particular space within this framework.

So I want to lay my thoughts here and see if we can get some wider discussion 👀 

The first aspect of the Long Night - and perhaps the most important if we’re thinking of what makes it happen in the first place - is the long winter that precedes it.

Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland…  (Bran III, AGoT)

This winter provides the very elements that sustain the Others: snow and ice. It’s this aspect that I believe extends humanity’s struggle during the Long Night. With an almost endless supply of ice and snow, can our heroes truly defeat the Others through direct combat alone? I really don’t think so. The abundance of snow, accompanied by a persistent cold, suggests that new Others can continuously be ‘created’. While this is largely speculative given how little we know about them, I find it compelling that the Others seem to materialize out of the darkness itself (see Prologue, AGoT). And when Sam kills the Other in Storm, it simply dissolves…

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too.

And that might not mean much in and of itself, but I’m inclined to think of the ADWD prologue:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air.

The Other and the human skinchanger dissolving after “death” is so fascinating. And it raises many questions. Death wasn’t the end for Varamyr as his spirit went into his wolf. So is that the same with the Other who also dissolved into white air? As long as magic and suitable conditions (i.e., winter and all its elements) exist, then the Others can never truly die and thus could take on another form?

If that’s the case, then winter itself must be addressed to cut off the Others’ vital resources—along with the magic that sustains them, though we’ll get to that later. And who better to combat winter if not Bran Stark of “Winter-fell”?

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. “Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming. […] Bran touched his forehead, between his eyes. The place where the crow had pecked him was still burning, but there was nothing there, no blood, no wound. He felt weak and dizzy. He tried to get out of bed, but nothing happened. And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The window was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized … or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf. When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran’s face. Bran looked up calmly. “His name is Summer,” he said.

Bran’s wolf, a reflection of his own identity, only receives his name after Bran glimpses his magical destiny. With winter’s horrors looming, Bran must become the summer that rises to challenge it.

As the Prince of Winterfell, Bran’s title and inheritance—rooted in the Stark legacy from the first Long Night and Bran the Builder—signify a dominance over winter. He is the summer prince, heir to the place where “winter fell, defeated”.

“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted. “My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”

Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him. (Bran I, ASoS)

Because winter brings death to the land, summer is needed to restore warmth, vitality, and breathe life back into the world. And that’s why Bran’s identity not just as the “prince of the green”, but as the last of the greenseers (of course once Bloodraven kicks the bucket) puts him in a unique position during the Long Night. 

He will be the one to end the winter.

I’m still piecing together what this might ultimately look like, as we need more information about greenseeing and how Bran may fully harness it. However, from what we do know, it seems greenseeing is extends to earth magic—shaping and manipulating the natural world, as seen with events like the Hammer of the Waters. Additionally, greenseers can perceive past, present, and future, which essentially aligns with the passage of time. And isn’t that what the cyclical nature of the seasons embodies? Time flows, and with it come physical changes in the land: winter brings barrenness, spring rebirth, and summer growth. Humanity needs someone who understands this cycle and possesses the power to influence the earth itself.

Since Bran has already glimpsed the heart of winter, it’s possible he will find himself returning there, perhaps retracing the steps of the last hero. Additionally, the Isle of Faces and the God’s Eye, rich with weirwoods and sacred significance, seem like fitting locations for him to play a pivotal role in restoring balance; especially when we consider his role as a Fisher King/Grail figure who is linked with the renewal of once barren land. Whether Bran has to dig deep into the earth’s roots or manipulate the flow of time itself, the Long Night cannot end without his dominance over winter.

However, while restoring the balance of the seasons is crucial, neutralizing the immediate threat posed by the Others and their thralls is extremely important- and that’s where Dany comes in!

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. (Dany III, ASoS)

I’ve argued before that, of our three chosen ones, Dany is the best suited to take on the role of military commander—and I don’t think that’s a far-fetched claim. She has one of the cleanest and most impressive military records in the main series, proving herself a formidable tactician. Not to mention, she commands the dragons—living embodiments of fire—who have been positioned as the direct counter to the Others, creatures of ice. While the Others bring cold and death, Dany and her dragons are fire made flesh, a force of life and renewal.

There are other narrative arguments for why Dany’s role is going to be so heavily militaristic. 

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’” (Dany I, ASoS)

“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” (Samwell IV, AFFC)

“Azor Ahai, beloved of R’hllor! The Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire! Come forth […]” (Davos I, ACoK)

Azor Ahai is said to be a warrior, and while Dany doesn’t fit the traditional image of what that means, she is still an active participant in warfare. Moreover, one of the central aspects of her character is her role as an agent of freedom:

“…this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer.” (Tyrion VI, ADWD)

She has spent much of her arc directly combating slavery which might seem unrelated, but the Others come with their own type of bondage in their creations of undead. The slavery of the Others is not just physical, but spiritual, and Dany’s role in battling them aligns with her fight for freedom. She isn’t suited to combat winter itself, as Bran is, but her strength lies in physical battle, which Bran is not. To put it another way: if Bran is Frodo journeying into the depths of Mordor, Dany is Aragorn, turning Sauron’s eye with her dragons and leading the fight to defeat his armies.

But I don’t think her role ends there. 

The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. SSM

I’ve already mentioned that beyond the elements of winter—snow, ice, and cold—the Others are sustained by magic. Building on the idea of the Other dissolving into mist, it’s possible that magic is what binds these beings together: magic fuses a consciousness with snow and ice into a corporeal entity. So, in addition to battling them physically, our heroes—and Dany in particular—may have to confront this magic that gives the Others their form and power.

“Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets.” Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. “And now?” “And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it.” “Me?” She laughed. “How could that be?” The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany’s wrist. “You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?” (Dany III, ACoK)

The birth of Dany’s dragons seems to have strengthened fire magic, tying her deeply to the very fabric of magic itself. The AGoT bookend suggests that the Others’ ice magic and the dragons’ fire magic may be connected, part of a larger magical ecosystem, or perhaps opposing forces that coexist on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ice and fire, death and life—both seem bound by the same mystical forces. Given Dany’s connection to magic and the fact that the reemergence of her dragons parallels the resurgence of the Others, she seems best suited to combat the magic that enables the Others to take form—serving as an inverse to her bringing dragons to life. And this underscores her dual role as both a destroyer and creator of life

The specifics on Dany’s confrontation with the Others and the magic that creates them remains unclear. She could venture to the heart of winter/the Lands of Always Winter and face the source of their power, creating narrative symmetry between the dragons of the Lands of the Long Summer and the creatures from the Lands of Always Winter. Alternatively, she might find herself in the Isle of Faces if her dream of fighting the Others at the Trident is fulfilled literally. The Isle, with its rich magical ecosystem, would be a fitting place for such a climax.

Bran, too, seems destined to go to the Isle of Faces (I’m a firm ‘Bran, King at the Gods Eye’ truther). This could be where their paths cross and their roles intersect. Bran, with his deep connection to nature and time, might provide Dany with guidance on how to engage with magic and influence its effects on the world. With Bran’s knowledge and Dany’s firepower, she could then deliver the final blow. While much of this remains speculative, what is clear is that their roles complement each other.

And that leaves Jon, the “light bringer”.

They said the words together, as the last light faded in the west and grey day became black night. “Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow,” they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.” (Jon VI, AGoT)

It’s important to see Jon’s primary function as an extension of his current role. He is a man who watches for the night—a sentinel standing against the encroaching darkness. This role is deeply embedded in his identity, and it’s fascinating to see how it manifests in his prophetic dreams.

