#nerding out about the specifics of translated magic cards

[bonesandpoemsandflowers]

contemplating various character options

but MOSTLY

trying to decide if period piece ballerina protagonist can be faithfully reflavored to be the mage / cartomancer character in the shadowrun-esque playing card based solo journaling RPG. the setting is a kind of sketchily, lazily lightly post apocalyptic (the creator wrote this shit mid 2020, so, you know, that was a vibe), but also a little cyberpunk-y, and I feel like that genre is very essentially about blue collar characters, so professional ballerina at a prestigious institution is right out. and what do ballerinas do when ballet isn't an option? if they don't end up teaching pilates? that's right. this is a STRIPPER alternative timeline. getting that done faithfully and well would be a big deal if this was a novel, but if it's a self indulgent little game mostly for myself, I can slap my pole dance specific knowledge on there, sprinkle in some stories from my long ago stripper friends, and call it a day.

I think I want her in Appalachia because I have so much region specific playing card lore I've collected, but she would never go there so I think that, say, post theatre closures she moved back to South Florida, but Miami had some sort of water based disaster and she barely made it out in time and is just stuck in the mountains somewhere (overcorrected, fled to high ground).

however, there are, of course, other options, some of which would be funny

there's skittish subby werewolf boy, a crowd favorite. pros: very blue collar, has the right sort of generally pessimistic attitude that fits right into the genre, already vaguely hates corporations. cons: why the FUCK would he ever start binding demons (or whatever) into playing cards? he's just not enough of a nerd to be an occultist. he has no interest in The Lore. what are the theological implications in a setting with werewolves and spirit binding magic? he is, also, specifically a loner--lone wolf, hahaha, SHUT UP--and the game set up requires that you have some sort of "community" you're tied to and protecting, and that would actually be difficult to swing here. almost everybody else is easily slotted into a pro-social role, even most villains, but he's just sort of a sad boy, you know? who can bite your face off. he's just very self sufficient. it would honestly take him a while to notice any sort of mild apocalypse happening. IRL this motherfucker wouldn't even notice covid until deep into 2020, riding into town on his horse to pick up the mail.

his also werewolf evil ex boyfriend: honestly...actually. put a pin in this idea, self. he also goes long stretches of time not werewolf-ing it, so there's that. also, arguably you could translate his character to a normal human and it could work. biker guy occultist isn't even a stretch. his aesthetic is already perfect.

the eventual canon Human Love Interest: the lawyer is absolutely enough of a nerd to be an occultist and enough of a bastard to bind things into cards and use them. however, would almost certainly be some rando corpo in this kind of setting. there are ways to work with that and still hit the right spirit for the game, but it would be complicated and this is supposed to be easy and fun. still, running a corpo deck is something people in the game community are already discussing, and I would be better at it than most people attempting it. he is LA based, which is a different feel. east LA latino punk mage would be a baller time, though. maybe if he's younger and only just on the path to eventually going corporate.

this dude's BFF: hilarious. he is never specifically physically described in any of the novels because he's actually a changeling in the dungeons and dragons sense and looks like whatever. He is only described as handsome, so the reader can imagine whatever, but it's also my deepest of in jokes that he appears in some capacity in every single thing I've written, however briefly. There is never anything in the text of the novel that indicates that he's not just some normal human person. I think this is the first time I've posted about it in ANY public capacity. anyway, outright unfair to have a planeswalker in a relatively low magic setting. also however very funny. but no, it doesn't work. still, VERY funny. possibly also why eventual lawyer boy is binding spirits into cards at all--his bestie is an unstable magical field. weird things happen. possibly this motherfucker himself is bound into a card by accident. "the FUCK do you mean, you're a demon?" no no no bro, not a demon, that's propaganda--please put down the salt, bro. bro. c'mon.

sabor latino reluctant necromancer hot dad: of all characters who probably COULD bind spirits into a deck of cards--of all characters who would resolutely NOT--idk, also very funny but for different reasons. not enough of a nerd to know The Lore. very resistant to learning any lore. would probably bind something on accident and spend the whole time going "shit shit fuck oh shit oh fuck" and trying to get rid of it and instead ending up with a whole deck of demons or ghosts or whatever. pros: he's already a noir character with occult elements. he's very tied to Miami so whatever vague disaster I want to write, he's there, dealing with the fallout. cons: lots of jumping through hoops if he's in genuine danger because the in character correct answer is that no matter how much magical bullshit he's forced to deal with, when shit gets really real, he's like, "yeah okay I cast glock." brings a gun to a mage fight. IDK, it might be fun. perpetually tired and done with everyone's shit, you think he's gonna do mage bullshit and then he just punches you. funny.

his retired art thief love interest: canonically the nerdiest of occult nerds. knows The Lore and then some. would absolutely bind a bunch of entities into a pack of cards. would also probably object to the ars goetia demons, like I do, but on aesthetic grounds, not because she's a pansy. would not feel the least bit bad about binding and imprisoning almost anything in her deck of cards. but like. it would actually be boring to write. it's too easy, except for how slumming it gives her the vapors.

some AU version of erikphantomopera himself: you can't put this motherfucker in a setting with magic in it. he would ABSOLUTELY go apeshit with it and not give a fuck about the ars goetia demons being, yknow, demons. he'd just do it. his bleakness of attitude is too well adjusted in the general misanthropy of a cyberpunk setting. he'd be like theft theft demon ritual theft extortion theft MURDER theft theft I HAVE WIRTTEN A CONCERTO theft demon ritual theft theft.

like the mage above him on the list, I have trouble picturing him as a true blue collar protag--he's a fancy bitch and his attitude is aristocracy coded. I hate an actual aristocrat in my fiction, but somebody who gets there via crime is fun. like the mage above him, he's actually too smart. besides, he can't be a playable character because he needs to cameo in the former ballerina storyline. possibly as man who leaves a gigantic tip but is unsettling because how long was he standing there before you noticed? also he never speaks to you. also your rival is mysteriously absent from her prime time shifts and switched to day shifts for some reason. what crazy random happenstance.

