#on the other version of events that follows canon more closely everything goes the same up until the gang finds the primes in the cave

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[bomberqueen17]

aight poll results

Huh I haven't really done a poll before, I kind of thought there'd be somewhere you could like, see the results. But no. I just have to scroll back and find the post. And since I made it not rebloggable I can't reblog it either, LOL.

So anyway. It's not quite-quite closed but there's more votes in it than I thought there would be, and I'm going to discuss it behind this lil cut here.

[Image ID: a screenshot of poll results showing 14.5% for the sweet summer children era, 85.5% for the older sea-dogs, 55 votes cast, almost four hours left in the poll.]

After making this poll I went back to my Just Write Some Scenes approach and noodled around some more. My first attempt had been to come up with this whole elaborate Save The World plot, and then try to introduce the crew to each other right at the start of it, and after tripping over that and falling flat on my face, that's when I reconsidered and made the poll. Mostly I just. Need other people to remind me that I'm not alone in the wilderness here, LOL. And you know the quite-contrary "I need advice but mostly so I can identify that when someone tells me to do the thing I don't wanna, that means there's a thing I didn't want to do, which means there is a thing I DO want to do, and now I can narrow down what it is" impulse, yes?

But it's gratifying to find that I've voted with the majority here.

So my main consideration here is that while I cannot really reuse any of the scenes I wrote as fanfic, I can absolutely carry over every bit of the character dynamics. The canon events, I can't translate. The fanfic character work, yes. (What that means to you, dear readers, is that I thus can totally just publish the fanfic at some point LOL, so I'll... try to do that if I can ever manage to become sane about it.)

I don't know that I've fully explained, here-- I fully have a 125,000-word fanfic already complete for this fandom. Like, it is 125,000 words long, and goes from before Master and Commander to... I'm at about the middle of Ionian Mission. That's book nine. And it's all the gapfills and everything from Tom's POV. And I have a few more scenes I'm still writing, but what I have is quite a novel already.

If I took the characters from their Master & Commander Book 1 era and file the serial numbers off and try to instead give them this plot, then I have to cram in every bit of the getting-to-know-you shit, and also worldbuild the whole setting, and then also have them save the world. It's not that I can't do this, but I have this huge shortcut where I've already been working with these guys (and you know how fanfic works, I've subtly warped them from canon because these are side characters the canon author did not devote all that much time to. There are several times when Mowett did something in the first book and by the eleventh or twelfth, Stephen firmly remembers it as something Pullings did, and the narrative treats him as correct, and I genuinely think that O'Brian forgot, unless he was trying to make a point about Stephen's memory issues that he then didn't entirely follow through on. It happens more than once. Also there are a number of occasions when the narrative asserts that Mowett was present for books when he was not; he does not appear in book 3 for example, but is afterward treated as though he'd been there. "They've been together since their youth!" they haven't been in the same hemisphere in six years. Anyway.)

I've been working with these guys for the length of a novel already. So what I can do, and what I think I'm going to do, is that I'm going to just pretend that I've already rewritten a serial-numbers-filed-off version of the first volume, and dive in at circa the book 5 section of the fic, and insert this adventure at that point. Which gives me a certain rank for each character-- Pullings and Mowett would be lieutenants with some seniority, Babbington would be a newly-made lieutenant, Aubrey has moderate seniority, his relationship with Maturin is fairly mature and has weathered some storms and come out well, he's rescued Maturin from torture, Maturin is slightly washed-up with the intelligence people and is addicted to drugs but recovering-- and from the fanfic side (spoilers for the as-yet-unedited-and-unpublished fic!), I've established Pullings in his marriage, given him his checkered career (Indiamen and transports), he has two children, and also he and James and Mrs. Pullings have worked through a bunch of their shit and figured out that they should all have a threesome sometime. But, crucially, they have not had this threesome yet.

So it's like-- a ton of deep character work, that I can just plunk us into.

(I haven't figured out a new naming structure yet so I haven't find-replaced and I'm just writing with the old names, which is hilarious the more I diverge from canon.)

It's not that I don't want to tell that first story, of them all meeting up initially, but I think it would be easier to go back and write a prequel after having done the Big World-Saving Plot.

Anyway-- some serial-number-filing notes here:

Aubrey is going to be a woman because then if I write her exactly the same it comes across wildly differently and I am absolutely dying to see what effect it has. Translating Jack's particular confused helplessness around women makes this new Aubrey into an extremely awkward lesbian and I love it. (Still fat, crucially. Still six feet tall. She might not be blonde, though, depending what I do with racial dynamics in this 'verse. Doesn't matter, as calling a woman Goldilocks is less hilarious than a man.)

Maturin is still a dude. They still have absolutely zero sexual chemistry, but profound deep interpersonal love. (This is bookverse, guys. Sorry the gay movie version is great but that's just not where I'm going here.)

Instead of having a lower-class accent and antecedents, I'm translating Tom into being somehow visibly biracial, which can give the same impediment to his being taken seriously for promotion as in canon, but also lets me tie this into the other books I've started in the land-based part of this verse. His mother is descended from mainland mammoth-herders, and I haven't decided what visual characteristics that gives him but it's enough that he gets called racial slurs occasionally. As in canon, Aubrey doesn't particularly notice these things, and cares only that he is competent.

Babbington is a trans dude so I have to figure out how that works in the worldbuilding but this is an extremely useful thing to have and will illuminate all kinds of awesome things for me. As a bonus, it can just be background established fact in the first book I write, and can be a plot point in the prequel if I do come up with anything cool in the worldbuilding, but if not it can just be a like low-key background thing in the prequel too. Who knows! It gives me a ton of material either way. Has potential to establish vivid character dynamics in a minimum of words, I think.

I was trying to solarpunk-ize solid-shot cast-iron cannons and seem to have independently mentally invented electromagnetic rail guns, so I have to research that somewhat but I think I have some good worldbuilding foundations based off that. !!! Exciting. I especially love the idea that the ships can collect and store potential energy that they can use either for propelling the ship without wind, or for firing guns, and so manoevering with sails still carries enormous tactical value because if you can get in position to fire your shots without having expended your generated power, you'll have much more success in battle; conversely, if you realize you're in a poor tactical position, instead of throwing your guns over the side as in the napoleonic era so you can flee faster, you simply empty your power generation banks into your propulsion to get the fuck out of there. And it makes it more solarpunk post-collapse-friendly by having tactics that can prioritize things other than massive loss of life, which doesn't hold with the dynamics of precarious population levels in the other books in this 'verse. Life was cheap in Europe in the 1800s but that doesn't work here. I love the idea of the "battles" being almost entirely manoevering, and it being plain impossible to have just yardarm-to-yardarm prolonged hammering except by rare circumstance.

So anyway that's where I'm at. So far. Stay tuned i guess? Thanks for reading this far, anyone who does. <3

[kingthunder]

Analysis of Jaskier's songs from s1—

—and how they reflect the narrative events and Jaskier's character arc through the show. I'm trying to keep this as canon as possible and not look at it through shipping goggles, but there is textual stuff about Jaskier's relationship with and love for Geralt that's impossible to ignore.

Toss a Coin to Your Witcher: Jaskier’s first big break, the famous and famously annoying Toss a Coin. He wrote this when he was around eighteen and it definitely feels immature. He’s cracking bad jokes like “elf on a shelf” (god I hate that one, it grates me every time) and substituting “bleat” for “beat.” He’s taking enormous creative liberties with facts. And he’s being a little thoughtless; in his enthusiasm to hero-wash Geralt, he’s throwing elves under the bus, calling them devils and pests while he’s talking about Geralt as a friend to “humanity.” (more about this when we get into some of his later songs and his time as the Sandpiper)

This is an upbeat, catchy (and kind of shallow) song that I mentally classify as one of his “narrative” songs. It tells a story. It feels optimistic, much like Jaskier himself at this point in his life. After all, this is the kid who saw a big scary witcher brooding in a corner and decided that nothing could go wrong by following him around. He’s got a head full of heroics and heartbreak and nothing is going to dissuade him, not even being nearly killed. This song is a perfect time capsule of the beginning of Jaskier’s career and also the beginning of his long-running relationship with Geralt.

The Fishmonger’s Daughter: Jaskier plays this at Calanthe’s court when she orders him to play “a jig.” It seems like a pretty typical bawdy tavern song, the kind where you try to drum up audience participation. Most of the court seems to know it and sing along with it. No idea if Jaskier wrote this himself. He probably didn’t. It seems like one of those songs that everyone just knows.

Her Sweet Kiss: This song makes me feel deranged. This is definitely a Jaskier original. We see him writing and noodling with it at the beginning of The Mountain (tm) and asking other people if his lyrics are scanning well. He’s been traveling with Geralt on and off for about twenty years now, so he’s forty years old or close to it. He’s seen some shit, and part of the shit he’s seen has been Geralt and Yennefer’s relationship. He is not a fan. He is so deeply not a fan that he’s writing a whole song about it. But also? He’s putting himself in the song too, and he’s putting his heart on his sleeve, the same way that he tries to do when he talks to Geralt about going to the coast. The lyrics of this song are about three people—a man (Geralt), a woman (Yennefer), and the singer (Jaskier). It’s about how the woman is bad for the man, and how much the singer loves the man.

Whether you see Jaskier’s feelings for Geralt as romantic or not, these are the facts:

He doesn’t like Yennefer or think that she’s good for Geralt, and says so, repeatedly, both in casual conversation and in his music. In the song, he writes, “She’s always bad news, it’s always lose-lose” and that, “She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss.” 

In the song, Jaskier calls Geralt “my love” and says, “I’m weak, my love, and I am wanting.”

He asks Geralt to go to the coast with him, so they can “work out what pleases” them. He wants them to stay together and not go their separate ways like they often do.

Immediately after this plea, Geralt goes straight to Yennefer and (just in case anyone was doubting that Her Sweet Kiss was about the three of them) Geralt and Yennefer fuck while an instrumental version of Her Sweet Kiss plays over the sex. I still can’t believe the showrunners did that. That was A Damn Choice. (deranged, I am deranged about everything about this)

The kicker is that the song wasn’t even finished when Geralt flipped his lid and shouted Jaskier off The Mountain (tm) and out of his life. Which means that Jaskier, alone and heartbroken (his own words from s2), finished this song and published it afterwards, even knowing that the entire situation had gone tits up and that he might not even see Geralt or Yennefer again. Maybe it gave him some catharsis to sing it, who knows.

This isn’t a shallow catchy tune like Toss a Coin or even Fishmonger’s Daughter. It’s deeply personal and a tonal shift from his previous music.

(and it makes me deranged)

Stay tuned for my season 2 thoughts!

[chibitantei]

I don’t feel so good Mr. Adachi let’s talk about Shadow!Tsukasa.

Obligatory disclaimer that this is for the Adachi and Naoto family AU lol

The Shadow has two different appearances and phases, but they do not come directly after the other. I made a post a while back about the first phase, but it didn’t go into much detail, while this one will. Slightly.

The first one is after Naoto enters the TV along with Namatame. In canon, Heaven is formed from both Nanako and Namatame, although it takes more inspiration from the former. A similar concept applies here. The lower half of the dungeon is an abandoned orphanage. Broken windows, parts of the floor have holes, etc. The farther up you go, the stronger the plant overgrowth. Reaching the roof and climbing up the beanstalk or tree, whatever it is, would then take you up to Namatame’s portion of the dungeon.

(I don’t know what his version of Heaven would have looked like, so just use Nanako’s version of Heaven as a placeholder because this isn’t about him.)

Unlike Nanako, Naoto is 13 and knows judo and/or karate, so she easily escapes Namatame’s grasp. Namatame is too fearful to leave the last area, so Naoto runs down the dungeon, hoping that she can find a way out. She makes it down to the last floor (Floor 1) and realizes she doesn’t know what lies beyond this place. While there are strange Shadows, they haven’t attacked her, so Naoto reluctantly decides to stay. She goes back up to the last floor and pins Namatame down. When she does, the IT show up. She also knocks him out then.

She says canon Naoto's “It’s about time you arrived” line and after discussing that they need to drag Namatame to the police station, her Shadow appears.

The Shadow has the appearance of a creepy horror film child, but the notable parts are the tattered, oversized yellow raincoat and a stuffed bunny missing an eye. The tattered appearance represents Naoto’s origins as a ‘throw away kid’ as she was sent to an orphanage after her parents died. I could go on a long essay about this, but I will refrain from doing so.

Naoto’s obnoxious attitude is a mask she wears to hide how she really is beneath the surface, just like canon Adachi. There is a part of her that enjoys being a little shit, in reality, she’s a lot more quiet and introverted than one would expect. If not for Adachi encouraging her to act her age or make friends, she’d stay inside and study, and hide her emotions. Due to the stigma around ‘throw away’ kids and adoption—not the mukoyoshi process— Naoto is insecure about this part of herself. She’s not ashamed of having Adachi being her adoptive father, but often hearing how she’s not his ‘real’ daughter or how it’s weird that she’s adopted makes her sensitive to it. Her obnoxious attitude is a mix of her enjoying herself, to hide insecurity she feels as an adopted child and a way to prevent people from getting too close to her, and this is the part her Shadow mostly talks about. She also talks about how Adachi made her who she is and without him, she’s worthless. Her acting a little like canon Adachi’s goofy facade is a small example of that.

The second phase occurs after Naoto is discharged from the hospital and learns about what happened while she was in the TV world.

Her Shadow appears in Adachi’s dungeon, which is a bar. Adachi’s Shadow takes the appearance of a mafia leader, and since this phase relates directly to him and because Naoto loves her dad so much, her Shadow gets a new appearance to reflect that. She follows the same mafia trend, with a suit and a crooked red tie. The tattered yellow raincoat from the first appearance remains. She also has her little hat this time around.

After the argument and learning that Adachi had gotten into a car crash while trying to chase after Namatame’s delivery truck, Naoto feels incredibly guilty for the events that happened and blames her for everything bad that happened to Adachi during this time. She believes that under a different kid who was more understanding and grateful, Adachi would not have gotten into this accident and he wouldn’t need so many visits to the doctor, etc. Although she knows it’s irrational, she also begins to doubt whether she really is a family with Adachi, because how can she prove it? Is being biologically related the only way to be a ‘real’ family?

This is what her Shadow talks about and naturally, she denies it.

After all of that jazz, Naoto’s Shadow then takes the mafia appearance over the creepy child one.

End Notes

In the thread where the Shadow appears the second time, the IT aren’t present to see Adachi and Naoto’s Shadows do their speeches, they come in after the Shadows have gone berserk. I sincerely doubt this will ever be relevant, but this might be what canonically happens rather than the IT being there to witness very personal family related pain.