It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." (Jon IV,AGoT)

Last night he had dreamed the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. (Jon VII, AGoT)

The Winterfell crypt dreams contain many intriguing elements, but I’ll focus primarily on two key motifs: death and darkness.

Jon is the most natural fit for the middle head of the dragon because he exists at the intersection of extremes: light and darkness, destruction and renewal, death and life.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. (Arya IV, AGoT)

While Bran is connected to summer and warmth through his magical familiar, Jon possesses a unique sensitivity to death, embodied by his bond with Ghost.

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.  Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.  (Jon VII, ACoK)

Furthermore, Jon’s fate at the end of ADWD implies that through his death and eventual rebirth, he becomes a ghost in his own right—caught between life and death, existing yet not fully alive. This intertwines with his connection to darkness, as Jon straddles the boundary between light and darkness: a shadow.

All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. (Jon VII, ACoK)

“I can show you.” Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face. “The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.” “Shadows.” The world seemed darker when he said it. “Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall.” Jon glanced over his shoulder. The shadow was there, just as she had said, etched in moonlight against the Wall. (Jon VI, ADWD)

Shadows, like ghosts, are echoes of something once tangible. They arise from obstructed light, existing in a realm that is neither completely dark nor wholly bright, hovering between presence and absence. They highlight where light is absent. But shadows also exist only in the presence of light, revealing the delicate boundary between illumination and the lack thereof. 

So building on that idea, it’s significant that Jon’s frequent journeys into the Stark underworld, where death and darkness prevail, take a pivotal turn in ASoS when he becomes vividly aware of light fading in real time.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark…

This is particularly noteworthy because of a similar, parallel dreams:

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time . . . until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead. (Theon V, ACoK)

The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out, and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in. (Jaime VI, ASoS)

The ASoS crypt dream runs parallel to Theon’s ACoK dream and Jaime’s ASoS dream, with a common element: the presence of death and growing darkness.

While the crypts are inherently dark, Jon perceives when other sources of light are extinguished—true to his role in the Night’s Watch, which is to keep vigil against encroaching darkness. This ability to sense the fading light underscores his ghostly nature, where he reflects light while simultaneously existing in a state of absence. It also highlights his role as a shadow, existing in the blending of light and darkness. As both a shadow and a ghost, he can navigate these dual states, acting within the world’s transitions between day and night.

Which brings us to what I consider a continuation of Jon VII; while that chapter is marked by a lack of light, this next chapter is characterized by an abundance of it:

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. ‘Snow,’ an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall, he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard, a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, and a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she’d appeared. The world dissolved into a red mist. (Jon XII, ADWD)

At some point between these two dreams, Jon found (or even created) light and he wields it as a weapon. And it’s clear that Jon’s sword in this dream is the actual manifestation Azor Ahai’s Lightbringer:

“In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour, a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.” (Davos I, ACoK)

Lightbringer has two major requirements: to give off heat and to illuminate. Jon’s sword does both!

We’ve seen a number Lightbringer-esque weapons (e.g., Beric’s and Thoros’), but Stannis Baratheon’s sword is the most intriguing proxy.

Davos knelt, and Stannis drew his longsword. Lightbringer, Melisandre had named it; the red sword of heroes, drawn from the fires where the seven gods were consumed. The room seemed to grow brighter as the blade slid from its scabbard. The steel had a glow to it; now orange, now yellow, now red. The air shimmered around it, and no jewel had ever sparkled so brilliantly. But when Stannis touched it to Davos’s shoulder, it felt no different than any other longsword. “Ser Davos of House Seaworth,” the king said, “are you my true and honest liege man, now and forever?” (Davos IV, ASoS)

While Stannis’ sword is visually dazzling, it is, in essence, a well-made fake. Its bright glow meets one of the two requirements for “light-bringer”, yet its impressive variety of hues with no actual heat serve as a clue that it is not the true sword of heroes. When the world cloaked in darkness, a weapon that shines as brightly as the sun is undoubtedly a powerful symbol. And Stannis’ sword is bright….

….but it’s almost too bright. His sword emits the wrong kind of light—one that is all glamor with little substance. This great conflict is referred to as the “war for the dawn”. So what humanity needs is a reminder of the dawn itself:

As a red dawn broke in the east, Grey Wind began to howl again. (Catelyn X, AGoT)

A swollen red sun hung low against the western hills when the gates of the castle opened. (Catelyn IX, AGoT)

Dawn and the sun are often associated with red hues in the text, a color heavily tied to fire (e.g., House Targaryen and R’hllor). Stannis’ sword gives off light, but it lacks the essence of true warmth. In contrast, Jon’s sword is the real Lightbringer: it is hot enough to burn against the cold and it radiates the actual red hues of dawn, thus illuminating the world around it.

Jon’s role as the archetypal fantasy protagonist necessitates a magic sword—Lightbringer will be his Excalibur; his Anduril. But more than just being a weapon, his Lightbringer symbolizes the transition from darkness to light. Dawn, a moment of transformation, begins with deep red hues that retain the shadows of night before blooming into the full brightness of the sun. Like the early dawn, Jon straddles the line between night and day, existing between life and death, darkness and light. As the middle dragon head, he embodies balance.

I’m not really sure how that plays out in the endgame; hell, I still can’t figure out how Jon will “forge” Lightbringer in the first place. But he has to end up somewhere for his arc to reach its magical climax. I’ve speculated that Bran and Dany might find themselves at the Isle of Faces or the heart of winter. The latter is a strong possibility for Jon, especially if he too recreates the last hero’s journey; not to mention his connections to snow and winter. But he could also return to the Wall, a mighty structure that symbolizes the boundary between life and death. The Wall is also imbued with ancient magic that radiates outward (e.g., strengthening Mel’s magic and prolonging Maester Aemon’s life). Therefore, it could serve as the ideal location for Jon to reignite and wield the light that has long been hidden.

Though Bran, Jon, and Dany each have distinct roles in restoring balance, their actions are deeply intertwined, with shared themes across their arcs. Jon and Bran connect through their existence in darkness, as seen in their ACoK dreams. All three share connections to death: Bran inhabits the realm of the dead (Mel I, ADWD; Jon’s ACoK wolfdream), Jon embodies a ghost-like nature that straddles life and death, and Dany is called the “bride of fire, daughter of death”. Additionally, Jon and Bran are linked to winter, and both Jon and Dany share the legacy of Azor Ahai and Lightbringer, with dragon breath also echoing the red hues of dawn. Together, they are not just separate forces but three heads of the same dragon, working in concert to ensure that the Long Night ends and the cycle of life and death continues.

TL;DR:

The dragon has three heads, each with a unique role in maintaining the cycle of balance, despite their overlaps in common themes. Bran, the Prince of Winterfell, embodies summer and inherits the legacy of the kings of winter, making him the most suited to confront the Long Night’s origin: winter itself. The Long Night cannot end without Bran’s triumph, as winter represents death while summer signifies new life. Dany, linked to the ebb and flow of magic and the direct antithesis of the Others, is best positioned to engage them in battle and counteract the ice magic that enables their existence. As the perfect manifestation of fire magic, she serves as a powerful weapon, embodying the theme of destruction by being “breaker of chains”. Meanwhile, Jon straddles the boundaries of light and dark, life and death, destruction and creation. His unique position allows him to navigate these extremes, bringing forth the lost light while holding back the consuming darkness. As the embodiment of balance—dead yet alive, icy yet fiery—he ensures the proper equilibrium between these forces.