[allhailklisz]

foreign-language versions of cards whose flavor text mention compleation are hilarious bc like, “compleat” is just an archaic spelling of “complete” in english*, so in foreign languages they just take a regular word for “complete” there. but they still de-italicize it for emphasis like they do with ‘compleation’ in english. (except in Whipflare where the translations of “incompleat” stay italic, and the german version of whipflare in particular translates ‘the incompleat’ as ‘den Unkompleatierten’ - altering the word komplettieren ‘to complete’ by changing the first t to an a to match the english ‘compleat’ - despite the fact that 'compleat’ itself is translated with ‘vervollkomnet’ in Phyresis in the same set, so you’d expect ‘den Unvervollkommnete’ or smth. the much more recent card Malicious Malfunction - the only other card to have ‘incompleat’ in its english flavor text - uses ‘unvollendetes’, matching the apparently revised translation of ‘compleat’ to the shorter ‘vollendet’ in the DMU printing of Negate, as well as ‘Vollendung’ for ‘compleation’ in Rona, Sheoldred’s Faithful. also interesting regarding Malicious Malfunction is that ‘incompleat’ and its translations aren’t deitalicized even in English. oh and also while first making this post I forgot to check the compleated walkers lmao, my scryfall search was just ‘flavor:compleat’ bc I forgot that compleated was also a keyword now)

* MTG wiki claims that “The word "compleat" is an archaic English term meaning "having all necessary or desired elements or skills".[6] It is not a misspelling of the more common "complete".” but the linked source (Merriam-Webster’s entry on compleat) explicitly says, in its history and etymology section, “archaic variant of complete” lmao. so yeah it’s not strictly speaking a misspelling but the wiki claim feels misleading since calling it “an archaic term” implies the term as a whole is archaic, rather than just the spelling

[drshojo]

The World, My Childhood And My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Hello friends!  

Its Dr. Shojo coming at you with a post that will be divided into three parts!

Part One: The world as we know it! 

The world has changed a lot since we last connected. For starters, TOILET BOUND HANAKO KUN HAS NOT ONLY A PHYSICAL RELEASE BUT A GORGEOUS ANIME! And not only that, but MY NEXT LIFE AS A VILLAINESS: ALL ROUTES LEAD TO DOOM! IS GETTING AN ANIME AS WELL! The last time I wrote about Katerina there wasn’t even an official English translation of that long-ass light-novel-title. And now?

A WHOLE ANIME. A BISEXUAL HAREM AWAITS! I am JAZZED!

Do you think it’s my fault? No matter, I’ll take all the credit. All the manga I talk about are getting anime adaptations. I’LL DO MY DUTY AND TALK ABOUT SOME MORE!

But first. Let us address the Covid-19 shaped elephant in the room

I deeply regret that it took a whole-ass pandemic to get me back to writing. In my defense, I bought an iPad and started drawing like 900 kokichi oumas. I was really busy with that. And then I started reading fanfiction. Then that got me thinking about how fanfiction such an interesting look into how people interpret fandom, use it for wish fulfillment and escapism, and good god is everyone OK cause that bulimia fan fic was super detailed....and I am officially on a tangent. Off track. Ahem.

We are all staying inside a whole lot more which means y’all probably need some reading material and Dr. Shojo has your back! Go read “Horimiya”! It’s amazing! Ahhhh, my work here is done! I'm serious, if you’re here for a Shojo rec, that’s it! There's also like 8 million more Otome Isekais to check out now. It’s like they’re multiplying like rabbits..............

As a Doctor, I must advise you to stay inside and read some manga and practice social distancing. Embrace your inner hikikomori. 

Allright? All good? Okay now one final disclaimer:

This post is going to be talking about something a little different than usual and I want to start by giving you some context about who Dr. Shojo is in real life. 

Part Two: Dr. Shojo Exposed 

You see, when I was little I was obsessed with Japanese media. This doesn't surprise you at all I can tell. Probably because I walk around calling myself Dr. Shojo and shout about manga that you should read.

Anyways, the reason why I was obsessed wasn’t because of the big eyes or the spikey hair or the interesting new culture. It was because it tended to have more character development and overarching plotlines than the media I was used to in Canada. Dexter’s Lab, Magic School Bus, pretty much everything I saw on TV was episodic in nature, so imagine how much my mind was blown when I saw Naruto and Card Captor Sakura, heck, even Pokémon had the Indigo Plateau! Here were kids that were learning more and more each day and got to see enemies become friends and vice versa. They lived and grew older just like me. Except they were cooler than me. And had more interesting lives than me. I gotta tell you, I was so sad when I was 12 and Kero didn’t tell me I had latent magical powers. But there was magic in my life and it was the magic of a complex narrative story. And not only that, it had a sense of movement and had cool costumes. I was hooked immediately.

Also, fun fact, at that age I happened to be a complete and utter tomboy! I loved pretending to fight my friends in the playground and was really worried that puberty would ruin my life because being a girl sounded so CUMBERSOME.

Which leads me up to my confession. Before I became Dr. Shojo, I was in fact......Dr. Shonen.

Bleach? Naruto? One Piece? I've read every single chapter there is.  

Hundreds of hours of watching fight sequences. Another fun fact, I only got into shojo because my aunt bought me volume 7 and 8 of Fruits Basket thinking “all mangas like the same right? Kids love comics?” It’s a tribute to how episodic western media was back then that she thought buying volume SEVEN and EIGHT was a REASONABLE PLACE TO START READING.

Now you might also say, Hey! Dr Shojo! Cardcaptors was a shojo! And you are right! but back then the anime was marketed to boys over here in the west and they actualy like, edited out episodes that they thought wouldn't interest boys?! Second fun fact, Once when I was in Grade 3 I was told I was not allowed to join a club under the stairs cause I was a girl and it was BOYS ONLY. The point of the club? To talk about how great Cardcaptors was! I Kid you not!

So anyways, your pall Dr. Shojo loves Shonen manga to this day!

The only reason I made this Dr. Shojo blog specifically about shojo is because, being a tomboy with no female friends, reading shojo manga was the first time I really thought about what it meant to be a girl and fall in love. And y i k e s. Shojo manga, like most media, fails miserably most of the time in displaying real world relationships. Or at least, it  doesn't prepare you for how disappointing everything can be. When I had my first kiss, I was thinking about how it didn’t feel at all like how I felt reading Zen and Shirayukis kiss in Akagame No Shirayuki Hime. Those were formative years, and shojo was one of the only places I saw romance being talked about for younger audiences. I liked reading romances where no one had any sexual experiences and were figuring out what love meant to them. But let’s shelve this topic for now.

