#not only the master is a reoccurring character and killing them off would be the worst decision ever

[clowns0cks]

GODDDDS JUST SAW A POST THAT MADE ME SO ANGRY GODDAMN IT

[bloodraynebeast]

We’re back to talk about Yashiki / Mashita as a pairing once again. Quick note, I’ve heard the less than positive feedback on the translation from players who played the Japanese version and I’ve tried searching for any translations that can help add to the context. Unfortunately the only context we’re using in this analysis is the official English version and fan translation for one of the DLCs. Thank you all so much for the interest and support on the first part! I knew I wanted to make another as it serves to archive their moments as well as analyse each scene. I’ll be going chronologically through the chapters so it's easier to follow. This is a long one! As always MAJOR SPOILERS for Death Mark 2 (And DM1) below.

All Links: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 <-

Updated AO3 Version <-

Starting out with a small tangent, the theme of Death Mark 2 or Shibito Magire (死噛) with The Departed brings up a subject that seems to be a pattern within this series, no matter the universe.

Something that reoccurs in the games and extra content is Yashiki’s negative experiences with women and being forced into some form of marriage. I’m wondering if it's an address on the pressures Yashiki must have felt as Masamune or still feels being the heir and sole survivor of the Kujou bloodline. You notice in Death Mark that Yashiki wasn’t particularly on the best terms with women, namely Christie and Hiroo, but they both did warm up to him and seemed good friends during Death Mark 2.

In the Red Riding Hood DLC, Hiroo is a target and becomes possessed in an attempt to seduce Yashiki, where the bad choices are a result of not trying to pull her out of it. Death Mark 2 has The Departed declaring Yashiki as their future husband, displaying intense possessiveness and jealousy over his close relationships with the Mark Bearers, while also repeating that they will exchange vows and be bound.

In Chapter 3 with Kashima, Yashiki has to pretend to be the beloved teacher of a besotted student - again - and reciprocate their feelings with the flower sketches in order to save them. The two girls Douryou and Kinukawa, cursed and possessed by The Departed make him increasingly uncomfortable with their advances and forcefulness in the game, also trying to entice him. Yashiki has to constantly reassure everyone around him that there is nothing going on and harbours no feelings other than that of a teacher and an adult watching out for the safety of the young students. Because of that, the teacher and head of Academic affairs, Sakamoto, is begrudged to help him in the investigations and holds hostility towards him. Enough to withhold information that would help the case and save the student body. Yashiki also has to inhabit the role of the groom in the final fight against The Departed and apply the ink to complete the ceremony.

Even in the “Blue End” CD Drama, Yashiki becomes possessed by the entity known as the “Master Of The Mark”, who aims to make Mary and later Rose when she tries to intervene, as their consorts, exclaiming that they must exchange vows.

All this in mind, it’s no surprise why many question Yashiki’s preferences (he’s also just a morally good man) and gravitate towards Yashiki and Mashita’s relationship. Their bond is natural and grounded, it’s not aggressively forced upon Yashiki or us as the player. He tends to have more chemistry with the male characters in general, to what feels to us as his closest relationships, specifically Mashita and Daimon. Now onto the game itself.

Death Mark 2 begins with Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 revolving around Hanako Of The Toilet and the relationship between her and her best friend Horikoshi when she was still alive. Although they are ultimately killed off, the introduction of Akai and Horikoshi’s romantic love feels like an important detail. Namely, a love that grew between two best friends. Where one was more confident, rough and unapologetically blunt, the other was more gentle, kind and reserved. That sounds familiar. It also introduces how with Izumi blackmailing Horikoshi, that it likely wouldn't have been accepted at the school due to the prestigiousness and more likely because of the time period. Still, with the first appearance of a queer couple in the series, could this potentially be a stepping stone towards exploring Yashiki and Mashita’s relationship in a similar direction? Foreshadowing of another love forming between two best friends? The chance of this happening definitely seems more possible now.

However, Yashiki still wondering about the nature of their feelings between the two girls despite uncovering their diary entries and sensing it while singing the song lyrics, gives an impression that he would be oblivious to any developed feelings from Mashita if it happened. Also if a relationship did happen, it would likely be kept a secret, at least for as long as possible.

In Chapter 3 Yashiki reunites with Shou, who asks where Mashita is since this investigation involves spirits, practically calling them inseparable. Unlike other Mark Bearers, Mashita receives his own introductory CG. While this could just be something for the fans as Mashita is the most popular character and he was not present in the scene, it’s something to see Shou describing them as a package deal right before Mashita is singled out in the character introductions with his own dramatic CG, looking wistful in the rain. You’d be forgiven for thinking Yashiki is daydreaming about this man, here. Though I’m wondering if this is meant to be Yashiki’s perspective from a memory. Then Yashiki informs us that they were on a phone call the night before, but surprisingly we don’t get to see nor hear that conversation, besides that Mashita is currently indisposed and unable to join the others just yet.

There’s also a tiny detail in the character file that you unlock as more characters join the investigations. The other Mark Bearers are described as becoming friends with the protagonist after he saved their life during the Mary incident, then you read Mashita’s to find he’s formed a “deep bond” with the protagonist due to the number of cases they’ve worked on together. In the previous game there were dropped hints of how their specific relationship stood out among the rest and it applies even more so in the sequel. Although, I’ve heard in the Japanese release they were referred to as “nakama=friends” in the file, which is curious how and why it was translated to “deep bond' in the English version. 

Mashita makes his first appearance in Chapter 5, asked to aid Yashiki by Yasuoka like in Red Riding Hood and tries to treat it as just a job. Yashiki is surprised but relieved by his arrival, placing a lot of trust and confidence in his capabilities and methods that he’s quick to jump on his help. At this point Yashiki was isolating himself from the Mark Bearers over fear of losing them after what happened with Ai, Shou, Daimon and now potentially Hiroo, and while displaying the same worry, he knows he can’t afford to turn away Mashita. He does however plead with Mashita to not draw attention while investigating, where the detective responds with a mischievous grin and no promises. In their first interactions, Mashita is shown to be comfortable with teasing Yashiki, even proceeding to call him Mr.Yashiki or “Yashiki-sensei”, much to the man's displeasure. He is not enjoying his time as a temporary teacher. 

This can be taken with a grain of salt due to translation, but certain dialogues and dialogue options showed some influence from the other. For example, Yashiki’s dialogue options can sometimes grow very blunt and curt. The one for Suzu in the hospital made me laugh due to hearing Mashita’s voice so clearly. Another is at the conclusion of Kokkuri where if you partner up with Mashita and head to Fox Forest to return the laccata, Mashita comments on Yashiki empathising with the spirits again, but then addresses the late teacher as well, stating he’ll report everything to the police, make sure the investigation reopens and to wait until then. A similar reassurance that Yashiki is known for, hoping to give closure. Whereas if you bring Hiroo, Yashiki takes the role and reassures the spirit instead. It feels as though the purpose of that dialogue was to show Yashiki has rubbed off on him somewhat through working together. Mashita also reminds him there won’t always be someone around to save him when he gets too wrapped up in a spirit’s suffering, heavily implying Mashita’s referring to saving Yashiki’s life in the finale of Red Riding Hood.

Once again, Mashita half surprises us all by sneaking another gun to Yashiki, no longer his own, but instead pulls something behind the scenes to get his hands on another just so he has protection. The man is risking a lot of potential jail time again and being very hypocritical for someone still straight-edge with the law, only to keep tossing it out the window to ensure Yashiki’s safety. Particularly when in the same chapter, he chastises Hiroo for trying to obtain the petri dish for research purposes and plans to confiscate it from her. This seems to be the most effective method he thinks to protect Yashiki, only it’s more reckless this second time as the safety has been removed! Just another display of Mashita’s unhinged actions when focused on Yashiki. Also while this could be a simple gag and more on the type of person Mashita is, literature studies I’ve written in the past have made it difficult for me to not see the topic of guns in their scenes as euphemisms and symbolism.

For example, Mashita is always the one to supply the gun - Someone who feels more comfortable or enlightened to their sexuality, a popular fanon theory in the fandom. Meanwhile Yashiki always takes the gun with hesitance, then returns it - Someone still discovering that part of themselves after having everything about them essentially wiped. Additionally in Death Mark, Yashiki doesn’t use the gun but instead entrusts Mashita with it, whereas he uses a gun alongside Mashita in Death Mark 2 on three occasions. 

Further with the guns as symbolism is during the confrontation in The Departed’s Wedding. As the spirit focuses their attacks on Mashita, in order to survive the scene Yashiki must use the gun given by Mashita and shoot The Departed, framed in a way to show rejection as the spirit becomes upset and repeats the word “liar”. After wrapping up the story of Kokkuri, Mashita demands the gun back, although jokes that Yashiki can keep it if he so wishes. You’re given the option to be cheeky with him by attempting to keep it, but Mashita doesn’t allow it, saying you have seconds to hand it over.

In the opening of Chapter 6 while in the infirmary, you can access a voicemail left by Shou. He expresses frustration that Mashita was adamant in keeping him away for his own safety, unless the worst should happen to the two of them. However he believes he won’t have to get involved and views Yashiki and Mashita in such high regards that he practically calls them unstoppable as a team, something I’m sure Yashiki needed to hear. Shou’s comment brings up a point that really highlights itself in Death Mark 2.

Yashiki and Mashita cover each other’s flaws and weaknesses. Yashiki is not as objective and too trusting so there were signs he would miss, like the amount of coincidences surrounding Douryou and Kinukawa and how they misled him. He’s also not confrontational. Yashiki’s issue was that he was very tunnel visioned on the victim in each notice and the spirit tied to it, hardly given the time to investigate The Departed between everything that was happening. He is the compassionate and emotional half that focuses on uncovering the dead’s grudge, their regrets and desires in order to appease them, which in turn saves the lives of those affected, whereas Mashita is the more direct, tactical and logical half. Mashita from years in the profession is tenacious and prioritises getting information and results, allowing for less emotion to get in the way. Not just for a lack of spiritual power, but he would not be as attune to clearing a spirits resentment, nor possibly the patience. But he immediately noticed that Yashiki was being led around to get distracted, rather than focusing on the source and even figured out The Departed’s identity. This brings us back to what happened in Death Mark with the Mary reveal, but the stakes were higher as Yashiki was directly affected and on borrowed time.

The Departed case would have come to a close much sooner if Yashiki and Mashita had teamed up from the beginning, which is possibly why Mashita was absent for most of the story. While I don’t believe Yashiki lacks the skills and intelligence on his own, though he can sometimes be endearingly dense, he does get stuck in conflict with his head and his heart often. It makes me curious about all the various cases they’ve worked on together. In short, if it weren’t for Mashita arriving and voicing his suspicions of the two girls and directing Yashiki to investigate Kinukawa’s room to paint a clearer picture, Yashiki would still have been manipulated down the wrong path.

It seems Mashita’s role in Death Mark 2 is putting pieces together where Yashiki fell flat, steering him in the right direction and confirming what the player has already deduced. It takes Mashita’s appearance in the two chapters to get Yashiki to start suspecting the two students especially. Mashita's shown as protective over Yashiki and is a very reliable character at a crucial point in his state of mind, despite the latter’s perception that Douryou and Kinukawa are deemed trustworthy.

He states he could care less if Yashiki gets closer to the girls for the sake of gathering information, but tells him to watch his step from doing anything else, implicates Kinukawa as the culprit immediately after the man confesses to a very serious crime, then mildly threatens Douryou on her equally suspicious behaviour towards Yashiki. Volunteering himself instead of Yashiki to investigate inside the remains of a shrine on the verge of collapsing - with Yashiki immediately worrying when Mashita cries out when he merely smacked his hand. Mashita being the one to suggest the two separate while fleeing The Departed as he is the target, so Yashiki has a chance of escaping. He constantly reminds Yashiki to stay on track of his original goal, drags him back when he gets too deep in his thoughts, tells him to stop blaming himself for the incidents that were out of his control and even comforts him in his own way. At this stage, perceived as romantic or not, Mashita has made it very apparent that he is ride or die with Yashiki.

Also it’s not often we see Mashita address Yashiki by his full name -

In Chapter 7, Mashita is the partner that is taken to the wedding grounds of where the wedding ceremony took place and where The Departed’s resentment began. Seeing the unfortunate fate of Sakamoto in the Good Ending, Yashiki  begins despairing, blaming himself for her death, to which Mashita steps in to shut down quickly. He then pauses to console him that he did save her at the end, as she regained a sense of self and shared one final clue for them. 

Learning about the origin of The Departed’s grudge, the spirit suddenly appears. Yashiki desperately tries to get answers but Mashita snaps his attention back before he can get sucked in. This is where Mashita sees The Departed for the first time in their grotesque, final transformation with the appearance of a spider - which we’ve seen previously in Death Mark’s DLC. An infamous symbol of sex and fertility. And he wastes no time hurling insults at it for trying to appear attractive to Yashiki. While The Departed has displayed a pattern of abducting the Mark Bearers to feast upon, still giving Yashiki an opportunity to save them and announcing so, there is instead murderous intent with Mashita immediately and begins attacking. Potentially due to the spirit gradually becoming more unstable through its transformation as the game progresses and the location, but to suddenly become enraged at Mashita standing beside Yashiki while they’ve had less issue with characters like Ai or Hiroo standing too close, it’s interesting. A literal or symbolic sense. Standing next to each other as partners? As equals? As lovers? The Departed is thought to observe and learn Yashiki’s closest connections, so it’s left a guess how their relationship might have been interpreted.

When the two part with Mashita luring away The Departed, Yashiki assumes the worst and feels hopelessness and loss, lingering on Mashita while escaping Fox Forest. Returning to the infirmary, Yasuoka comforts him that Mashita always lived life to his own rules and recklessness and to not hold himself responsible. There’s even a moment where Yashiki steers himself and vows to do what he can to finish the case, for Mashita’s sake. It’s a touching, little moment.

I think it’s also worth pointing out that Yashiki’s presumably closest relationships at this moment are “removed” all the way up to the final confrontation. Even if previous Mark Bearers have survived or died, it doesn’t change the outcome of Daimon collapsing into a coma from a curse and Mashita being attacked and chased down by The Departed themselves. There’s no mercy for these particular men. After escaping The Departed, the first person Mashita thinks to contact is Yashiki because he knows he’s in a fragile state. The self-sacrificial man’s resolve has been tested throughout the entire game and he must not give in at the final hurdle. 

In the Good Ending, breaking the news that he’s alive while passing a comment at Yashiki not sounding as relieved as he should be is laughable when Mashita didn’t even say a word and is currently using a public phone. He attempts to cheer him up, saying he should be proud of himself for saving The Departed, and assuring that no one thinks differently of him for what he must’ve had to do. Mashita may never approve of Yashiki’s methods but he understands the physical and mental toll it takes on him.

At the end of it all in the True Ending, Yashiki and Mashita are destined to go for drinks with Hiroo and Daimon, thanks to the latter giving an invitation, which is a fun disaster of a scene I’d very much like to see. Undoubtedly a lot more snark compared to the outing with Ai, Shou and Hiroo. Though I’m sure Mashita will not be pleased to hear Douryou and Kinukawa barged into the mansion and regained their memories, being not the best at dealing with “brats”.