Dragons, symbols of life, fire, and summer, starkly contrast with the cold death represented by winter and its children. Daenerys, as the Mother of Dragons, embodies the nurturing aspect of life, actively bringing forth new existence by counteracting suspended states of life (e.g., awakening dragon eggs and freeing slaves). Bran, representing youthful vitality, symbolizes young life that is both born and maturing. Jon occupies a unique position in the middle; he is like spring, a new life emerging from darkness, akin to an awakened dragon—life once petrified but now revitalized. Together, these three form a multifaceted dragon that embodies various dimensions of life, each contributing uniquely to the fight against the Long Night.

[meyousing]

𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘬, 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘰𝘣

𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵: shalnark x pro treasure hunter reader

𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴: you and shalnark are working together to retrieve a special artifact. but this is your mission, he doesn’t bother giving you details for the one he has decided to set out on.

𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴:  yandere shalnark x reader, nsfw, deception, manipulation (use of his nen), shalnark taking advantage of y/n, all sexual nsfw will be under the cut. 

The guy that you were partnered with for your next heist was… alright. To you, he seemed a bit soft; too soft for this line of work, but he wouldn’t have made it this far if that was true. You were always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and it helped that you felt indifferent about him so you could focus on the job and just let him do his thing while you did yours, differences aside. At the very least, his seeming soft also meant that he was nicer than most of those you worked with, which was a pleasant change of pace…despite your general lack of care for that kind of thing.

“So, what’s your nen ability?” Shalnark questioned you casually, his hands leaving his pockets in favour of resting them behind his head as the two of you strode through the large Casino. You glanced at him briefly, seeing how his eyes were focused on yours, though the way he scanned over the rest of you did not go unnoticed. You sighed internally at his lack of professionalism, as the goal was for you two not to seem like you were here together. At the very least, the loud music, noisy rolling of roulette wheels, and shrill dings of slot machines were doing their jobs sufficiently in keeping the attention of the attendees. As far as you could tell no eyes were on you at all. You were still hesitant to say too much to your new coworker, but creating unnecessary conflict would only make this more complicated. Whatever. 

“I’m a conjurer. I’ll just show you later” with a subtle roll of your eyes you crossed your arms over your chest, continuing on to your destination without another word of your own. Shalnark gave an upbeat “okay!” in response which you ignored, hardly noticing the newfound speed in your pace as you increasingly wished to get this heist done and over with. Shalnark had no problem keeping up with you, and upon swiftly rounding a corner, you had never been more relieved to see a door in your life once catching sight of the large metal one that was a few feet away. The start of your first objective. Finally. 

The two of you walked up silently, and you looked over your shoulder to ensure there were no prying eyes while Shalnark tried the doorknob.

“Locked.”

Releasing your sigh this time, you shooed him out of the way with your hand and moved that same one to the doorknob. Enabling Gyo, you felt around at every inch of the handle for a short while before pulling back. Glancing over at Shalnark and watching as he raised an eyebrow, you then placed your hands on your hips triumphantly. He kept gazing in confusion.

“That’s it?” he asked, the lack of any visual change in the environment likely making him doubt your abilities. 

With a suppressed smirk, you raised one hand from your hip, opening your palm and showcasing a key. One created with your nen, to fit perfectly into the slot of this particular door. The sight of his eyes and grin widening was satisfying, and since he had a positive reaction you decided to be nice back to him. Maybe teamwork with someone so insufferably cheerful wouldn’t be so bad after all, it was nice to be praised even in a way as small as a change in expression. 

“All yours” you grabbed his hand and placed the key in it, making a curt gesture to the door and stepping back to let him do the honours. He stood for a moment, his eyes swapping between looking at his own hand and the one you had just touched him with. When you cleared your throat after he was still for too long, he blinked and moved the key into the slot quickly, twisting it and gazing with childlike wonder as the door opened right after. 

“That’s amazing! No wonder boss chose you for this job” he grinned, tossing the key back which you caught with ease. You thanked him, shoving it in your pocket and following as he strode into the room and shut the door once you two were inside, perfectly undetected. “As much as I would love to see more of that, this is where we go our separate ways. For now, at least.” He let out a soft chuckle, both of you were already aware of what was next. You simply nodded your agreement, gazing around the dim space and the only other door, which was across from the first. 

Now comes the more crucial part of your mission. This room was only the start, but thankfully a key was no longer required from here on out. Disguised behind this casino was an opposing gang’s money laundering operation; more specifically, a gang that had started to clash with the Phantom Troupe as of late. You were commissioned by Chrollo Lucilfer to find a way inside and work with Shalnark to steal one of their most valuable items, just to send them a message. Your nen specifically was only useful for getting into restricted areas, so you were surprised that the troupe summoned you for one locked door, unsure of how a group of so many strong and abled people had such a hard time with it. Either way, the gig would pay well, so you decided to keep your ridicule to yourself and just get it done. 

The next few doors would be unlocked but guarded, which neither you nor Shalnark would be physically strong enough to deal with presently together or by yourselves (you doubted Shalnark’s inability to fight since the few times you had witnessed the combative side of Phantom Troupe in the past he held his own quite well, if not as one of the best). It was decided by Chrollo that Shalnark would use his nen on you and control your body when combat came into play since he explained that he would be able to do that with ease in comparison to just taking a guard head-on (“It’ll be like I’m playing a first-person fighter game!” he had said with immense anticipation). Of course, you were incredibly hesitant to allow a manipulator to take control of you, especially since you had already seen Shalnark’s strength and speed before, but that damned paycheque looked too handsome to question them further. So with audible reluctance, you agreed to the plan, hardly noticing how much more elated Shalnark looked once you did. 

“Ow! hey, you could’ve at least told me you were about to do it” you winced, fingers tightening in your hair as you held it up for him to press the first antennae into the skin on the back of your neck. 

“Sorry! Just trying to work quickly here, we’re already making such good time, after all. Would be a shame to slow down now.” He punctuated the last part of his sentence by sticking the second one in, catching you by surprise once more as you let your hair down and spun around to glare at him. He looked awfully smug, a soft smirk playing at his lips as you grit your teeth and squinted your eyes at him. That was enough for you to become royally pissed off, preparing to wind up your hand for a cute little slap to his cheek. But your hand wasn’t moving. Shalnark’s smirk widened at your visible show of confusion, the flinchy back-and-forth movements of your body showing him just how hard you were trying to raise your limb. 

“Just messing around with you, Y/N. No need for such hostility” he tilted his head with a full-on, sunny smile, lifting a hand to show you how he was keeping you in place with the push of a button on his cell. 

You just decided to drop it, knowing you’d gain nothing from inflicting harm on a coworker anyway. Moving on, you watched him release his thumb from the button and began walking over to the second door by your own merit, managing to open it just a crack, when a hand on your other wrist prevented you from going any further. 

“There’s something else I need you to do first.” 

Your eyelids drooped in displeasure, annoyed by his apparent want to work quickly but his current presentation of a hold-up. With puzzlement, you observed as he began walking backward, his eyes staying on you even as he crouched down to seat himself against the wall. Your body acted on its own (under Shalnark’s command) as you approached him shortly after he was situated, sauntering over slowly with an awkward swivel of your hips accompanying every step. Your cheeks began to burn in embarrassment, completely unsure but not liking the possible idea of where he was going with this. 

Your pain was audible when you dropped to your knees suddenly, cringing from the sharp pain before crawling closer to him on all fours. You could see his shoulders slumping as he made himself more comfortable, his hand that wasn’t controlling you with his phone moved to hover over his crotch. 

He was not being serious. There was no way.