The horror child phase acting more childish while the mafia phase acts more calm is like canon Naoto’s Shadow switching from the crybaby to evil persona at the drop of a hat.

Mukoyoshi is adult adoption, specifically when an adult male is adopted into the family. It’s usually seen to continue the family business because only men can lead a business. Women are just cringe. I guess. You can read more about it here.

[tarmac-rat]

I’ve been. Uh.

Charting out some things with her. For fun, of course.

Lots of thoughts below the cut.

I've always run with the idea that Nomad!Riley's personality of being kind of rule-oriented and far more of a follower than a leader would translate well into a corporate agent, and that it would be something of a sore spot for her in canon because people would say that about her and she wouldn't appreciate the insinuation, so I've always viewed this AU as just her sort of tumbling headfirst into that lifepath by happenstance. Her base personality remains the same-- stiff, no-nonsense, stubborn, and the most deadpan woman to ever snark-- but the way things happen in this universe means that everything that happens to her leads to some very opposite life situations.

She still starts out as a nomad in this AU-- I'm thinking that after the accident she suffers at age 11 that leads her to lose her right leg, certain events lead to certain events and Riley ends up running away from the Bakkers out of shame. She doesn't intend to stay gone for long but one thing leads to another and eventually she gets picked up by an Arasaka convoy as a fledgling recruit of sorts (i.e. a body that won't be missed) and shuffled around in a sort of corp foster program.

Riley bounces from a few families here and there before finally landing in a more permanent home situation at age 14-- an older couple with Arasaka ties that's fostered several kids in the past and seen them through their high school education and beyond. Attending Arasaka Academy on their dime, she powers her way through high school and eventually university, eventually landing a job at Arasaka in their counterintel department at age 18 and works until she's 22. I think she does very little fieldwork in this version of the corpo lifepath; her eventual position as Jenkins' assistant is less a result of her talents, though she does have them, and more because her foster family shmoozing the higher ups with their friends in the NC AHQ counterintel division. In other words, she is a nepo baby.

(That means in this universe, she does have foster siblings. Cameron, 43 and working marketing in Berlin; Werner, 37 and working counterintel in Stockholm, and Malini, 29 and working accounts in Paris. While she's not particularly close with any of them, she does occasionally talk to Werner about counterintel stuff, and he does take her eventual sacking the hardest of the three).

(I'm also headcanoning for the lulz that in this universe Kai never dies, and he/their mother Ivy have always held out hope that Riley'll come back to the Bakkers. When they disband, Kai heads to Night City to make it as a rockerboy. The siblings might cross paths eventually, but over the years, Riley's memories of her birth family become hazier and hazier, to the point that by 2077 they're mostly a blur. If they walked past each other on the street, they'd probably not even recognize each other).

IN THIS LIFEPATH SHE CAN DRIVE CARS THAT'S ONE THING SHE HAS OVER NOMAD!RILEY SHE CAN IN FACT DRIVE SOMETHING WITH 4 WHEELS.

Act 1 goes about the same as it does in-game, but I actually think Corpo!Riley doesn't meet Jackie before it. I think when Jenkins asks her to assemble a team to hit Abernanthy, she calls a local fixer who then puts her in touch with Jackie, who's justifiably wary but still meets her on local turf (the Coyote in this case rather than Lizzies). The plot happens as usual and Riley's so thunderstruck that Jackie'd even stand up for her that she doesn't protest when he basically tells her to go upstairs and spend the night. When her foster parents essentially cut her off, Jackie lets her stay there so long as she chips in some rent.

Looks-wise, Corpo!Riley is INCREDIBLY vain in this universe and cares an unhealthy amount about her looks and appearances. She's done some moderate biosculping and probably would've done even more had she had the chance to before the game plot kicks in. Her black and red optics were installed for her 16th birthday, her facial cyberware her 17th, her corrosive monowires her 21st. She lasers all her imperfections off (including her freckles!) and got a near-perfect cybernetic replacement for her right leg that you'd probably have a difficult time telling was a fake-- that alone is probably the most expensive piece of tech she owns.

Her brown hair is constantly dyed black, she never misses an appointment for it. She keeps it bobbed it during her time at Arasaka because she considers it professional; while Nomad!Riley keeps cutting her hair off throughout her story, Corpo!Riley actually grows hers out.

Red and black are her colors, both in her fashion and makeup choices. She owns a lot of dress shirts, slacks, pencil skirts, office heels, and particularly bustiers. Corpo!Riley IS the kind of merc who would show up to an assassination gig in a bodycon dress.

She wears more makeup than Nomad!Riley does and has infinitely more talent and variety in terms of incorporating styles, though a harsh cateye is a staple.

In this universe, Riley is a very hardcore netrunner. She's built some pretty extensive cyberdecks in her life and is especially skilled with hacking standing tech (cars, mechs, and turrets, for example) to help her in a fight, probably thanks to a youth spent growing up around engine tuners. By the time the game runs its course she has a few different deck configurations but the ones she normally runs with are a poison/corrosion set with a variety of stall and disruption hacks, plus "Drop Grenade" for good measure.

This means she's TERRIBLE with guns, though. With the exception of her monowire, which is more of a last resort anyway, Corpo!Riley only deals with Smartlink weapons so she doesn't have to worry about aiming. Her signature weapon is an A-22B Chao that she nicknamed 'Notary' that she keeps as her primary, but also has a Gian submachine gun and an Ashura sniper rifle for emergencies that she despises because it's just such a hassle to use and even with the targeting assistance she's a terrible shot.

I also headcanon that she has, like, seven Senkohs because people keep buying them for her as birthday gifts lol, and she never fucking uses them.

All in all she's very callous and has a lot less empathy for the world around her, and while she's aware that Arasaka cast her aside, I think deep down she still has that longing to return to the fold even though she knows she deserves better. She cast herself out of her nomad life and then was cast out of her corporate life and now she just feels overall abandoned by both, and it's left her really fucking cynical about her lot in life. Where Nomad!Riley is mostly a realist, Corpo!Riley is very much a pessimist.

Strangely enough though, despite the corpo background, their totally opposite end goals, how hardcore enamored she still is with the life, I think she and Johnny would somehow get along faster in this universe-- likely because she's smart enough to realize that Mikoshi is a fucked up concept and yeah, maybe he has a point that it shouldn't exist. If she's a rogue runner and Arasaka's stuffing souls in it, chances are it wouldn't've been long before they nabbed her in it, too.

"Figured you corpo-types were all caviar and cigarettes." "World's not a rock song, Silverhand." "Well-versed in etiquette?" "...Not particularly. Though I have been known to be extraordinarily nice. "

Uh-oh, thinkin' 'bout Corpo!Riley again

[petulant-poet]

Uhhh just go off about the tv tma? What’s the plot or does it follow the one on the podcast? Set in another time?

OH BOY OH BOY OKAY SO:

the tma tv channel, also known as channel 15, is basically a channel reserved for avatars and entities of fear to broadcast fear across the world. It's a hard channel to find, but the people who find it come away either wiser or marked.

as for it's canon compliance, it's compliant in a way that no one can really prove it didn't happen. because it pulls in some key characters, but never really strays or takes away from the plot.

now, onto some shows you'll find on the channel!

We of course need to start off with Annabelle Cane’s children’s show itself, Miss Muffet’s Storytime Corner! It’s a puppet show (obviously), and tells a different fairy tale or nursery rhyme each episode, but with a more horrific twist where it starts off cutesy but gets more and more fucked up as the episode goes on and is clearly catering to a specific fear. This way, Annabelle can spread the web’s influence and create more potential avatars and fodder in children.

Jared Hopworth’s often dropping infomercials to advertise his services, ranging from an excellent butcher to bodybuilder to eccentric gardener. You can find the EXACT post that this came from and got this au started here by @yamiiino!

There are of course other advertisements on the channel, such as Breekon and Hope’s shipping goods and the Fairchild Amusement park, “Where you’ll go so high you’ll never want to see the ground again!” Jared just happens to be the most frequent figure in ads.

Jonathan Sims has a small children’s show on the program no less, one that informs children on what the fears are and how to generally avoid them. This is where it gets tricky with canon compliance because I’m imagining that his show kicks off during season 4, when he needs a pick-me-up from Martin and Daisy suggests starting a tv show. They do that, and it’s a small show they film in the archives for fun and are completely caught by surprise when it suddenly ended up on television, polished, with music, and everything (courtesy of the Spiral and the Web). They only got to do 15 episodes before everything went to shit in the Fearpocalypse, unfortunately. This idea was inspired by one of @trensu‘s posts, which you can find here!

Of course, it can’t be a decent channel without at least one News show! On Today in Terror, a Beholding-led station, you’ll find all of the latest news about new avatars, ritual attempts, big events, and occasionally on-the-scene news stories! So on the scene, you might even see yourself sitting on your couch on television! They also have their own version of cringe comps, where they pull up the latest fails in trying to capture victims for the entities and how they were outsmarted so greatly.

Every day around noon though, Channel 15 will broadcast messages and live psalms from the different cults and churches around. From the Cult of the Lightless Flame to the Church of the Divine Host, it’s never a dull moment when the preacher opens their mouth and you listen closely...

Oliver has his own show on the channel as well! His channel, Looking to the Edge, he explains the mortality of everything on earth, even the thing keeping him alive right now. He then gives a list of people who will die within the day, and goes on to ramble about anything and nothing with any callers. Hey, he paid for his half hour, he’ll use it as he likes. 

Next up, we have the music hour! Primarily held by Grifter’s bone, the music hour can be chaotic to put it nicely. However, they do get other musicians stemming from other fears on the hour as well, and it brings in a nice mix of terror for everyone to enjoy! (for some idea of other songs I IMPLORE you to listen to @daughter-of-prospero’s Music of the Fears album)

Next up: the Home Hunters show! Starring Helen Distortion, this show takes an unsuspecting couple or family that goes to Helen to move and makes their life a living nightmare, slowly changing their house into nothing but another part of the Distortion. Every episode is a different theme on how she’ll fuck with them, and each episode offers Helen free food as well.

There’s a cooking show on the channel as well! A joint effort of the Corruption and the Flesh, the show takes on the bloody world of cooking, all from scratch! the food almost always comes out bloody and misshapen with an eye here and a rib there, or the food will end up looking ten years older, with mold and mushrooms growing all over it. It never goes well for the unwilling taste tester for the food, to say the least.

Nikola also has a circus show! It always takes place in a different popular theater around the world, and shows dances, strange stuffed animal amalgams, and performers that move in ways that shouldn’t be but entrance you all the same...

At the end of the day, the channel broadcasters always say goodbye to the viewer by name and the screen switches to waves lapping on a shore, fog all around the screen to the point you could swear it was pouring out. Best not to sleep in front of the television on those nights!

and that’s a day on channel 15!

[badapricot]

Lovely Writer: Count 29, 30, & 31

These are the chapter summaries for the last three chapters of Lovely Writer which should cover the entirety of Episode 12. Keep in mind that my Thai is elementary and they’re diverging from the book canon so we might just see a version of these events and not every single thing.

Count 29

Gene moves out of Nubsib’s condo and back into his own.

They decide that they shouldn’t be seen going in and out of each other’s condos (because they’re known to the public).

Gene feels like bad emotions are bubbling up inside him the more he thinks about the day prior, and how he made Nubsib angry enough to yell at him.

 Gene’s condo is a mess but he’s too tired and lazy to move.

He hears someone knocking on the door and goes to open it. It’s Tum.

Gene feels awkward because he doesn’t want to see anyone and Tum is Nubsib’s manager, but he can’t deny that it feels good to see a friendly face.

Tum is worried about Gene’s condition. He forces Gene to take medicine and tells him to take that medicine with rice every meal.

Gene asks why Tum is there when he has work and Tum says that there’s an event at a department store and there’s a red carpet fashion show. He was sent to invite Gene.

Tum tells Gene that he doesn’t agree with what his sister did and Gene tells him that it’s normal and he understands. Tum says that still, he shouldn’t have stood by and allowed it because Gene is his friend.

Tum asks if Gene and Nubsib are okay and Gene says he doesn’t know. Gene says he doesn’t know if Nubsib wants to talk with him. Tum assures Gene that Nubsib loves him very much and he did everything to get close to him including being cast in his series and moving in next door. Talking might be frustrating, but not talking to Nubsib is even more frustrating.

Tum says he wants Gene to talk to Nubsib but if he won’t then Tum will take care of him. He offers to take Gene out for lunch and to pay. But Tum says he needs to take care of something first so Gene will have to wait for him at the event he mentioned, alone.

Gene says he isn’t allowed to be in Nubsib’s vicinity without a good excuse (like Tum’s presence) and Tum says it’s fine as long as he sticks with others. Gene is the writer and the TV station invited them in that capacity.

Gene says he’ll go to to event because he wants to apologize to Nubsib.

Tum tells him he’ll leave to buy the food and come back to pick him up. For now, Gene should shower.

Gene thanks Tum for being his friend and Tum says you’re welcome. Gene realizes that Tum is the first person to make him smile in days.

Gene showers and dresses and then goes on Twitter. He sees tweets about how SibGene was just a rumour and clips of SibAey doing fanservice. It doesn’t bother him as much anymore, knowing that Aey really likes him.

Tum arrives with food and they eat lunch. Tum then drives them to the event.

Gene is set on apologizing to Nubsib for not consulting him about their breakup.

Gene is so out of it, he accidentally walks onto the red carpet and hits his head. Tum keeps him walking straight and makes them take a selfie together so they can post it online and prove that they were together (and Gene wasn’t with Nubsib).

Gene waits backstage and is very nervous about what he’ll finally say to Sib. So nervous that he doesn’t notice Aey is next to him until he grabs his face.

Aey asks if Gene is okay because he hasn’t been answering his LINEs. He asks if Gene is fighting with Nubsib and if he wants to talk to him, and Gene confirms that he is there to talk to Nubsib.

Aey tells Gene that he told him to just break up with Nubsib and date him instead. When he sees Gene’s expression he says that he’s joking. But he admits that he did ask Nubsib about Gene at university and his reaction was so scary, he hasn’t dared to ask again. He said that Nubsib’s recent cold aura is known on their campus.

Gene gets even more worried because that means Nubsib is still angry at him, and to that extent.

Aey tells Gene that him and Nubsib were recently offered a lot of couple contracts and even a movie project deal but Nubsib turned them all down because he’s looking for a new contract. Aey turned them down too. When Gene looks worried about it (because those jobs are high paying) Aey admits that he turned them down because he didn’t want to sell couple moments either.