In one of the games DLC “Mary’s Makeover / New Colour” only available in Japan, but fan-translated by Generic Weeb Content, Moe, Eita and Suzu aid Yashiki in searching the mansion for a number combination, where one of the rooms available is the investigation room. Yashiki comments that this is where the Mark Bearers usually meet for spiritual investigations, so a few of their belongings are scattered around. Only two of them are of note. One is the small shrine Moe brought for protection and the other is the large green coat belonging to Mashita hanging on a coat rack. That’s been there the entire game and now we know. According to Yashiki, Mashita had forgotten it one time and it’s remained ever since. He speculates he must keep multiple, similar coats.

This immediately raises questions and shows a lot without telling. One important implication being how frequently Mashita visits the mansion, which we get an idea of from a certain coffee making Voice Drama - and yet according to the game in those four months prior, Yashiki has never once set foot in Mashita’s office. I’m very sceptical that someone observant like Mashita can forget they’re not wearing an oversized coat weighing on their shoulders. Furthermore, it’s a very plausible theory that the coat belonged to Mashita’s late senior as it is oversized and hangs loosely on every art sprite. Then there’s the inclusion of it on a singular panel from the manga where Mashita talks about him. Given he still carries the old lighter, he is at least somewhat of a sentimental person, so it's entirely possible he would keep it also as a memento. In other words, something treasured that he wouldn’t misplace. And why is it still there? Yashiki must have contacted him about it, so perhaps Mashita shrugged it off and never bothered to collect it. If we want to dive deeper, it sounds vaguely like the behaviour of leaving more and more belongings behind one does with a partner until they’ve practically moved in, leaving his mark on the mansion so to speak. Or it’s because Mashita views the Kujou mansion as another place to call home. Either way, Mashita is very casual about it and Yashiki allows it.

The DLC ends on a final scene with Yashiki and Mashita on the phone discussing Mary and the Death Parade. Parallel to the first game’s DLC, Mashita parts with some advice, warning him to be cautious around Mary and to watch out for himself. Yashiki reassures and thanks him, to which Mashita responds in the way one expects. After the call however, Yashiki addresses that while Mary is obsessed with him, he feels obsessed with her in return. In both instances in the DLCs, Mashita expresses open concern for Yashiki’s wellbeing and has the last word, setting up to be the voice of reason to pull Yashiki back from the brink. Knowing him too well that he needs to make him realise how dangerously empathetic he is and will be if Mary awakens or pulls some strings. Not to diminish the other friendships Yashiki has, as they are also important, but the devs specifically show in moments like these how much of an important piece Mashita is in Yashiki’s life. The balance that he needs. This ominous ending could be hinting at a build up to where Mashita saves Yashiki similar to Red Riding Hood or Yashiki’s mental state deteriorating, that everyone bands together to pull him out of that darkness.

Overall, I think this game perfectly demonstrates why they would work well as a couple. Canonical wise, it’s clear the two men have grown closer between the events of the games and keep in regular contact. They continue to have chemistry, address each other more casually, openly joke with one another, have wacky moments like hissing at a rock and shooting guns in the forest whilst on a mushroom trip, and are even called inseparable and unbeatable as a duo. Which leads into a moment in the Kokkuri case, where Mashita mentions again that Yashiki would make a good detective. Whether a praise or a jab, it’s another nod at his business proposal as partners from the previous game. They’ve already crossed the line of being partners in these cases, and even more so in NG, so that might end up being inevitable. Especially from Death Mark 2’s ending where Yashiki discovers what his role will be from now on and his motivations behind pursuing further spiritual cases.

It bears repeating that this isn’t meant to take away from their friendship, but the subtle (or less than subtle) implications of something romantic are all there in a lot of ways in Death Mark 2 - despite the overarching theme of thrusting Yashiki into a teacher-student romance scenario. There’s even more of an influx of art and fanfictions of the two men from old and new fans introduced to the series, as a result. And with the addition of LGBT+ characters - minus the doomed, buried trope - it could be seen as something positive for where their relationship could go. It certainly opens up the possibility.

If a sequel is in the works or if they are testing interest with the latest DLC, it’ll be interesting to see where they take these two in the next installment. One thing is for certain, if there was ever a decision to plan a Yashiki and Mashita spin off series or something that centered on them as protagonists, it is guaranteed a large audience. Next part we’ll be looking at CD Voice Dramas currently available and fan translated by amazing people in the fandom, including “Blue End” and more. If I’ve missed anything from the game, please do feel free to add! Thank you so much for reading!

[zahri-melitor]

You have been assigned a four issue mini comic [<100 pages]. It can be about whatever you want. The only restriction is that it has to be about a minor support character [IE character friends, character parents, reoccuring minor villains, reoccuring civilians]. Which character do you choose, and what story would you want to tell in a four issue mini?

For transparency, I'm asking this question to a bunch of people because I want to see all the ideas everyone has. See what everyone would do.

You know what I'd really love? Writing a Lady Shiva mini. I am stretching the definition of 'reoccurring minor villain' but she's never actually had a proper mini in her own right and she's very VERY rarely had viewpoint. I'd want to pick and choose from her various established backstories, and tone down as many of the League of Assassins connections as possible. I think I'd frame it as four pivotal fights (because that's the language of Shiva)

Fight 1: Sandra and David Cain (the 'sort out the backstory' issue/the apprentice) hitting the following:-

Carolyn and Sandra's childhood in Detroit as Chinese-American diaspora, including trips back to China to the family village there for additional martial arts training.

Carolyn encounters Ben Turner and David Cain, both of whom are training under Richard Dragon, with none of this LOA-linked

David Cain murdering Carolyn to motivate Sandra who he sees as a stronger fighter

Recanonise the Batgirl 2000 Cass origin

Sandra giving Cass to David

Fight 2: Lady Shiva and Richard Dragon (the 'birth of Lady Shiva' and her quest to match herself against the best fighters on the planet/the journeywoman)

This would revolve around Shiva's quest to seek training from various sensei.

References to Dinah and Shiva's shared mentor

Shiva and her encounters with Vic Sage and the first signs of her fondness for cases in which she sees the potential for greater violence, just as David Cain saw in her

Maybe recanonise the Paper Monkey stuff? Either way, have her win accolade and acclaim by facing off against the greatest fighters, killing many of them, and gaining her place in the hierarchy

Lots of wandering swordsman journey

Finishing point has this fight ending with Shiva not killing Richard because she can now best him and has found herself alone at the top as the 'best fighter in the world' - but she sees the power he still has above her - his ability to mentor and create the competition she seeks

Fight 3: Lady Shiva and Dinah Lance (Shiva the mentor, training those she most respects the potential in/the master)

I picked Dinah to frame this one for two reasons: she's my fave AND I wanted a fight with a woman for the second set.

We hit backstory with Shiva actively encountering Dinah, Tim, Connor, Cass. 'Her' heroes who she becomes attached to and to pushing them to be better competition for her.

This is the only bit where I might lean towards League of Assassins in terms of probably Nyssa and/or Talia approaching her to ask her to help train their troops, but Shiva finds it dull.

"Go to sleep Westley I might kill you in the morning" attitude emerging as she finds herself weirdly attached to the people she's pushing.

I would love to include a pay off for her fight with Helena Bertinelli in BOPv2 that was put on 'hold' in this fight with Dinah.

Fight 4: Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain (The inheritance and future issue)

This would be framed around a NEW encounter between Shiva and Cass rather than one of their old ones

Leans into Shiva's death wish and viewing she's already passed on her inheritance, and that she's now defeatable

I would also want to see Sin Lance and Bethany Thorne appear in this issue (also Tim)

Looking at all four of these characters and how they have the potential to surpass and surprise her.

This one WOULD end with Shiva in a position where she's pushing Cass to kill her as she's now the tired one and Cass once again denying it to her

[buckybarnesss]

I was thinking the other day, Stiles has really gone through so much with his mom. There's being with her when she died (and the rush of relief/guilt that must have brought), dealing with her forgetting him and attacking him, and then having to fend off a magical clone of her in season 6.

It's interesting to me because no one else really has this level of parental trauma, and it's reoccurring in Stiles' narrative even though he never really talks about it. It's like it really is too personal for him to talk about with anyone, maybe not even Scott.

stiles as a character only makes sense when viewed from the lens of the trauma left by his mother's condition and death. claudia died when stiles was 8 years old and by that point she had gone through severe deterioration both mentally and physically.

we don't know when claudia started exhibiting over symptoms of dementia but i would hazard a guess of maybe 2-3 years seeing as she had a child within the last eight years of her life and stiles has memory of claudia before she was ill. still. it's way too young for him to fully understand what is happening.

like he internalized claudia's delusions that he was trying to kill her to the point of believing it on some level and believed that he was going to kill his father too. like jesus fucking christ.

his anxiety and obsessiveness surrounding his father's health and safety stems directly back to losing claudia. it's why he's so terrified of losing his friends.

hot take here i think his infatuation with lydia is wrapped up in feelings about claudia. he says he's been in love with her since the 3rd grade which would've been around the same time claudia passed. he latched onto lydia martin as a concept and didn't start seeing her as a real person until season 3.

his speech to her in master plan wasn't stiles talking to lydia it was talking to the lydia that was the stand in for his mother.

"you see, death doesn't happen to you, lydia. it happens to everyone around you, to all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're going to now live the rest of their lives without you in it."

it's why their relationship cannot progress romantically until the ghost of his mother is exorcised, but i haven't fully watched 6a yet and i still don't really view a romantic relationship between them as necessarily healthy.

but speaking of 6a, jesus christ the level of trauma of stiles has due to having to endure people forgetting about him. especially his father. his mother already forgot him once and died now his dad too? plus his closest friends. stiles's greatest fear come to life.

like with derek the trauma stiles endures isn't really talked about. stiles witnessed the mechanic get crushed by his jeep in abomination while being rendered helpless to do anything but watch and that's just glossed the fuck over.

this doesn't get into the relationship stiles has with his dad because that's all kinds of tangled. noah stilinski isn't a perfect father. there's definitely a level of stiles being both treated as a child and as an adult by his dad.

and you're right stiles resolutely doesn't discuss it with anyone. it's like he's taken it as his burden to bear and that's it. stiles keeps people emotionally at arms length as some measure of protection for himself. he's not really willing to crack himself open and share. emotionally vulnerability scares him.

one of the few times we see him really open and raw in front of others is when he's trying to talk scott down in motel california and holy shit stiles was fully prepared to just die with scott. you could say he was bluffing but was he? was he really?

the kids ain't alright in teen wolf. allison was never more right when she broke down saying "we're just a bunch of teenagers. we can't handle this."

they all need therapy.

[theburningsunset]

my adhd can't chill tf down enough to sleep so may i present this (uhhh spoilers for new-who):

Everything in Doctor Who that ought to be fixed and why:

Any time the doctor shows racism, queerphobia, sexism, ableism, classism, etc. Unless a specific prejudice of Gallifreyan society exists, it would never make sense for the Doctor to be bigoted, even the one from the '60s

Related: when Thirteen breaks the Master's perception filter so the nazis would see he's a man of color and thus endanger him—the Doctor would never.

Completely abandon former companions. Maybe some, maybe originally, but even 2000 years of lessons learned later? The Doctor is a good man, abandonment is too inconsistent with his characterization to be a reoccurring, unchallenged trait.

Wiping Donna's memory. Cruel, erased her character arc and was not a fulfilling or meaningful end. Either kill her or have her decide to retire.

The convoluted reason the Ponds were stuck in 1939 New York. C'mon, if I tried for five seconds I could come up with a sensical reason why the Doctor never saw them and they were stuck. Or just don't make them stuck 🤷🏼‍♀️ maybe they decide to adopt and retire to avoid danger to the kid but the Doctor and River still regularly visit.

The "War Doctor". Showrunners confirmed this only existed because Christopher Eccleston refused to come back for the 50th Special (no shade to his choice). It might've backfired or seemed disrespectful of Chris's performance, but they should've simply recast Nine for it.

Just throw out Kill the Moon, it was bad writing, the heavy-handed abortion allegory was exhausting and weird (regardless of intentionality) and I don't usually cry "but the science!" but...the moon being gone, even if soon after it replaced itself, would cause apocalyptic destruction on Earth and possibly wipe out humanity. The primary salvageable bit that I think is integral is the Twelve/Clara fight at the end.

Danny Pink either doesn't die or doesn't stay dead. The paradox it would cause for him to die before him and Clara have kids when her and Twelve have MET those descendants and been on two separate adventures down that family line is irreconcilable. Full stop.

Bill doesn't die. The end. (Do NOT bury your fucking gays)

Don't have Graham be the last white seat on the Rosa episode, for fucking christ's sake. Plus where the fuck is at least the mention of Claudette Colvin?

Fourteen regenerates into Thirteen's clothes, following well-established rules of regeneration (BBC were cowards for breaking that just to sidestep having David Tennant "crossdress")

Headcanon bits that aren't necessarily tied to quality/consistent writing but I think would've been great:

The Doctor does find Melody. Maybe only by age six or so, if wanting to keep the Silence story intact, but rework Let's Kill Hitler to avoid the Mel situation. It makes me sad that they never got their baby back. She can still turn out to be River, maybe the regen into River only happened post season-six, keeping the reveal. Maybe Melody was eventually re-kidnapped by the Silence and then turned into River Song, or maybe Melody was always a kind of troubled trouble-maker and took on the River Song alias on her own.

Thirteen and Yaz absolutely get together.

keep in mind I haven't finished Thirteen's run (the stink of neolib BS from the Rosa Parks episode tanked my interest in keeping up until Chibnall fucked off), haven't seen the 60th Special yet, still have 20-something seasons of Classic Who to go, and don't remember everything I have seen, nor am I always right. I think on re-watch I'd find more issues but for now it's the list I've got that exactly zero (0) people asked for.

[shlabam]

TOP TEN COMICS BOOK VILLAINS WE PROBABLY WON’T SEE IN THE MOVIES

Superhero media is the hottest thing going right now. It was true ten years ago when the MCU was in its adolescence, and it’s even truer now. Even with film production on lockdown, Marvel and DC are still planning on literally dozens of their characters entering their respective cinematic universes. However, for the fans of the source material, things can be contentious. For every memorable Tony Stark quip, there’s Superman destroying an entire city because he’s, frankly, kind of dumb now. A major point of contention is how the various popular villains are utilized. Making an intimidating and potent villain in a comic book is very different than in a film. In comics, you have months to establish motive, powers, and backstory before the villain even makes their first move. In films, that all has to be compressed and spilled out in the scarce few minutes when Captain America and Bucky aren’t making bambi eyes at each other. To be concise, some villains adapt perfectly, and some, no matter how good they are in the comics, just don’t. And to be clear, this list is of popular villains who have the possibility of appearing in a big-budget film, so no, you won’t be seeing Ten Eyed Man or Big Wheel in there. Their powers are, respectively, having ten eyes, and being very good in business. (That’s a lie, he’s just a huge wheel who chases Spider-Man.)

10: Mr. Mxyzptlk:

Cool, let’s get this one out of the way. Despite being one of Superman’s oldest, longest-lasting, and most popular enemies from all the way back in the Golden Age, there’s no way in hell he will be in a movie. For the uninformed. Mr. Mxyzptlk is a 5th dimensional wizard-genie who appears every ninety days to torment Superman with his reality-altering antics, and can only be sent back to his home dimension if Superman tricks him into saying his own name backwards. Yes, it would be very dazzling, as Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers in a movie would basically look like if Christopher Nolan directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he’s a little too silly to fit in with the current “everything is gloomy and also a bummer” tone of the Superman films. This silly tone has lent itself perfectly to the Supergirl series, where he’s made a handful of appearances. Besides, if we get Mxyzptlk in a Superman movie before Brainiac, I’ll lose my entire freaking mind.