“Shalnark” you spoke his name firmly, wanting to give him a look that expressed your disdain at what he was planning, and how awful he was for it. You stopped moving when your hands landed in front of him, dangerously close to his own which began stroking himself idly as you inched closer. You forced your eyes down to watch as his head knocked back against the wall before he reached to pull his cock out of his pants, continuing on with stroking it ever so casually, stifling a sound of pleasure as he did. You, on the other hand, were mortified, trying to use everything inside of you to tear away from his control and run the hell out of there. Of course, that would not happen.

Your eyes widened impossibly as you lurched forward and spit on his cock, creating a lubricant for him as he began to stroke a little hastier before letting go, keeping his hand upturned against his thigh as he sighed contentedly, his dick twitching against the air. 

“Time to get to work” he simpered playfully, and before you knew it you were grasping him with your own hand and kissing at his reddened tip. Your breath shook as you exhaled through your nose, straining your eyes up as well as you were able so you could glare daggers at the complacent man before you. You felt your eyelids lower and your eyebrows relax, knowing this was his doing so the look that you gave him was more suggestive. How you wished to tighten your grip so painfully that–

 With puckered lips you took him into your mouth, pulling your hand down his shaft to grab at his balls as your lips began sliding up and down sensually. A soft rumble came from his chest, which rose and fell heavily from every deep breath he took each time you repeated your motions. He was in complete control, from the speed to how hard you sucked, although you didn’t expect him to let you take your mouth off of him so soon, both of your hands replacing where it once was with firm strokes. 

You could feel something forming inside of you that was trying to get out, you couldn’t tell if it was words or a physical jab, but you knew that if you tried hard enough you could get some semblance of sway. You exerted what was left of your internal energy into this feeling, noting how your tongue and throat began moving in a way that was readying for speech, so thankful that you were able to utter your next words. You did so quickly, and it sounded a bit mumbly and slurred, but at least you could get something from your own mind to interject for a fleeting moment. 

“You could’ve come to this heist and done it all by yourself, couldn’t you?”

“Absolutely” he laughed breathlessly, gritting his teeth with a suppressed groan as he forced you to resume your ministrations, seemingly unbothered by your ability to temporarily rebel against his dominance. Your throat and tongue moved in a different way this time as he pushed your head down further than before, making you gag and clench around his tip once it hit the back of your throat. “We’re still gonna finish the job, but now that I have you here, like this, why should I wait any longer?”

You couldn’t respond for obvious reasons, wishing you could have control over your jaw and clamp your teeth down in revenge. But of course, that could not happen, your cheeks hollowed as you sucked up to his tip once more, massaging it with your tongue before popping off and bringing your fingers over it instead, your other hand moving to his balls again so you could fondle them.  

Shalnark must have really liked you because he seemed to be getting close to his orgasm very rapidly, soft heaves of his chest and little whines escaping him as he forced your hand to jerk him faster and faster. What must have only been five minutes felt like five hours, being completely restricted in your own body and using it to perform for someone else who you didn’t even like that much was infuriating, made even worse by the way he looked at you with glassy eyes and pinkened cheeks which stirred something in your guts and made your core throb involuntarily (was it involuntary?). You did not like him, from the start you did not like him, yet the way that he looked at you with such eagerness to come made your heart pick up its pace and thrum a little quicker against your ribcage. It was almost as if you wanted it just as badly as he did. 

Without control, your mouth opened with your tongue splayed out, your hand tilting his cock closer to your face. You barely had time to process these movements before he was coming on you, warm spurts of it landing mostly on your tongue but some went on the corners of your lips and cheek. His hips were rocking as he did and his free hand clutched a death grip on the material of his pants, the other on his cell was trembling as he struggled to maintain the fluidity of your movements, making your own hand start faltering and your jaw slowly begin to shut. His breaths were shaky and only one guttural whimper left him as he started to calm down, his cock softening within your loosening grip. 

It took him and his muscles a while to fully mellow out, his eyes were closed as he slowed his breathing, and his thumb stilled, so unfortunately that left you stuck with your mouth partially closed and your hand barely holding onto his manhood, the strings of his cum that didn’t make it into your mouth now dribbling off of your face and approaching the ground between you two. When his eyes peered open he took notice, a puerile laugh leaving him as he used the thumb of his freehand to swipe it off your jaw and push it into your now fully opened mouth, displaying his return to earth from elation when he made your lips close so you would suck on his thumb. 

“Ah, you were so good, better than I imagined” he spoke contentedly, his finger playing around pushing and prodding at your tongue for a bit before he pulled it out and finally moved to clothe himself. When he was situated he used his free hand to support himself on the wall behind him as he stood, and you stood up promptly too. 

You could tell that your expression was unhappy, or at the very least that you were trying to look unhappy so he could know that no, you were not good, you were angry and now miserable. He raised his eyebrows at your attempt of showing attitude.

“How cute” he smiled brightly, daringly reaching out to pat your head. Your eyes followed his hand, squinting in a flinch as he petted you like an animal. “Come on, we’ve got some treasure to steal now.” He caressed your hair briefly before walking past you, and you followed behind shortly, saying nothing else since he didn’t allow you to. Inside you were revolted as he made you catch up to be right at his side and reach for his hand, fingers intertwining in a horribly tender way. 

“Don’t worry, Y/N, we aren’t done just yet. Once we finish this job, I’ll make sure to take care of your needs too.”

You hated the way that the butterfly in your stomach thrummed at the prospect. 

© meyousing 2023. do not share/export my work on to any other platforms. do not translate my work. 

[primreaperstuff]

I just had a thought: Everybody seems to be assuming that the Society of the Blind Eye (SBE) Dippers and Mabels in the Book of Bill were created during that summer. But what if they actually were what happened had Dipper taken that internship with Ford? I got the idea because the guys in the hoods look a good deal taller than the other Dippers and Mabels. I mean, it could just be the perspective, but I thought they looked like they might've gotten the chance to grow a bit more than the others. If you assume Left Hood is Mabel, (based off of their nose possibly being the same color as the rest of their face), it's also possible that she's lasted long enough in one timeline to get her braces off.

Alex Hirsch has said that Ford would've made the same mistakes with Dipper that he did with Fiddleford McGucket, so Dipper the Intern would've eventually ended up going insane like McGucket did. And McGucket originally founded the SBE as a direct consequence of Ford's bullshit. (Sorry Ford baby, I do love you-- but you are completely unfit to raise a technically-teenage boy full-time!)

I wouldn't put it past a traumatized older Dipper to figure out how to rebuild the memory gun (or maybe it never got destroyed in the first place?). At first he was just hoping to be able to sleep again but it takes its toll on his mind after awhile and he unwittingly ends up recreating the SBE (perhaps because he doesn't remember it-- or doesn't remember how bad it really was for people). Or alternatively, Ford, having been enabled for years by somebody who either can't or won't tell him no, proposes a truly horrible idea that even Dipper can't go along with. Dipper resorts to trying to wipe Ford's memory of the idea to ensure he never acts on it, but it fails and permanently ruins the relationship. Dipper is ashamed, alone, and afraid, so he uses the gun on himself so those bad memories of failure don't stop him from stopping Ford. It snowballs into repeated uses of the gun (turns out that forgetting what you're afraid of means forgetting why you don't use the gun more often!) until the poor guy can't bring himself to do anything in public without it. Dipper has enough perfectionist tendencies that, if something caused him to go off the rails, I could see him constantly using the memory gun to redo his interactions with people until they go exactly the way he's decided they're supposed to.