The point is that gender roles are dumb and if you have an open mind there's a world of stories out there for you. Take this time inside to read something you wouldn’t normally. Critically think about the ways that the worlds you see in stories and how you experience the world differ. What are the messages a story is trying to tell you? And why do you like the stories you do? Reflect on how the stories you tell yourself color your view of the world. Even mindless entertainment leaves an impression on us. Anyways.

Whilst you're doing that, I'm going to absolutely lose my hecking mind over the Shonen Jump series MY HERO ACADEMIA: Vigilantes!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Part Three: I downloaded the one month free trial of the Shonen Jump app and made you read all that, so I can tell you that today Dr. Shojo is going to rant about a spin-off of a shonen manga

THAT’S RIGHT, OF COURSE I READ HERO ACA AND YES I DID PICK UP THE SPIN OFF SERIES. SHONEN JUMP LETS YOU READ ALL THE NEW CHAPTERS FOR FREE ON THEIR APP. KIDS, IF YOU LIKE SHONEN AND YOU’RE PIRATING ON A SCANLATION SITE STILL GET OUT BECAUSE YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THOSE WEIRD PLASTIC SURGERY AND DENTISTRY ADDS ANY MORE.

SHONEN IS HERE AND ITS LEGAL AND ITS FREE FOR YOU. GET OFF MANGA FOX OR MANGA ROCK OR WHATEVER THE KIDS ARE USING THESE DAYS.

OK, so by this point in the article you have learned two very important things about me: 1) I love Shonen manga and 2) I read a lot of fanfiction.

Specifically, I read an absolutely biblical amount of My Hero Academia fan fiction and let me tell you, A solid chunk of it is vigilante/ Deadpool / criminal with a heart of gold themed.

So when I saw Hero Aca had a spin off, and it was about vigilantes, I was NOT SURPRISED IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ao3 sure is powerful.

Now, if you will permit me a tangent in a post full of tangents—HOLY CRAP, THERE ARE TOO MANY VIGILANTE AUS. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF EM. IT’S THE ISEKAI PROBLEM ALL OVER AGAIN. I GET AN EMAIL A FIC HAS UPDATED AND I’M LIKE IS THIS THE FIC WHERE DEKU HAS AN ABUSIVE MOM OR THE ONE WHERE HE HAS SPLIT PERSONALITY DISORDER OR THE ONE WHERE HE’S VIGILANTES WITH HITOSHI. OH WAIT, nvm, it’s the one where deku has a healing quirk.

OH WAIT WHICH OF THE 6 DEKU WITH HEALING QUIRK VIGILATE AU FICS IS THIS ONE?! ARGH WHY DIDN’T I WRITE A DESCRIPTION IN THE BOOKMARK FOR THIS!

My gripes aside, there's a reason why there's such an abundance of vigilante story telling—

Deadpool made like an absolute buttload of money and people love sass and memes.

People have a desire for a story in which they see themselves. Or, how they think of themselves.They like a story about someone who maybe came from nothing. Someone who has less money, maybe someone who is unlucky and had some bad breaks. Someone who never learned they had magic, never got their Hogwarts letter, never saw Kero, someone who never got that God-level quirk from All Might. And if your on Ao3 They want someone who also has seen a lot of memes and kind of wants taco bell and is also questioning their sexuality a bit?

Enter our new hero VIGILANTE DEKU.  

But the cannon can't do this, cause hey, Deku is the chosen one. Albeit, chosen by All Might, He’s got his own thing to do. But how can we still cash in on a vigilante story?

And thus enter our New-New hero KOICHI HAIMAWARI—code name Nice Guy and then later The Crawler. True to his relatable roots. He’s just a dude in an hoodie who can go about as fast as a bike.

First off, I love Koichi. He wants to be a hero and fight crime, but most of the time he has to run away because at the end of the day he's just a dude.

He’s cute but not wildly good-looking, A bit of a nerd but not like an extreme okaku. He’s got a part time job and hates violence.

And this is where Koichi really shines—in every day stuff. He helps out wherever he can. Often, that just means listening to people complain and maybe helping his friends out with whatever they’re going through. He’s the kind of guy who smiles, not because he's especially brave, but because he just takes things one at a time and doesn't sweat the past. I think it’s really telling that he missed getting into hero high-school because he skipped the entrance exam to help someone. He’s the kind of person who lets us experience the superpower of human decency and empathy. And you know what? That’s something the world need desperately.  

This theme of human decency is really the driving force of Vigilantes—it’s a manga about how the laws are there for a reason but sometimes they unfairly impact the poor and vulnerable. It's about how a lot of criminals are just people who fell into bad social circles or on bad times. People have the capacity for cruelty and violence but that’s never all they are.  

Now, speaking of crime, the entirety of Hero Aca falls into some murky water when it comes to its evil doers. Much of the fandom has a huuuuuge problem with how much the franchise is willing to sweep under the rug in the name of redeeming their baddies. RE: people getting mad about forgiving Endeavor’s child abuse, or Bakugo’s suicide baiting. Or Mineta’s blatant sexual harassment.

But this theme is in Vigilantes even more than it ever was in the main series. To start off with, there’s this guy who tries to rape Pop Step early on, and the later he later winds up befriending everybody. It becomes a running gag that each new villain winds up befriending the other villain guys and then they all open a cat café together.

Using jobs as a way to lift people out of lives of crime is great and all but in the story there is no nuance or consequences for past wrong and well.....it feels very weird.  It's like Vigilantes plays at having an opinion about moral ambiguity and the complexity of human existence and then just.......lets everyone get along because who has time to get into all that. Make of that what you will but it sits weird for me personally.

Anyway, let's move on and talk about POP STEP our main girl!

I love pop stars and I love vigilantes and a guerrilla performer is defiantly a character I could get behind. And I think they do a good job with Pop. She is actually kind of shy, but has this secret edgy persona she puts on when she performs. She is every girl on tumbler in the early 2000s. I also looooove that they make her not that great a singer. SHE’S GOT PASSION AND CHARISMA and maybe not born talent but like why should that stop you! Talent can be earned through practice and this is a great lesson to show people.

Unfortunately, Pop is also a great example of everything wrong with romance in Shonen.

It’s established early on that Pop loves Koichi because she is the girl he rescued all those years ago and yada yada yikes we’ve heard this one before. Many times before.