Aey and Gene are interrupted by the staff so Aey can go on stage.

Gene waits twenty minutes and Nubsib doesn’t appear, so he’s ready to leave. But then he sees him.

I thought that he would smile like usual when he saw me. Instead, I saw his dark brows furrow.

"Khun Gene."

I was too late to respond because of his reaction. So I just kept quiet. "Uh ..."

"Why did you come?"

The words I had prepared to speak stopped abruptly. "I ..."

Nubsib took another step. But probably because I stood in his way, he turned around. He pulled the black curtains completely shut. The coldness I felt the day he told me to move my things back into the room made my heart feel like a big hammer had smashed it. My body was numb and my eyes were blurry.

I was helpless. But I was afraid it would be like the last time again, so I spoke.

"I came to talk to you."

"To talk?"

"…"

“There are a lot of journalists and even other staff members here. Khun Gene should have known this.” Nubsib swept his gaze around the backstage. In the end, he spoke in a calm voice. "Khun Gene, I’ll follow. There are other models at this event, so let’s go back first. "

"…"

Seeing this kind of expression, my hands and feet felt numb.

This was something I didn’t want to see.

Sib, angry at me?

He seemed annoyed and like he blamed me for coming here. But from his words, I couldn't deny it was true.

My mouth closed tightly. My feet stepped back. I had to try my best not to show the face that matched my mind, only nodding lightly while trembling. "Okay."

"If you want to talk, then let’s talk in my room."

"...yeah, I understand."

I bowed my head. My ears were ringing with a sound that couldn’t be heard as I turned and left. I hoped to hear Nubsib’s voice calling for me, and holding me back. But I took almost ten steps and I heard nothing. 

My feet moved faster.

Forget calling. I felt so unstable, I couldn’t even call a taxi back to my room.

Count 30 (Nubsib POV)

Nubsib didn’t expect to meet Gene backstage.

When he saw the staff looking at them with interest he purposefully smoothed out his expression.

He knew he was being selfish in the past, for not considering how he was causing trouble for Gene. He doesn’t want to cause more trouble for them by having new rumours about them.

After Gene leaves, Nubsib calls Tum and asks him, “Did you bring Khun Gene here?”

Tum says Gene came with him and Nubsib again asks why? He only told Tum to check on Gene, not bring him to work.

Nubsib goes to change into his normal clothes and meets Tum outside the venue.

Tum asks if he’s going to talk to Gene and Nubsib asks him if he thinks it’s a bad idea. Tum says it should be fine since they’re alone but he asks if Nubsib is still mad at Gene. Nubsib says he isn’t.

At first, he was angry and hurt because it felt like Gene cared more about other people over their relationship. But after, he understood Gene was worried about him and other’s jobs. Nubsib understands, but he wants Gene to understand that Gene is more important than any work, and Nubsib doesn’t care about work that much. That’s why he’s been negotiating a new contract.

Tum asks about it and Nubsib says he’s going to tell Gene about the new contract immediately.

Nubsib speeds back to the condo and rushes upstairs to see Gene.

I walked down the hall, and turned the corner where I spotted a familiar figure in the same clothes, leaning against the wall next to my door.

At that moment, my feet stopped.

He was still in the same outfit he wore at the event an hour ago. His small head was bowed low. He was breathing in and out slowly, and the sound was quiet, but I could hear it.

The sound of my shoes hitting the ground was the only other noise heard.

The loneliness radiating off of him made me feel lonely too.

I walked closer and stood in front of him. "Why are you standing ..."

"..."

"..."

Enlarged eyes. At that moment, it was like everything stopped as soon as Gene looked up.

The words that I was going to say suddenly changed.

"Why are you crying?"

"I..."

Like he had just realized while looking up at me, his eyes widened even more. At first, I only saw a pair of red eyes. But when we met each other's eyes, it seemed like he couldn’t even stand. "You told me to come back here? I...have something to talk to you about. Right here, right? "

Something in my chest tightened.

I didn’t answer his question. I didn’t know what my face was showing. But I was in so much pain, I had to clench my fists.

"Why are you crying?"

“...” 

At first I didn't see the tears. But when I asked this question, Gene really started to cry.

His head shook slowly. My hand lifted without me thinking.

I couldn’t bear to see it. I pulled him in to hold him tightly.

"Gene, stop crying."

"..."

Even if I couldn’t hear much, his body shook with the stress of trying to contain all of his emotions. That was worse than Gene just crying. It was the first time that I felt like I couldn’t control my expression. My voice trembled when I spoke. "Stop crying ..."

I didn't think I would come back and see Gene standing in front of my room crying, red cheeks and eyes full of tears. It made me feel even more angry. Not angry with Gene, but angry with myself.

"You want to break up with me for real, right? When you said we had to just break up...”

My eyebrows furrowed tightly. I quickly said, "There's no way. How could I break up with Gene?"

"You told me to come back to sleep in my own room." He cried and softly shuddered, trying to mute his voice, and I felt more sorry than I’d ever been for anything. "You act like you don’t even want to see my face. You're angry that I said that to you, right? Or after our conversation, you decided that it was better if we break up.”

I hugged the person in front of me tightly. I moved my hand to the back of his head to press his tear-stained cheek against my cheek, and closed my eyes. “No way. I would never break up with Gene. "

"..."

"No matter what happens, I’d never leave you."

"..."

"I love Gene this much. How could I stop?” My arms loosened slightly when I felt that my words made Gene gradually calm down. I used both hands to hold his soft cheeks, pulling him up to look and meet my eyes. "So stop crying first."

His eyes were wet and his nose was red. I moved my hand to wipe away his little tears.

Right now, this was the thing I didn’t want to see the most.

"I'm so sorry," said Gene repeatedly.

"No, I was at fault or doing that. I was wrong."

"..."

I shook my head and kept eye contact with Gene’s round eyes, not hiding my face, even though I knew how I looked bad. Too bad. I usually wouldn’t want to show this face to my lover, but now, I didn’t mind at all.

Gene looked at me. But when I moved forward and hugged him tightly, he buried his face in my neck. The tiny circumference of his waist made my chest feel even more constricted.

I brought Gene into my condo, turned on the hot water, washed my face, and then washed his face, while Gene clung to me like the previous bad feeling hadn’t disappeared. When I saw how upset he was, I wanted to take all of those feelings and move them to myself instead.

My thumb moved slowly, brushing over his red eyelids.

Seeing Gene’s expression, I couldn't help but demand. "Don't cry again."

"Well, when I thought you were angry and annoyed, I couldn’t help but cry," he mumbled.

I knew that Gene was already crying over heartbreak. It's not that men couldn’t cry. I’d seen Gene cry while watching TV. Or cry when adjusting his mood while writing a sad scene in a novel. But Gene crying because of me set every nerve in my chest on fire.

I didn’t want him to cry because of me ever again.

Gene asks if Nubsib is angry with him. Nubsib admits he was at first because he didn’t want Gene to feel bad while thinking of others over himself.

Gene quickly starts listing excuses and Nubsib says it’s fine because Gene was right, Nubsib was being selfish. But if he has to choose between making fans feel bad and making his lover feel bad, he’ll be selfish every time.

“Our love story is selfish, Gene, and that’s okay. Don’t worry. I never intended to renew the contract.”

Nubsib tells Gene that he agreed to two big projects without a romantic partner in exchange for reducing the amount of time on his contract.

Nubsib says that they just need to be responsible for the remaining time on his contract. They don’t have to breakup. He asks Gene what he wants to do and Gene admits that he doesn’t want to break up with Nubsib.

Nubsib apologizes for making Gene cry.

Gene hugs Nubsib and apologizes too, because he didn’t listen to Nubsib or consult with him.

They go to sleep. When Nubsib wakes up Gene is sweating and delirious because he hasn’t been eating or sleeping correctly.

Nubsib wipes him down and tries to feed him as he best he can.

Gene never gets sick like this and it makes Nubsib’s chest tight. He feels like this is his fault.

He spoons Gene while he sleeps and wants him to get better. He’d rather see Gene’s cute cheeks cursing at him, than red and ill like this.

Nubsib keeps watch all night, and calls a nurse to inject Gene and treat him.

Tum comes over to discuss the new contract and Nubsib tells him to soften his voice and not make any unnecessary noise.

Nubsib is annoyed and wants to leave the entire time and when Tum is finally done he says, “Okay, you can go take care of your wife now.”

Nubsib gets porridge and goes into Gene’s room. He’s awake now and sitting up. He looks cute and soft, and much more awake.

Now that he’s more conscious, Gene tries to eat by himself but Nubsib won’t let him. Gene wants to bathe himself, but Nubsib says he’ll wipe Gene himself.

Gene says, “But you haven’t even slept?” and Nubsib says, “If Khun Gene isn’t okay, I can’t sleep.”

Nubsib undresses Gene and bathes him. Gene is still embarrassed and Nubsib asks, “Why? I’ve seen it all, and often.”

Gene admits that he’s glad he has Nubsib there to take care of him.

Nubsib wants to keep this moment frozen in time.

Count 31

It’s late so Gene tells Nubsib he has to leave.

He gets his laptop and tries to go but Nubsib grabs his hand and begs Gene to stay. Gene has gone back to his condo four nights in a row (to avoid fans seeing him leave Nubsib’s condo in the morning) but Nubsib wants to hold and squeeze Gene just for one night.

Gene says Nubsib knows they can’t and Nubsib says fine, then he’ll call a construction worker to come and destroy the wall between their condos. Gene can’t tell if he’s joking until he laughs.

Then he says that he’s being serious because he can’t deal with this anymore. Gene is shocked until Nubsib says, “Gene do you realize I’m messing with you?”

Gene kisses Nubsib and runs back to his condo before he can do anymore.

Gene admits to himself that he did indulge the first few nights when he was sick. He played up his illness more so he could stay in Nubsib’s room longer than necessary. But now he doesn’t want to be weak. He has to endure the rest of the contract and be good.

Gene didn’t even realize he was that distraught over their separation until he cried in front of Nubsib. He remembers Nubsib’s upset expression, and he knows that it’s equally hard for both of them.

Gene receives LINE messages from Tum who asks him if he’s going to the last event of the series. Gene wants to show he’s a good sport so he says yes.

Gene received a LINE from Nubsib telling him: Don’t just message people on LINE. Go to sleep. He wonders how Nubsib even knew.

Gene wakes up and dresses before going to the event at the university.

He sees Nubsib but can’t approach him because of the public setting, so he sits with Tum.

Aey comes up to Gene and asks if he’s watched the series yet and if he thinks Aey is cute. He tries to touch Gene’s cheeks but Nubsib interrupts and tells Aey to sit next to him instead of bothering Gene.

Gene sits with Tum and watches them wrap up their work until it’s the end of the day and all that’s left is the closing party. Gene goes to the bathroom and fixes his hair with some hair gel.

"You’re dressing up like this?”

Listening to his fierce voice, I raised my eyebrows, confused.

"Why? Is my hair so ugly?"

"Not ugly. But it’s like you’re trying to provoke somebody."

I almost choked on my saliva. “No, I’m just going to a party so I have to look good. I want my pictures to be cool. "

"Just looking good at home is enough."

"If I just look good at home, who will see it?"

"I’m jealous."

"..." My hand stopped, my gaze immediately looking at Nubsib.

Nubsib asks if Gene has time to do him too. Gene says Nubsib looks good enough but he does his hair and wipes him down with cold water as best he can in the bathroom.

Nubsib says Gene can’t pass because he looks too cute and Gene says he’s the only one that would think such a thing.

Tum is waiting for them outside once they finish getting ready.

He drives them to the restaurant where the party is. Gene tells Nubsib that he can drink since his exams are done and Nubsib tells Gene that Gene shouldn’t drink, or Nubsib won’t sleep tonight.

Gene is confused about what he means until Nubsib reminds him of what he did to him last time.

They’re forced to sit separately because Gene is a writer and Nubsib is an actor. The whole team is there, sitting at four long tables with a stage at the front of the restaurant where a big TV is mounted and showing their show.

Gene gets jealous when he sees a woman taking a selfie with Nubsib cheek to cheek, and Tum reminds him to stop looking at him in public.

Tum takes them back to their condo, but when Gene goes into his unit Nubsib slips inside. He asks Gene if he’s jealous, and Gene denies it. Nubsib says that if Gene is jealous of others, then he’s happy.

Gene begrudgingly admits that he is jealous and Nubsib laughs. He says that when the series is over he’ll take a thousand selfies with Gene.

Gene hates that he can’t help how he feels. Today was a big milestone for Nubsib, and he wanted to celebrate with him by taking a lot of selfies together, but he couldn’t.

Nubsib says that in the mean time, they can take pictures that people won’t see.

He pulls Gene closer for a selfie, but surprises him by kissing him deeply and with tongue. Nubsib keeps the camera in focus the entire time, which embarrasses Gene.

Nubsib pushes Gene to lie down and says that this is just right, if Gene is going to dress like that.

[shihalyfie]

A timeline of Ken’s fall into the Kaiser persona

The timeline of Ken meeting Wormmon and going through a sequence of events that made him into the Kaiser is relatively unclear, especially because Ken’s own memory is distorted, but production notes and other minor clues in the anime hint at a timeline that works with it:

August 2000: Ken goes on some kind of adventure with Akiyama Ryou and Wormmon

Late 2000-early 2001: Osamu dies

Around 2001: Ken goes on a second adventure with Akiyama Ryou, is hit by the Dark Seed, Oikawa sends him the fateful email, Ken visits the Dark Ocean

Late 2001-early 2002: Ken begins his conquest as the Kaiser

Yep, that’s right: Ken went on two different adventures with Akiyama Ryou.

A further breakdown of this timeline is under the cut!

So the thing you’re probably wondering is “wait, this is supposed to be a Tag Tamers tie-in, but Tag Tamers doesn’t make sense with this at all! Didn’t it say Ken went on an adventure with Ryou in March 2000 right after the Diablomon incident?” The thing is that for as much fanfare as there is about Tag Tamers being important to 02′s timeline, in fact, very little of Tag Tamers makes sense with 02 itself, and the game is is so contradictory that it doesn’t actually help you understand 02 much at all. This is, unfortunately, par for the course with Bandai licensed games, which don’t exactly have the greatest track record of keeping true to anime characterization or being remotely consistent with it at all (Daisuke’s characterization in Re:Digitize is borderline insulting), and everything we know about Adventure and 02′s planned lore doesn’t make sense with it either. In the end, we’re just going to have to follow our very loose attitude towards the concept of canon and default to the anime’s depiction of things for the sake of this particular analysis, pulling from Tag Tamers only when we can incorporate details from it in a way that doesn’t contradict everything.