9: Hobgoblin:

There have been eight Spider-Man movies so far, and of those eight, four of them have, in some capacity, featured the Green Goblin. And that makes sense, right? The Green Goblin is easily Spider-Man’s most memorable and reoccurring nemesis, with Doctor Octopus and Venom close behind, and Peter Parker’s link with Norman and Harry Osbourn makes their tragic story perfect for film adaptation. On the other hand, we have the Hobgoblin, who is essentially Green Goblin with all the gimmicks, none of the Parker-adjacent backstory, and an orange and blue color scheme, likely tying him to the Denver Broncos [citation needed]. Still, in those four cinematic attempts at tackling the Goblin, none of them have quite gotten him right, and I can’t imagine this character, who is, even in canon, an intentional Green Goblin rip-off, would fare any better.

8: Starro:

Brave and the Bold #28 from 1960 featured the first story with the Justice League, and this story put them up against a very unique new villain: Starro the Conqueror, a giant telepathic starfish who can release tiny versions of himself. If these tiny starfish latch onto your head, you’re under his control and obey his commands. The Justice League have battled him fairly regularly over the last fifty years, and he’s a distinct and powerful enemy that the fans generally appreciate, leading to him being referenced occasionally in Smallville, Arrow, and Flash. Why won’t he ever be in a movie? Because if you’re a Hollywood producer, you stopped paying attention at “giant telepathic starfish”. Sorry. Maybe Shuma-Gorath will pop up in the next Doctor Strange movie, and he’ll set off a Twilight-esque wave of starfish monster movies! Then again, almost absolutely not.

7: Puppet Master:

Speaking of mind control, what’s scarier than that? For my money, nothing. Having your body and will taken away from you by an unseen force is a terror greater than death. How could you possibly make a villain based around such a chilling concept and have him not be scary? Well, maybe if it’s an old bald man in an apron playing with dolls. The Puppet Master is an ongoing threat for the Fantastic Four who is just that: he makes models of his foes out of radioactive clay, and makes them punch themselves and dance around and kiss each other, because he’s, y’know, a weird old man. Why is he such a consistent threat who hasn’t fallen into obscurity like other dumb gimmick-based villains? His stepdaughter, Alicia Masters, is the Thing’s longtime girlfriend. As long as she keeps appearing in movies (including being played by… Kerry Washington? That can’t be right), there’s always a chance he’ll pop up, but I don’t think any movie studio is that stupid, despite the quality of every Fantastic Four movie blatantly defying that prediction.

6: Bizarro:

Superman has always suffered in the villains department. When you’re essentially a god, what can they throw at you? As it turns out, Lex Luthor, almost always. But why not another Superman? Bizarro is essentially that, an imperfect clone of Superman who speaks in opposite speak - “Bizarro am good! Me not punch you until you live!” - and features the same abilities as the Man of Steel. Sounds great, right? Putting a hero against a villain with their same powers has worked for nearly every Marvel movie (shots fired). So why won’t we see him grace our silver screens any time soon? Because they’ve never really figured him out. Is he funny? Is he lethal? Does Kryptonite work on him? If he does everything the opposite of Superman, why does he wear clothes? Isn’t being naked the opposite of being clothed? Bizarro is a major Superman side-character and has made appearances in Smallville and Supergirl, but the idea of him being the Big Bad going toe-to-toe with Henry Cavill doesn’t sound like it would generate a lot of views.

5: Impossible Man:

You remember what I said about Mr. Mxyzptlk? Remember? So take that bit, but everywhere I say Superman, have it say Fantastic Four instead… yeah, that should do it.

4: The Wrecking Crew:

Thor has a unique quirk of having a very cinematic rogues gallery. Sure, most of the movies have pitted him against Loki, but if they were to run him up against the Enchantress, or the Absorbing Man, or Ulik the Troll, or Kurse, or even the Stone Men from Saturn, that’s not a bad movie! However, in one of the attempts to give Thor more of a mortal nemesis, they put him up against the Wrecker, who has an… enchanted… indestructible… crowbar. Yeah. Incredibly, the Wrecker and his Wrecking Crew have become very present characters throughout the Marvel Universe, essentially serving as “jobbers”, being rolled out to get beaten up by the new top hero or villain, but that may not work in a movie, where villains have to be seen as having some level of potency before being struck down. That means we’d need at least a short scene where it seems like Thor might lose to a guy whose power is “crowbar”, and that’s about as likely as an Edward Norton cameo in the next Avengers. Ho boy, they did NOT part on good terms!

3: Clayface:

When the movie-going public goes to see a Batman movie, they generally want something a bit more grounded than your typical superhero fare. After all, Batman has no powers, and therefore the most supernatural thing that should happen in these movies is a gas that makes you smile, or a different gas that makes you think your dead parents are back and disappointed in you. Might wanna put a mouth covering on that mask, Bruce! The one and only they’ve made a movie where Batman fights people with real, off-the-wall super powers (Batman and Robin), it did not go great. And those guys pale in comparison to Clayface, who is, yes, made of clay. In the comics and cartoons, Clayface looks awesome, turning his limbs into weapons and being very challenging to incapacitate, but in a live-action, realistic Batman adventure, we wouldn’t want to see the Dark Knight fight a poop-colored version of the T-1000, especially if it’s got the same chemical composition of a little dreidel that I made.

2: Red Hood:

A relative newcomer to the Batman universe, Red Hood is the revived body of Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was brutally killed by the Joker in one of the most controversial storylines DC Comics ever produced. Literally, fans called a 900 number to tell the writers to kill him off. A 900 number. That’s how much they hated the little turd. Anyway, Jason Todd, whom Batman and the rest of the world believed was dead, was revived by Ra’s al Ghul and became a ruthless villain. Since then, he’s gravitated more to the side of the hero, though one a bit more willing to spill blood than his mentors. Why won’t we see him in the darker, edgier Batman films? Because… that’s Bucky. It’s the same thing that happened in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Teen sidekick killed in controversial manner, revived by super villain to be a thorn in said hero’s side, later changes his mind and becomes a good guy again, though with enough PTSD to fill a PTSD super store. The two storylines even occurred in the comics in the same year, 2005, to much fanfare and across-the-board declarations of one company ripping off the other, reminding the world of the great Aquaman-Namor debates of the 1940s. Considering that DC’s films have criminally underperformed compared to Marvel’s, the last thing they want to do is be accused of lazy plagiarism, so Jason Todd will likely remain a permanent fixture in the afterlife, hanging out with Batman’s parents and, at the rate that people are coming back from the dead, literally no one else. (Plus, if they can’t even get Robin right, how are they gonna do this?)

1: Mister Sinister:

Yes, he was teased at the end of X-Men Apocalypse, but ignoring that the film underperformed both critically and commercially, Mister Sinister is never going to be in a movie. It would make sense for him to appear, though, right? He’s one of the most present and potent X-Men villains, he’s played crucial roles in many memorable storylines, he’s got a sick cape, but… something a lot of comic book fans tend to overlook is his murky backstory, powers, and motivations. He was a biologist in Victorian London who did genetic experiments on homeless people in the hopes of finding clues about the oncoming threat of mutants. In this time, he unearthed the long-dormant En Sabah Nur, whom you plebeians may know as Apocalypse, and Apocalypse gifted him with great abilities. What abilities you ask? HA HA, good question! At various times, Sinister has displayed: telepathy, telekinesis, energy projection, shape-shifting, regeneration, and teleportation, but these powers will mysteriously disappear whenever they want him to get sliced up real good by Wolverine. Additionally, it has never been made very clear what Sinister wants. Does he seek perfect mastery of the human genome? Does he live to torment Cyclops? Is he a blind follower of Apocalypse? Is he just running through all the different kinds of goatee? Of course, in adaptation, the writers would pick and choose the aspects they’d want to use, but I doubt they’d want to untangle the Christmas lights mess that is Mister Sinister, especially when they’ve got a perfectly good villain whose power is just “magnets���.

[rutilation]

In honor of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has occurred in the last few days for fear of potential incoming Joshua discourse, I have decided to get ahead of the curve and start discoursing about him before the anime even airs!

(--because he’s an interesting character who I didn’t really understand until several years after finishing the game.)

So, I got into the game around 2010, and while I comprehended the broad strokes of Joshua’s character, he seemed more like an inscrutable trickster than a person with relatable emotions, and his reasons for setting the plot into motion were as opaque to me as his reasons for backing off at the last second.

In particular, a big sticking point for me was his assessment of Neku.  He considered him “the worst person in Shibuya” and chose him as a proxy because of that.  And for years I thought that was the most ludicrous aspect of the game.  If the very worst person you can find in your bustling metropolis is a grumpy teenager who only has the potential to commit murder when under duress, then how could you possibly think that it’s beyond salvation, you utterly incoherent moron!  But, several years afterwards, I realized why he saw Shibuya as unsalvageable, and why he held Neku in such contempt, and the disparate elements of the character started to click into place for me.  

For as much as Joshua likes to put on airs, his motivations aren’t rational in the slightest.  When Joshua says that Shibuya has grown shallow and static, he’s really talking about himself, and is projecting all the things he hates about himself onto the surrounding environment.  He singles out Neku not because this run-of-the-mill moody teen is objectively the worst person in Shibuya, but because he sees Neku as a younger, more naive version of himself, and in a classic example of the narcissistic element of self-hatred, being like him is the most irredeemable sin Joshua can conceive of.

Then, I started thinking about what he actually intended to accomplish with his whole plan, and specifically, the duel at the end.  I don’t think Joshua had any intention of presiding over a remade Shibuya.  I think he was banking on Neku killing him and taking his place, and all that stuff about hijacking Shibuya from the composer during week two was for the sole purpose of planting that idea in Neku’s head.  In life, Joshua was friendless, miserable, and myopic.  He had hoped that by entering the world of the reapers’ game, he might find a sense of fulfillment.  But in the end, this mere change of scenery didn’t do anything to address his underlying malaise, and life felt just as empty as it did before.   Thus, he sets his plan in motion, intending to pass on his awful torch to a fellow awful person.  

What he didn’t count on was Neku growing as a person and gaining hope instead of losing it.  Joshua wanted to end his own world, but the outcome of all his scheming was that it opened up instead.  Instead of validating his grand act of self-destruction as planned, Neku refutes Joshua's worldview in a way he can't ignore or dismiss.

When I first saw the secret ending, my reaction was something along the lines of: “Aww, I guess he’s not totally heartless after all.”  But looking back on it, I can’t really see it as anything other than tragic.  Joshua can’t lie to himself anymore, can’t continue to protect himself with a shield of apathy and cynicism, but because of the permanence of his past choices, he can’t actually free himself from this isolated and claustrophobic world he’s created either, and that prison is made all the more painful now that he realizes how much he’s missing out on.  All he can do in the secret ending is watch forlornly as that younger version of himself grows up, makes connections, and moves on, while he’s still stuck at a dead-end.

(There’s a moment during the credits of KH:3D in which Joshua is perched above the rest of the cast on a giant letter, parodying his fondness for sitting on buildings.  The others soon take notice of him, and hassle him into coming down and joining them.  When I noticed it, it warmed my heart a bit, and made me hopeful about the trajectory of his character, regardless of whether or not a sequel would actually materialize.)

But all that being said, what I just wrote isn’t what the fine folk in the TWEWY fandom mean when they refer to Joshua discourse.  As far as I can tell, the true discursive quandary is thus:  “Is Joshua, in fact, Komaeda?”  Well I have bad news for you guys because, in my humble opinion, he kind of is?  

Now, I realize that knowing enough to write several paragraphs about such a cursed character can be seen as me telling on myself, but in my defense, your honor, I didn’t get into danganronpa until a few years after its popularity peaked.  Whatever discourse wars were waged over Komaeda and his zipper-shoes back in 2013, I was not a part of them.  With that out of the way...

You know those posts that get passed around here every so often about how the concept of gifted children sucks?  How it puts too much pressure on them?  How it encourages them to see themselves as instrumentally rather than inherently valuable?  How it leaves them anxious, depressed, and bereft of ways to cope?  Well, that’s the underlying allegory of SDR2, and underneath all the wacky shenanigans that comprise your average danganronpa title, that’s what the cast is contending with.  This is true of it’s protagonist, and especially true of his rival.

in much the same way that Joshua is the worst parts of Neku exaggerated and taken to their logical conclusion, Komaeda plays precisely that role for Hinata.  Both characters serve as a cautionary tale for the respective toxic mindsets that these games are denouncing.

Now that I think about it, Komaeda almost seems like an evolution of the concept, because he intuits from a fairly early point in the story that the protagonist’s very essence is a refutation of his worldview.  He insists on viewing Hinata as being far above him, but in actuality he realizes Hinata is in a similar situation--see his comment in one of the FTEs that Hinata feels like a miserable outsider like himself.  And if someone even a little bit like him is capable of experiencing happiness and connecting with others, what then?  The gap between how Komaeda wants to feel and how he actually feels is a subtle but reoccurring thread throughout the story.  This, I think, is why he seems to regard Hinata with both attraction and revulsion, treating him as simultaneously an avatar of his repressed will (hence why he attempts to bolster him in the class trials,) and an object of scorn (hence the smattering of passive aggressive jabs before chapter four, and the outright antagonism from that point forward.)  While Joshua fools himself until the the end of the game, Komaeda, master of doublethink that he is, seems at times self-aware of the fact that he is a foil in the literary sense, and that awareness partly informs his neurosis.  His take on the character type feels a little more post-modern, I suppose? 

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if Joshua were an inspiration for Komaeda’s character and role in the story.  But even then, I suspect that the question is less, “Is Joshua, in fact, the same sort of character as Komaeda?” and more “Is Joshua, in fact, going to become a contemptible meme like Komeada?”  To which I say, probably not.  *knock on wood*

For one thing, while TWEWY will certainly experience an uptick in popularity once the anime starts airing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will capture the nerd zeitgeist enough to turn one of its characters into a meme that transcends the story from whence it came.  Furthermore, there’s more to being a tumblr sexy meme man than merely belonging to an archetype.  Komaeda’s spiritual successor in DRV3 is kind of popular, but isn’t an inter-fandom joke in the same way he is, and neither are Kaworu from Eva or Ryo from Devilman, for that matter, and those are the grandfathers of the archetype in question.  In addition, the other infamous tumblr sexymen that come to mind, Sans and Onceler, aren’t a part of the white-haired-anime-rival-boy archetype, and Sans isn’t even a conventionally attractive twink.  I posit that the alchemy determining which characters and media tumblr loses its shit over is more varied and complicated than it appears at first glance.  (Not that I actually want to devote much brainpower to that particular field of study, lol.)

Uhhhhh... in conclusion, thank you for reading my words and also the DR3 anime is trash.

[pastel-vampires]

The Vampire Muses. Keep in mind reading the wiki was the best source of information I could get for a majority of these characters since I can’t get my hands on the games.

Ayato Sakamaki:

Age: 16

The attention whore seeker

Likes: Takoyaki and pranking people.

Hates: Water. Ghosts/Ghost stories.

In his childhood, his mother would strictly force him into studying so he could succeed as the heir to the Sakamaki line. Often threatening him or giving him deathly punishments when he didn’t meet her expectations. This would lead to his slight fear of water, as one of the punishments involved her shoving him in a lake to drown until she decided that he should have learned something from it.