Sure, it's fine that they’ve met before, but gosh am I sick of damsels in distress. It's like she can't love him just because she respects what a great guy he is in her life and in the community at large, no no, she just needs to be rescued on top of that. And LOLOLOL isn't it funny he never noticed she was a girl because she was a child with short hair?! Once he realizes she has boobs now they will for sure fall in love! That’s how love works!

She's just with him all the time—nothing romantic ever happens she just gets a little tsundere.

I am never ever going to believe Koichi likes Pop because he spends like sooooo much time with her and they never have like, a moment. The first time he considers her is when Makoto is like, ‘hey I would love to get together with you, but have you thought about if you are crushing on Pop’. (Also this entire plot point is suspect—she's arbitrarily falling for Koichi cause he.......is the protagonist?)  

Say what you will about shojo, they give you the emotional conversations, the moments where you think.....ahhh I can see why she is falling for him. They give you context! Shonen likes to just say HERE’S A GIRL YOUR AGE. YOU CAN DATE LATER WHEN THE ADVENTURE IS DONE.

Just when they might get together, Pop suddenly turns evilllllll. The evilllll beeeees made her eeeevilllll (and more sexy).

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Because why on earth would they get together if Koichi didn’t get to rescue Pop one more time?

I’m tired. These troupes are tired. I’m sure you are too. HOWEVER! If your still with me, Let’s move into why I'm really writing this post. Let’s get to the part that got me screaming to my friends, who by the way, don’t even care bout Hero Aca….but listened anyways. May you all find nakama like these my friends.

Anyways,

HOLY FUCK ERASERHEAD’S ENTIRE BACK STORY IS IN THIS AROUND CHAPTER 60 AND IT IS WONDERFUL AND ABSOLUTLY HEARTBREAKING AND IS ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTER BACKSTORIES I HAVE EVER SEEN AND IS THE REASON WHY THIS SERIES IS A MUST-READ FOR MAIN SERIES FANS.

AND BY ALMIGHT.  

WHY. IS. IT HERE.  

I present to you my late night text messages to my friends

ALSO, AIZAWAS TEACHER IS PRINCE?!?!?!

AHEM, so as you can see, I kinda lost my shit.

And now, I would like to formally defend my claim that DESPITE HOW AMAZING IT WAS, ERASERHEAD’S BACKSTORY HAD NO BUISSNESS BEING IN THE VIGILANTES SPIN-OFF MANGA.

Eraserhead, aka Aizawa Shouta, is a side character who is working with the police on some crime stuff. He is not a main cast member in this spin off. He’s a guest character that fans of the main series will be like OH COOL. GRUMPY CAT MAN LIKES CATS ON HIS OFF HOURS TOO. LOVE THAT FOR HIM.

So, my imagine my absolute surprise when Aizawa runs into Koichi and the following happens:

It starts to rain, so, like in any good manga, this means some great FORCED BONDING TIME

Except no. It doesn't because rather than start talking, Aizawa JUST STARTS REMEMBERING—ABSOLUTLY SILENTLY TO HIS OWN PRIVETE SELF—HIS ENTIRE TRAGIC BACKSTORY.

AND THIS GOES ON FOR CHAPTERS.

THIS GOES ON LONGER THEN ARC ONE IT FEELS LIKE.

I LOVE IT, BUT KOICHI IS ABOUT TO JOIN ATSUSHI NAKAJIMA IN THE DUBIOUS CATEGORY OF “PROTAGONISTS THE SERIES FORGOT ABOUT IN LIEU OF COOLER SIDE CHARACTERS”.

AND LO IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE REST OF THE PLOT, CHARACTERS, OR STORY

What the ever-loving-just WHY?

WHY?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

SURE, IT’S A COOL TIE-IN.

YES, OF COURSE I LOVED IT. I SHIP ERASER MIC, I DREW THIS FOR HECK’S SAKE:

AND YET I AM ANGRY.

I AM ANGRY BECAUSE MY FRIDAY WAS RUINED BECAUSE VIGILATES SUCKER PUNCHED ME WITH AN AMAZING STORY THAT REALLY WASN’T PLOT RELEVANT AND PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE.  

IS THIS WHY THEY TOOK LIKE NEXT-TO-NO CARE WITH POPS ARC?!?

I mean its ongoing, so it’s too early to say but—

In conclusion—

Excuse me one more,

AIZAWA WAS TAUGHT BY PRINCE!?!??!?!?!?!? PURPLE RAIN PRINCE!?!??!?!?!? WHAT!??!?!?!

It’s so ABSURD that I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I HAD TO WRITE PARAGRAPHS TO JUSTIFY YELLING ABOUT THIS ONE THING. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE—

Ahem,

Anyways, I hope you liked this weird rant/personal-story/random-diatribe in three parts.

If you’re reading this, thank you, stay safe, and I’ll be back with more shojo manga next time.  

Ciao!

Dr. Shojo

(aka Dr. Shonen)

[cantfoolajoker]

the phantom thieves as dnd classes

ok as a dnd nerd who likes using class assignments as character study opportunities, im here to assign the thieves to some 5e classes and subclasses.

im putting it under a read more bc it got lengthy when i explained why i picked certain things.

so for starters, akira/ren is def a mastermind rogue imo. mastermind rogues flavor wise focus a lot on the concept of manipulating higher powers like rulers or high ranking members of society for your own cause. in akiren’s case, this falls right into what joker does as a phantom thief. the mastermind subclass over all also gives a lot of tools in order to just plainly not be yourself, which is something akiren also does a lot with how he presents himself.

morgana definitely leans on the side of the more radiant subclasses since he’s the manifestation of the hope of the people, so i pinned him as a divine soul sorcerer because of the innate divine energy resting in someones soul being a fitting description for him. this suits the fact that divine soul is actually a more healing based subclass ala a stereotypical cleric, giving morgana access to healing spells like he does in game, and at that, divine souls actually get an alternate form called the angelic form, which suits morgana having his cat form and his monster cat form. this subclass also references a lot of the people belonging to it are servants of the gods, which morgana is also referred to as. 