02 episode 33 has Ken explicitly bring up the idea of “an encounter with a Digimon” that led to him becoming a Chosen Child happening in August 2000 (Koushirou had just mentioned the recent wave of Chosen Children having had a preliminary encounter via the 1999 incident). Unfortunately, we don’t know any more than this, due to Ken’s own memory failing, and the subject is left there.

(Again, yes, this is contradictory with Tag Tamers, but remember that said depiction of “Ken and Ryou watching the Diablomon incident” also contradicts Ryou clearly being seen by himself in Turkey in Our War Game! The anime is consistent with itself; the game is the outlier here.)

So when the Digivice emerged from Osamu’s computer (actually meant for Ken) in the flashback in 02 episode 23, we see a very young Ken with a purple shirt. Let’s take a closer look at this design.

We’ve received a lot of versions of this design sheet over the years, but all of them are consistent about one thing: this design depicts Ken as nine years old, in third grade. (Whether it gives grade level or age depends which version of this reference sheet you’re following, but everything is consistent about this.)

All of Ken’s various designs as depicted in this episode and other flashbacks are very clearly marked and depicted, and even the younger design of “Ken at the time of blowing bubbles with Osamu” has its own sheet (he’s four years old at that point). Moreover, the above nine-year-old design has an explicit instruction on this particular sheet: “please use this for his interactions with Osamu,” meaning that this is the design everyone was instructed to follow up with during any scene where Osamu is alive.

The Animation Chronicle confirms that this happened in August 2000, so it seems to be shortly after Ken’s “initial encounter”. (Or maybe this is the “initial encounter”? Ken might have conflated both.)

This is the same design Ken is depicted with when he first is sucked into the Digital World (again: he’s clearly depicted as going in alone, not with Ryou as Tag Tamers depicts). While Ken’s memory is understandably very muddled, a lot of the details here make sense with each other:

The worst thing we see of this little venture is Wormmon having to fight a Gazimon. It’s not a big deal of a thing they have to fight through.

It’s clearly short enough that Ken can go in and out during the duration of an afternoon without anyone in the real world noticing (besides Osamu).

Ken’s looking like he had a lot of fun -- definitely not the kind of thing that seems like he went through a lot of trauma.

It’s unlikely anything much of a big deal happened during this point, other than some emotional bonding with a new best friend.

Osamu also died shortly after, given that Ken is still depicted with this design in the surrounding events as depicted in 02 episodes 21, 23, and 45. (Spring 2003 also refers to the titular spring as “the third spring” since Osamu’s death, confirming that Osamu must have died within the time period of late 2000 to early 2001.)

Ken is depicted at Osamu’s funeral in 02 episode 48, and while his clothes are different and we don’t get a full-body shot of him, note that there’s attention paid to making sure his design aligns with the above purple-shirt one -- his bangs drop in the center, rather than pointing left.

However, Ken remembers a trip through the Digital World in 02 episode 43, and Ken is depicted with a very different design that doesn’t match up with the one depicted in 02 episode 23. This has often been passed off as animator error, or Ken’s memories perhaps being extremely muddled, but what we know about the surrounding circumstances doesn’t actually suggest that...

This design is consistently written in notes to depict Ken as ten years old, in fourth grade. Not only that, if you look closely, Ken is visibly slightly taller, so it’s not just a simple question of clothing; his bangs are also depicted as pointing left, the same way they’re generally depicted with him at eleven, and not dropping in the center the way his nine- and four-year-old designs depicted.

On top of that, the surrounding circumstances behind this adventure depicted in 02 episode 43 also seem to be very different from what was depicted in the one from 02 episode 23:

The battle is clearly depicted as being against Millenniummon, and, regardless of whether this is following Tag Tamers or not, that’s clearly a big deal of a defeat.

Ken’s injury from the Dark Seed is enough to completely send him on the verge of death, which probably would not elicit the same kind of casual reaction he had during his emergence in 02 episode 23′s flashback. It was mild enough that Ken “recovered from his injuries and went home,” but that’s definitely not the kind of thing you’d expect to result in Ken be emerging with a big smile on his face (especially since Osamu’s violent reaction back then was implied to be out of jealousy for Ken’s happiness). Moreover, Ken returning in a poor state of health would probably be much less likely to be noticed by his family when Osamu is dead (and therefore not there to notice) and Ken’s parents are deep in grief.

This incident is the one that directly caused Ken’s trauma, meaning it’s more likely that this incident is going to be the one that got scrambled up in memory (it didn’t take long for Ken to recall his initial adventures with Wormmon in comparison back in 02 episode 23).

Ken refers to this incident as “two years ago”, but recall that, on top of his own unreliable testimony and scrambled memory, 02 episode 43 (when he brings this up) takes place during late December 2002, meaning that an early 2001 date doesn’t necessarily fall out of the question here, and it’s also not the first time 02′s final quarter taking place at the very end of December has thrown off date references. (02 references to “age” and “relative time” are often very rough in general and a bit too overly realistic, considering how long of a period 02 spans over and the question of things like exactly how long Daisuke can be said to be “eleven years old” over the course of the series, or the fact Osamu is said to be 7 when Ken is 4 and 11 while Ken is 9, so the more important part is paying attention to the fact the design sheets are so explicit about referring to different things.)

Moreover, this design of “ten years old, in fourth grade” is used in 02 episode 23 to show the events that we retroactively know happened right after that:

Once Ken had the Dark Seed in him, it makes sense that Oikawa wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to him, since he now had a great opportunity to exploit him mentally! Remember that this design debut all the way back in 02 episode 23, which meant that we knew that there was some kind of “timeskip” between Osamu’s death and Oikawa emailing Ken, but...if that were all there was to it, why would Oikawa wait so long between Osamu’s funeral (which clearly had Ken with his nine-year-old design) and now, especially since this “timeskip” would have given Ken extra time to mull over and recover from Osamu’s death? It makes much more sense when you apply 02 episode 43′s context that Ken’s Dark Seed implantation happened between Osamu’s death and the email, with Ken still having a really horrible year mulling over Osamu’s death, then getting dragged out like this and having something traumatic stuffed into the back of his neck that had the potential to feed on his already thick emotions of grief, and finally being at the right emotional point for Oikawa to make use of him.

It also explains why the Kaiser didn’t become enough of an issue to merit intervention until all the way in April 2002 -- presumably, of course, the Holy Beasts needed time to prepare, but if Ken wasn’t implanted with the Dark Seed until 2001 and Oikawa’s email shortly after that, that means Ken building up his persona as the Kaiser only really had less than a year to form (especially since 02 episode 23 states that Ken suddenly “doing well in school” didn’t start happening until Ken roughly got to the same height as Osamu was when he died, and the illusory meeting between the brothers in 02 episode 49 shows that Ken’s not actually that much taller than said height at eleven).

Moreover, if you do know the development circumstances behind Tag Tamers and 02: Tag Tamers already existed by the time 02 episode 23 was released, and so did Ken’s ten-year-old design (hence why it and Ryou’s design consistently show up together in concept art). This ten-year-old design had already been associated with “the time Ken got hit with a Dark Seed” (which really seems to be the only holdover in common between Tag Tamers and the anime) by the time 02 episode 23 was made, and despite that, Ken was given a completely different nine-year-old design for the flashbacks in 02 episode 23 that consistently got its own sheet. And you can’t say the animators forgot the ten-year-old design existed, because they clearly were fine using it for the other flashbacks in 02 episode 23 that happened to not be that flashback -- it’s hard to easily pass that off as “animator oversight” when it’s conspicuously introduced in the anime in a context it’s not known for and only revealed to be in its original context later.

Why did they suddenly change designs and depict such a “timeskip” back in 02 episode 23 when, if it really were supposed to all be related to the same events anyway, they could have just reused the designs and called it a day instead of making a whole new model sheet for an entirely new one? Whole entire character designs don’t just come up for no reason, especially when sheets are so consistent about them corresponding to different things, and the nine-year-old design seems to be made specifically for the purpose of having a distinct one for anytime Osamu was alive -- so it’s much more likely that this distinction is actually intentional (regardless of whatever the game says in terms of specifics).

As an amusing side note: Ken’s unusual height has been pointed out by a lot of people, and it’s sometimes been speculated as a bit of fridge horror that his unusual height growth might have also been impacted by the Dark Seed (especially given the 02 episode 23 comment about Ken reaching Osamu’s height correlating to when he started expressing similar “genius” tendencies), but even putting aside the fact he’s consistently portrayed as tall even in Kizuna and the epilogue: if Ken indeed got hit by the Dark Seed at 10 instead of 9, that means the kid had some pretty considerable height growth between those ages even before anything supernatural came into play. His father’s also tall, and Osamu was pretty obviously around the same height as Ken at age 11, so there’s clearly something in the Ichijouji family overall. Ken’s just tall.

[classicnovaproductions]

Eivor was Born A Woman

Theory on Eivor Wolfsmal and their complex identity and relationship with Gender

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is looking to be far more deep in story than we’ve ever previously imagined, especially with its main protagonist, Eivor. From the beginning, and now more than ever with recent information and hints slowly dripping from various sources it looks that Eivor may be the most complex character the series has had in years, with their gender and how they identify with it being a potential key story element - an Assassin’s Creed first. As a member of the LGBT community this is very exciting to witness.

From the initial reveal it was confirmed that both Male and Female Eivor were canon (however it took literal months before Female Eivor was even revealed, and even longer for her Cinematic Trailer to be released). Darby McDevitt, Narrative Director of Valhalla emphasized many times that both versions are one and the same, and that one cannot exist outside the other. Along with an Animus explanation, Darby also said that there is an In-World story explanation for why both are canon (which also ties in with why we can switch between genders at any point in gameplay) however it is considered a major spoiler, and he cannot say any more.

HOWEVER, a prequel graphic novel, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory has confirmed Female Eivor as the protagonist for their 3-arc story. When asked about why this is on Twitter, Darby said that “It’s more complicated than that” and that “It’s all part of the long-term plan...”. So how can Eivor both be ONLY female in the comics, yet more than one gender in the game?

Eivor was canonically born a woman

In Song of Glory it is very blatant that Eivor is a woman, through and through. We learn a lot more about her and her family, with the description reading...

“Eivor, a Viking warrior, observes a village raided by a neighboring kingdom. Bloodshed and mayhem erupt as she seizes the attack in her own favor - but will her victory be a blessing to her clan or a terrible curse?”

In new info released earlier today, we also learned that...

Eivor is the daughter of King Styrbjorn, a wise ruler - making her a princess!

She has a brother named Sigurd (older or younger we do not know) who went East

She has been disgraced by her father, and must regain her honor by going on a quest that will eventually lead her to a “forgotten temple of a poweful God”

She also seizes another woman named Gull, who claims to have supernatural powers, and has a direct effect on Eivor herself

Her brother Sigurd is East in search of riches and treasures, and discovers something that changes everything

So why is all of this new information so important? And how does all of this tie into the canon of the game?

Eivor is Female at birth but by some sort of Isu artifact she comes across she is granted similar powers of Loki (who would of been Isu) therefore allowing her to become Gender-fluid if she so pleased.

This. This right here would explain everything perfectly, while keeping with everything Darby, the comics and Ubisoft themselves have all said.

So Eivor, having now being forced to go and restore her honor after some horrific events following this raid, will probably engage with Gull and ask for her help, who will then tell Eivor where she must go and what to do to correct her mistakes. After a series of events, Eivor eventually ends up at this “forgotten” temple, where she comes into possession of a powerful Isu artifact. I don’t know yet what it would be - a piece on her armor, a weapon, something we have yet to see on her? This artifact, now bonded with Eivor, allows her to fully come to terms with her complex understanding of her own gender. As any member in the LGBT community can tell you, gender is a very unique and complicated experience, as it is a spectrum.

Now with the powers of Loki within her, she is finally able to come to an understanding of her true relation to her gender identity, and in doing so is given the power to “switch” between male and female, making Eivor Gender-Fluid from here on out.

So Eivor, now finally being able to accept and live their truth, returns home and restores their honor, etc. And as I do believe that Eivor more closely identifies as female, yet also goes by They/Them when they call for it. So for now, I will still refer to Eivor as Her and They.

But what of her brother Sigurd? How does he tie in with Eivor and the Isu?

I do not think he will be in the game for very long, if at all. Sigurd, while Eivor was having their own personal journey, was East - most likely near the Mediterranean and Middle-East. It’s most likely he discovered The Hidden Ones, as by then their reach would of easily been all along that whole region. It is a fact that the Vikings had established strong trade partnerships with the Middle-East, and we also know that Middle-Eastern visitors (definitely Hidden Ones) come to Norway at the beginning of the game.

We also know that Eivor receives the Hidden Blade very early in the campaign, before she even leaves Norway, and that it is given to her by the Hidden Ones.

So Eivor comes home after her journey, and becomes Leader of her clan. Sigurd shortly after comes home as well, where he brings the Hidden Ones for whatever reason. Something happens to Sigurd either before the game or extremely early in the game, and perhaps when the Hidden Ones meet Eivor, because of who they are, immediately see her connection with the Isu, and therefore decide to pass on the Hidden Blade to her, as her brother is no longer an option, and she is more worthy of such responsibilities.

And so the Main Story of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla begins, with Eivor as a Gender-Fluid, Isu-powered Viking Leader ready to set out in search for better lands for their people, and to fulfill their destiny as a Hidden One.

Of course this is all theoretical, but it absolutely makes the most sense with all the rumors, allegations, hints and confirmations about their gender. With Eivor being canonically born as a woman, and for them to be given the allowance to live as they truly are (GF) validates not just the Main Campaign, but also the Prequel. And how Eivor grapples with their gender, and how they and/or others perceive themselves will be a story arc that will be revealed throught the campaign, as Darby has said several times that their gender is an arc that will be revealed in the long haul of the story.

Gender is an extremely complex topic, and to me this is the only logical explanation on how both Male and Female Eivor could ever be canon simultaneously. It’s an interesting concept, and it’s very exciting to think we may actually see a main story encompass these underlying queer themes.

With that said, Female Eivor seems to be the intended gender by birth, and therefore she deserves to shine in her own right

Play as Lady Eivor

[sulkybbarnes]

I just saw your post about misinterpreting characters. It was tagged with Adam and Bucky (two of my favorite fictional characters) and though I feel like that when I sometimes read fanfics, I can never just put my finger on it and I'd love to read your take on it!