The only triplet who is left handed. Would rather play sports like basketball than sit down and study. Consumes an abundant amount of Takoyaki. His hobbies involve Basketball, glorifying himself as ‘Yours Truly’, and collecting Medieval torture chamber items as decorations for his room. (the deadly parts of them removed for when he decides to sleep in them.)

Fear him on April 1st, for he WILL find a way in pranking someone. Anyone. Once he finds a way to prank someone, he WILL take the opportunity.

Other notes: He insists on referring to himself as “Yours Truly”/Ore-sama (in Japanese it basically translates to a masculine word for ‘me/I’ with the honorific meaning ‘master’)

Total rebel. Also a bit of a tsundere but not as much as Subaru. Like the rest of his siblings, he has a hard time opening up to people. He’s closest sibling is Laito. But he also has a protective nature over Kanato. 

Headcanons: Possibly a Pansexual. Will trick/prank all of his siblings at least once per year. 

Romances: He’ll want your full attention and admiration. He’ll want your praise and approval. He’s been made to believe that he had to be the best or he was better off cast aside and dead in a lake somewhere. He fears rejection.

Kanato Sakamaki:

Age: 16 (believe it or not)

The tantrum brat/ “hysteric”

Likes: Teddy and Sweets. (And Attention)

Hates: Bitter and Spicy things. When people hold Teddy without his permission. When people do ANYTHING without his permission.

Since childhood, he has spent most of his time all by himself with only Teddy to confide in as his only trusted ally. His mother would only give him attention when telling him to sing for her, finding his voice to “warm her up” (she really messed him up by having him sing while she had her affairs. How can a kids singing arouse her? What the heck was wrong with her? What the hay? Why did she force him to do that until his vocal cords bled? How the fudge sundae?)

Other: he’s a mix of a tsundere AND a yandere, quite a deadly combination.

Headcanon: he is asexual but because of how he was raised, thinks that one HAS to enter sex at some point. Witnessing a lot of his mothers sexual affairs led him to believing that he had to give them pleasure. One of the efforts involved combing their hair. Her mothers influence has led him to believe that all women are selfish and always desires sex. If they don’t, then he sees them as prudes or just shy. He’s been left alone for so long that he was left to the mercy of his already messed up thoughts. He has a certain belief of how his little world should be and hates it when the things around him never fit in that world. 

Romances: He bites and punishes hard, but his kisses are always gentle. No matter if he’s angry or not. Never will he bite someone on the lips. Since he was left alone to play with his dolls more than his brothers, he enjoys comparing those he is fond of as dolls rather than people. 

Laito Sakamaki:

Age: 16 (believe it or not he is NOT a clone of Ayato or a slightly grown up version of him)

The manwhore

Likes: fancy things. Macarons. Crossword Puzzles

Hates: bugs and creepy crawlies. (I’m going to have TOO much fun with this)

*breathes* the insufferable “pervert’, as everyone ‘knows’ him as. He often seduces women and ‘gives them pleasure’ in his own sadistic ways. As this was the only way he could express ‘love’. (seriously their mother messed all of them up. I don’t know exactly how old he was when she started going after him for an incestuous ‘love affair’. It’s gross. And he didn’t like it. But because he was the most neglected of the trio in his childhood, this was the only form of attention she ever gave to him, and he was made to believe that this was ‘good’. It’s a really messed up situation.) He’s the most social and cheerful of the Sakamakis. 

Headcanons: He knows how to speak French, being known as the ‘romantic language’, he took an interest in it in an attempt to be more flirtatious. But during this journey into learning the French language, he discovered Macarons. Which became a genuine favorite of his. He believes that his pervert facade is real and will get offended if someone states it otherwise.

He’s bisexual, but due to the environment around him (andespeciallyhowhismothermessedhimup) was made to believe that people can only be attracted to the opposite sex

Romances: He’s a giver more than a receiver, but he likes being in control of what goes on. All he knows is sex, he doesn’t understand what love is other than that. (their mother truly messed them up. But he’ll put up a mask and think there’s nothing wrong. Even though he still doesn’t know why there are times where he doesn’t ALWAYS like having sex.)

 Subaru Sakamaki:

Age: 16

The Tsundere badboy.

Likes: bread.

Hates: social interactions. Roses (specifically white ones. This came as a surprise since he’s always in the rose garden.)

Due to a… LOT of emotions bottling up since he was a kid, he has a tendency in lashing out and punching inanimate objects in order to process his festering anger.

He’s the only one who had even a small- or even a semblance- of a healthy bond with his mother, but she became mentally unstable and had to be locked up in a tower (Rapunzel?) there would be times where she would have ‘episodes’ and only he was able to handle them. This warped his gentle nature into a more protective self, and as time went on, into a festering wrath. This only worsened after she pleaded for him to kill her. Hence the knife that he is often seen holding. One that is able to kill vampires.

He gets irritated easily. He doesn’t have any hobbies. He spends most of his time either looking at the rose garden or hermit it up in his coffin (he sometimes adds things to make it feel more comfortable.) He’d much rather stay in a coffin than attend anything. 

Notes: his mother used to sing him to sleep when he was a child. (absolutely adorable) He was the only vampire to give Yui a chance of escaping, even giving her his silver knife to defend herself. Maybe even kill him if needed. 

Headcanons: He doesn’t have taste. He likes bread okay because of the texture, but his tongue can’t even recognize sour things. This might be caused by his mother having poisoned him at some point and had a lasting effect? But highly unlikely because of vampire regeneration properties.

Yet another left handed boi.

 Kou Mukami

Age:17

The Two-Faced model

Likes: cats. Dancing.

Hates: pain.

This pretty boy has had... quite an unfortunate life. Thanks to the horrible events that took place in his childhood, Kou views the world as a ‘give and take’ view. And it will be quite a while before anyone can change that world view. Because of this, he will often portray a friendly, cheerful, and complimentary personality. But he will always expect something in return for his behavior and ‘gifts’. If he gives a bouquets of roses, he expects something to make up for it in return. 

He has a job as a model and is often surrounded by girls at the night school he attends regularly. Which he doesn’t particularly care for. (He is literally the only one in the family with a job.)

Major Trigger warning here: He was raped as a child. Don’t tell me he wasn’t, what the crap did those people DO to him? They hurt him even when he gouged out his own eye in a desperate attempt to make himself flawed so they would leave him alone. But that didn’t work and somehow they saw that as making him more desirable? He has nightmares often because of this and will cling to whatever is around him in an attempt to hide from the horror of reaching hands. He often clings tot he things around him every night because of these reoccurring night terrors. He was given a glass eye that allows him to see people’s true intentions.

Headcanons: He has an immaculate hunger and can- and WILL- eat more than his fair share if those around him aren’t careful. Guard your food while he’s around!

Notes: another left handed boy.

 Azusa Mukami:

Age: 17

The ONLY option for a Masochistic boy.

Likes: collecting knives is his hobby

Dislikes: neglect and being hated.

As a child, he wandered the street with no real purpose. Thanks to a group of children who thrived in beating him, he believed that his only self worth was to be used for pain. Hence he has grown a fascination of it. Whether it is to give or receive pain, Azusa is there for it. He’s slow in movement as well as talking. Often seen spacing out. But is probably the only sweet-heart of a vampire in the entire show. If a little pushy at times. 

He names his limbs after the children who had injured them enough to leave scars, since they were killed and he was left without a purpose once again. This was before he was sent to a orphanage and met Ruki, Yuma, and Kou who became his family.

Notes: his hobby is collecting knives. (Yet another left handed boy.) He is ‘weak against heat’ (I imagine he melts into sleep like a cat when finding this out) he is able to fall asleep standing up. (that’s pretty impressive)

Headcanons:  He’s a very respectable boy and often speaks mostly in respect. Albeit a little pushy at times. His brothers often worry about him and have to make sure that he eats enough at their breakfast, Lunch, and dinner, since he doesn’t do a good job in taking care of himself.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

*yawn* Wow, I finally got some good sleep. Back to the Ranma Rewatch, then. Hey there, long time no see, going to try and get back on track. This week we’re still in the middle of the season 2’s opening story arc, and another main character shall be introduced to us. Will I like him better than I did ten years ago? Only way to find out is to look at the next paragraph, from when I’ve watched the episode.

This episode raised my hopes and then gently lowered them a little, but on the whole I’m happier than I thought I would have been.

The story starts with Akane taking Ranma to see Dr. Tofu, under the assumption that as someone with lots of experience with Chinese medicine, he’d be able to fix what Cologne did to Ranma. Sadly, the technique used is something only a master could do, far outside of his wheelhouse. However, there is one thing he could do.

To counteract the Full Body Cat Tongue, Tofu hits a different pressure point in Ranma, one named after old men from Tokyo. Why? Because apparently they’re well known for being able to stand even the most scalding heat in their baths, and this technique gives the user that same ability. Sure enough, it let’s Ranma return to his uncursed state, but there’s a catch. Kasumi calls, turning Dr. Tofu into a bumbler before he can give the warning, so Ranma and Akane just head to school.

After class, Akane harangues Ranma into taking her out for food, which their classmates immediately notice has a lot of romantic energy to it. Then Shampoo and Cologne appear, amazed that Ranma somehow found a way around the elderly amazon’s strategy, but Cologne seems sure anyway that this won’t be an issue.

But wait! Out of nowhere, someone new appears. His name is Mousse, and he’s a man from the amazon village who has been in love with Shampoo since they were kids. He has terrible eyesight, so bad that he frequently mistakes people for the love of his life, and after a series of confusions he learns that Shampoo is dead set on marrying Ranma.

Mousse attacks Ranma, and challenges him to a manly duel for Shampoo. But she refuses that, so instead makes the duel over Akane for seemingly no reason, which Ranma agrees to. Oh, and he’s known for using ‘dark magic’ which is in practice more sleight of hand and weapon-based techniques.

That evening, Akane is doing what she frequently does when pissed off, namely training in the dojo. Ranma shows up, clearly aware he really stepped in it and wanting to make amends by making it clear there’s no way he’s going to lose to Mousse.

But Akane makes it clear that isn’t why she’s mad. The reason she’s upset is that she doesn’t belong to Ranma, and she won’t belong to Mousse. She’s her own person, and this duel doesn’t respect that. Hell, if he loses that’s fine with her, she’ll just beat up Mousse herself. The entire family shows up, interpreting this as kind of a romantic confession to Ranma.

The next morning, it Dr. Tofu calls and gives the warning he’d meant to tell them earlier: the technique he used is a one-use, so if Ranma gets splashed, he’s stuck again. Akane only finds this out after Ranma takes a dip in the pond while sparring with his dad, and they all freak out over what he’s going to do. Why none of them think to just tell Mousse that Ranma has a Jusenkyo curse, I have no clue.

Someone, Cologne probably, turned the match into a huge spectacle, with food carts and seating around the arena and everything, there’s a huge crowd. Ranma’s late, but that’s only because he made a disguise to hide his cursed body. He clowns around a little at first, having prepared a bunch of lame magic tricks, but then ‘does a trick’ by ‘turning into a girl’, giving him an excuse for how he looks.

Mousse buys it, but he’s angry that Ranma’s not taking it seriously. He takes of his...robe? Tunic? Whatever, either way he’s buff as hell under there, and an attack from his barbed footwear ruins the front of Ranma’s stage assistant outfit, bearing his boobies to everyone. This causes a bunch of men in the audience to storm the fighting area so they can sexually assault Ranma and then I paused Hulu and stared at my computer screen for three full minutes before continuing the episode.

*sigh* Anyway, the Kuno siblings show up, interfere with the fight, Mousse gets deadly series, then Akane reminds Ranma he can use his new technique in battle, which he does to win. Then a bunch of his admirers crowd Ranma, and Akane is annoyed. Done.

Let me get into the stuff I found really interesting with this episode, to start with.

The first half was honestly just really enjoyable. Akane and Ranma had a really good chemistry going on, it reminded me a lot of the episode where Shampoo first showed up. There was a casual closeness to them, still tempered with occasional arguments, that was just cute.

I also liked that they thought to try asking Dr. Tofu for help, since his expertise has helped so often in the past. Making it clear this was a problem he could only barely help out with, and only one time, sold how Cologne and what she’s done to Ranma isn’t something that’s going to be solved easily.

What was a bit odd in that scene was we actually got to see the curse take effect, as Ranma’s torso changed, something I’m fairly sure we’ve never gotten that much detail on. It’s usually either off-screen or a cutaway. But I like we saw it with the curse turning him back to his uncursed form, since it emphasized this was Ranma regaining the body that felt right to him.

I’ve talked about this before, but I also couldn’t help noticing throughout this episode the weird dichotomy in who uses Ranma’s preferred pronouns and who doesn’t. Akane, Shampoo, and Cologne all call Ranma ‘he’ even when he’s in a feminine form, but Akane’s siblings call him ‘she’ instead.

The dojo scene was also a treat for me. I just kind of love how it put the focus on how this whole arrangement devalues Akane. Both the engagement from their parents and the terms of this duel take away her say in what she does with her life, and she isn’t having it. It almost sounded like she was comforting Ranma, taking a burden off his shoulders, when she told him he didn’t have to stress over the fight because she’d be fine either way. I am here for Akane stressing her independence and making it clear that no matter what happens in the fight, she is her own person.

That was a lot of nice stuff, but sadly the second half of the episode didn’t really carry it through. It wasn’t terrible, but the fight wasn’t really anything special, and the whole bit with the guys storming Ranma...yeah. Didn’t care for that. But hey! It’s finally time to do another Character Spotlight!

Unlike Cologne, who I am still holding off on doing a Spotlight for since I don’t feel like we’ve gotten to really see enough of her yet, this one episode basically gave us most of what we need to know about Mousse, so let’s just do it.

In terms of voice acting, his English performer is Brad Swaile. He’s done quite a few things, but he’s most well known for being the voice of Light in Death Note, which is quite a funny comparison. Both characters have huge egos, that’s to be sure, but Light is usually taken seriously, while at least in the dub Mousse is basically just a joke the entire time. Swaile plays him very comedically, which does fit the generally goofy tone of his character.

It is in contrast, however, to his original Japanese voice actor, Toshihiko Seki. Like a lot of the seiyuu, he has done a million things, but of particular note are his roles as Legato Bluesummers from Trigun, another anime I love quite a bit, and as the Japanese Dub actor for the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who. Honestly, finding out the Japanese dub castings is a treat every time I do a Spotlight. But anyway, Seki largely plays Mousse more seriously, as a confident warrior, only going for comedy with how over-the-top some of his attacks get, considering how silly they are. I’m going to tentatively say this is another performance I think works than the dub, which is fairly rare for me as far as anime go.

So, who exactly is Mousse? Well, like I said before, Mousse is Shampoo’s childhood friend, and the first member of their tribe we’ve met who is a guy. His character motivation is literally just that he wants to be with Shampoo, and will beat up/kill Ranma to get her. Pretty simple.

What makes him silly is the combination of his terrible eyesight, a fairly common trope that now that I think about it is kinda ableist, and how he fights. He’s a master of hidden weapons, but more often than not the items he’s fighting with are silly things, like a toilet or a yoyo. Combined with his high self-confidence, and Mousse is fairly Kuno-like, only quite a bit sillier.