i feel like saying ryuji is a barbarian is like the small brain of this, and then i was like maybe a paladin? they do damage and stuff, but then i realized that tempest domain cleric is like right there, and that’s like his bread and butter. now i know what you’re thinking, dont clerics heal?, and let me just tell you cleric is such a versatile class you could have an entire team of clerics and so long as theyre different domains they could all functionally be different. tempest domain clerics focus on outputting dps in the form of lightning based attacks and also are one of the tanky cleric classes with getting martial weapons and heavy armor, so theyre expected to be super dps heavy, which is what ryuji does. usually gods of the tempest domain are patron sea gods that sailors pray to, which fits in with captain kidd and all that. these gods usually represent things like courage too, which is something ryuji has a lot of. also he def uses bludgeoning weapons just saying.

i threw around a bit what ann would be since her weapon doesn’t give much direction other than ranger, but i feel that a light domain cleric would fit her well. like i said in ryuji’s, clerics don’t have to heal constantly, but this gives ann the option of being able to like she does in game. light clerics basically automatically get most of the fire and light based spells in their domain spell list, covering ann’s biased toward fire based attacks as well with spells such as faerie fire, scorching ray, and everyone’s favorite spell fireball. gods representing the light domain promote ideas of renewel/rebirth, truth, and beauty which describe ann and her story pretty well. also it’s a fun contrast against ryuji as they’re the first two human party members.

okay so like i Know samurai fighter is a thing, but i also think yusuke would fit super well as a moon circle druid. druids overall focus a lot on old gods and magic- they’re described as being priests of old faith, which i feel fits yusuke’s traditional theme. moon circles mainly focus on using wildshape and can be very good at both melee dps and at tanking, both of which yusuke does combat wise. plus he’s called inari (the patron god of foxes) by futaba, he’s called fox as a thief nickname, and he wears the kitsune mask as a thief- if anything him Not wildshifting into a fox at this point would just be... well wild.

makoto gave me a headache since like, her fighting style does not translate well between melee punching and having a mount. i threw the idea back and forth with a friend and we agreed that a dex-based paladin multiclassed with a monk would be a good fit for her, since paladins get summon steed as a spell and also focus on the concept of being a justice holy servant while monk gives her the ability to throw actually good punches with a hit die. as for her paladin oath, two fit her very well between oath of the crown and oath of vengeance, with one focusing on upholding justice and society and the other focusing on punishing wrongdoers who step out of line with an iron fist, as both fit different aspects of makoto’s character and her goals. plus the religious undertones of the paladin class regardless mirrors the religious undertones she has as the priestess card and johanna.

so i had the choice of either leaning into being a navigator or letting her do her own thing, and i think futaba would probably be an alchemist artificer- which yes i’m counting since it’s going to be official soon. they’re all intelligence tinkerers with a knack for item analysis and can even create a construct for a companion, which futaba would probably adore if how much she loves cat morgana doesn’t speak its own volumes. they get things like infuse magic and can pull out combinations of concoctions from their alchemy satchel to do random things that range from damage dealing magic attacks like alchemical fire to creating field hazards like smoke stick.

since a lot of haru’s personal story focuses on her family, specifically her grandfather and her father, i feel that ancestral guardian barbarian is a good fit for her. for one she gets her big battle axe, but also it highlights a lot of the cold rage she has that isn’t touched upon, since raging as a barbarian doesn’t always have to be loud and yelling but can be silent and bone chilling too, which fits haru’s anger quite well. ancestral guardians focus a lot on heritage and using that heritage to buff yourself in battle, which falls in line with haru’s connection to her family.

finally nobody can tell me akechi isn’t an archfey warlock, especially one that’s pact of the blade. warlocks make connections with higher powers to get what they want, which whether you look at his relationship with shido or the fact yaldabaoth gave him his powers, he’s a warlock regardless. i picked archfey specifically because i feel akechi embodies a lot of the trickster fey elements over all, but also feylocks are buffers generally, which is a role akechi slots into quite easily. blade wise, a fey blade probably would resemble a toy saber with it being all mystical, which is why i can see him as pact of the blade. also, whether you want to argue he’s a charisma based warlock or an intelligence based one, he has both anyway. i also completely forgot to mention too that archfey’s given spells includes the calm emotions spell, which is just entirely ironic given what loki can do.

bonus: mishima is a valor bard, no i do not take constructive criticism. literally watch the final battle again and tell me he isn’t one. singing about heroes in order to inspire others and literally is the bard with the feat to give inspiration die mid battle? mishima.

[cookinguptales]

Ah what a wonderful reading to wake up to, surprisingly accurate! (of course tho you always insert your own experiences to fit best into a readin') And a beautiful deck, I'm SUPER curious to see the Lisa Frank one when you get it!

I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Tarot nights are always a lot of fun.

Yeah, like I said, what I love about tarot is the meanings that we affix to the objects we live with. Tarot cards were around long before they had any magical associations (and the cartomancy-esque meanings that came later often boiled down to “saw it in a dream, wow I’m smart” “um excuse me in MY dream it said THIS and my dreams are Smartest Dreams” and then they fight even though neither of them know beans about what ancient egyptians really thought because the goddamn rosetta stone hasn’t been translated yet!!)  -- ANYWAY, tarot cards were basically just fancy playing cards for rich people for quite a while and then people started giving them meaning. And now look where we are! Tarot cards are wholly removed from their original use!

That said, this ukiyo-e deck is interesting because it does actually call back to normal playing cards. I took a picture of some of the cards because you said you were interested in seeing more of them.

The part I love about the Minor Arcana in this deck (the top row) is that if you look closely, you can see the normal card suits that are associated with the traditional tarot suits. Most tarot decks have Cups, Swords, Rods/Staves/Wands, and Pentacles/Coins. Even tarot decks that replace these objects with other objects (like the Halloween Tarot’s ghosts and bats) come with a manual that will tell you which “traditional” suits they correspond to.

This deck used Japanese objects that were reminiscent of those suits, but they also included the normal card suits that these are associated with. There’s a spade floating above the swords. A heart hidden in the pond below the cups. A club next to the wands. A diamond beside the coins. I kind of love how they’re simultaneously mystifying and demystifying the deck. People have done all kinds of cartomancy throughout the years with all kinds of different cards -- including your normal, boring Bicycle decks. Tarot has just become the predominant form.

I love how this deck in particular has adapted the usual Rider-Waite-Smith imagery to the theme. (You can especially see it in The Tower and The Fool.) Tarot has developed a kind of shared language, but I love seeing what artists do with that language. I like seeing how it’s reaffirmed and subverted. There’s so much historic tradition there, but also such a sense of modern creativity. There’s a reason why I end up supporting so many tarot kickstarters lmao.