Oh lord where do I even start... alright, this might get long so apologies in advance, but I have nearly a decade’s worth of thoughts on this. The short answer is: both characters often get severely over simplified, stripped away from essential characteristics, and their understandable reaction to their respective trauma gets overlooked in order to make them more “palatable” and to favor other characters in fics. 

The long answer: 

Let’s start with Adam Parrish. We meet Adam when he’s only 17 years old and we learn that he is an abuse survivor who comes from severe poverty, and along the way we witness trauma that leads to Adam having a disability, and later on learnt hat Adam is bisexual. Adam’s character is very realistic to someone in his position, so that he’s flawed and has issues to work through as the series goes along. These issues are presented at the start of the series through two unreliable narrators: Gansey who is proud and often self-victimizing, and Adam himself who is very introspective and lives in fear of turning into his father. Thus the characteristics the text gives us is that Adam is “cold and calculating” which is courtesy of Gansey, and that Adam is lonesome and prone to anger/arguing with his friends which is Adam’s own worries and insecurities manifesting in his chapters. And yes sure Adam at the start is -understandably- angry with the world at large and feels as if he’s ten steps behind everyone and playing catch-up, but he’s also visibly self-aware and constantly trying to curb any anger and moderate his reactions (even when they’re justified). The book also shows us through actions that Adam is sweet and thoughtful from how he acts around Blue, and shows that he develops as the books go on to be more aware of his actions, more confident in his own goodness, and more willing to show love and allow himself to be loved in return. The later books (BLLB, TRK, Opal story, CDTH) all show an Adam who is kind (his interactions with Opal), thoughtful (his constant thinking about Ronan’s feelings and not wanting to act before he knows he’s as serious/sure about them as Ronan is), a good friend (I’m just gonna.. gesture at the whole Blue/Gansey thing and how gracefully Adam handled it when they didn’t even deign to give him the benefit of the doubt), and a very loving person (which we see in his every interaction with Ronan from TRK onwards). So that’s Adam Parrish, complex and flawed but inherently a good person and a good character. 

However, Fanon Adam Parrish is a different story all together because he is often stripped to whatever bare essentials would serve the fic he is in. SO, in fandom you see an Adam who is either cruel and cold, as to serve some infantilizing hurt angsty version of Ronan. You see an Adam who is angry and prone to lashing out, to serve posts about Gansey being an angel who’s faultless and constantly hurt by his friends. You see an Adam who is disrespectful and hurtful to serve posts about why it was okay for Blue and Gansey to behave the way they did to him. Or on the complete opposite end, you get an Adam who is demure, shy, and almost disgustingly helpless to serve in a fic where he needs saving or some misguided hurt/comfort thing. Adam also often gets stripped away in the latter fics from any rightful anger or sharpness that relates to his trauma. Said anger is treated as something that makes him an unlovable or annoying character (you can find these takes everywhere in trc fandom), and therefore people need to overlook it to make him more palatable to them. Adam’s anger, as we see in CDTH, is often turned inwards and is an on-going struggle for him because it still feels at times as him against the world. It’s one of the best things about his character if you ask me, because it is what he grows out of the most, and what he continues to face and develop against. This trait makes him human and shows his vulnerability. Adam in canon is touch starved and loves fiercely, but in fanon the anger he displays gets used to paint him as unfeeling or constantly angry. Even though Adam shows anger only as much as any other character in the series, and often in a way less explosive (Ronan) or hurtful (Gansey) or entitled (Blue) manner. And so the point is that fandom takes away the complexity that makes Adam Parrish who he is, and molds him into whatever is easiest to digest and shove into a box that works better for the other characters. Adam’s development and arc get completely overlooked most of the time. He is often misinterpreted as one shallow thing, when he is a beautiful mix of emotions that make him Adam Parrish, and make him endearingly and painfully human and real.

Bucky Barnes, my original fave guy, follows strongly along the same lines. All you have to do is change names and events from what I said before and you’ll get how fandom treats Bucky. What I adore about Buck’s character is that he was established instantly as fiercely loyal, loving, fun, a good friend, and someone who is so important to Steve that we see Steve take on a suicide mission to get to Bucky. The progression of the other movies deals with Buck’s trauma and shows all the new aspects to his character that stem from said trauma, while maintaining the undercurrent of goodness and humor that we saw from pre-war Bucky. But once again, the complexity of Bucky’s character and his storyline; the trauma, the PTSD, and the fact that m*rvel never lets him heal, all boils down to fandom only choosing what they find palatable about Bucky and leading with that. I have less to say about this only because I’ve been a fan for too long, and have learned to conduct myself so that I don’t run into upsetting posts anymore, and read fics with a tone and characterization that works for me, but there’s a lot of content out there that strips Buck of his characteristics so much that he might as well be an OC. I will say that you might get more leeway with content based on a movie, than you do with content based on a book (where everything is glaringly obvious in the text), but I still have to roll my eyes at most content I see for Bucky, where he’s either helpless and waiting for someone to save (did we watch the same movies??), innocent and naive in how he conducts himself (...did we watch the same movies?!), or he’s unflinchingly cool and cold and unfeeling (seriously, DID WE WATCH THE SAME MOVIES?!). So once again the endpoint is that Bucky’s misinterpretation comes from a shallow understanding of his character, or complete lack of care about how he’s portrayed so that only one trait -whatever is needed for a fic or a post- is central and amplified while everything else he is falls away. I’m not pretentious enough to say that people can’t just have fun with a character and write whatever they want about it, because they absolutely can.. I’m just saying that it’s not my cup of tea and I wouldn’t read it. In fact, I only made a couple of attempts years ago at writing Bucky myself and then decided that I would rather read well-written things about him, than try and get it right myself because I’d get all in my emotions about his character. 

Tl;dr The theme of having your autonomy taken away and fighting like hell to get it back, and remaining good along the way is what makes both Adam and Bucky so close to my heart. Their respective trauma and complexity is what makes me love them both a lot, and I wish fandom didn’t often strip them away of their complexity to make them easier for fandom to digest.

[queen-scribbles]

Pacific Rim AU Headcanons

Didn’t have the time to give them a full fic, so have some Trick/Trouble Pacific Rim AU headcanons instead for @shepherds-of-haven​ event. Got long enough to stick behind a cut to spare y’all’s dashes. 

Trick is a former drifter and recent recruit who gained notoriety(and an offer to join the Shepherds) when she single-handedly took down a young kaiju. (It was a very young kaiju, and a very close call. And no one knows where it came from. Which worries the powers that be more than they admit) 

Trouble’s last partner almost died in a fight, couldn’t shake the trauma to the point it was messing with their ability to Drift, and had to retire.

Trick’s paired with Trouble after the test markers indicate the two of them have an extremely high Drift Compatibility(98%), an assessment the two of them agree with within five minutes of meeting each other. The first time the two of them Drift together goes as smoothly as if they’d been doing it for years.

Their Jaeger is a Mark IV named Whiplash Gunsmoke. They nickname it Smokey(prompting an eyeroll from Blade bc “Jaegers don’t have nicknames” “Ours does, and shhhh you’ll hurt her feelings!”)

Their suits are primarily light grey, with dark red arms/gloves, so-dark-it’s-almost-black grey up the back of the legs and curling around front over the knees, helmets are black with a gold edge around the visor.

Smokey’s primarily built to annihilate anything before it can close distance,  so her arsenal includes but is not limited to: A Gatling gun on the right arm(Trick), plasmacaster on the left(Trouble), shoulder-mounts for what is equivalent to Mandalorian songbirds, and just in case, shorter versions of the Chain Sword that come out of each wrist(those require the hand bend back, blocking one of the main weapons, so they’re only for the unlikely event a kaiju survived everything else Smokey can throw at it and got in close.)

There’s one fight against a cat-III kaiju where Trick figures out a way to flush one of the head’s coolant vents to blow smoke off the Gatling following her kill shot(s), which Trouble thinks is just about the coolest thing ever, HOLY SHIT, Trick. That may be when he starts falling in love.

They spend the vast majority of their downtime together, not through any plan or anything, they just like doing a lot of the same things and wind up practically joined at the hip. There’s a lot of falling asleep on each other’s shoulder/eating off each other’s plates/playfully competitive sparring matches etc etc

Trick likes to hum/sing to herself, and more often than not after they spend time Drifting Trouble will catch himself humming the same song, or at least with it stuck in his head. 

By the end of the first month after Trick arrives, there is a betting pool how long before they’re in love + realize it, with a bonus pot for which of them realizes first.

Good luck to all involved, bc these two are even more oblivious than in canon(if that’s possible??).

When they’re alone they’ll give each other shit for stuff they saw in the Drift, long as it doesn’t seem too serious/potentially traumatic a memory.

They both have pieces of the Serious Shit in each other’s past bc Drifting, but neither ever mentions it. Very “if they wanna talk about it, they’ll bring it up and I’ll listen.”

Lazu Reen is a Jaeger tech, and Trouble 100% still pounds his teeth in for making... Similar Comments to in canon about his and Trick’s relationship (paired with a “you really couldn’t find anyone better to [censored], Alder?”). 

(Trouble gets an earful from Blade for fighting and a shoulder punch of gratitude from Trick for defending her honor while she helps him track down an ice pack. Worth It.)

They wind up fighting a cat IV kaiju named Fulcrum at one point that apparently has a really fast regeneration ability on top of being a tough bastard, bc it survives to get in close and starts trying to crack open the cockpit, like it knows they’re in there. Actually starts to pierce through on Trouble’s side before Trick just jams the Gatling up in its mouth and unloads(she’s terrified, why is she terrified?) while simultaneously Trouble flips out the Chain Blade under the plasmacaster and rams it in the thing’s gut. Basically it take two concurrent mortal injuries to take the thing down, and Smokey’s not in great shape afterward.

(Trick doesn’t realize she was screaming in panic rage the whole time until after, when she wonders why her throat’s so sore and she feels like she just had a good cry.)

Bc they were Drifting, Trouble knows just how scared she was during that fight, but can’t figure why; she’s one of the bravest people he knows. kaiju have never scared her before. So he does one of those general “You okay? You seem rattled.” checks while Smokey’s being repaired and Trick semi-forces a smile and a “Oh, yeah, just don’t wanna lose my sidekick” joke, which then devolves into a (near-giddy-we’re-alive-adrenaline-letdown) argument about which one’s the sidekick in this partnership. Trick wins bc she’s the primary pilot. They both sort of forget about the weirdness of whatever... that was fighting Fulcrum

Still gonna be an  Outside Forces Conspired to Make Me Kiss My Best Friend... and I (Kinda) Want to Do It Again. (or an even closer near-death experience) that kicks them over that fuzzy thin line between friendship and romance. Whether it’s Chase/Ayla/Briony going “WOULD YOU TWO JUST KISS ALREADY???” or mistletoe or a dare or kissing booth or whatever idk but after a day of being weird around each other one of them admits to the “kinda wanna do it again” part and the other’s like “...Yeah, me too.” and they do and it’s really nice and suddenly they’re making out all the time and “Would you two just kiss already?” turns into “OMG GET A ROOM”

(If it’s the even closer near-death experience version, the “ I’m alive! Even more importantly: You’re alive!” hugs somehow wind up involving a kiss(???) and they kinda stare at each other for a where did that come from?? second--Idk but I like it--and then start making out. There’s an actual conversation about it later that’s equal parts talking and the whole can practically read each others’ minds thing)

V important to stress(and this is true for them in any universe), literally the only thing that changes about their relationship once they’re a couple is the addition of kissing and sometimes sex. They’re already best friends and partners and all that wonderful stuff. They’re just adding an extra dimension now and holy shit now I can’t wait til they come to their senses in canon you dorks

[midnightactual]

Kurayami’s Perspective

To understand Kurayami, it’s important to understand what a typical zanpakutō even is in the first place. Most of the available evidence in the series revolves around Ichigo, who is obviously unique, but it still gives us some insight into what the average zanpakutō is like.

ZANPAKUTŌ IN GENERAL

Ōetsu has the following exchange with Ichigo in chapter 523:

Ichigo: Oh yeah?! So these guys are the embodiment of asauchi! But... why are we being attacked by them?! Ōetsu: So close!! Ōetsu: Embodiment, huh? Yes, yes, yes. So close, so close. It’s a bit different, but that’ll do for now. But what’s more important... is that they’re angry at you. Ichigo: Angry?! About what?! Ōetsu: The way you two use your zanpakutō. Ichigo: How we use it...?! Ōetsu: You don’t understand? I don’t blame you. How you fight? How you swing it? No, no. Then what? It's something more fundamental! Ōetsu: Have you been using it as a tool? Have you been interacting with it as a subordinate? Have you been relying on it like a partner? As a family member? As a friend? A superior? A junior? Pet? Acquaintance? Lover? Mistress? Ōetsu: GIMME A BREAK!!! Ōetsu: This how they feel about you. This is what I mean by more fundamental.

Just from the way this is being discussed, we can say that zanpakutō are none of the things that Ōetsu lists off. When Ichigo eventually returns in chapter 538, the asauchi he selects takes on his appearance and hairstyle. In chapter 540, when Ōetsu disintegrates the asauchi for forging, it starts with a hole in the heart, like a Hollow. In chapter 541, “THE BLADE AND ME 2″, we get the following:

Ōetsu: Have you figured it out, Go-Ichi? Ōetsu: The reason why this asauchi turned white... the moment it touched you? Ichigo: ... No... Ōetsu: Perhaps you thought to yourself that... it’s just like... the Hollow in you. Ōetsu: That's right. This guy is... the Hollow inside you. I had that asauchi become the catalyst to draw this zanpakutō out. Ōetsu: Do you understand what that means? Ōetsu: This Hollow is... your zanpakutō, Go-Ichi. Ōetsu: The Hollow named White that Aizen created is made from layers of many Soul Reaper souls. Oddly enough... that is also how my asauchi are created. Ōetsu: That Hollow entered your body... and melded with your Soul Reaper powers. It became your zanpakutō. Ichigo: Wait a second... so then... Ōetsu: That’s right. I know you know... Ōetsu: ... About the man who's been... pretending to be a zanpakutō inside your soul!

We go on to learn that “Zangetsu”, the Old Man, is a manifestation of Yhwach, and Ichigo’s Quincy powers. Ōetsu and Ichigo then reforge both Zangetsu in chapter 541, “THE BLADE IS ME”, and Ichigo bids farewell to both, giving the following internal monologue before the title drop:“I won't ask... for your help anymore. I won't tell you to stay out of my way either. Nor will I ask... you guys to fight with me. I... will fight on my own. Thank you. Zangetsu. You are... me.”