Only enough though, he’s more similar to Kodachi than to Tatewaki. Why? Well, because he’s deadly. Of all of Ranma’s primary rivals/reoccurring antagonists, Mousse is easily the one most ready to kill, not unlike Shampoo. When he gets serious, he trades in the silly weapons for genuinely dangerous weapons. He started choking Ranma with his bare hands in their first encounter, then tried doing it again with rope not long afterwards. Ryoga might talk a lot about killing Ranma, but Mousse has done a lot more to actually attempt that.

All of that said, I’m pretty ambivalent on Mousse. I don’t hate him, but of all of Ranma’s primary rivals, he’s easily the most boring. He doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi of Ryoga or the pompous elitism of Kuno, he’s just a deadly joke character who’s obsessed with Shampoo. Maybe my opinions will change over the course of the rewatch, but for right now I’m still pretty meh on him.

But you know what I’m not meh on? This episode! Even with the weaker second half, the first ten minutes or so were good enough that I’m overall pretty sunny on it. Listen, I’m an easy mark, give me some Ranma/Akane fuel and some decent drama, and I’m happy. I’ll put this in the top half of episodes so far between the ending of the fight between Ranma and Kodachi and the climax to Shampoo’s introductory arc.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

But once again, this arc still! Isn’t! Done! No, the end of the Phoenix Pill Arc, if you want to call it that, comes next week with “Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen". Most of my memories of this episode come from a YouTuber I used to follow hating on it, but I’m ready to give it a fair shot. See you then!

[randomrichards]

BEST MOVIE MOMENTS OF 2020

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Abe Makes Dinner from ABE

Teen chef protégé Abe (Stranger Thing’s Noah Schnapp) hopes that his dinner blending Israeli and Palestinian dishes will mend a bridge between his Israeli and Palestinian families (as well as his atheist father). But he gets a sad dose of reality when he learns the hard way that a wedge between families can’t always be solved with a meal.

“Wait for It” from HAMILTON

On June 16, 2016, Leslie Odom Jr. surprised many by beating Hamilton star/creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for the Best Actor award at the Tony Awards. And now they understood why thanks to Disney+ presenting the musical. And it all has to do with the song “Wait for It.”

In this soulful musical number, Odom Jr. allows us to understand Aaron Burr’s beliefs in letting fate leads his path. Whether it’s winning the heart of a married woman or watching all his loved ones parish, Burr is willing to wait for destiny to reveal why. It also showcases the contrast between Burr and Hamilton. This song changes Burr from History’s villain to a complicated anti-hero.

10)          Deku and Bakugo go full Super Sayan in MY HERO ACADEMIA: HEROES RISING

My Hero Academia always delivers great action scenes and they truly shine in their latest round in the cinema.

In his final battle to protect young brother and sister Mahoro (Tomoyo Kurosawa in Japanese, Dani Chambers in English) and Katsuma (Yuka Terasaki in Japanese, Maxey Whitehead in English) from ruthless power-stealer Nine (Yoshio Inoue in Japanese, Johnny Yong Bosch in English), underdog hero-in-training Izuku “Deku” Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita in Japanese, Justin Briner in English) transfers his “One-For-All” power to hotheaded classmate Bakugo (Nobuhiko Okamoto in Japanese, Clifford Chapin in English). The result is an image of the in super powered form resembling Super Sayans.

When Deku reaches 100% power, the film suddenly turns white then stretches into abstract imagery.

Honestly, the main reason I put this on the list is because it’s pure awesome and I’m not afraid to admit it.

9)            A Survivor Model from COLLECTIVE

This documentary follows the reporters of Romanian Newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor as their investigation into the Colective Club fire in Bucharest that killed 27 people and left 180 injured exposed vast health care fraud that caused survivors to die in the hospital and would bring down the government. Another key focus is a survivor who was so badly burned she lost most of her fingers. The camera focuses on her as she watches conferences about the fire.

In a standout moment, she models for photo shoots. In this moment, we see a beautiful woman who refuses to allow her disability to stop her, revealing her power.

8)            the Wuhan Flu Song from BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM

Many best scenes of 2020 will focus on the bed scene with Tutar and Rudy Gulianni. But I prefer to focus on the scene where Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) performs the “Wuhan Flu Song” at a Anti-Masker Rally. Not only is it deliciously cringy and hilarious, but It perfectly captures all of Cohen’s strengths as a comedic performer.

As with Borat’s previous cringy yet catchy “Throw the Jew Down the Well, Cohen uses the Borat persona exposes the ugliest side of America. Watching the Qanon conspiracy theorists cheering on Borat (under the guise of Country Steve) singing about injecting Obama with the Coronavirus horrifies while splitting sides. This moment reveals the dangerous consequences of misinformation and conspiracy theorists on society. Plus, the song is shamelessly catchy as hell.

Add the fact that Cohen was nearly attacked during this scene shows how far he’s willing to go to make a point and get a laugh.

7)            The Dinner Scene from LET HIM GO

This scene is a perfect example of how you put subtext in a scene. On the surface, It’s just Weboy matriarch Blanche (Lesley Manville) serving porkchops to her daughter in law Lorna’s(Kayli Carter) former parent in laws Margaret (Diane Lane) and George Blackledge (Kevin Costner). But with the context of Margaret and George trying to deliver Lorna and their grandson from her abusive husband, you can feel the hostility in the atmosphere.

It’s a credit to the actors and their ability to hide their aggression under a mask of southern hospitality. It’s especially true for Manville, who brings to life a woman who is a master of hiding her cruelty under a pleasant smile. She may sound welcoming to them, but you can tell something’s off about her. No wonder she’s able to manipulate the police into siding with her. Hell, many audience will be surprised when they find out she’s British in real life.

Lane matches her every step of the way with the most nuanced jabs.

It won’t get as much appreciation due to it’s unassuming nature. But it’s a perfect scene to show how to bring nuance to a performance.

6)            The Restaurant Scene from THE INVISIBLE MAN

At first, it seemed Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) finally has the drop on her sociopathic control freak ex Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). After days being tormented by him, Cecilia finally has proof of how he turns invisible. Now she goes to a public restaurant to convince her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer). But then a  levitating knife appears out of nowhere and slits Emily’s throat before flying into Cecilia’s hands.

Director Leigh Whannell and cinematographer Stefan Duscio do an excellent job using everyday envirnoments to create a sense of unease. Whenever the camera lingers on a kitchen, you search with anxious eyes for any sign of Adrian. In this case, they use the ambience of a crowded fancy restaurant to create a false sense of security. And yet, you can’t help but wonder if Adrian’s still watching them.

It’s in this scene where title character goes from a good villain to a great villain. Here we see what a cunning monster he truly is. The scene also showcases Moss’s terrific performance as her desperate eyes showcase the complete helplessness she feels in this scenario.

5)            Edna sheds her skin in RELIC

Rarely do the words “horror” and “heartbreaking” go together, but that describes the ending to this underrated gem.

Kay (Emily Mortimer) returns to her family home to care for her mother Edna (Robyn Nevin), who seems to be suffering from dementia. Now she and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) find themselves trapped in the crawlspace while fleeing a warped Edna, who has been warped by a supernatural force. With contorted joints and decaying flesh, she has become monstrous. At first it seems they have defeated Edna and are heading out the door.

Then Kay looks back to see her mother lying on the ground, struggling to breath. This brings the film into a unexpected turn as Kay carries the creature that used to be her mother to bed. When Kay peels the skin off Edna’s body to reveal a charcoal skinned, dying creature, the film goes from creepy to heartbreaing. Anyone who ever lost a loved one to dementia will recognize to devastating feeling of watching them fade away right in front of your eyes.

4)             The one-take action scene in EXTRACTION

Well, we can’t have a best movie moments of 2020 list without mentioning the 10 minute action sequence from Extraction.

As black market mercenary Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) shields the kidnapped son of a drug lord from other mercenaries, his race across a Bangladesh village delivers all you want from an action movie. Fast paced car chase? Check. Semi-automatic gun battles? Check. Hand to hand combat? Check. Parkour across rooftops? You bet. Sometimes you’ll even get people get hit by cars during hand to hand combat. All of this happens while cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel makes it look like one take.

Sure, sophisticated viewers will recognize there the cuts are hidden. But when director Sam Hargrave is willing to ride on the hood of a car as it races across dirt roads for the sake of a shot, you can’t help but be impressed

3)            Opening Bike Ride from THE CLIMB

The film begins with what sees like a regular bike ride. American Mike (Director and Co-Writer Michael Angelo Covino) and Kyle (Co-Writer Kyle Marvin) are racing across the road of a French mountain before Kyle’s wedding. But then Mike reveals he’s slept with Kyle’s fiancé, resulting in the furious Kyle to chase Mike. Unfortunately, they’re both too exhausted to commit to a long chase.

The whole opening sequence could be its own short film. Covino and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein) shoot it all in one unbroken take, allowing the awkward exchange to flow more naturally. It leads to a hilarious moment when Kyle tries to chase Mike, but neither have the energy to keep going. Plus, it summarizes the reoccuring cycle of the film with Mike becoming increasingly self-destructive and a terrible friend and Kyle being nice until pushed too far.

2)            The Ending from UNCUT GEMS

After spending two hours in a state of panic, it looks like the audience will finally breath a sigh of relief. After locking his pissed off brother in law Arlo (Eric Bogosian) and his goons Phil (Keith William Richards) and Nico (Tommy Kominik) in the Jewelry store with him, smooth talking jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) makes the biggest win of his life via pinpoint accurate predictions of a basketball game. Now he has millions of dollars; way more than enough to pay off his debt. Everything’s coming up Howard. That is until the furious Phil puts a bullet in Howard’s head and proceeds to rob his store.

With all his reckless behaviour (including putting his girlfriend at risk) and overconfidence, you knew at somehow Howard was going to be punished. But when the flilm cuts to scenes of Howard’s family celebrating the game and his girlfriend leaves with the money, you can’t help but know how bad they’re going to feel when they find Howard dead.

Then the camera zooms into Howard’s bullet wound to reveal the same colourful kaliedescope imagery as shown within the title uncut gems. With Daniel Lopatin’s enchanting new wave score playing, this moment gives the audience a moment to finally relax before closing with Gigi D’Agostino’s L’amour Toujours.

In spite of (or because of) his flaws; Howard is himself an uncut gem.

1)            The little things inspire Joe from SOUL

Everyone recognizes “The Pixar Moment”; that scene that elevates a Pixar film from great to extraordinary. No one can truly define it, but it’s the one scene from the film everyone talks about. It’s the ten-minute prologue from Up. It’s Anton Ego’s reaction after trying Remy’s dish in Ratatouille. Even a lesser Pixar film can have this moment; a perfect example is when Lighting McQueen allows Ramirez to race in his place in Cars 3. Now we can add another film to the list thanks to Pixar’s latest masterpiece Soul.

After a day of escaping the afterlife and being trapped in the body of a therapy cat, Joe Gardner’s (Jamie Foxx) has finally achieved his dream of being in a Jazz band. And he feels…nothing. So, he heads back to his piano to ponder his direction in life. Then he finds the items 22 (Tina Fey) collected while in his body. What results is a moment fans will be coming back to in their moment of need.

As Joe rests 22’s items in front of his piano and starts playing, he comes to realize how a pizza crust and a seed truly meant to her. In the process, he comes realize the moments that seemed meaningless at first had some magic in them. The joy of playing for his father. The feel of the ocean waves flowing on his feet. The taste of a café’s pie.

In a time when many people can’t do any major activities, this moment serves as a reminder of to appreciate the little things in life. I imagine many audiences will return to this scene in their lowest moments.

[vrainsrewatch]

episode 10 thoughts

i don’t have as much to say about this episode as i thought i would, but that’s probably because it’s mostly dueling. we do get our first master duel of the series, though, and that’s pretty cool! 

ah, yes, the start of a beautiful rivalry.

seriously, i could talk all day about how i love the way these two interact and bounce off of each other in the earlier eps like this, and how i adore the ryoken reveal and how much good it did for both of their characters and arcs, but i probably shouldn’t lol. i will say that i think they have my favorite rivalry in all of ygo, but again, i still haven’t watched zexal (shame me more), so who knows how i’ll feel about that once i finally get around to it.

anyways,

this little reoccurring thing is so cute, honestly. i love the way they change it up throughout the show, too, with “i thought AIs didn’t pray?” and everything. it’s a really nice and subtle way to show ai becoming more and more human and also showing how their relationship develops, too. stuff like that makes me really happy.

THE IGNIS ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN, SHITSTAIN, YOUR SON IS RIGHT THERE. seriously, though, the ignis are not his children. it’s kinda terrible that he thinks like that when he has a living, breathing son who wants nothing more than to have his love and approval. and on top of that, it also really shows what he thinks of ryoken, too, in a less obvious way.

he didn’t raise the ignis. once they were created, they fucked off into the network and created the cyberse world and governed themselves without his interference. to be this upset over his own decision to take them out despite only being their creator is really telling of how much of a hand he actually had in raising his real son, and it’s certainly not a good look.

people hate on him all day long for a myriad of things, and i don’t blame them, but honestly objectively, he’s a terrible person. a perfectly fine character, there’s nothing particularly inconsistent with his writing, but an awful, awful person lol.

moving on.

setting the scene for all of rev’s future duels, lmao. seriously, the OG trap card thing was so hype every time, and made me always look forward to his duels. can’t wait to get to that part lol.

we also get the chess pieces again, and man, i really underestimated how often they were brought up in the early episodes lol. i still don’t think they needed to be a big presence going forward, but i understand why people are irked they were just dropped. that said,

you actually have a reasonable point? after your bs on aoi and akira from episode 8, i wasn’t expecting that lmao.

again, the imagery in this series can be really amazing. i actually love this shot a lot. the colors, the symbolism... prisoners of destiny certainly comes to mind, and it’s good foreshadowing that they are both still locked in the past, completely intertwined with the other’s, even if they don’t know it yet.

THEY CHANGED IT??? LITERALLY ONE EPISODE LATER??? HOLD ON, I FEEL LIKE I’M MAKING THIS UP.

OKAY I’M NOT CRAZY. 

i’ve never heard people talk about this, but seriously??? at least be consistent about it in the episodes right next to each other lmao. oof. on that same note,

ah yes, back before rokkets had come to the TCG so CR was still calling them varrets. good times. 

back to real analysis lol

i love how quickly playmaker picks up on this. part of why i don’t care that yusaku never lost a single duel is because of shit like this - he’s incredibly intelligent and his ability to understand a board or an opponent quickly is amazing. i’ve heard a lot of people complain about his lack of losses, and like, i get it, the angst/character potential watching him lose an important duel would’ve had is amazing, but it honestly makes sense he never lost.

the series shows him just picking up his old deck and getting right back into it once he gets fed up, but if you don’t think someone with trauma wouldn’t practice meticulously to make sure he never had to worry about a panic attack due to losing, i highly urge you to think about it a bit more lol.

and while yusaku never lost, he did have what, 3 ties in the series? 2 to rev and 1 to bohman iirc, so that’s not... terrible.

oh speaking of which, i love how revolver forced a tie in their speed duel. it’s implied that it was planned from the very start, and i find that so interesting. how difficult would that be? to plan for a tie? it really shows how intelligent revolver is.

speaking of rev,

what a dramatic asshole lol. i love you.

and also,

this is.... sad. it really makes me think that, try as he might not to, he holds some resentment over his father never being around/present much in his life and takes that anger out on cyberse. he’s not sympathetic to his father feeling like he’s killing a child - and nor should he be - and instead says that he understands that they need to be destroyed. it’s not an i’m sorry father or anything remotely in the same vein as that. 

and again, i will reiterate it should not be, fuck dr. kogami, revolver should be angry his father is a neglectful at best piece of shit, and honestly this is a good reaction in some ways, but it’s really, really sad. it’s so sad to see, and i really wonder if he had the love and affection he should’ve had growing up (and I KNOW the KOH did some good things for him, but they were working on restoring his father in the network, and probably had no fuckin clue how to take care of a child) if he wouldn’t have grown to hate the cyberse/ignis so much, and maybe could’ve been more easily persuaded that due to their free will, they could make their own choices on humanity.

but hey, i digress. 

and this is the first scene where we see that ai might be growing on yusaku! whether you take this to mean that he knows ai is useful to him in duels, or that he’s actually forming a connection already with him, it’s hard to deny that he really does worry about ai, even this early on. i love it. they make me soft.

i mean, i guess it’s not that early anymore, it’s the 10th episode. but still lol.

might watch another tonight if i can! we shall see~ if not, i’ll be home all day tomorrow, so i’ll definitely be watching some then!