The dark path for Mabel would be worse in some ways. Imagine that this is a world where Mabel encouraged Dipper to take the internship instead of getting upset about it. Maybe she even unwittingly pressured him into accepting it when he was going to turn it down, because she thought it would be awesome for him, only to get hit with the horrible reality when the next summer rolls around and he's obviously Not Okay. She feels partially responsible and wishes he never had to experience any of the terrible stuff he alludes to, and that leads her to remaking/refinding the memory gun as the next best thing to making the bad things unhappen. Of course Ford figures out what she's done quickly, so she tried to use it on him to make him forget that internships and memory guns exist. It doesn't work and they get into a big nasty fight. Later Soos pops in to ask how things are going after some horrible event that Dipper no longer remembers, causing Dipper to regain his memory of the incident, so Mabel uses the gun on Soos and Dipper. Ford is angry, so Mabel bolts and hides from him, using the gun to prevent other people from reporting her whereabouts to him (and later McGucket, because you can bet Ford told him all about this).

It all spirals from there-- the key being that Mabel never uses the gun on herself because she's fully aware of how bad it is for people. She knows the SBE was bad, but reasons that it was bad because it was lead astray by the selfishness of people like Bud Gleeful rather than the fact that it existed to control people and dodge taking responsibility for anything. She self-rationalizes that PTSD and people actively seeking out monsters would be worse than the effects of the gun. Later she adds the rationalization that she's done it so often that there's no point in stopping because it would only mean that her targets would have to deal with both their trauma and the bad effects of the gun.

Either way, Gravity Falls ends up becoming like Lovecraft town where it's all nice-looking and stuff but you don't linger, go off the beaten path, or ask questions, lest you end up getting stuck there permanently like the Pines family. Just deliver the packages and go the fuck home before the sun comes down.

(Fuck, I forgot about the metal plate in Ford's head. Edited to account for that.)

[thrashkink-coven]

Excellent ritual with Lord Lucifer this evening. It seems Lord Belial has found his way onto my altar. Stolas, Paimon and Kerberos were also eager to make appearances, I sense that I’ll be working more with them very soon. There aren’t enough words to explain how exciting it is to be entering another phase.

This isn’t much of a ritual report, but I did end up writing down a couple things from my trance with them.

“Throughput this ritual, I saw many things and confronted many demons, mainly my fear of stagnation. I ask myself where it comes from and remind myself that I’m okay.”

“I came upon a river in the shadowy dark, it reflected muted light. In this river was an old canoe of some kind, and a robbed figure, perhaps a skeleton, wearing many gold chains, rings, and jewels. In his boat were riches as well. I climbed in the boat and we ventured down the river into a cave, which resembled the female genitalia. Into the void we went, and soon all was black. We came upon a shore, which was lined with sand and I exited the boat and walked deeper into the darkness. When I looked back to the driver of the boat, I knew this was Paimon.”

“I returned to “the desert” (possibly Venus), and began that long, quiet walk deeper into the Void. When I struck the light of Godhood, which was like a match in my hands, around me ignited a bright circle of fire. The circle creates a sigil. Through the flames I could see Him vaguely, and 6s and 7s.”

“In the darkness I see a hole in the sand emanating pearlescent light. It seems far away, but massive like a crater in the earth. I want to jump inside, when I do, I see the King shielding himself in 6 brilliant wings. He outstretches his arm and beckons me closer. In his eyes I see the holy light of the hidden gnosis.”

“He wore ruby red shoes which glimmered like crystal, we shared rich chocolate cake, he kissed it off my lips and cheeks. He demands that I acquire a chalice for my altar, in which we can share drink together daily.”

“The imagery I saw during our discussion of my goals enabled me to formulate a plan to manifest these dreams. It required the aid of Prince Cerberus, keeper of keys, Lord Bune, of enterprises, Lord Paimon, who I saw as a robed figure rowing a boat in a black void, Lord Belial, of Earth, and my own cunning, swiftness, and devotion. Lord Stolas would be there to accompany Lord Cerberus. Lord Bune would aid Belial.”

We channeled this manifestation with the gracious aid of Prince Cerberus. Together we (with Lucifer) merged our purifying energy to charge the manifestation, erupt from my solar plexus to the centre of my third eye, pushing it into motion, so even now if begins to work. Lord Lucifer wraps over me in wisps of smoke erupting from the circle of fire. I see the eyes of the three headed black dog and a mighty weight blanket my body. Naber’s (Cerberus’) teeth and claws restrain me and we are sensually entertwined. My drops of blood are fire which fuel the object of my eye. Lucifer encourages and watches us work together, shining his light down until fire burns to plasma“

“Cerberus acted as the key into the realm of Lord Belial, who I am not familiar with. Lord Belial was very welcoming, extremely responsive, business like. I see a horned figure surrounded in flames, with wide grin, a satisfied demeanour.”

“A sigil was drawn on two leaves of basil and burned whilst channeling Lord Cerberus and Lord Belial”

I then did a tarot reading with Lords Hermes and Lucifer, and Lord Belial. Hermes acted only as an intermediary. Belial made it very clear that he was ready and determined to get started with the work, and I have no objections to this. He was sure to hammer home that the best time is now. He likes the way we work together and sees us having a “fruitful” relationship. He references fruit and trees many times, saying that he produces trees which bare fruit.”

“I leave this ritual feeling hopeful and determined, excited. I enter this new phase with perfect love and perfect trust. So Blessed Be.”

Immediately after the ritual I see it’s effects taking form. I run to grab a notebook to plan out my week, arrange some study material, and give my offerings to my Lords.

Thank you infinitely to the Light Bringer who is always bringing me closer to my goals even when things seem uncertain. I cherish every moment we spend together and will sing your praises forever more. Hail Lucifer! ✴️ Hail thyself! 🔱

[erazonpo3]

Erazon's Characterisation Essay (Part 1 - Cynthia Edition)

General preface; This is me snowballing on a thought I had earlier about canon v fanon trends given that it's a pretty evergreen topic. Without getting too much into the subject itself, I made the point that you can use the source material as a starting point for analysing characterisation, but in a lot of cases it's highly interpretive; using Pokemon as an example, most of the non-player characters exist to enable the player's autonomy throughout the game's storyline, and only a small handful have their own detailed arcs and backstories.

Therefore if you want to build on characterisation for them for transformative fanworks, you only have a handful of dialogue lines and some environmental storytelling that borders on olympic levels of mental gymnastics. Things like backstory and character motivation needs to be invented, to which end the concept of 'canon' characterisation becomes pretty insignificant in comparison to the story you are trying to tell, and whether or not that characterisation is thematically appropriate and compelling. Everyone is going to have a subjective opinion about the 'essence' of a character, the core traits that make them who they are, and how integral those traits are for it to be a 'canon' or 'fanon' interpretation.

And yet there's still ways to analyse the games to draw some conclusions that aren't always obvious straight away.

I'm going to go into how I draw characterisation for Cynthia for Way Out, but keep in mind that I don't consider my characterisation perfect or the One True Depiction To End All Others etc and so on and so forth. There's things I need to discard in favour of the story– adults in the Pokemon games, including Cynthia, have a pretty laissez-faire attitude when it comes to kids handling crises so that the target audience (kids) can feel acutalised as they play through the story, but it's not always what I consider a core character trait so much as a function of the medium.

I play up a sense of responsibility and duty that isn't really depicted in the games but is nevertheless an easy takeaway in order to give her character a bit more depth and relateability. And when other people take her character in a different direction, I try to keep an open mind about what they're saying about her character in their story, because their story is not a video game for children nor a webcomic, and they will need to do different things depending on her narrative role.

(I don't have to like it, but I'm no less a subjective soul than anyone else).

I also pull here and there from other sources of inspiration, one I've mentioned before is a meta-analysis of how she's treated by the fandom in general, assuming she'd be treated a similar way as a public figure in-universe. A lot of my character work is about peeling back that legendary status and asking who the person underneath is and how she might deal with the pressures of being expected to consistently meet other people's high standards, and how to balance a healthy competitive streak without it becoming toxic.