All of this is very unequivocal: asauchi are created in the same fashion as artificial Hollows and become zanpakutō upon fusing with Shinigami powers. Once fused in such a fashion, they are their wielder and there is no real distinction between the two. It would seem from the actual Zangetsu’s behavior that he generally represents instinct, impulses, killing intent, and self-preservation instinct, although he is no mere “Id” given his relatively cordial interactions with “Zangetsu” in chapter 112. All of the talk of him being a Hollow and “taking over” Ichigo is just that: talk to motivate Ichigo through fear. (Which is necessary for evolution, remember?) Zangetsu has no real interest or desire in taking over Ichigo any more than Zabimaru wants to take over Renji. He also can’t, since he’s already fused with Ichigo’s Shinigami powers and is Ichigo.

“Tensa Zangetsu” in chapter 409 tells us, “I don’t care. I don’t care what happens to things you want to protect. [...] Make no mistake, Ichigo... What you want to protect... is not what I want to protect!” In chapter 420, White Tensa Zangetsu says, “Tensa Zangetsu is you,” and “What I wanted to protect was... you... Ichigo!” This not only foreshadows what Ōetsu says, but given that both Zangetsu are fused at this time, we can discern that this is the desire of both, to include his “actual” zanpakutō. This reasoning is presumably why Isshin’s Engetsu refused to teach him the Final Getsuga Tenshō in the first place.

(This is not an Ichigo analysis, but it seems evident that Isshin and Ichigo’s Final Getsuga Tenshō would not be the same. The existence of White Tensa Zangetsu suggests that Ichigo’s Quincy, Hollow, and Shinigami powers are acting in unison and that what he uses against Aizen is in actuality likely a combination of what Isshin called the Final Getsuga Tenshō, Letzt Stil, and Segunda Etapa. It is unclear whether what Isshin called Final Getsuga Tenshō is available to all Shinigami, only Shiba, or only himself and Ichigo. By comparison with Letzt Stil and Segunda Etapa, presumably all Shinigami should have something similar as a final mode, but perhaps it’s a Shiba specialty, as it seems unlikely only Isshin would know of such a thing, and if ever there was a time for people who did know to use it, Thousand-Year Blood War was it.)

(This is also not a Tōshirō analysis, and I don’t presume to know what’s up with Hyōrinmaru in chapter -16, let alone The DiamondDust Rebellion if it’s taken as canon, but suffice it to say, based on what Ōetsu says his experience is clearly not typical in any event. Nor is it a Kaname and Kenpachi analysis, as it’s not clear what’s up with taking the zanpakutō off someone else who died. Nor is it an Arrancar analysis, as their zanpakutō seem very different.)

All this still raises several questions, such as ones like: why does an old and experienced Shinigami like Shunsui treat Katen Kyōkotsu in chapter 649 in exactly the sorts of ways that Ōetsu mocks over a hundred chapters earlier? That’s unclear. It could be that what Ōetsu reveals isn’t widely known, and that Shinigami are allowed to labor under false impressions of what their zanpakutō actually are for some reason (such as to limit their strength). Or maybe Shunsui just finds it entertaining despite knowing the truth.

Anyway, to recap, in general:

asauchi are created in the same fashion as artificial Hollows, and effectively are themselves weaponized Hollows (which fits well with the zanpakutō which Hikone used, Ikomikidomoe, which was made from a primordial Hollow)

the asauchi facilitate drawing out the “instincts” of their wielder into a manifestation which is similar to but distinct from Hollowfication, creating a zanpakutō and its attendant spirit (or at least manifesting this spirit if it existed a priori) while leaving the wielder seemingly unaltered

zanpakutō spirits are their wielder at base, and a zanpakutō is an extension of its wielder

zanpakutō view the protection of their wielder as an overriding priority

KURAYAMI IN PARTICULAR

Accordingly, it should be understood that Kurayami, like most zanpakutō spirits, is a reflection of Yoruichi’s base impulses and desires. Unlike most Shinigami, by virtue of her high office and family pedigree, Yoruichi knows this. She was thus increasingly horrified by what she saw as a result, and internally continued to otherize Kurayami...

... But she probably missed some things in the process, because she was too close to see them clearly for what they truly were.

Kurayami is a hardliner. Her attitude toward Yoruichi is similar to Zangetsu’s attitude toward Ichigo. As discussed, Zangetsu postures in the fashion he does to try and compel Ichigo to take steps that are necessary, but which Ichigo refuses to take. The ultimate examples of this are Zangetsu taking control of Ichigo’s body in an attempt to take down Byakuya, and likewise fatally wounding Ulquiorra. Kurayami’s constant admonitions of Yoruichi, advocacy of first strikes, and appeals to violence are her version of the same idea, as Yoruichi’s preferences for socializing, toying with her opponents, and avoiding killing might get her killed instead one day. (See also: Askin.) She always pushes for the maximal use of force, for overkill, because as Ripley says in Aliens: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Kurayami only cares for Yoruichi’s continued existence. Despite being perfectly aware of Yoruichi’s guilt regarding what occurred during her time in the Onmitsukidō and Gotei 13, Kurayami would happily kill a million, a billion, or a trillion people if it meant that Yoruichi continued to live. The lives of others aren’t meaningless, but they simply do not matter to her in comparison. It’s not exactly that she only views Yoruichi’s compassion, empathy, and sympathy as weaknesses, as they can be tactically advantageous, but she believes Yoruichi is too committed to them even when it imperils her.

Kurayami largely disdains others. Being Yoruichi herself, knowing everything she knows, Kurayami can reflect upon Yoruichi’s life and judge it from a somewhat different point of view than Yoruichi herself. What she finds isn’t great. Kurayami’s perspective is that others have used and abused Yoruichi, either blatantly to get what they wanted, or subtly through needing her. Her position is thus that almost everyone else can fuck off and die. “Leave Yoruichi alone,” and “You all don’t deserve her,” are fairly apt summations of her point of view. While this hostility isn’t (usually) actively violent or lethal, she is unlikely to treat most of those Yoruichi knows in any fashion other than condescendingly.

To summarize: Kurayami is actually Yoruichi’s biggest advocate and booster, just in her own way. She’s hard on and critical of Yoruichi because Yoruichi has been trained to be predisposed to learning best from that kind of input, and because Kurayami cares enough to settle for always being cast as a villain if it means Yoruichi goes on and succeeds. She believes that almost no one is worthy of Yoruichi’s time and attention, let alone her blood, sweat, and tears. And finally, she has an infinitely negative amount of compassion for anyone who would oppose Yoruichi, regardless of any and all reasons involved in any dispute or conflict.

She loves Yoruichi (and how can she not, since they’re one in the same?) and would gladly turn the universe to ash for her to keep her going even one more day. Lobbying for murderous rampages is in effect a posture she adopts to make a point rather than a desire she lusts for. She’s never actually at risk of losing control or going berserk—it’s always only ever about doing what needs to be done with minimal risk.

[leonawriter]

Okay so, yesterday Aja on Twitter kindly wrote up some of the differences between the Dead Apple movie and the stage play. Here it is, if you want to read it.

My problem is that despite the script having been written by Asagiri, there’s a strange juxtaposition here - a love of making references to events that happened in the past, or previous books that have been released since Dead Apple first premiered, while at the same time having a certain disregard for characterisation continuity.

I’m not going to copy the images into this post, but assuming you’ve got it in another tab or something-

Starting with the first image, and in the first lines, we have Atsushi not finding Dazai. The graveyard scene doesn’t happen. Personally, I liked having it there, because it emphasises how Atsushi can find Dazai when no one else can, and it has Dazai explaining to Atsushi that if it weren’t for Odasaku, he’d still be “in the mafia, killing people.” The fact that this scene has Atsushi calling Dazai out on being a better person than he thinks he is, is vital for setting the scene for the entire rest of the movie - since Dazai spends most of it among people who are encouraging his manipulative and dark side, we needed the graveyard scene to tell us that Atsushi’s belief in Dazai isn’t just blind. There’s something to it.

The second part here has Atsushi meeting Shibusawa in person, and thinking he’s a “kind person.” This... goes completely against everything in the movie. The entire premise of the movie for Atsushi’s arc is that the very sight of that man’s image on a report triggers PTSD flashbacks. No way in hell would he think Shibusawa is a “kind person.” That’s just so wrong.

The other side of the image now, and we have... okay, Chuuya tasking Akutagawa with tracking Shibusawa makes a certain amount of sense. That’s an executive telling a subordinate what the mission is, and it fits. However, “Dazai attacks Akutagawa and makes him pass out” does not. Dazai is never shown to use this sort of violence since his defection from the mafia, instead using manipulation of other people to achieve the same result. Likewise, this goes in opposition to Dazai’s actions regarding Akutagawa in the main series, where he seems to be wanting to encourage him, which I personally take as Dazai wanting to make right what he did wrong all those years ago, but still not being great at it. This here, would be a step backwards.

Chuuya’s ability not separating from him at this point in the story because Arahabaki is a different kind of ability could potentially make some sort of sense. However, it also would have to fit thematically with the fact that Atsushi’s ability, which is seen as a literal part of Atsushi, does separate from him. And so does Fyodor’s. Why does Chuuya still have his, and the others don’t? Even with the explanations here I’m still confused. Also, Dead Apple - as in, the movie script - was being written around the same time as Asagiri was writing Fifteen, so there’s no reason why he couldn’t have told the scriptwriters to throw that in at the time, if he wanted to.

Following on from that, we have... Chuuya telling Akutagawa to kill Dazai? I’m sorry, but knowing that Chuuya is later going to risk his life in order to save Dazai - never mind that the rest of the city is at stake too! - makes this feel off. But what’s worse, is that we now have what I feel is a reversal of characterisations; here, in the stage play, it’s Akutagawa who’s saying that Dazai now wants peace in Yokohama, when in the movie he was solidly following orders, more reminiscent of the way he threatened Dazai in the dungeon scene. 

But we also have Chuuya saying that he’d known Dazai for seven years, and that “there’s a monster inside of Dazai that no one can understand” which, when considering their entire backstory, doesn’t make sense! Same goes for Akutagawa saying that he does understand Dazai. Chuuya in the past has been shown to understand Dazai’s plans without the need for discussion, and those hearing them talk about plans haven’t been able to understand what they’re saying, because they’re on the same wavelength. Even outside of the line said by someone that “Chuuya [...] understands Dazai’s true motives.”

Aside from all that, we have Akutagawa’s statement being in conflict with canon:

Those are Akutagawa’s own words, by the way.

Still in the same scene, and we have Chuuya taunting Akutagawa and telling him that his constant “Dazai-san, Dazai-san!” (following him like a lost puppy/being a sycophant) is what makes Dazai not approve of him, and if he doesn't deal with the fog he’ll remain weak.

I can understand to a certain extent that the characters are all going to be stressed and that’s going to affect how they talk to one another. But this feels strange compared to how Chuuya is characterised talking to Akutagawa on the same subject in the Port Mafia Onsen drama CD, as well as another audio scene where Chuuya, Akutagawa, and Kajii are having soup. In the stage play, he might be telling the truth, but it’s in a way that hurts; in the audio plays, he acts more as a mentor, and as a mother hen to all of his subordinates. I personally see the latter as the more realistic version, and the only way that I can see the former being a thing is the stress of heightened emotions and the tension of Chuuya wondering if he’s really as safe as he says he is.

Skipping past the parts on the white trio, as I don’t feel that those bits really affect and change things so much, and I get to parts with Akutagawa, Atsushi, and Kyouka. To be honest my main issue here is that Akutagawa is saying way too much. This feels like those three are together and talking more for humour than anything? Atsushi should be able to list off more than just Kyouka’s likes and dislikes from her character profile! 

And to be clear, by “Akutagawa is saying way too much” I mean about letting on secrets. He says things about Kyouka that should be hers to reveal, such as the part about her parents - which in the movie, doesn’t get brought up at all, with Atsushi finding out about the phone being her mother’s and that it controls Demon Snow. As far as I remember, he shouldn’t learn about her parents until the manga chapter that’s revealed in. More importantly, though, he makes a thinly veiled reference to Verlaine; surely, if Verlaine is such a heavily guarded secret that he can’t come out into the light of day due to every authority thinking him dead, Akutagawa should not be mentioning his existence in a way that anyone could casually mention to someone they shouldn’t.

The banter between the three of them then goes back to, uh... bickering? Cheap shots? I dunno, it makes them all seem immature in ways I’m not sure about.

Following on from that, we have Akutagawa talking to Kyouka with a “gentle” voice, which to me feels off, because if this is supposed to be set before the Cannibalism arc, that’s before the first time Akutagawa says “I’m happy for you” which is the first time he seems to treat her with any real kindness. So, uh. Yeah.

Shibusawa killing “Fyodor” right after Dazai feels weird, and given later explanations, needlessly complicated.

Ango asking Chuuya to deal with the dragon feels like it’s handled weirdly - if I remember right, in the movie Chuuya only appears after the dragon has formed.  The movie version, I think, works better due to making it seem as though both Ango and Chuuya are more aware of the pressing danger. That’s my preference, though.

About the ending - the headmaster saying that if Atsushi had known about having killed Shibusawa, it would have crushed him mentally, makes sense. The multiple times the headmaster appeared in the movie were to warn Atsushi not to open the door to his memory of that day. One nice little bit of extra context that works.

However, Dazai reappearing and having the same conversation as in the movie with Atsushi saying that he was the one who saved them, doesn’t work quite as well without the graveyard scene. Instead it just makes me think of how through the play, Dazai has hardly done many things worthy of being called “good,” has he... which makes it feel like Atsushi in the play is placing his blind faith in Dazai more than the Atsushi in the movie.

Ango offering his life for what has happened due to his part in things (small though it was, which Chuuya acknowledges) emphasises the way that he’s dealing with his own self-hatred here. However, I’ll admit that I preferred this conversation taking place on the helicopter, before Chuuya goes to fight the dragon, rather than afterward. Because if it’s before, the feeling of the scene is shifted more toward knowing that Chuuya might not come back at all, and that these could be his last words not just to them, but at all. Having Chuuya’s potential last words include “I don’t actually blame you” was powerful.

Akutagawa not bowing to Chuuya at the ending and being unwilling to help (or so it seems) feels weird compared to how he’s shown being respectful to his superiors in almost all other appearances. I liked Chuuya saying that as far as he’s concerned, Dazai’s already acknowledged him, and he (Chuuya) does at least, though.