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFMA9lHtkyM

So you’re talking about a show with a very limited runtime and a large cast while making a point about having too big a cast.

How can you fuck this up?

Well, you can start by saying that introducing a bunch of characters at once is bad...while every Shounen show laughs at you while also claiming Yang never did anything important until her arm (the absolute latest is Volume 2 Episode 6) or acting like Ren doesn’t serve as an important aspect of JNPR due to his levelheadedness contrasting Nora to make her standout more.

You can continue to fuck this up by acting as though characters like Cardin and Scarlet/Sage are introduced as important with the later showing up out of nowhere in his arc and just whimpering off screen with no indication he’ll ever show up again while the latter two aren’t even talked about by their teammates with one of whom basically being a satellite character to Sun.

You can compound this by visually indicating Raven is one of these characters despite being built up in Volumes 2-4, having a direct impact on one of the main characters playing the central antagonist role in Volume 5 and leaving the active cast clearly showing she’ll turn up again.

You can make yourself look sneaky by making a dishonest comparison between all the named characters in RWBY (90) to ‘the named Z Fighters’ from DBS (52), compounded by the fact that all the total named characters in DBS ALONE supercede RWBY (around 118. not including Future characters, Fusions or manga characters.)

You can defeat all your previous points by saying ‘Yeah Turtle has a name but no one is pretending he is doing anything important which would apply to quite a few examples given. And then compound your sneakiness by chalking up half the names in RWBY to the Vytal Festivial despite apparently ignoring the Tournament of Power in DBS.

Then you can then kill quite a bit of incredibility by trying to say that among the Z fighters who are reccuring and important, you include: Yamcha (a joke character). Maron (a child character). Nail (appears in one arc and vanishes). Mr Popo (who doesn’t actually do anything). Pan (a baby). Future Gohan AND regular Gohan (the same person and one of them appears and dies in a special). Dende (a important for one arc and then a Macguffin for the rest), Videl (important for two arcs and loses all importance), King Kai (last appearence was in a joke episode). Android 16 (dies) Future Trunks (disappears after two arcs) and mind you I only included Tien, Trunks, Goten, Master Roshi, Hercule, Majin Buu and Androids 17 and 18 because of sudden reappearances. In the grand scheme of things, they could also be cut.  Also no Freeza while Majin Buu is on the list. (9 characters cut or 32%)

Then you can kill even MORE credibility by trying to say RWBY has 38 characters that are reccuring and important...when Team CFVY (showed up out of nowhere, dropped after Volume 3), Sage/Scarlet (Filler characters), Neptune (ultimately does nothing and is treated as a joke). Ghira and Kali (drops out after Volume 5), Port and Oobleck (appeared ONCE in Volume 4 and dropped out). The Gods of Light and Dark (literally fucked off). Glynda (last seen in Volume 3 with an offhanded mention in 4)., Penny and Pyrrha (dead), Amber (died in a flashback), Summer (dead via background), Taiyang (another satellite character who barely has any importance), Illa and Sun (side characters that fucked off), Ozma and Ozpin (literally the same guy) and Zwei ( a fucking dog) can all be cut. This is me being generous as I should cut Ironwood, Winter, Klein and Jinn since they aren’t reoccuring enough but the Atlas arc is a thing. (23 or 60%) Then compound this by having the RWBY characters be ‘heroes that are pivotal to the story’ (which should include characters like Grandpa Gohan, Mr.Briefs, The Supreme Kai, Beerus and Whis among others to the DB list.)

And have all this happen in barely over three minutes...in a nearly fifteen minute production.

As a regular viewer, I am not going to entertain this anymore. And if I were a writer, I’d just throw the whole thing out.

And sadly, this is STILL better than most critics because it wasn’t insulting to the writers and no one used the dead as a weapon.

[sick-raven]

Ghosts of the Present - Chapter 1

Batman fanfiction

Characters: Jonathan Crane, OC - Miranda Bradbury, Bruce Wayne, John Constantine, Jervis Tetch, Edward Nygma, Clayface, Ra’s al Ghul, Waylon Jones

About: Miranda Bradbury has gotten her life together with help of magic and Jonathan Crane. Now everything seems to go well in her life - she is happy and loved. But as it goes, happiness cannot continue forever. The League of assassins comes in Gotham and Miranda has new reason to fear for her life. Add Jonathan's constant paranoia to the mix, and you get one life-wrecking cocktail.

Author’s note: This story takes place roughly two months after Ghosts of the Past. Without that story it will hardly make sense, so read that one first.

Fair warnings: NSFW, violence, dubcon, less porn than last time, story full of miscommunications

Status: Finished, will post next chapters when in mood.

AO3

Chapter 1

Jonathan found Miranda standing at the window as many times before. As many times before, she looked at him with a faint smile and shook her head. So, he didn’t ask. It’s been two months since her nightmares started. As if the happiness she felt when the ghosts were finally locked up opened door to worse things.

First time she woke up next to him, she scared him. In the middle of the night, with a shout. She was shaking, cold sweat dripping of her face and Jonathan would swear he saw tears. Miranda never cried.

“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked. He had his fair share of nightmares back in the day. Murder of crows. Murder of granny. Her corpse stalking him, telling him he is dirty. That he should be pure in front of God. She will purify him.

He always felt like shit after.

“Yeah,” Miranda would answer massaging her ribs. “Just a nightmare.” Then she would leave to the living room. First few times he went after her and hugged her until the shaking stopped. Later he stayed in bed. He didn’t give up on her.

“It’s not worth it, Jonathan. Get some sleep.”

So, he didn’t comment on it today either. He just made her tea and went about his business. Miranda never told him what haunts her in the dreams and Jonathan didn’t pry. He would hate it, if she did it to him.

Miranda finally joined him at the table.

“Good morning.”

“Is it?” he responded.

“Better. I’m getting used to it. In no time, I will sleep like a baby,” she joked. She always joked when she was lost. That was one of her talents. Another one was she asked for help only when she was truly desperate. Normal things were okay, she always came to him with jar of pickles, as if she wasn’t the muscle in their relationship, but it looked like anything connected to ghosts or her past she grabbed and pulled in. She suffocated it inside herself like a dead rat rotting in her soul. Jonathan felt as if she was more open before Constantine grabbed her ghosts by the neck. The charm bound the ghosts and also Miranda’s tongue. Or maybe he imagined it. Maybe she never was truthful.

“That’s good,” he answered.

Jonathan hated this situation. First, he was psychiatrist. Talking to people was his job. Why was it so hard now? All he needed was to ask what was bothering her. Try to clarify. Sometimes just talking about it can shun away the trouble. Dreams weren’t that difficult to fix. Yet, he couldn’t get himself to try.

Second, he felt useless. He tried to help Miranda before and, in the end, she ran to get help elsewhere. Is this why she doesn’t ask anymore? He is not good enough, he understands mind, not magic. If the ghosts are acting up, he might never know. She would go after that face-stealing freak in trench coat who… who was able to help her, unlike useless Crane.

And third, he was worried. If she was still haunted, no telling what she will do. Her brain was interesting mix of patience, intelligence and blindness. One day she will get killed because she will act out in rush. Another shock like that he wouldn’t stand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he tried.

Miranda, biting her thumb, looked surprised. Then smiled. “I think we should talk about more important things. Are we going formal or formal tonight?”

Very well, he will follow her wishes.

“Armed, but in all politeness.”

“Masks?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t wait,” she grinned. She’s been excited about tonight for a week. Jonathan didn’t understand the appeal, but he was happy to see her smile again.

“Just remember you are a bodyguard,” he reminded her.

“I will not embarrass you in front of the Legion,” she replied.

“Thank you.”

Miranda smiled into her cup. “Sorry I’m a mess. I promise I will get my shit together.”

“I don’t doubt that. Just know I am here to help.”

“Never forgot.”

Somehow, he doubted it.

***

Miranda never doubted Jonathan would hear her out, but what would that help against the reoccurring memory that woke her every night? It wasn’t even one of the worst ones, yet it made her tremble and cry.

Crying was so freeing after emotionless years and yet it made her feel ridiculous. She locked away the bastards, she nearly overdosed on Jonathan’s medication and it snapped something inside her. No more following the League’s training, no more closing herself down. With pain in her heart she let emotions free and… She felt once again. Feeling…

Miranda was sure feelings unlocked her nightmares.

Five or six, that’s how old she was when this happened. The dream showed her scenes, but she remembered more vividly. Every time she woke from it her memory jogged and filled the gaps the dream left uncovered. It eased it and made it worse at the same time as her mind started racing, not allowing her to go back to sleep.

Little girl ran from the kitchen holding a piece of bread she stole. She climbed out of window and aimed up. Roof was the only place she felt safe at. Nobody ever looked for her there. Cold wind and snow were hitting her face as she was getting higher.

Shouting in the house let her know she will be spanked or worse when they find her. But any punishment is fine as long as you face it with full stomach, that’s what she learned. Yelling, beating, the ugly fat fuck and his whips, none of that hurt as bad as starving.

Feeling like a winner she reached the top of the house. Warm feeling in her chest, happy she got away with it again. She wasn’t good for nothing spawn, she could take care of herself!

Master stood there, waiting with cold stare in her brown eyes. Her short black hair showed first signs of grey and that made her look even more strict. The girl froze, her throat stiffened, the fear ran through her spine. Feeling of victory was gone.

“Unbelievable,” said the master in calm voice that she used before punishments. “You are stupider than I thought, girl.”

Master kicked the girl in the face.

The cold surface of roof slipped through girl’s fingers.

Miranda was falling.

She woke up with a scream and loud crack noise in her ears.

You cannot fight memories, you just have to let them weaken. The impact will disappear in time. A question still hoovered over her. How was it so significant that it made her doubt? Just because of this memory she hurt again. Not only herself but also Jonathan. She had ton of memories that shook her bones even awake. Why the fall?

“Stupid girl can’t figure it out, as I expected,” she heard voice of master in her head.

“I would love it if you shut the fuck up,” Miranda answered.

“What?” asked Terry.

Miranda sighed annoyed over herself. “Sorry, just arguing with the voices in my head.”

Terry shook their head. They got used to Miranda’s occasional weird behaviour. She always talked to herself when she thought nobody is looking and sometimes it slipped in front of other people. “Have you considered shrink, boss?” Terry suggested while putting stuffed bears into the shelf.

“Yes.”

“I mean normal one, not your boyfriend.”

“You are on thin ice, Terry.”

“Sorry, just looking after you.”

Miranda stayed quiet, she didn’t want to snap at Terry. After the rough start they got along well. Terry relaxed a bit, Miranda even invited them for dinner at her place. That turned out to be horrible idea, because Jonathan used it as an excuse to interrogate Terry. Person tries to kill you once and he won’t let it go!

“Just poke me when I get lost in thoughts again,” Miranda said.

“Can do. Hey, boss. Would you mind if I took Saturday off?”

Miranda frowned. “Why?”

“I might have a date, if you let me.”

Saturday was the worst possible day. Miranda needed to be someplace else. “Can’t you do Friday?”

“No, sorry.”

Miranda sighed and waved her hand. “But you have to work twice as much today, get it?”

“Thanks, boss!”

“And give me their name so I can make sure they are good for you.”

“No way,” smiled Terry and Miranda relaxed a bit. World was running as it should have. Her stupid nightmares cannot ruin what she built. There is nothing to fear but fear itself, that’s what Jonathan taught her. Saturday was far  enough, she will figure something out.

Now she just has to focus on her evening.

***

“Remember, just a bodyguard,” Jonathan reminded her as they were getting ready to go for the big meeting. Miranda made sure her weapons were well conceived. Getting accused of potentially trying to kill your co-workers was not on the list tonight.

“You say it like last time it was my fault. It takes two to rodeo, you know,” she replied.

“Therefore, I expect you will be the reasonable one today.”

Miranda grinned. Sky will fall before Jonathan accepts any mistake. Even though – could they call it a mistake? Embarrassment for sure, but nothing bad happened!

“I doubt Legion of Doom meeting will have alcohol.”

“Can we not discuss this now?”

Jonathan was awkward about it while Miranda thought it was hilarious. Long story short, two weeks ago there was a party at Iceberg Lounge. Even there Miranda went as a bodyguard. This created one big gossip – Jonathan was always a solo player and now he needs a bodyguard? The worst was Edward Nygma, or, as Gotham called him, the Riddler. The whole evening he walked around Jonathan with stupid comments.

“Has Scarecrow kidnapped a girlfriend?” “Johnny Boy has to pay?” “That potato sack sure brings ladies in.” “Riddle me this, who is scary virgin?”

Miranda was ready to slice his throat, but Jonathan stopped her with the calmest look possible. “It’s okay. Edward stoops to insulting when he runs out of riddles a five-year-old could solve.”

That ended up with both men bickering like two little kids. And then drinking vodka as a peace offering, as they set their differences aside with: “I like your girlfriend,” and: “Your riddles aren’t stupid.” Miranda joined them during fifth or sixth shot, because they insisted the lady cannot fall behind. Arguably, she was the most sober one and she also remembered the most.

Long story shorter – Jonathan and Miranda got pissed drunk and ended up making out by the entrance to the Lounge so pretty much everyone saw them. That finished Jonathan’s tries to take it easy, stay secret, don’t embarrass each other in front of other rouges.

Good thing he didn’t remember the fact they hid in janitor’s closet for a quickie and when they left, Nygma was leaning on an ash tray by the toilets, shitfaced, clapping slowly.

At least he stopped joking around. Miranda wondered whether he remember more than Jonathan. Erasing all security cameras feed next day was the best thing she could do anyways.

So, yes, they should definitely avoid doing this at Legion of Doom meeting.

“Legion meets only so often. If someone needs professional help, a team of specialists. Anyone can find henchmen, but sometimes you need bigger guns. Not anyone can summon the meeting, just few members have that power,” Jonathan explained to her when he got the invitation.

“Do you?”

“Oh no, I am low level. B-list villain, if you will.”

“For me you will always be A league.”

She loved how he smirked at compliments.

So, today was the big day. As they rode in elevator, Miranda got a bit nervous. She’s heard a lot about Legion of Doom. They were villains allied against Justice League. When they did something, it was huge. Who will they meet there? Joker? Luthor? Some other cool guy?

The elevator door opened into a small conference room. Miranda lost her breath. She expected big but not this big.

At the table sit giant man covered in scales. His face was deformed, jaws with sharp teeth covered in blood as if he just returned from lunch and the lunch was live chicken.