Anyway, that was all a long way of saying that, yes, tarot readings are really exactly what you make of them. The concepts present in tarot cards tend to be very applicable to a lot of different people, and that vagueness can make it feel incredibly specific. That said, just because people project their own needs onto tarot readings, that doesn’t make them bad. That just means that tarot readings give you a way to reconceptualize and puzzle out the life you’re living. It’s kind of like guided meditation, in a way. You know what they say -- the real way to choose between two things is to flip a coin and see which side you find yourself rooting for. It’s kind of like that. You may not even realize what you need to be thinking about until there’s a loose framework to hang your thoughts onto.

I don’t know whether I believe in things like psychic phenomena, but I do believe that we often hear what we need to hear when we get tarot readings. Not because there’s necessarily anything mystical about them, but because they give us an excuse to examine our lives, priorities, desires, and potential shortcomings in a way that we might not otherwise do. And if that helps you, who cares who’s psychic?

Just my two cents, anyway. I may not wholeheartedly believe in a lot of things, but I believe in humans and what they create together. I believe that our traditions and stories and beliefs are a kind of magic all on their own, and I believe that’s beautiful. Traditions can be good or they can be bad, but the fact that they last hundreds of years in the minds of millions of people is pretty incredible, isn’t it?

tl;dr I’m a fuckin nerd and material culture is my jaaaam

(YOU GOT THIS GIANT WALL OF TEXT BECAUSE YOU WERE ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT TAROT FROM AN ACADEMIC STANDPOINT, THIS IS YOUR FAULT.)

[purplesmmr]

more dwsa headcanons pls!!!!!! ❤️

aaaAAAA !!! anon, of cou r s e! i would LOVE to !! ❤️❤️❤️ i lov my kidsi’m jus gonna do the same layout as my other one bc it’s Neat lol (yet again, credit to @wordofyourbodyreprise for helping me out w these)

melchior: 

has a secret star trek obsession 

he’s also a huge military history buff

def a ravenclaw

he smells like a library & old spice bc he’s a ne r d

he’s fuckin Tall

he does swimming, football, and track

he’s totally the philosophical drunk

ends up goin to mit bc he’s a Smarty Pants

he also ends up getting a doctorate in something (idk,, mb physics??) but doesn’t do anything with it besides teaching at a college

has a cat named alexandria (yes after the former library in egypt) but he will veh eme ntl y deny that the cat is his

he sings when he’s drunk

wendla:

will stop everything she’s doing to pet a dog

she’s a dancer n a rly fukcign good one at that

likes to color bc she cannot actually Art

she goes to juilliard for a bit before dropping out & then going back to school to become an elementary school teacher

plays the flute

Does Not Do Running Sports

hufflepuff

she has asthma

she n ernst went to the same catholic combined elementary & middle school

that said, they dated to half make sure ernst really was gay, and half to hide that fact from their school

talks in her sleep

is al w ay s singing or humming something

moritz:

ends up with a collection of deaf animals

gallaudet bb !!

he’s always twitchy & jumpy and yet he drinks highly caffeinated things anyway

got a handjob from melchior once their freshman year (it made him realize he was ace)

he’s shorter than his gf (martha)

smells like vo5 ocean breeze conditioner, cigarette smoke, and hair gel

gryffindor for some reason??

he’s still in his teenage emo phase bc he works at hot topic (he used to work w his brother there but alex got fired. from hot topic)

he, otto, n mart all live together n they’re ha p p y

ilse:

no one ever rly knows where she is

smells like acrylics and pine trees

ends up going to yale for art but double majors it and does law too

her lawyer ass throws martha’s pos dad in jail for the rest of his mcfuckin miserable life

makes it a Thing every week to make sure her nails are short enough ;))))

doesn’t trust herself with any pets besides fish

she has two named vincent and claude

she found out a year after she had them that vincent was actually frida

gryffindor

she’s the drunk person that you can’t tell is actually drunk

martha:

she has Birds

slytherin baby

always smells like conditioner and nail polish

she took violin lessons for the longest time

for as Tol as she is, she can curl up so sm al l when she’s sleepy or is having a Rough Time

plays guitar

shows up at melchiors house unannounced sometimes??

she doesn’t go to college right away bc she needs a Break

it’s ridiculous how much she loves her boyfriends,,

like she’s always ready to kill someone if they fuck w them

hanschen:

had braces as a kid

he’s soooo bad at remembering to wear his retainer

he prbly lost it lbr

slytherin as well

goes to caltech bc he’s Fancy

he has a earthy/woody smell w a lil bit of smokiness. no one knows how he smells like that

he’s shorter than his bf and it makes him Mad

always knows when people are lying

he smokes and ernst Does Not Like That

as i’ve said before, my boy is depressed

bc of that depression + self destructive behaviors (probably learned from moritz) he’s one of the guys who’ll stub out cigarettes on his skin

he’s got a big gay crush on chris evans

ernst:

he anxiously taps but it’s always in a three-four pattern

bites his nails

hufflepuff

he has a notebook for pressing and diagramming plants

he presses flowers for all his friends

he’s got some in a phone case to make it pretty

gets ver y loud and swears a lot during sex

he’s naturally left handed but was forced to use his right hand in elementary school bc they thought left handedness was the devil’s work

he smells like orange ginger shampoo

he’s a soccer nerd and also does knowledge bowl

georg:

he’s,,, a fuckign band student an d a wrestler

he gets shit all the time for wresting from his friends (specifically otto)

he n otto are gryffindor buddies

as mentioned previously, he plays a fuckton of instruments 

piano, cello, trumpet, percussion, slide whistle, french horn, oboe, alto clarinet, and my personal favorite, the super bone

he ends up with sooo many dogs

smells like valve oil and rosin. even after he showers and does laundry

he sometimes doesn’t think before he says things and ends up making ppl upset

h*cka jewish

he got melitta to listen to Emo bands like fall out boy and panic! at the disco but in return, she got him to religiously listen to lana del rey

otto:

golden retriever guy. that’s all i have to say on the matter

smells like charcoal and fire smoke

he’s an artsy hoe who likes to do portraits of his gf

he knows how to surf

ends up going to unc for college, not really sure what he’s gonna do for a career