The closing scene with Chuuya talking to Mori feels like - I can understand why Mori wouldn’t appear in person, given the situation with his actor, but they could have handled something to emulate the way the scene was in the movie. I think that they attempted to put some of that into the Chuuya-Akutagawa scene (what with them talking about how Dazai included both of them in his plans), but Mori saying that specifically to Chuuya was important, as it’s Mori who Chuuya respects.

On “other points,” it’s stated that Akutagawa is the one to land the final blow in defeating Byakko; this goes against the movie’s statement that the ability user must defeat their own ability.

So... all in all, I feel like there’s a lot here that could have been improved if they’d just stuck closer to the way the movie felt, and what happened there, rather than changing things so much. 

There’s also a lot of references to things in the light novels that don’t always necessarily work - especially when some of those things might be top secret! Or such as when Chuuya talks about his ability, it seems to me that it’s not the sort of thing he’d normally be so open about. It feels as though the play treated such things as free reign to use and reference, rather than adding them in only when it makes sense.

I think the biggest thing though, is that the characterisation continuity doesn’t seem to be there at so many points. There are so many places where I can just grab out the manga (as I did once above) and point out that the stage play goes directly against established canon characterisation. Or drama CDs that have been accepted as good characterisation as they feel as though they’re correct portrayals, yet the stage play shows a different version of the characters than we saw (heard) in those.

This makes it hard to accept, as someone who puts a lot of stock in continuity. Continuity means no plot holes, no “but wait, that doesn’t make sense when you take [x] into consideration” and no “but didn’t they say [x] earlier, they’re contradicting themself.”

There were parts I read about that seemed nice, or decent additions, but the general impression I get is one of extreme frustration.

I saw someone - the OP of the translations, I think - say that they were upset with Chuuya for treating Akutagawa like this, but I can’t help but feel that it isn’t Chuuya I’m upset with, because Chuuya is a character. Perhaps unlike some, I don’t put authors on a pedestal; yes, the series belongs to them, and their word is god in terms of characterisation and so on, but they’re also a human being. And besides, it’s not a bad thing to be able to argue with “god” and say “hey, you said [this] ages ago, but now you’re saying [that], why’s that?” and hope for an answer that makes sense. If Asagiri approved of the content of the drama CDs, WAN, and the movie itself, why are they changing so many things now? I can’t help but wonder.

[lapetiteshippeuse]

The D. Gray-Man Rare Pair Week : Alternative Universe Extravaganza (Creature Feature)

Keyword chosen : Demons Format chosen : headcanon The Rare Pair chosen : Allen Walker and Road Kamelot

Hello everyone !

I am very happy to have chosen to take on the challenge of “DGM Rare Pair Week” ! This is my first time participating in a "DGM Week" and I am very excited !

For today, I have chosen to prove, in a headcanon, how Road and Allen could be a couple that could enters in the canon of events.

Two small things to specify first :

First of all, remember that as you have seen, the program requires a change of universe. However, I choose to keep the universe and the Hoshino canon. After all, the theme and keyword of the day seem to match, and @letspleasuretogether​ told me that everything would be ok ^^ So let's keep going!

Then, know that I am doing this out of pure fan service because I love this ship, but behind it I have found that making this ship canon is HARDER than you think. It was very hard to find romantic coherence. So much that, yes, I confess that there are some arguments in this post that I don't fully believe. I doubt it even enough. But again, I'm doing this in pure fangirl.

Here's how it's going : being a college student, I couldn't help but follow the classic plan to produce a plausible and cohesive and brilliant argument to illustrate an idea : introduction / development / conclusion. (note though that I won't be doing an introduction at all : I would introduce the characters there, and I'd rather not waste time with that, because I can imagine that any DGM fan here is pretty much familiar with the characters in this game, Allen Walker and Road Kamelot. Let's just say you're reading the introduction to this post right now!) I'll pick a timeline-style plan here, which will be built according to the sequence of events over time in the manga.

As a consequence, I prefer to warn you : this is gonna be a very long post ! I hope you have time right now ! If it’s not the case, you can come back later. 

One last thing : please, be kind. I’m so tired right now, I gave very much time to write all of this, once again this is gonna be VERY long. So please, no insults, because you’re not a Roallen shipper. Thank you very much for that.

And precisely speaking of that, here is the main idea that I will illustrate ! Now let's start the development :

The Roallen ship is a combination of kindness and humanity, which distorts and intoxicates the relationship between the two characters.

Road Kamelot, antagonist.

Allen Walker, protagonist.

The two met as enemies. It is this enemy context that we will attribute to our first part.

And at first, we will see this humanity side of the ship, orchestrated by Road. Road’s humanity, which we will illustrate with one of her lines: " (I am) Just a human being », in the city backwards. This sums up the essence of this ship in one sentence. 

The first thing that will surprise the reader / viewer is Road's hugging Allen. 

First the shape, or what may already be visible. It's true that it's still disturbing : this is the first time that I have personally seen an antagonist hugs a protagonist, so close. Seriously, where did it come from? The introductions aren't even made yet, as Road tightens her arms around Allen. Then, the bottom, what does it say? "Do you feel this heat?" She will tell Allen about the softness, warmth and security that a hug can provide. She goes on to say that it is an emotional sensation that only a human being can experience. Her name is Road Kamelot, and she is a human being, and she is capable of tender gestures. This is her personal way of introducing herself. No, she doesn't seem to mean at first glance that she is sadistic, cruel, sociopath and psychopath at the same time. Her name is Road, she's a human, and she loves hugs.

Note also that when the fight ends in the city backwards, Road leaves without killing Allen and Lenalee.

Allen and Road's face-to-face (rather, back-to-back) makes it likely that there is only a yard between them and Road chooses not to end it just yet. (A little candle lightning in the heart, and then it's flaky !). But she's going to declare to Allen "I'll be back to play with you Allen," openly proclaiming that she would like to see him again (so no doubt about that). To hurt him again of course, but THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING OF THIS SHIP’S STORY ;) Still, Road didn’t kill Allen, when the opportunity was too good. And this scene, where she chooses to miss this opportunity, there are quite a few that look alike like that! (But I'll come back to that...)

And Allen in all of this?

Well, because of his personality, Allen brings the theme of kindness to this ship and believe me, kindness is not without consequence.

Road : Are you intended to kill me ?

Allen : I must defeat you.

Road : It’s useless, you cannot kill me.

Remember that saving tormented souls is Allen's reason for living. He has it on his conscience if he can't save everyone (akumas for the left hand, humans for the right hand).

At the end of the city's fight backwards, you would think Allen would win the fight against Road by destroying the three akumas and without her being able to recover Miranda's innocence, or kill her, or kill the exorcists (by the way, I wonder what the character really wants).

You would think the fight ends on a score of Allen 1 - 0 Road.

It is not so.

In truth, it's an equality, ball in the middle (1 - 1).

Let me explain : in a bad, as in a good intention, Road scored a point, at the time of their last dialogue, while Allen points his innocence right at her, before she leaves by her door. She tells Allen not to shoot, and then explains why.

First, the bad intention : she reminds him that his hand being a weapon, that is to say implicitly that Allen, himself, is a weapon. Allen then remembers that earlier, when meeting them, Road confessed that a weapon was designed for the sole purpose of "humans killing other humans." This is pure provocation, to put Allen a little more beside himself : she calls him a murderer, when Allen is quite the opposite. On the other hand, also remembering innocence has no effect on Road, so right now is not the time to point his innocence at her. All she does is manipulate him. It is a double-edged sword. One point for Road.

Now, let's note the good intention our little sadist wants to send to the protagonist : if she tells him not to shoot, it's for a good reason. "You really have a heart of gold Allen," she will tell him. It seems like a warning, a limit for telling Allen he's going too far : by pointing his gun at her, he is pointing his gun at a human (as she introduced herself to him). But if Allen kills her, that makes him a murderer ; or whatever he isn't, and whatever he swore he wouldn't become. It might sound strange, but Road seems to warn Allen not to fall into the dark side. Not to be so cruel (she realizes that this is not his style, since he has "a heart of gold"). And that makes him reflect on his duty as an exorcist : an exorcist is not an assassin. She appeals to his kindness again. In this way, Road makes Allen feel a lot of things contrary to each other : she makes him doubt of himself but also allows him to question himself better.

Road must stay alive at the end of this scene : Hoshino therefore went out of her way to show the relationship between the two characters, why he shouldn't kill her, and that's what the characters are talking about, in this face-to-face.

Personally, as an anecdote, I find this scene much tastier in the French version (in the anime) : while Road is gone, you can hear Allen say "Shit". But in the French version, it says "Je t’attends, Road." that we can translate in “I’m waiting for you, Road” WHICH SHOWS THAT THE DYNAMISM OF THIS RELATIONSHIP IS ONLY BEGINNING !!! The duality is posited ; the staging and the atmosphere are at their peak during this confrontation, regarding the nature of this relationship between these two characters, brought to meet again.

Later in the manga, Road and Allen will meet again : first in the Ark, where Road is shown an attraction to Allen.

Then they will meet again in the neighborhoods of the American branch during the Alma Karma arc. This is where their relationship will evolve, this time in an ally context, which concerns them mutually.

Now getting back to Road’s humanity, I would first like to answer a quick question that many fans have : As Sheryl Kamelot asked Bookman, what was the nature of her relationship with the Fourteenth?

Many assume that these two characters shared a romantic relationship. This is a legitimate assumption. After all, Sheryl knowing that Allen Walker is the fourteenth and having noticed that her daughter seems attracted to her host, and knowing that he learns that the latter is partly the cause of her disappearance, Road having tried to protect him before he asks Bookman this question, it doesn't seem indecent to think that Road may have been in love with the Fourteenth. However (and this is only my personal opinion), I do not agree with this : firstly because, for a manga where the plot seems to become more and more complex, that would be a bit too much "easy". All of the sudden, that's what the mangaka wants us to believe, and what she's trying to tell us is "it's more complicated than that". Secondly, because I consider, as a reader, that Hoshino seeks above all to demonstrate that Neah and Allen are completely opposite characters in terms of personality :

Neah wants the destruction of humanity, he is a murderer ; Allen, meanwhile, wants the world to be saved, at any cost

Neah wants to become the new Millenium Earl ; Allen wants to destroy it.

Neah would kill innocent people to achieve these ends ; Allen cannot kill humans, even Noahs, his kindness and compassion are great

Neah is sadistic, devious and manipulative ; does not look like Allen

Finally, Neah seems to be just downright cold ; Allen is a warm person

Road did know Nea, well enough to know him enough to know that Nea and Allen are clearly not the same person. If a D. Gray-Man character gets it right, it's Road.

Besides, I think that knowing that Neah has taken possession of Allen, seems to upset Road more than anything else.

When she reads the paper certifying it (paper by the way that looks like an official paper, "formalizing" that Allen is therefore doomed to disappear), she becomes melancholy, following this news. As if she would have preferred, like Cross, that it had fallen on someone other than him. (That being so, a moderately valid argument, since looking at the paper, she mentions the fact that Nea tried to kill the Earl, and it would not be indecent to think that this would be what bothers her more than anything else ; but again, I don't think this reflects any love towards the Fourteenth - I think Nea was a beautiful person who unfortunately went wrong, kind of like Anakin Skywalker).

Likewise, a reply from Sheryl : "Road ? Is there a hint of tenderness in you voice when you say “Allen” ?" only fuels the potential attraction Road feels for Allen, as Road goes to ask the Earl: "...". She seems to be showing more and more concern for him.

Finally, it can also be remembered that in The Ark, Road told Allen that she would not hesitate to kill him if she touches a single hair in his family. Yet, in the rest of the story, it seems obvious that she cares about him just AS MUCH AS her family. Road wants to protect her family at all costs, because she has already lost her first thirty five years ago ; but Road, she also wants to protect Allen.

He and Road will first approach in another world ; memories of Kanda and Alma. Personally, I really like this scenario, because it gives an isolating feel to two characters who come together for the first time, before they get even closer in the real world. In the memories of Kanda, a world where no one can see them, she crosses the enemy line and joins him in the memories of the Japanese: while he almost gets swallowed up by the memory of Kanda, Road saves him the life, hugs him once again and reminds him of who he is so that he remains aware that they are in the past. She is particularly worried about him. But again, the opportunity is too good for Road to do away with the fourteenth : she could let Allen be swallowed up by Kanda's memory so that there is no fourteenth at all. But she leaves Allen alive. Again, it's probably to see Nea again, but again, I honestly don't think Road is in love with the Fourteenth. She looks at Allen, she knows that he's the one she's talking to, knows Nea well enough to know he's not Allen (she repeats "Allen" a lot of times in this scene, by the way).

Especially since I specify that she runs her hand through her hair, as a sign of affection, and that in general (and this is why I say IN GENERAL, not everyone does), it seems to be a love reflex, or very affectionate, more than just plain friendly.

Also, a certain ambiguous moment in the dynamics of the two characters is present, when Allen asks Road if the revival of Alma Karma is part of the Central Administration plan. The two are particularly close to each other (seriously, as a reader I thought they would kiss), and Road will give Allen a friendly look. The latter seems intimidated, as he probably didn't think she was capable of having any such feelings.

Additionally, Road is going to help Allen understand the Exorcists' Second Project, which is a key moment and element in this story arc, and therefore proves to be a very good ally to Allen. At this point, she doesn't seem mean and sadistic at all ; she will even help the hero on his way. And rather than showing that Alma's awakening is the work of Noahs, she especially wants to let him know that it is also the work of the Central Administration, to qualify what we are talking about here way of saying that the Noahs are not the only wicked). 

Finally, to highlight once again the French translation of the manga, when Alma Karma comes out of nowhere and surprises Allen and Road when they are connected to Allen's memory, sound effects written in Japanese are inscribed. But only a French translation exists (yes I looked for it. No I'm not obsessed) : "Ils se rapprochent à vitesse grand V !”, which can be translated as “They are getting closer at high speed !" I have the feeling that this is almost the mangaka talking to us, if I'm not mistaken ^^. Or maybe it's a simple "instant ship" moment rather than consistency and a love canon.

Later still, Allen and Road are going to get closer in the real world, and there are only more and more emotions (therefore, drama) : first, when they meet again when Allen is imprisoned by the Central Administration in return of mission is attacked by Apocryphos, when Road enters in scene, the first thing she chooses to do, it is to take him in her arms, ONCE AGAIN. And that's not all : once again, she will produce an emotional, warm embrace and reassure Allen. In this rush, she doesn't seem to be paying attention to what Tyki, or her family, may think (he himself suspects something about not bringing Sheryl). And once again, the opportunity is too good to finish with Allen : she can let Nea continuing to metamorphose into him to finish it off faster with the fourteenth, but she does not. Because killing the fourteenth, is go back killing Allen. Choice that Road doesn’t want to see that happen, if it comes to.