Jonathan paid no attention to that abomination. He sat at the table. Miranda followed his example and she stood beside him scanning the rest of the room. Except for giant… crocodile?... there were several of Gotham’s worst. She didn’t recognize everyone – there was Poison Ivy, she looked as if she didn’t want to be here. And Edward Nygma, he smiled and winked at Jonathan when they entered, but he didn’t say a word. The rest of people she didn’t know. There was this small guy in a top hat whose eyes frantically looked around the room. Another one was very plain woman – something Miranda aimed to be, invisible for naked eye. Uninteresting. Maybe they were unknown bodyguard and henchmen like she was. Or they didn’t cause mayhem while she lived in Gotham. Miranda wasn’t here long enough to read about every B-list jerk.

They all sat there in silence for good twenty minutes. Finally, Nygma couldn’t take it anymore.

“Does anyone know who summoned us here?” he said in annoyed tone of voice. “I have more important matters than to sit here.”

“No,” answered Poison Ivy. “Invitation came in normally.”

“Do friends want some tea?” asked the top hat man.

“I don’t have time for this,” grumbled the crocodile man. “I’m hungry!”

“Biscuits?”

“I will bite your head off!”

“Calm down, Waylon. Let’s give it five more minutes,” decided Jonathan.

“In five minutes I will eat your face, crow man!”

“I want to see you try, Croc. I will make you shake and cry like a toddler.”

“Everybody just wait it out,” the uninteresting woman said. “Waiting is part of the big play, to see if we are worth it.”

“Screw that,” Nygma smirked.

Do you see that, Miranda? That’s why bad guys work alone. Only crazy people would force them to cooperate. Jonathan is not insane, if something stupid is suggested, he won’t take it, right? She couldn’t imagine working with neither of these. Maybe Poison Ivy, but her hate towards humans would make the cooperation impossible. She just sat there, arms folded, didn’t join the arguing. Miranda would love to have her indifference right now. Legion of Doom seemed more like Legion of Fools.

The clock was ticking, and it already seemed like they will just give up and leave, when the elevator dinged, and the door opened.

Miranda nearly screamed. It took every muscle and brain cell to force herself to stay calm. Don’t run! Don’t move a fucking muscle, Miranda! shouted voice in her head.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! shouted the other voice.

And between them the master chuckled like some sort of Bond villain.

A man walked in the room. The bickering stopped and everyone was watching him. He stood at the table and looked at every attendant there. Miranda stopped breathing when their eyes met. I will die!

But he continued looking around as if Miranda was just regular part of the room. Just another piece of furniture. Boring.

Calm down, Miranda. He has no idea who you are.

She knew exactly who he was though.

Ra’s al Ghul. The Demon’s head. The leader of the League of assassins.

Miranda looked at Jonathan. He didn’t seem phased by the entrance of one of the most dangerous men alive at all. Frankly, she never told him what organization she used to be part of, but he should also freak out. Everyone should cry for mercy! How are they so calm?

“Finally,” said Edward. “I thought we will die here of boredom.”

What the fuck, Nygma!? Do you want to die!? You should kneel and hope he will not chop your head off!

Calm your tits, Miranda!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

“I apologize for the lateness. Gotham traffic is disgusting, just like this city,” said the Demon’s head. “I will not hold you much longer. I have a job for each of you.”

“Is this job worth calling Legion of Doom meeting?” questioned the plain lady.

“It requires work of you all. It will move the foundation of the city itself. Of course, you will be rewarded if glory and change isn’t on your bucket list. If you mind.” He handed out envelopes to each of them. Jonathan opened his. Miranda felt the need to look over his shoulder. Just a bodyguard! She didn’t do it.

Nygma chuckled. “How do you want to compensate us for this?” he waved the paper. “I’m not your soldier, I am not suicidal.”

“Read it all before asking any questions,” said Ra’s.

With shit-eating grin Nygma read the rest of the letter. His eyes followed the lines of text and lower he got, the more shocked his expression grew.

“What is this shit?” growled Waylon.

“Your task and your reward,” Ra’s stated the obvious. “I am sure you all know what I am offering. No secret stays safe in Gotham. I need your answer now.”

“I’m in,” said Jonathan without a second to think about it. Miranda bit her lip under the mask. In!? He will cooperate with the Demon’s head!? Is he really insane!?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

“Me too,” agreed Nygma. “I will show him for the last time.”

One after one the rogues agreed to help Ra’s al Ghul. Even the giant crocodile grinned big, his teeth slimy like a fish. “I like easy jobs.”

And Miranda stood there not ready to die.

***

The world was in mist. Miranda’s mind blank. She had no idea how they left the lair or how she got to Jonathan’s place. As if the body wasn’t hers and some outside force was leading her steps.

“So, what do you think about the Legion? Did it fulfil your expectations?”

Miranda blinked.

And ran to the bathroom to throw up

Next chapter

[moonlights-shadow-warrior]

Who Killed Strelitzia?

Ava, Ven, Skuld, and Darkness. The four mostly likely to have killed Strelitzia based on the information we have now. The fandom seems to lean more towards the former two, while I believe it was one of the later two

First, to go over what we know

It’s recommended to use x2 speed for videos

Strelitzia's Chirithy spotted Player and Skuld walking into the house to meet with Gula (x)(x) and immediately ran to get their wielder (x), to the confusion of Elrena's Chirithy (x). While Player and Skuld were in the house, Ava's and Luxu's keyblades clashed (x) and the clock tower tolled, starting the war. This prompted Gula to tell them to head back as their "Union Leaders will probably call for an assembly", at which point Player and Skuld split up, the latter saying she was "going to go join the other Dandelions" (x)

Not long after, Strelitzia arrived at what at first seemed like an empty house (x). As the two are getting ready to leave, Strelitzia is stabbed. Her Chirithy asks "Why...?" and on the zoom out the killer has disappeared. Then you get Strelitzia's last wish as she walks to the doorway and then she dies.

I'll go down the list, giving for and against arguments for each character

Ava

For:

Knew that Strelitzia was chosen as a Union Leader. And--as far as we know--her, MoM, and Luxu were the only ones who knew. MoM and Luxu taking out a chosen wielder and inserting someone different, going against what was supposed to happen doesn't seem likely. Not unless Strelitzia wasn't supposed to be a Union Leader, which also doesn't seem likely

Has the ability to create illusions (x). Would give an explanation as to why the killer was shrouded in darkness, and possibly even giving her the ability to appear in two places at once. There is also a theory that Ava became Darkness, being able to do so because of this ability

Her wording when she gave Brain his role and the BoP seems odd and rather suspicious (x)(x). General consensus as of now is that she either gave Brain the BoP when she wasn't supposed to or straight up inserted him into the Union Leaders when he wasn't picked by MoM. This is supported by Luxu saying in Secret Report 11 "One of the Five is an impostor, someone the Master did not choose. They represent a virus in the program he so carefully wrote. The virus has begun a strange undertaking: a reckless plot to allow the Five to escape into another worldline" (x). In addition, Brain calls himself a virus (x) and is possibly named after the first computer virus (x)

Chirithy's "Why...?" possibly implies that they knew the killer. And as far as we know, the only suspects Chirithy had previously met or seen was Ava and Skuld. Chirithy has also probably met Lauriam before, but based on Lauriam's inner thoughts on his search to find Strelitzia as denoted by the parentheses (x)(x) he didn't know what had happened to her, much less that she'd been killed

She didn't notice Strelitzia wasn't with the Dandelions. While we don't know just how many Dandelions escaped the war, you'd think Ava would keep an eye out to make sure all the future Union Leaders were accounted for before taking them to the new world. However, Lauriam didn't notice Strelitzia wasn't there either so maybe there were too many to keep track of who all showed up (added 11 Dec 2019)

Against:

Brain was given his role as a Union Leader and the BoP 4 years ago (x). How long they've been in the simulation is unknown, but based on Ephemer's conversation with the player (x) it's been a while. However, with everyone being able to recall events that happened before the war with relative ease, I'd say it hasn't been years since the war. I'd venture a guess to say it's been months, maybe a year at most. In addition, given that Ava didn't say that the war would be happening soon unlike all the other times we've seen her tell the other chosen, he was probably one of, if not the first to be given his new role

She was fighting Luxu shortly before Strelitzia was killed (x)(x)(x)(x)(x). We don't know how long the fight lasted, but unless she was able to create an illusion or the fight ended extremely quickly, she wouldn't have been able to find Strelitzia and kill her in that time

The Dandelions were to meet up after the bells. Skuld said she was going to meet up with the other Dandelions (x), at which point Ava would send them to the outside world (x). So Ava would have had to given the role of Union Leader to a Dandelion that she had either pulled aside from where they were meeting or found them before they had met up with everyone. We don't know how quickly the Dandelions were sent off, but it had to have been in the span of the few days (x) between the bells and the war. However, Elrena's Chirithy says the new Union Leaders were introduced shortly after (x) Strelitzia's Chirithy ran off to find her

She gave Strelitzia her role what was probably only a day before she was killed. Ava says that the it wouldn't be long before the world ends (x) which immediately cuts away to Strelitzia in her room thinking about her being a Union Leader and what's going to happen. Upon her realizing that Player isn't a Dandelion she debates going out to find them (x) before saying she'll wait in Fountain Square for them early tomorrow (x) which is where Chirithy finds her and tells her that she spotted Player (x). This leads to her going to the house in which she dies. So unless during the cut away days pass or she waited at Fountain Square for multiple days, Strelitzia was killed the day after she received the book

Brain was given his book first, then Ephemer, then Strelitzia. As stated above, Brain was given his role 4 years ago. Ephemer was sent not long before the war to prepare everything as Ava would be sending the dandelions "soon" (x) and that there wasn't "much time left" (x), and Strelitzia what was mostly likely only a day before. Meaning Strelitzia could have very well been the last of them to receive the book, so why would she kill her when she only just informed her of her role? Unless what Luxu said really shook her to her core and she quickly tried to make a last minute change

Only one (1) member of the Union Leaders was someone MoM didn't choose, as stated in Secret Report 11. This means that if it is to be believe that Brain wasn't a chosen Union Leader, then whoever killed Strelitzia was meant to have been a Union Leader in the first place. So if Ava was trying to change things, why would she pick the person chosen by MoM that she had previously skipped over for the role of Union Leader?

Ven

For:

He was very young. Ven was ~16 (x) during BBS, and had been living with Master Eraqus, Terra, and Aqua for 4 years, making him ~12 when he trained under Xehanort. Which means that he was 12 or younger during his time as a Union Leader and selected my MoM when he was 8 or younger due to at least 4 years passing (x). Which means at the time MoM chose what was essentially a 2nd or 3rd grader to lead the others in 4 years time. So either MoM was being extra chaotic, or he never actually chose Ven

Xehanort was able to create Vanitas from his Darkness. We've never seen this tempted again, so it's unknown if it's possible to do this with everyone that has darkness in their hearts, or if Ventus had more darkness than what could be considered normal which was then used to give birth to Vanitas

He said he'd barely spoken to Ava (x). And based on previous interactions Ava's had when telling the new Union Leaders their roles (x)(x), she tends to talk a lot

His Keyblade. Claims he's not particularly good at anything and never at the top of the rankings (x), yet has a fully leveled Missing Ache (x). Not only is this Keyblade the fourth to last one you get when playing (x), it's also a Dark Speed Keyblade (x)

Against:

Only one of the new Union Leaders was an impostor. So unless Brain was chosen by MoM, Ventus was meant to be a leader in the first place which takes out the first and last points of For

As far as we know, he didn't know Strelitzia had the book

Skuld

For:

The new Union Leaders weren't supposed to come in contact with one another (x). While we don't know if that meant meeting each other knowing they were to be Union Leaders or meeting each other in general, we don't know. But Skuld had a feeling Ephemer would be there (x) which seems to go against what Ava wanted. In addition, this isn't outright confirmed by Ava, rather Brain speculating and Ava saying he's "always been a bright one"

Ephemer talked to her about the end of the world (x). Ephemer showed up in her dream (x), and even though she said he told her nothing except to meet up with Player and go with them, her story quickly changes. We don't actually know how much Ephemer told her either

Ava told her that she had chosen Ephemer to replace her and lead the Dandelions (x). This means that Skuld knew about Ephemer, which again contradicts the first point. In addition, while Ava talked about a war with the Dandelions, she never talked about others replacing her (x), possibly allowing Skuld and only Skuld to infer that there would be someone to replace each of the Union Leaders who had to take part in the war

She split up with Player right before Strelitzia was killed (x). We don't see her again after that until she and Ephemer go to get Player, so it's unknown if she went straight to where the other Dandelions were gathered or not

She's been compared to Ava quite a few times (x)(x)(x). So if you believe Ava might have killed Strelitzia then Skuld, who is quite similar, could have gone through with it as well

Her eyes. Yes, I'm using the fact that Skuld has golden brown eyes as a point because the only characters we've seen with eyes that aren't blue, purple, green, teal, or silver is Skuld and those possessed by Darkness. Even the reoccurring Dandelions seem to have one of the above eye colors. The only exception may be Brain and that's 'cause I can't tell what colors his eyes are since it's so dark

Again, Chirithy's "Why...?" possibly implies that they knew the killer. And they had previously seen Skuld going into that building with Player

Against:

To the first point of For, Lauriam and Strelitzia obviously knew each other being siblings. Lauriam claimed to have not seen her much after he convinced her to join the Dandelions (x) sometimes within the two years before her death (x), but that doesn't change the fact that they met beforehand. So unless Ava didn't know (which seems unlikely), the new Union Leaders were allowed to meet and know each other as long as they didn't know about the other being chosen.

Again, only one of the new Union Leaders was an impostor. Either Ava messed up big time when telling Skuld about Ephemer, Brain was chosen by MoM, or Ava decided after meeting her that Skuld wouldn't be included in the Union Leaders

As far as we know, she didn't know Strelitzia had the book

Darkness

For:

It's Darkness. Taking on the name of what they're fighting and helping Maleficient is all kinds of shady

The book could have been given to another. Just because Strelitzia was killed by someone, doesn't mean that person was the one to become the new Union Leader in her place. The killer could have easily passed the role onto another

We don't know anything about them. As with the Ava is Darkness Theory, Darkness could actually be anybody. We don't know their abilities, we don't know if that black blob is their true form or not, we don't know their motives. All we know is that they have knowledge of the future, know MoM's plans, and know how to travel forward in time (x)(x). Because of this they could even be someone already on this list

Against:

As far as we know, they didn't know Strelitzia had the book. This is excluding the Ava is Darkness Theory

And now for some honorable mentions I've seen

Lauriam - almost completely cleared of suspicion

Brain - almost completely cleared of suspicion

Strelitzia's Chirithy - doubted Strelitzia and would've been able to inform other's about her role

Gula - in the house where Strelitzia was killed

Luxu - could've known she was to be a Union Leader

MoM - would've known she was to be a Union Leader

Luxord's Somebody - there are claims that he's Darkness, plus we haven't seen him yet

Demyx's Somebody - there are claims that he's MoM, plus we haven't seen him yet

While going over this I did notice that some of the new Union Leaders are similar to the old ones and maybe MoM just picked those that could take over in both role and personality. Ava = Skuld (obviously) and Strelitzia = Invi with the whole watching thing. Kinda falls apart after that though with Aced, as grumpy as he can be

Obviously I'm biased but really I don't care too much on who it was; I just want this game of Clue to be over and to find out who killed my precious baby angel. Just think of all the possibilities for art and fics and photoshoots

Let me know if there are any tags I should add, if I missed anything, if any of the links or information are incorrect, if there are any typos, and feel free to comment any ideas or theories.