But more to the point– here's some material exclusively from Platinum that I think collates to a pretty consistent depiction of her character, to keep in mind and interpret any which way, arranged into some key traits.

She is the granddaughter of a village elder in a traditional rural town.

"My grandma has this sort of bossy atmosphere about her. I think you'll recognize her right away. Yes, I'm sure you will. She's the elder of Celestic Town"

An overlooked aspect of her character that I think holds some of the ripest potential for her character is that we know a fair deal about where her family is from, potentially where she was raised. My personal conclusions are:

It is likely she has an ingrained sense of cultural values of humility, respect, duty, and tradition. While she may not be ruled by these traits, they would influence the way she interacts with the world.

Her interest in mythology is likely inspired the mural in Celestic town, and reflects a value of heritage and history.

It's a common 'fanon' that her grandmother was her primary guardian through much of her childhood, which isn't substantiated anywhere (just because we don't meet her parents as NPCs doesn't mean they don't exist) but this idea strengthens the connection she has to Celestic town and emphasises her position as the elder's heir.

Cynthia introducing herself as a trainer and not a Champion suggests humility; she positions herself as an equal to the player as opposed to a superior.

2. She is earnest and sincere

"...The places we are born. The time we spend living... The languages we speak... We are all different. But the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose..."

This is a reflection of her position as a narrative foil to Cyrus; where he dismisses the importance of emotion and 'spirit', she holds it in high regard. Thus;

She sees strong emotions as the source of her bond to her Pokemon and therefore the source of her success. While it's not to say she's an overly empathetic person, I think it follows easily that is generally emotionally intelligent (generally).

I think she's self-aware about how emotional she can be too, which is to say it's something she consciously embraces despite knowing she comes across a little overly earnest (and cheesy) sometimes.

"I love the sound a piano makes. I savor every note with my entire being. It's not only my ears; my spirit hears the music it makes... Ehehe, I made myself cringe saying that."

3. She is intelligent

"I think I let myself get carried away and talked for far too long. I'm sorry, and thank you"

This feels like a no brainer (ha) but it's also easy to take someone who comes across as emotional and write them off as being illogical or not having the depth for complex thought. To me, her emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with her analytical intelligence.

Her fascination with mythology is one of her defining traits, and her dialogue is the source of much of the lore surrounding the Sinnoh legendary Pokemon.

Her pursuit of knowledge is one of her defining traits; her interest in mythology and the distant past is referenced more frequently by herself and other NPCs than the fact of her being Champion. "My big sister is studying the myths of Sinnoh. She wants to know how people and Pokemon interacted in the days of myths."

As a Champion, I consider that she's very calculating and analytical. Even without the strategic held items given to her in BDSP, her Pokemon have perfect stats and have solid type coverage. It's not something she would accidentally stumble onto.

"When you are facing a Trainer in battle, you can learn everything about them. What Pokemon they have. What moves they've taught. What items they make Pokemon hold."

4. She is kind

"I want you to keep traveling to many far-off places. I want you to keep meeting all kinds of people and Pokémon. I came all the way here just so I could say that to you!"

A Champion in this game being kind isn't really a revolutionary idea, but it's still something I consider very integral, particularly in conjunction with the prior traits; there is diplomacy and there is compassion, and to me Cynthia balances both.

She is something of a mentor figure to the player, giving them the solution to obstacles on multiple occasissions (HM Cut, the Secret Medicine), and imparts a lot of lore to them. Notably she gives them an egg which hatches into a Togepi; while this event doesn't happen in BDSP and Platinum doesn't have the Fairy type, it's still retroactively made more interesting for the fact that Togekiss' modern Fairy/Flying type grants perfect immunity to her Garchomp's Dragon/Ground typing.

Some of the few interactions the player will have with her is giving medicine to the Psyduck blocking the route to Celestic town, and then delivering a charm to her grandmother– it gives an impression that she is regularly invested in small acts of kindness.

5. Other tidbits

Every time she interacts with you as the player, it is always through the lens of an adult with a public position speaking to a child; I take it as a given that all her interactions have a slight amount of professional distance, and a formality she wouldn't have if speaking to an adult friend.

She reveals that she went on a similar journey as the player character after being given a Pokedex by Professor Rowan, which could imply she experienced similar experiences to the established protagonist journey formula.

There's a slight goofiness to some of her dialogue that suggests she doesn't always take herself too seriously. "You've seen that group of Psyduck huddled with their heads in their, uh, hands...?"

It's a pretty common 'fanon' for Cynthia to have known Cyrus in her childhood, but this isn't really substantiated in text; her dialogue towards him would be a lot colder with that context as opposed to a stranger. It's a common headcanon because giving them a history together strengthens their position as foils, but in my opinion it's equally as interesting that Cyrus succeeds as far as he does because he exists in Cynthia's blind spot- she admits she didn't pay enough attention to what Team Galactic was up to, and can only stand in opposition to him ideologically, unwilling to entertain (or empathise with) his perspective. It hints at a certain stubbornness she has when she believes she's right and someone else is wrong.

This is just what I personally glean from the text; it's possible I've missed something that somebody else considers ultimately integral. But I hope that my writing in Way Out speaks for itself in how I apply all this to her character in the story, and why I feel it's important to do so. Cynthia is the character I second-guess the most in her characterisation because she should always be recognisable, even while going through different arcs. Her values, her intelligence, her sincerity, and her kindness are all things that need to be balanced with the needs of the story; how strong she is is just a relative thing to what any particular scene demands.

There's a lot I could still elaborate on but for the sake of at least attempting to keep this (relatively) concise, I wrote all this to highlight how I try to stay on track with consistent characterisation, which may not be the perfect ideal for this character but nevertheless is the best version for my story. There's nobody I hold to a higher writing standard than myself, and I try to constantly ask myself if I'm really writing what's best for the narrative or if I can do something better. I'm not interested in the most canon depiction that exists for another story, I'm interested in what's right for my story.

And uhhhh peace ✌️

[keshetchai]

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

[trans-axolotl]

key takeaways from psych abolition discussions at the anarchist healthcare conference 2023:

Psych wards and asylums have not always existed, and we can tear down and create alternatives! As much as the system wants us to believe this is our only option for providing care and support for madness, that is simply not true and there are multiple historical examples of successful deinstitutionalization. We talked a lot about the Basaglia method and the application of that in Italy and Brazil.

Successful resistance within psych wards has required solidarity from both workers and patients. Patients are often understandably very mistrustful of the professionals who have perpetrated violence against us, and psych professionals need to actively work to build trust, collaborate in sharing the burden of risk that currently patients are the only ones holding, actively value patients lives above their job security, and must actively interrogate the power dynamics they are currently operating within. One area to start building solidarity can be around the ways that psych workers like behavioral techs are often underpaid, overworked, and exploited by upper management, and that many psych workers go into the field because they have their own experience with mental health. There needs to be much more room for patients to express our anger, rage, and distrust, and still be respected by psych professionals who want to organize with us.

This quote from Basaglia and the Democratic Psychiatry movement in Italy: " The debate about whether to work inside or outside institutions, inside or outside, presupposes that inside and outside exist as clearly separate and antagonistic positions. Inside and outside are created as opposite and completely separate poles by a social system that is based on divisions at all levels. If we accept this premise, we are already playing into the hands of administrators."