he eventually becomes a pediatric nurse who loves all the kids and sneaks small animals in for them

proposes to martha a nu m be r of times but she’s happy with things as they are (she eventually says yes though)

he gets really good at being able to calm moritz down when he’s not doing too well

would drop literally ev  ery th in g for mo and mart

thea:

she’s dating marianna wheelan and they’re adorable

ravenclaw

wendla’s best friend

has some kind of Twin Telepathy with melitta

she smells like hazelnut 

she’s hoh and uses sign in most public situations, melitta usually acts as her translator

makes constant closet jokes

always has a deck of cards on her

she’s got some depression

has a combined playbills collection with melitta

Huge crush on tom holland

gay for brenda song

melitta:

makes terrible puns at even worse times

has a te r ri b le memory and adhd

loves to just,, sit in small coffee shops to feel the atmosphere

smells like vanilla

ravenclaw

she, hanschen, and thea are all witches (so is martha)

loves crystal and candle magic, is really good about sensing auras

tarot master

she and thea are supposed to follow hanschen out to california for college after they graduate, but melitta ends up staying on the east coast

tends to excessively beat herself up about things, even after people aren’t mad anymore

never leaves the house without stones and/or crystals

always shading, always vague posting

anna:

she’s a hufflepuff

smells like a combination of floral and fruity

her fashion sense is to die for and everyone goes to her for advice

everyone minus ilse that is bc she’s ilse and she makes her own fashion rules

would totally make the red carpet her bitch

v confrontational

lives in a constant state of Denial that she’s related to bobby

Mom friend that makes everyone’s appointments for them

during the winter season at school, she carries two thermoses around

one is hot chocolate and the other is vodka

she charges melchior for the vodka

she has asthma too and likes to make jokes about “ well thank god i don’t run”

[nxfury]

Linux Tales of Woe: Part 2

Due to the sheer enjoyment of writing about enabling support for old Broadcom cards back in the day, it's time to share another horror story- Another fiendish story of what caused me to leave Fedora Linux, never to return. For the Dante afficionados, let's enter the proverbial "9 Circles of Dependency Hell".

But I Just Wanted to Play Quake 3!

Too bad, so sad. I had the official Return to Castle Wolfenstein CD and the .run file to install the data to my Linux system, and wasn't aware of what it's dependencies were. For those who are unaware, a dependency is a bit of software that is needed by your program to run. Oblivious to what was needed, I mounted the CD and ran the installer. Little did I know that I would be in for days of work. The game launched and I was enjoying the WW2 Prison-Breakout glory of Wolfenstein.

No Games For You

So Fedora uses a package manager to aid in installing updates to software. The hitch is that it used to (and may still) upgrade everything without ensuring the possibility of being able to revert back to the previous state. My game depended on old versions of software to work, unbeknownst to me at the time.

I had automated the installation of updates for once a week and forgot about it months prior. Little did I know that the following Sunday morning, I would not be able to launch Wolfenstein because it was missing critical libraries.

Enter Dependency Hell

After doing some research about the packages I needed to launch Wolfenstein, I wound up downloading the rpm files that were of the correct version since I had known about what dependency hell was previous to this fiasco. But would it strike me? No, I was a sysadmin- I knew my way out of this! Squeezing my stuffed Tux- I mean penguin- I proceeded to install the rpm files using the rpm -ivh command. Little did I expect what would happen next...

Even the rpm package installer removed the pre-existing binary that I updated! So now, I couldn't launch my File Manager, VLC, LibreOffice, or GIMP- apps that I used regularly began crashing.

I ran yum -y update to revert the downgraded software and then Wolfenstein wouldn't start again. This is why I can't have nice things...

Doing The Unspeakable

I wanted to play Wolfenstein bad at this point, and realized I hadn't tried compiling from source with the old version. This involves taking the source code, performing some voodoo magic on it, and producing a binary. Generally, this is not supported by package managers and as a result is often ignored. So I thus embarked on a saga of making my Core 2 Duo (at the time) CPU scream bloody murder.

Tell Me More About Compilation!!! Fine... It's not voodoo magic, GNU Make automates the execution of various compilers in a specific order. A compiler in a nutshell is just a program that translates source code into another language. In most cases it translates into machine language- producing binary programs. Compilation is CPU-intensive, and just great for warming a home in the winter.....

Highway to (s)Hell

So after taking inventory of the various versions of software I needed to compile, from libSDL to Xlib, I started downloading the specific versions of source code for each application I needed. 2-3 hours later, I had a folder full of source code. Since I wanted this project over with, I used a while loop in bash to automate the extraction of all the tarballs into their own separate folders.

"You Could Roast a Marshmallow on That Thing!!!"

I made the willful choice of compiling the software I needed from source, and was going to see my project to completion. I would proceed to enter the first folder, run ./configure to generate the Makefile custom tailored to my hardware, then run make, followed by make install. For each application, this took about 30-45 minutes given the speed of the CPU, and the majority of the time was spent waiting on the computer to finish it's prescribed suffering- I mean compiling.

By the time I was done compiling, it was Tuesday morning, and my laptop was so hot I had plugged in an external keyboard and mouse to use it, with the device propped up on 2 textbooks to retain airflow for cooling.

Wasted Time

By the time I was completed, I grabbed a bag of my favorite chips- Jalapeño Flavored- and launched Wolfenstein. To a nerd's delight it launched and I muttered "IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!" to myself. When I began playing the game, however, my excitement was rendered useless- the audio was stuttering and the video was horribly choppy. I didn't meet the RAM requirements and would have to wait for an upgrade... :(

The Upgrade

In just a couple days, the RAM arrived!, I tore open the packaging and quickly added the RAM to my laptop. The game finally worked, in all it's glory! I was running, shooting 'em up, and defeating Nazi officers in a valiant attempt to save the world. However, the power brick that charged my laptop wasn't powerful enough to charge the device with the added RAM, so I waited on a close friend to snag me a spare charger from his old job, as they were closing the office and liquidating old hardware (I would later receive my second laptop from this closure).

Multiplayer Not-So-Awesomeness

As it turned out, multiplayer on Return To Castle Wolfenstein was widely considered one of the best parts of the entire game. So naturally, I wanted to try it out. However every time I attempted to join a multiplayer server I would get errors about "PunkBuster not working". On Linux at the time, there was a lack of documentation on how to resolve this issue. I tried modifying the PunkBuster configuration, to no avail. On top of this, I even reinstalled Wolfenstein. Still, I couldn't play multiplayer until a patch for the game was released. I missed out on the peak of the multiplayer action because of this.