Crossposted from Pillowfort

[avicebro]

Artemis: Where Fate May Have Gone Wrong

Okay, this might be stupid and fruitless, but, okay, here’s a meta post defending some (not all) of Artemis and Orion in Fate/Grand Order. This is mainly “where might have fate gone wrong”,  really. 

First off, let’s get the obvious out of the way:

Artemis and Orion’s relationship is horrible, non-consensual, and is overall not funny. Orion is not interested in Artemis at all, insults her, and he routinely talks about or hits on other women. In turn, she appears to be obsessed with him, in almost-yandere territory. Most of the jokes involve Orion trying to escape her and her making jokes about awn, he loves her so much! The art usually includes Orion escaping Artemis, or Artemis doing something harmful to him.

I’m not going to talk about this a lot because people have already discussed it a lot, and I think it’s the main reason why people dislike her. Maybe if she spooked you, too. Her writing in her own event and the Okeanos chapter leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, I think people have already spoken enough about why they dislike her.

Here’s why I think she’s not…as…bad….as I think people make her out to be.

Second point: let’s talk about Artemis and Orion in mythos.

Artemis is characterized in mythos as being a pretty fair goddess, associated with hunting, childbirth, her brother Apollo, and virginity. She asks her father Zeus to stand by her vow of chastity and kills a man, Acheron, for seeing her and her huntresses bathing.

I say she’s pretty fair because for the most part she isn’t a very vengeful goddess? Acheron did see her bathing. She sends down plagues and arrows against the Greeks because one, she supports Troy, and two, because they defiled Apollo’s priestesses. Similarly, she hurts Niobe because Niobe boasted that she was a better mother than Artemis and Apollo’s mother.

Depending on the version of the myths surrounding Agamemnon you read, she refused the Greeks leaving for Troy because Agamemnon boasted that he was a better hunter than her. She makes less sense if you use the Aeschylus reasoning, where she basically makes up an excuse. Something could be said for making Iphigenia be sacrificed, but then again, some variants of the myth have Artemis saving Iphigenia. The matter of whether or not gods are fair, or should be fair, is a whole matter of debate that I have no time to get into, but if we compare her to Athena, for example, then I would say that she’s fair.

If we discuss Orion, he’s characterized as a typical son of Poseidon (we’re going to ignore the version with Poseidon, Zeus, Hermes and a bull hide. If you’re curious, it’s on Wikipedia). He has a large, commanding presence, a giant who could walk on water. He is blinded after attacking a princess, and after being healed by Helios, he meets Artemis and Leto. He’s a very skilled hunter, and boasts that he will kill every beast on Earth. Gaia, mother Earth and more famously the mother of these beasts, sends a scorpion to kill him. After his death, Artemis asks Zeus to place him up in the stars, which he does.

In many ways his characterization echoes similar Greek heroes, primarily other sons of Poseidon, Theseus and Bellerophon, and of course, as this is Greek myth: Heracles.

Orion is the only man Artemis exhibits feelings for, having a strong bond from hunting together. Whether or not this is romantic is really up to you. If anything, they're close, enough that when he is killed by his own hubris, she asks for him to be put into the stars. I’ve seen this used as an example of why she’s demiromantic asexual, or sometimes her relationship with Orion is shoved under the rug. I don’t think this relationship is a la Athena, like her and Odysseus, for example, and it isn’t on the Aphrodite side. While it is fun to try and look at god’s sexualities, I would say that in the Greek Pantheon canon, her relationship with Orion should be viewed as romantic. Or, for any a-spec people, a QPP.

This is all to say that I think that Artemis being summoned with Orion, for me, makes sense. She was one of the first goddesses to appear in fate/grand order. I think that their subversion of expectation by making her actually be Artemis, and not just a cis-swapped Orion, was actually kind of smart for fate? It’s still…not good…because Orion is a teddy bear… but I mean… part of it was smart, I guess.

Artemis being summoned with Orion makes sense because Orion was the only hero Artemis cared for. She mourned for his death. If you wish to summon a goddess, having one that is perhaps with the hero that they cared most for, makes sense to me. If Hera comes with Jason, or Athena with Odysseus, or if Aeneas gets summoned with his mom Aphrodite.  

Unfortunately, this doesn’t explain a) why Orion hates Artemis or b) why Artemis acts like that.

Anyways, now we gotta talk more about Greek Mythology and why it’s complicated.                                                                                                             

Greek Mythology likes to push gods together. Dionysus is probably a whole bunch of gods squished together which is why his characterization makes no sense. Aphrodite is probably much older than Ancient Greece and probably comes from somewhere else, which is why her backstory is confusing. Poseidon and Zeus are likely the same Indo-European god, just split in two. Some gods are the literal beings of things: Gaia, the Earth, with her son/husband Uranus, the sky. The mountains, the sea, the ocean, the darkness, the night, the underworld and the eternal chaos, are all gods, too.

This makes a lot of gods are not…necessary? Okay that’s rude. But a lot of gods have similar roles. This sometimes results in gods being squished together, like with Dionysus. The most common variant of this is with Apollo and Helios, and Artemis and Selene.

Helios and Selene, and their sister Eos, the dawn, continue the days with their chariots by drawing the sun, the night, or the dawn, behind them. Sometimes they’re also the personification of the sun or the moon, which is why Helios can see all. Apollo taking over the role of drawing the chariot of the sun wasn’t hard, because Helios isn’t really known for too many myths and ultimately Apollo’s characterization is pretty simple, but Artemis and Selene were a little bit more difficult, because of one myth, about a man named Endymion.

Endymion is a beautiful man, and Selene falls head over heels in love with him. Unfortunately, because she is either the moon or can only come out at night, she only sees him when he’s sleeping. But that’s okay! Some variants of the myth have it so that she prefers when he’s sleeping! Anyways, she goes to Zeus, and asks for him to be immortal. Depending on the variant of the myth, he either needs to keep him asleep so he remains immortal, or she asks for him to remain asleep. Either way, she marries him, and has 50 children with him. While he’s asleep. Selene, please. That’s… that’s not consensual Selene.

So, when Selene’s myths were going to be combined with Selene’s, this one has never really fit. Diana, the Roman equivalent, does have the Endymion myth attached to her as well, but again, it doesn’t really work with the rest of Artemis’ (or Diana’s) myths. This one sticks out as basically Selene’s myth, which was awkwardly tacked onto Artemis.

Now I hope you can see where I’m trying to go with this in terms of fate/grand order.

I feel like FGO wanted to incorporate Orion, because he’s a famous Greek archer. And perhaps they didn’t know how they wanted to design him, or maybe originally, he was going to be a cis-swap, with more moon aesthetic because he is in the stars. It’s difficult to really say. Either way, when the twist that it’s actually Artemis with Orion as a tiny bear was decided upon, and the question of how to characterize Artemis, and Orion, came up. For some reason they were at the ‘we can’t have heterosexual couples in fgo’ part of FGO (thanks Cleopatra and Caesar), so instead of having them be either two good friends who help and have a strong bond with each other, or having them be romantic partners, they decided to have them be the stock ‘husband hates wife who loves him’ trope.

(side note but thank you lost belt for writing good heterosexual couples I love Sigurd/Brynhildr).

This may have come from Artemis’ “myth” with Endymion. Endymion, while probably well known in Japan because of Sailor Moon, probably isn’t strong enough as a hero. So, they took “Artemis’” characterization with Endymion and used it with Orion. Instead of telling the real story.

This is still really shitty on so many levels. The terrible writing. The fact that they took a bond formed on hunting talent and turned it into…that. Artemis’ ‘useless goddess’ personality, because for some reason goddesses can’t be talented and strong in their own rights, and have to be clumsy and ‘useless’. The continued problem with fate where a female character can’t be a little more complex. The fact that even if Artemis, in this interpretation, loves Orion, if you ask, male master, she will totally leave him and will love you. This continues to be a reoccurring problem, even with newer female characters.

Her design. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the design.

When you picture Artemis, you imagine a muscled, sporty woman, probably around early twenties, with a bow, arrows, and a deer. Her hair is pulled back and her clothes don’t exhibit her from the hunt. She’s not commonly sexualized, partly because of the vow of chastity, but she isn’t in the sense that Athena wasn’t sexualized, for example, or Hestia, another virgin goddess.

The design for Artemis is more similar to Aphrodite with some moon aspects thrown in.

I’m not saying the design is…. bad…I’m just saying it’s bad for her. This is not what you imagine an Artemis, or a Diana, for example. It feels too sexual for someone who, based on the myths, doesn’t exhibit a desire for sex. I do enjoy the bow and the moon aspects, and I think if it was Selene, it would probably work pretty well. But it doesn’t work for an Artemis.

(Also, her skillset doesn’t really work with Artemis either. I digress. This is too long anyways.)

So, what we get is a tacked-on myth and characterization that fits Selene on top of Artemis, for a hero that Selene doesn’t even interact with, Orion. This culminates in Artemis being a ditsy, love-obsessed, useless goddess that keeps Orion in an abusive relationship. However, fgo has given itself, and is slowly working on, a way to fix this.

This is when we put our thinking caps on.

This is mainly from Beast’s Lair from what I gather, so props to them for this. Mainly the idea is that Artemis isn’t a goddess, but a robot. There are a couple of pieces to support this idea. Ishtar, when discussing Orion, says, “I hear that person is a deity of Greece? I guess she is a robot?”

During the most recent summer event, Artemis gets upset when Orion doesn’t want to buy doujins related to robots. Finally, there’s her final art, which includes her pulling a reactor-like device from her hip/thigh.

Whether or not this is true I don’t know and why fate is doing this but anyways.

The second thing is that Orion might be showing up in Lost Belt, and probably Lost Belt 5, which is going to be centered around Greek servants. Spoilers but it’s probably going to include Poseidon, who is Orion’s father, so there could be something to that that they could explore. Furthermore, Lost Belt has done a good job at creating healthy, heterosexual relationships. If this Artemis is a robot, then maybe Orion is the real Orion. Maybe Orion likes this version of Artemis, like how Sigurd likes Brynhildr, despite her strong personality. Maybe it will be revealed that Artemis is really Selene, and the teddy bear is Endymion, trapped. Maybe she acts like this because those who created her didn’t understand her myths.

Anyways. I try to end these by possible improvements but we just have to wait until Lost Belt 5 is released, I guess.

I guess what I’m saying is that FGO has a lot that they can do to make Artemis work. And they don’t want her to be shoved under the rug. So, they should do the good things with her. Continue the trend with healthy heterosexual relationships (and some non-fetishistic homosexual ones, please, too) in Lost Belt, please.

And finally, Artemis deserves better.

[treeofonelife]

Recently it came to my (scarcely existing) attention that most people think it is bad to love on obscure minor characters in stories. I have never understood why, because...

These characters were written by someone, and if they have enough recognizable characteristics to be likeable (despite they have very little role and dialogue), then you can bet there was effort put in writing them. Laconic is one of the hardest things to write. This means they were worked on by somebody, loved by somebody, and somebody out there (the writer) wishes their care for the character would be shared by others (the fans).

There is no shame in being in for more than big buff serious heroes. These guys need love; they have it bad already with not being The Hero themselves!

Please Do Love on minor characters, because if it becomes something bad or viewed as wrong, writers will stop putting cool, three-dimensional, interesting characters in those minor roles, and then who will we love on? (Please appreciate the logic bomb with ample amount of rotten tomatoes. Thank you. I like tomatoes.)

So here is a brave, but not full list of many minor and often-overlooked characters whom I absolutely love; both in games and literature:

Lord of the Rings

Tom Bombadil

Fangorn (Treebeard, the elder ent)

Bregalad (Quickbeam, a younger ent... by ent years, that is!)

Harry Potter

Gilderoy Lockhart

(and many others, but I believe nearly every minor character gets some love from that fandom)

Aion

Kaoranerk (An inventor shugo who lived in the very Abyss; he said his wife left him because he was too obsessed with his experiments. Sad, sad shugo, nyerk!)

Gestanerk (It seems he is some crime lord at first, but soon it turns out he is an abused enslaved shugo, like all the others around him.)

Hamerun the Bleeder (The mad asmodian smuggler. He provided a rather anticlimactic boss fight, but I wish we knew more about who he is - allegedly even the elyos had some more info on him!)

Lumiel, the Lady of Wisdom (I won't forgive her inventing mechas in a fantasy world, but I wonder if she really turned out to be child-bodied...?)

Freyr, one of the high priests of Asmodae (You walk up to a fellow Named This Way, you know he is the cleric trainer and one of the high priests… The fella is stanging in a central place in the main leaders’ hall. Annnd… he wears a very cheap leather armor, and nearly calls you "dude" or something alike. Gotta love him.)

Diablo III

Covetous Shen ("You try to give a young man some advice, and he assumes you are the Xiansai god of thieves...")

Captain Haile ( "They're all dead and we're not, I call that a win, eh?" Fun fact: you can even find his kids in Westmarch; they are both brave and know how to fight, despite only being around 6 and 12! Yes, they survive, don't worry. Just do your freaking job as a hero, and they'll be fine.)

The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind

Ahnassi ("Ahnassi listens, Ahnassi hears.'')

Galbedir ("Have you been helping Ajira with the bet? Go ahead. I have many tricks of my own. Even you and Ajira together can't stop me from winning.")

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion

Gin-Wulm (The master smith in the Imperial City - he is humble, but expects dedication if you want his knowledge. He values his art, and expects you to value yours, too.)

Thumindil (A sailor in Anvil harbour without any quest involvements. He seems to have contracted greenspore at some point though, if we can believe the relevant experiences in Morrowind before that: he shows the symptoms of it with almost medical-book-grade accuracy.)

Thadon (No-one would have guessed that. lol )

Tall-Trees-Falling (The Shivering Isles is home to some really strange people, full of dichotomy...)

Ushnar gro-Shadborgob (“He is on this one's Most Feared List”; from Crucible)

Gan Luseph (The castle healer in Bruma. He is better at Destruction than Restoration, and he isn't very proud of that. This becomes a neat Checkov's gun at the siege of Bruma, where he acts as a backup battle mage!)

Althel (The scout and archer at the fortress of Vitharn. The only one there, who cannot be blamed for their failure in any shape or form. We don't even ever see her alive, but still gotta love her!)

Gaia Online

Brennivin  (I feel for the guy, being foreign and all), and Radio Jack

Ian (and Rufus)

Old Man Logan,

and Agatha.

In my own stories

Caleb Kay (I have honestly no idea what I like on him. I've even tried to kill him off to make sure he doesn’t re-occur just because I fell in love with the character, but even that didn't work. I'm hopeless. I simply love this guy for some indefinable reason, sadly. Maybe it is something with me and crazy obsessed old scientists looking for answers to questions that nobody asked...)

Claude Weller (His aging and mental regress gets used for measuring time by another character once. Minor character status doesn't get any worse than that, trust me. Might as well dye his armor red, and forget his name. And yet, not only he lives to see that happening (because writer loved him enough for that...), but he even reoccurs, and has his own stories and bits of background and lore! He was planned to be an rp character first, before I have realized I am discarded from the rp community here as much as anywhere else.)

Vivain-Sul (Does he even count as a "minor" character? He only exists to die in the story, and yet still has half a page of backstory and more lines of dialogue than any rp-able oc i have ever written about, I think...)