What resistance in psych wards can look like! We talked about everything from organized protests, group refusal to comply with treatment activities, individual noncompliance, breaking people out, trying to advocate through the approved means like ethics committees and patient advocates, sneaking in contraband, creating intentional peer support within those spaces, and also some more complex and nuance conversations around the fact that when all ability to access privacy and bodily autonomy is taken away, many patients will turn to self harm as a form of enforcing bodily autonomy.

Ways that professionals can act as accomplices, by refusing to sign psych holds, refusing to force meds, enabling peer support, breaking their hospital policies, letting patients get away with things, advocating for policies like cell phones in units, calling ethics consults. Also the idea of deliscensure, where therapists will go to school, get licensed, and then let that license expire and offer services under "life coaching," which has different legal responsibilities and creates less entanglement with the state and mandatory reporting.

The idea that coercion exists on so many levels in the psych system, from outpatient to inpatient. "involuntary holds" are not the only type of involuntary treatment that happens. Someone had a really good point that choosing between coercive and violent inpatient systems or being forced to have zero support on the outside is also not a choice free from coercion, and that any discussion of involuntary treatment needs to have a really broad understanding of how coercion and choice plays into treatment in so many levels.

Brainstorming what inside/outside organizing might look like in terms of how we as community outside institutions support people currently incarcerated. Some ideas included bringing in regular care packages with fun items for patients and also items like hair care products, especially for textured hair since psych wards rarely provide any hair care products for Black hair, and sneaking in contact info to local organizations and collectives, sneaking in radical zines about mental health support topics/psych abolition/harm reduction by giving them covers of approved topics on things like CBT, mainstream mental health, etc. Having hotlines for immediate mobilization for psych incarceration. Utilizing the wisdom and knowledge from people who are regularly in and out of hospitals, who might have a lot more long term knowledge of how a psych facility functions than staff who have a lot of turnover. Really listening to patients and peers and getting creative about how to reach people and remind them that they're not forgotten. We really grappled with how to do this type of organizing when considering that psych wards are often very transient spaces where people are there for only 5ish days, and how to set up structures that can offer support to people their first time they enter a psych facility. A lot of our conversations also looked at successful inside/outside organizing happening in prisons, and people felt like that would be a really good direction to go into.

Building our community capacity to deal with crisis, and also depathologizing crisis! We talked about how often people label others' experiences as crisis without actually seeing how the person feels about it, and how white supremacy culture really encourages this on a societal level, especially in terms of what public situations bystanders will call the cops/crisis hotlines. In order to build networks of community care, we need to get comfortable with crisis, and look at how crisis exists in context, instead of just labeling things as symptoms and disorders. Healing cannot exist in isolation, and alongside things like emotional and therapeutic support, access to substances, we need to consider how to integrate material support for things like housing, food, medical care, fighting against oppression, access to job security, things like that. We also need to address how to expand access to community spaces, especially when considering people who feel isolated from in person community and don't have support networks to rely on.

overall this conference was just a really cool convergence of mad people, psych professional allies, people working with harm reduction and alternative crisis teams and just a million different contexts! happy to expand more on any of these points I've listed above.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Someone legit said:

Look I know people love to act like Zuko is the most dangerous, toxic, and temperamental character… but there is exactly one (1) male character Katara was canonically responsible for calming down from violent, destructive tantrums at risk to herself and it wasn't Zuko…

They also added in the comments:

Oh and guess what! Tell me, who was it who *actually* burned Katara in the show—again out of carelessness and losing control? Aang or Zuko? Which one forced romantic advances on her? Riddle me that

This show is honestly lost on ZK stans. They don’t care about its characters, they don’t understand nuance. All they care about is their Wattpad fanfic interpretation of the characters that they so desperately try to pass off as canon

Zutarians stop taking things out of context challenge.

Yes, Aang was the only one of these two characters to accidentally hurt or scare Katara. The key word here being ACCIDENTALLY.

Zuko meanwhile KNOWINGLY CHOSE to do things like threat her tribe, chase her group around the world, hold her hostage, try to kidnap her best friend, hit her so hard she passed out, and send an assassin after the Gaang.

Zutara is not an enemies-to-lovers ship because Katara "misunderstood" the brooding bad boy of the school and then realized he had a heart of gold despite being moody and kind of rude. It is an enemies-to-lovers ship because ZUKO WANTED HER DEAD.

He was a racist, imperialist prince who was actively supporting the people commiting genocide against her people. He wanted to destroy the world's last hope for peace. He tried to kill the last airbender, aka the last survivor of a genocide, who also just happened to be one of the people Katara loved the most.

They did not become friends because Katara realized she "misunderstood" him. They became friends because Zuko learned basic human empathy towards people that were not from his nation, aka the bare fucking minimum.

If you want to ship them even with that in mind, fine. The show itself wants us to like Zuko as a character, and his friendship with the Gaang, despite all that, and I say they did a pretty good job at it.

But if you're going to forgive the dude that WANTED TO GENOCIDE KATARA'S PEOPLE, you can't act like Aang is the devil for ACCIDENTALLY burning her or not being able to control the Avatar State - things the show itself holds him accountable for and has him work on.

Zuko hurt Katara WAY more than Aang ever did, and he did so intentionally. Claiming otherwise is not a "hot take", it's being stupid at best and an enabler at worse.

[princescribbler]

Some USEFUL REMINDERS for CG/L Dynamics (Especially Online or LD)

Presented in no particular order or significance, a few useful reminders!

Your Caregiver is more than just that... they're a complicated, whole person with interests outside of CG/L, ABDL, and kink.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes to be introduced or harassed online with "Hi wanna be my mommy/ daddy/ little" as an opening line. Like... that's a huge amount of effort, time, and responsibility to take on just cuz somebody you don't know asks... it isn't gonna happen.. if you want that, work for it and build a relationship!

Reminders are great! Send them to your partner, yourself, your friends, whether it's for daily tasks like checking in with a CG or boring work stuff... be the person people appreciate because you check in, give reminders, and generally enable everyone to succeed easier.

There will be extremely tough days where you'll feel bad and want to give up your kinks, your fetishes, etc... and that won't fix a single thing. See, whether you're kinky or not; Jobs suck, renting sucks, everything sucks sometimes! Stop blaming your kink for your problems and accept that you might need to find more complicated answers than just hating or blaming kink.

You and only you are responsible for your fetish activities... you choose how you engage in them, even if it's at someone else's supposed "orders." Don't see yourself as somehow not an active participant!

Consent is key, and informed, enthusiastic consent is key. Whether it's hand holding, keyholding, sex, cuddles, or just sexy messages and texts, consent is key. If you don't get it, don't get kinky with them. And major important note: coerced or manipulated consent is NOT consent.

Pixar and Disney remain excellent at any age, and you don't need to be a little to enjoy! Seriously.

Littles can be toxic! Yes, there's tons of fake caregivers, fake switches, fake and manipulative buttfaces out there, absolutely. But littles can be toxic, too, and if you're seeing those toxic behaviors within yourself, you need to change. Now... it isn't acceptable or fair to damage others with your toxicity just because you're afraid to change and grow!

Consent is needed from all involved, including spectators. Don't bring your kinky stuff in public without the consent of ALL impacted parties. Don't make the whole community look bad, either!

Depression, anxiety, and mental health in general can be a risk when adopting a kinky lifestyle. Don't ignore them or just try to work around them... it won't work. You need to deal with them, and social relationships can help but sometimes you need professionals, not just friends.

When in doubt, assume you should be doing the responsible thing..I know, especially for bratty subs, that it is hard to choose to do the responsible thing... but seriously, being a little isn't an excuse to EXCLUSIVELY do irresponsible or naughty things!