Nowadays, the multiplayer servers are down and the game is widely considered a good old game- one of the best video games ever made. And I missed my shot at enjoying it while it was still fresh because Fedora just wouldn't play nice. As a result, I wound up leaving Fedora Linux, never to return. Back then I left for Ubuntu but would later migrate over to Arch Linux. Little did I know I would even leave that for Gentoo, Slackware, and BSD for security... Which would later become a passion of mine.

I hope you enjoyed this content! If you do, following my twitter at @nxfury01 or subscribing to my email list at the bottom of this page will notify you every time I release a new post. Thanks for your support!

[icespyders]

Kuroo Tetsurou and Kashima Yuu?

I WAS GONNA GO TO BED BUT YOU HIT ME W/ SUCH GOOD CHARACTERS…IM IRRESPONSIBLE BUT I FEEL SO ALIVE

kuroo!! my darling cat son!!

First impression - believe it or not i had to take time to warm up to kuroo. it seems crazy bc he’s one of my favorites in the whole series now, but at first i was fooled by his external appearance and thought he was sketchy. i didn’t know what his game was, and i didn’t like that shit lmao. then my sister assured me kuroo’s just a big nerd who loves making puns and helping his kouhai and then training camp really cemented my growing love for him.

Impression now - He’s Always This Kind and he’s one of my very favorite haikyuu characters. like with hinata, i’m super comfy writing him both as a narrator and a side character - his dialogue comes really naturally to me. he makes me laugh a lot & also i believe in him

Favorite moment - “ah…i can tell this guy’s a JERK” when he meets daichi, as per the english translation, which does away with that “cunning type” noise and cuts right to the insults lmao. also that part where he goes “wait shit idk what i was talking about, i confused myself.” that says a lot about him. also every time he pulls off a cool block and there’s a panel/frame of him looking like an absolute maniac lmao

Idea for a story - like i said in my answer abt kenma, i start each new day with more kuroken content lol. kuroo’s a side character in two ensemble fics i’m working on right now, a college au and a fantasy au. in the former he paints. in the latter he’s a magical cursebreaker. in both he annoys the narrating characters and generally behaves like an annoying nuisance. it’s pretty rad.

Unpopular opinion - ~sexy suave kuroo~ is the worst headcanon ever lmao. like, i get it, he looks sketchy, ok, but he’s got a good heart. he’s a smooth talker, sure, but the second anyone flirted back at him he’d self-destruct. let’s be real with ourselves. he started shit with yaku over which girl in an idol group is the best, he’s a loser, the end, the prosecution rests, etc

Favorite relationship - me, still trying to find room in my pockets for all my kuroken fics: uhhhhh. tbh i love kuroo’s dynamics with lots of characters, even though his rapport with kenma is my favorite. i love bokuto and kuroo’s antics and how kuroo is always ready to drag bokuto at a moment’s notice and how they can duke it out on the court but also chill and be bros no problem. and i kinda really love his friendship with daichi. i always see them as like. ok if you asked them they’d never admit they were friends, but if one was in serious trouble the other would help, no questions asked. i love making them roommates in my college aus and having them squabble over everything. kuroo and daichi roommate adventures include: kuroo eating snacks daichi bought, and then daichi stealing kuroo’s wallet and using his credit card to buy replacement snacks; daichi scouring their bathroom looking for the hair gel he’s POSITIVE kuroo uses bc that CAN’T actually be bedhead; kuroo playing “careless whisper” on the bluetooth speaker every time suga comes over to hang w/ daichi, and then daichi getting him back by blasting “my best friend’s hot” when kenma comes over; and daichi threatening to kill kuroo in his sleep at least 3 times a day.

Favorite headcanon - i touched on a couple, like kuroo instantly dying when/if anyone tried to flirt with him, and also i bet his hair is like that bc he showers at night and sleeps with pillows around his head and it messes it up so it dries funny. furudate, validate me!! also: kuroo ends up with the laziest, oldest, meanest cat in the whole world who loves him but hates every other life form on this planet. kenma is locked in eternal conflict with this damn cat competing for kuroo’s affections.

KASHIMAAAAAA

First impression - shit i don’t even remember…i watched all of gsnk in like a week, i was on vacation and watched one or two eps a night right before bed lmao. i definitely liked how kashima and mikorin can enjoy their friendship even though she beats him in every aspect, and that fucking part where kashima goes to that mixer in mikorin’s place and just STEALS ALL THE GIRLS…TIMELESS

Impression now - bisexual menace and i love her, but someone’s gotta stop her. the last gsnk volume i read had that arc where she had to stop talking to hori for a week and got all dramatic about it, it’s just like. my god. how do they not know they’re in love

Favorite moment - the mere idea that “we can’t tell kashima about the manga bc then all her fangirls will mob the place and we’ll never get anything done” cracks me up every time. also that part where hori just yanks her out of the crowd of girls with umbrellas and drags her dumb ass home, and also when she thinks wakamatsu is a perv for hanging out w/ a bunch of girls buying swimsuits, and also chiyo panicking and screeching at kashima “SENPAI IS REPAYING NOZAKI-KUN WITH HIS BODY.” every part of gsnk is good OKAYIdea for a story - here’s an idea, let kashima and hori go on a date. that’s all i got bc that’s all i want

Unpopular opinion - shrugs!!! my gsnk opinions are pretty much just “they should kiss” and “i fucking love gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun, holy fuck”

Favorite relationship - i mentioned shipping kashima and hori, and i mentioned how i liked kashima and mikorin’s clearly unbalanced friendship lol, and i also like kashima and sakura’s friendship! im stil laughing over sakura thinking kashima was a dude and being super worried abt having feelings for anyone besides nozaki, and then being like “oh good she’s a girl! i’m safe!” lol

Favorite headcanon - listen gsnk is the gift that keeps on giving, i barely have to make headcanons. but i bet kashima rocks that short hairdo not bc she knew it’d be stylish or she’s trying to go for a specific image, but bc she’s lazy and short hair means less styling. everyone is probably super disappointed by this practical reasoning, it’s such a letdown.