Things like diapees, pacifiers, bottles, most little or ABDL or CG/L gear can be passed off by just saying "Oh, it's for a friend" because everyone assumes there's a friend with a kid. When you accidentally feel exposed... just try to remember most people don't care, or notice, and if they do they probably assume it's a misunderstanding. Stop freaking out!

Your caregiver isn't your therapist. They're not here to fix your emotional trauma from childhood.. they might help you, but they're not meant to fix your whole life just because you let someone be in charge of you.

You are still an adult, even in littlespace... so you need to act like it when it comes to serious stuff. Money, sex, responsibilities, these deserve an ADULT view and should involve your ADULT mindset in participating, unless you and your caregiver have a very specific and well negotiated/ understood agreement about power exchange and decision making... and even then, you should still be an active part of the planning.

Everybody fucks up, and it's USUALLY stupid to hold a mistake against someone who means you well. Give your partner the benefit of the doubt, by default... it can be either you alone against your problems, or you WITH a partner...idk, seems like being on a team is just easier and a better way!

Communication isn't everyone's thing. If you're with someone who never learned healthy methods, you can teach and help. You aren't obligated to, I'm not saying you're responsible if your Partner isn't knowledgeable about this stuff... I'm just saying, if you know a healthier and better way, show your partner, don't expect them to just improve because you think you model good behavior.

Diaper and ABDL play isn't ubiquitous... in this community, some people love it (myself included) and others hate it, and that's fine. As long as nobody is shaming or hurting anybody, let them be, whether your kinks match or not.

Very, very few people want unsolicited pics, whether of penises, breasts, butts, chastity, diapers, etc. If you want to send a pic, check that the pic is welcomed.

Just a short, hopefully informative list than jumped into my head today and I figured I'd share!

Sending you all lots of good vibes, good times, and good luck!

As always, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay kinky!

-Scribbler

[chaifootsteps]

There are a plethora of issues regarding Vivziepop's writing, but the one that really stands out to me is her lack of themes. She has ideas, occasionally she has something to say, but she has no themes.

If you don't mind my ramblings; I have been considering an AU that is effectively divorced from the series, focusing entirely on the characters Blitzo, Barbie, and Fizzarolli. In brainstorming the story, I have been able to streamline the narrative to 3 core themes.

Masculinity, Control/Power, and Belonging.

Everything in the story is connected to one or more of these themes in regards to the characters and their motivations. Even side characters are wholly infused with these three concepts.

In my AU, FizzaRolli is not a performer, but a stray child with a group of other feral children Lord of the Flies. Blitz is the son of a circus owner who craves his father's approval even as he resents him. Barbie is an up and coming starlet brutally managed by her father who effectively curates her sense of identity as she creeps closer to the spotlight.

Much of Blitzo's story focuses on a young man coming into his own in a world that runs on toxic masculinity, balanced out by the guidance and love of his sickly mother whom he cares for. He's a young adult figuring out himself in a world and community who keeps telling him what he should be. Sub Themes of responsibility, respect, strength and the abuse of power are key cornerstones of his story.

Meanwhile FizzaRolli is the foil of Blitz's story. An orphan without parental guidance living out his coming of age in a Teenage Wasteland. Additionally, Fizz is gay, meaning his queerness colors over the themes in a fundamental way. Being in a Teenage Wasteland, Fizz is effectively in the closet because of how queerness can change others perception of him. And weakness often is associated with queerness, which has no place in a micro-society that elevates this toxic, Fight Club-esque concept of masculinity and belonging. Fizz seems to belong, carve out a space for himself in his community, but struggles come into himself. Especially because underneath it all is a severely traumatized child who never got to be a kid long enough to learn how to be a man.

And from the far other side, Barbie's relationship to these themes comes from the viewpoint of living under the patriarchy as a young woman. How girls are raised to cater to the needs of men, treated as glorified children unless they "prove" themselves over things that many men are merely handed. Her father prioritized her career above and beyond her as a person. While that isn't a trait inherently based in sexism, how he curates her life and downplays her desires and intelligence is rooted mainly in her being his daughter and thus not expected to "step out" into her own like her twin. Leaving her feeling impotent, infantalized and resentful even as she is held on a pedestal.

Control over one's self, perception, and direction.

How masculinity fosters respect and responsibility for young boys while simultaneously threatening punishment for not meeting or stepping outside of certain expectations. Especially the competitive aggression and emotional warfare in toxic masculinity

And a sense of belonging, be it in a community or an identity.

Themes help maintain a cohesion to a story, helps the characters feel interconnected and the world lived in regardless of how much emphasis is placed outside the main cast. It also helps ground the ideas of characters in an abstract way that doesn't place pressure to "prove" to the audience a character does fit the traits you as an author see in them. Most of all, it better enabled the author to pivot viewpoints and easily switch between characters so that they feel individual and not that there is a singular "voice" speaking behind them. It creates a unique soul rather than an empty skin suit for the author to don.

Sorry for the long rant.

No worries, Anon. Thanks for the ramble, it was an interesting read!

[edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

eruri & finding peace

of the things i remember recently gaining insight into with eruri, its that they're fundamental reflections of each other, and through this their relationship enabled a resolving of their internal quandaries.

its pretty well known that they're mirror characters (hence their synchronicity), with purpose also informing both their narratives, but they were able to access the truth of their purpose within each other. — erwin was confronted with duty vs drive and the pairs' fight for prominence within him, whereas levi was confronted with self-objectification vs fallibility.

levi idealized erwin as a wholly dedicated person with no personalized conflicts of interest. he saw him as elevated, uninhibited, humanity's paramount heart — a beacon — and was thusly able to dedicate his life in turn, doubly forgiving the loss of his fallen friends in the service of the greater good and the ability to be unflinchingly active in one's pursuits and efforts (i.e dedication/purpose).

erwin, on the other hand neglected a part of his authenticity: both in his ambitions and his responsibilities to humanity. he assumed a relentless resolve which strained the juvenile, personal nature of his wants, and denied him from openly espousing his perspective and ambitions with others, seeking validation/satisfaction through success and output. but, as vindication loomed, he was unable to suppress his truth, with his allegiance to duty distressing him given selfishness opposing his all or nothing/dedication mindset.

levi, while disillusioned, also received a sobering look at his encapsulation of humanity's finest, coming to realize that his romanticization and consequent emulation/endeavoring towards self-objectification was unrealistic, and neglects the fundamental impurities and selfishness which make us human. levi is able to accept erwin in his jejune wants, and places value over his autonomy / rest over service and being a mere tool.

levi has always been one with humanity since his recruitment, with his prioritizing of eren's autonomy wrt turning [early in the show] acting as a key example, however, this is furthered in him humanizing humanity's beacon, displaying an overt and pivotal evolution to his aspirations.

erwin, conversely, is emboldened in the sanctity of his duty. in relinquishing his true humanity/vulnerability to levi and enabling him to be purposeful for the both of them, trusting levi fully in a way reminiscent of the latter's own former idealization, erwin finds true purpose. and so, when levi commands him to make the selfless choice, erwin can die fulfilled, can die with a heart dedicated, having truly ascended above fallibility and into an apex of human will.

thusly, when levi desperately clings to his need for erwin, one now pure and wholly accepting [obfuscating it through utility], it is erwin who emulates levi and allows himself to wholly embrace peace, satisfied truly, and granted purpose even in his rest. and it is levi who relinquishes the toil for the decided heart of another, able to make peace with humanity once more, releasing erwin from the clutches of duty and allowing personhood/self to endure. both united by unfettered humanity.

a man consumed by duty dies at the will of hands and not the machine, and a man consumed by the machine makes an ultimate sacrifice in service of another, and both are granted purpose through fulfilling the other.