And shortly thereafter, not only do we climb in emotion, but also in action, which produces more and more drama : Road will sacrifice herself and take a punch in Allen's place, to the point that it makes her disappear (that is, she must genuinely have tender affection for Allen). (Has Lenalee ever done this for Allen ???) Finally, before disappearing, her last words : Road is crying, for the first time she is very moved, and very vulnerable. She is therefore very capable of humanity.

This is where I'm going from the start of this second part : to me, it's clear, Road is in love with Allen. There is no evil or unhealthy manipulation technique, no cruelty, not even slight flirtation. There is even tenderness and emotion. Road doesn't want to lose Allen ; for me, she refuses the reincarnation of Nea in him, she chooses to protect him at any cost, even if she disappears, and does not care of what her family might think about it (Sheryl, Tyki). From there, it's not flirting anymore, but the birth of her loving feelings towards him.

To wrap up this development, we're going to revisit Allen's goodness, and this time focus on this evolved relationship and his “alliance” to Road, and most importantly, the fact that he can't kill her, he'll even tolerate her presence.

First, in the Ark, Allen chooses not to kill either her or Tyki, but rather exorcises them if he has to go through it (of course, what he doesn't know is is that we have to go through murder to exorcise them from Noah who are in them). This is what happens with Tyki Mikk, even if it fails. When Lavi Bookman comes to himself, he almost goes to the point of committing suicide by burning himself, but he chooses to take Road with him to death (though that also fails). Lavi stabs her, he knows he can go this far with an enemy ; but it’s a choice Allen couldn’t make (even Lavi is also going to suspect something, comically, after Road has been charred and disintegrated).

In addition, he also curiously tolerates her presence in the memories of Alma and Kanda.

She is even helpful to him, lends a hand to him, he's alive and that's because of her, she's even kind, and affectionate, even if Allen doesn't understand everything. She is even tactile, and he does not push it away.

There's a lot of tactile between Road and Allen from there, more than you would think.

It is mostly an intention that comes from her to him, unreciprocated at that moment, but he instinctively does not reject her. Between two enemies, when the status of friend / ally is not even formalized yet, but a rapprochement and a tactile effect is more present, I almost have the impression that it fits in the canon, in my opinion (let's not forget that this is just a headcanon).

The same with the Apocryphos bow: in his cell, and this time in that embrace, (and once again!) Allen lets himself go into Road's arms. There is even a comfort ... and a curious affection ... it's curious that anyway! You might even think he finds a rather tender emotion, like her. Later in his desertion, what I found personally disturbed (while it seemed rather like an insignificant detail, to me) was that Allen wears Road like a princess (like LaviLena !!!!). Of course, it seems consistent in terms of comfort : it would be easier to wear Road. But still…It figures that out this is apparently those insignificant details who are “weird”, you know...

What is most ambiguous in all of this is the following in his desertion : Allen is going to be worried about Road's unconsciousness.

He ends up asking Tyki why she doesn't wake up. Even Tyki seems to be less worried than Allen. Moreover, the Noah seems to trust her enough to take care of her on his own with the awareness that he must cover their escape with Timcanpy.

Again, Allen refuses, claiming that they are Noahs and therefore his enemies. But after a little morale lesson, Tyki disappears. In the end, Allen neither accepts nor refuses to enter Road. They are both ; she is unconscious.

Allen knows she is vulnerable ; and his gaze on her is also uncertain : which I find brilliant is that his left eye seems to offer a suspicious look, towards her. 

And his right eye, a compassion look, because of her vulnerability.

Again, this is troubling.

And then we can remember Road's tirade in the city backwards : it could be cumbersome in his flight, but Allen cannot kill Road, because he knows she is above all human, even though he still struggles to realize it.

But not for long : when Road says her last words, she looks Allen in the eye, crying and talks to him. She says something to him which is directly addressed to him.

Most importantly, Allen is shocked : he never saw her cry, and he didn't believe her capable of that. Friendly looks, tears, of course Road is human like him (To use the Road quote sums it up). All this, before she disappeared : Allen sees that she was even more vulnerable than he thought.

And Allen shakes his fist : upset? Because he couldn't save her? Hard to say. Deep down, I think he knows she's not really dead. But here we have a failed act : the truth is that Road and Allen would have spent a long time together, Road accompanying her on her escape, but that doesn't happen since she disappears; a rapprochement, which ultimately does not happen.

So, what can we therefore conclude from this ship?

That in terms of reciprocity, we remember : that after a while, our two enemies employ the refusal to kill each other.

Then, that one is worried when the other is in danger.

Finally, that they are able to save each other, or come to the aid of each other, mutually.

This is already, I think, a great development. So I know what you're going to tell me : there is nothing romantic here, it's probably just a budding friendship. And you would be right to think so! Nothing tells us that there is a romantic future for the two characters (that would even strike me as quite inconsistent, given the current circumstances of the story). But, if you are a shipper at heart like me, you will have noticed this thing : this atmosphere, this staging, this atmosphere that the mangaka has chosen to adopt, which makes the reader work to imagine some love story (you know what I mean?) In the memories of Alma and Kanda, I find it rather blatant. It's that “stuff”, that something that reminds me of this potential romantic arc. But again, you would be correct in thinking that basically not ; I still think so myself (because Lenalee is around ; and sorry, but I don't ship AllenLena at all, no offense). But they have already shared their first kiss !!! You couldn't take it away from me !! (although it was not agreed)

And precisely, could we imagine the circumstances of their next meeting? Honestly, it was an exercise that I must have had a hard time doing. Especially since given the turn the manga is taking, I can't see how… But what I can assume is that, even if it could happen in a very long time, I don't see the fact that Hoshino decides not to do them again interact. As much as their relationship follows "progress."

By the way, don't you like this parallel that Road and Allen bear the opposite Christian scars of the cross-shaped stigmata of God and the satanic cross in opposition to their clan? ;)

Thank you for having reading !!

[detroit-become-human-analyze]

Is Daniel/Simon (PL600) a sexual companion like North or a Traci?

Analyzing the game again, a controversy has sparked because of this picture, so let’s take a look at how much of “canon” (real game canon) might or not be behind it:

Now, we see this PL-500 picture that clearly states that, although “romantic mode” is optional, the PL-500 is intended as a intimate (sexual) partner, and if one thing we’ve notice from the androids in this game is that the first two letters usually determine “the category” (just like RK are military/police, or the YK are children). And there are two major characters on the game that are later versions of this “PL-500”, and that is the PL-600 Daniel and Simon, that although are described as “household/caretakers/companions”, it’s never specified up to what point.., and possibly the fact that they can cook meals and care for your kids is actually the NEW feature, as PLs where originally sexual/romantic companions on previous models.

This is never actually “explicit” but it’s weirdly hinted during the entire game. - So, we mostly see Daniel, a PL-600 android during the chapter “The Hostage” (witch is also the demo of the game) and maybe a bit of him (depending on what you do) at the end on the chapter “Last Chance Connor”, but we can all conclude that Daniel life was at the house of the Phillips.

At first glance everything was good at the Phillips house, and, there’s even this very nice picture of them as soon as you get off the elevator with Connor.

Connor is given very little time to determinate the best approach to rescue the hostage (Emma) from their now deviant android Daniel.

One of the first interesting things I’ve noticed, despite the fact that the Phillips are actually quite rich to be living in such an apartment (during such rough economic times in Detroit, as Kara sees it on the trip at the beginning, on Todd car), is that the mother never, EVER says ANYTHING about her dead husband. Never laments or screams or even mentions it (her husband is right there dead on the living-room, I mean...), Caroline Phillips (little Emma’s mother) is only focus on saving her daughter, and spitefully says “keep that thing away from my daughter” referring Connor, but we all assume her hate is shared to all androids (witch it’s odd, she owns one that even plays with her daughter).

This very vaguely hints the mother of the house has a quarrel with androids (for some reason) from BEFORE the incident at hand, and when you go see Captain Allen, you walk into the main bedroom.

One thing that caught my eye is that, despite having a household android, it’s nighttime and the incident has being occurring -since one hour- before Connor arrival (meaning an hour ago wasn’t the morning either, you see this on the news on the fridge area), AND, for some reason, the bed sheets are all messed up on the parent’s bedroom.

If you (Connor) analyze/re-construct where Daniel got the gun of the father, you see he never touches the bed when he goes for the gun.

I doubt Captain Allen is letting his SWAT team fool around in the bed, so that’s discarded.

The father of the family (the now “late” John Phillips) has being watching TV and using the tablet to order another android... so... why are the sheets on the parent’s bedroom undone?

If the wife was suffering depression or simply “in bed”, she would have seen Daniel go into the room in panic and get/load the gun right in front of her.

This indicates that possibly the mother was either out of the house at the moment of the event, or somewhere else (the bathroom, etc).

If you examine Emma’s room you will see that she was listening to music, as Connor concludes that this is why Emma didn’t heard the shooting, again, the mother must have being out, if not, she would have heart the entire thing... but there is a darker twist as to why Emma might have being with her music full on... Yes, there is a high provability that John Phillips, “dear old dad”, was having sex with Daniel in the bedroom next door, and there is a grater chance that obviously this was “a regular thing”. Therefore a broken relationship with his wife and that “rich people perfect family photo” was just a charade, thus, also, why “mom was out of the house”. - Even if all evidence is circumstantial, it just fits right in too fast and too perfectly to ignore in a game that pays so much attention to details and talks so much about abusive relationships and dysfunctional families.

Connor can reconstruct events but not “audio”, if you examine the late John Phillips body, you will see that Daniel stood up behind him and they actually had “a talk” BEFORE Daniel starts shooting.

By the food that was left overcooking in the kitchen, the bet is that “dad” had it with Daniel at the main bedroom (maybe even realizing at that point that having sex with the same android was “getting boring”, thus, since they obviously have the money, start considering buying another “sex android toy”).

Then Daniel went to do dinner, oversaw the same men that just had sex with him ordering another “replacement” android, got pissed off like a lover would (this is very common actually, a couple or sexual/romantic partner shooting the other if they know that they’ll being left for “someone else”), run to the bedroom, takes the gun, confronts John (his lover) verbally, Daniel finally snaps, shots him to death, and then runs (like a mother would), to get Emma.

Possibly THAT was the moment where Caroline Phillips returned to the apartment and Daniel saw/heard the elevator blocked, so he head outside.

Now, another interesting thing is that Daniel has a very close relationship with Emma (the little girl), almost “motherly like”, up to the point in witch after shooting the dad, the first thing he can think of is taking Emma (much like Kara when shooting Todd and gets Alice).

Sure, then in desperation and confusion, is shoot by the first cop that arrives and everything escalates “pretty quickly”, but any mother would tell you that after a traumatic event, the first thing you get with you is your kids.

This talks a lot about how Daniel at least “felt” he was indeed one of Emma’s parents, he has a mother instinct until Emma starts to reject him due to the situation and he realized that the girl doesn’t see him the way “he sees her”, feeling all the more betrayed.

* On a side note:

If you see where Daniel and Emma video (tablet, Emma’s room) was taken, you will see the background well enough to realize it’s the same park that Markus cross every time he goes to get paintings for Carl Manfred. - As we established before, Markus is a “patient zero” regarding deviancy.

Markus has the “virus” of deviancy (possibly implanted by Kamski itself before giving him as a “gift” to Carl Manfred), and unaware of it, spreads it to any android near him (remember the “androids are constantly shearing information, and during Freedom March, when Markus becomes aware of his ability, he can turn deviants from almost a couple blocks away from his location).

Then, if the infected android gets into a traumatic or emotional event, the “symptoms” of deviation occur. - Thus, there is a high chance that Markus infected Daniel with deviancy without even noticing when crossing the park one day, and the detonating stressful emotional trauma was later on when Daniel saw, what he obviously considered “his family” replacing him.

Simon, being also a PL-600, has also relevant behaviors to that matter, especially regarding Markus.

For instance, it’s only him and North the only ones who can “give Markus their heart” (source of power, AKA “battery”) if Markus gets wounded during the violent final protest. - This is interesting because while North might or not have an “intimate relationship” with Markus at that point, and Simon validates his point by “if you (Markus) die, our cause dies with you” kind of thing, he does seems a lot emotionally involved, and, plus... Why isn’t there a scene where, let’s say, equally important character like Josh, offers to sacrifice himself too for the good of the cause??? (let’s say you never develop a relationship with North, you let Simon die at some point, and, North being an egocentric psycho-maniac that only wants to “kill and burn”, I guess Josh would have had more chances to give his life for “the cause”).

* By the way, North has NO excuse, I’ve already explained this before, she killed (strangled) the human that “rent her” (so her immediate abuser is already dead), but also she wants to kill all other humans as well, AND!, she is quickly to say “let’s kill androids too”, so... other androids are North “victims” too, either it’s because she wants to fight and they’re being slaughter, or because “Shoot Simon!” (when, there where a lot other options).

By the way, this scene where Simon gets shot at the roof is one that makes you wonder, developers (as it’s obvious in the EdenClub chapter and Hank later reflections over it, as if it was a future where all sexuality is embraced as normal), have no issue regarding the sexual orientation of any character (if per-se’ androids are genderless and only assigned a gender to look like humans making interactions more comfortable). - If you take the gun and follow North “orders” to shoot Simon on the roof, you’ll be given a second chance to reconsider things, as Simon reminds you that “there is always another way”, but it’s up to you (Markus). - If you decide to put the gun down (disappointing North lust for blood of any color), next time this two characters meet, they hug each other very warmly, ...witch isn’t odd given that Markus thought that Simon was death and left behind... but still, quite an emotional response, because this isn’t Kara and Alice “hugging all the time”.

Add to this, during the Freedom March, Simon, being basically “the coward” throughout the whole game and avoiding conflict, if Markus gets shot (and you don’t have any other androids that came with you from the where house of Cyberlife), jumps into the fight like crazy and even dies for Markus at that point. - This goes basically against every fiber of Simon good judgment and behavior traits from the star, he is always scared and passive, even pessimistic regarding the android revolution although it supports it.

Conclusions:

Overall there aren’t hard evidence, there isn’t a “fools-proof” signature telling you any of this things, but when too many circumstantial evidence piles up, you also have a case...

The entirety of the situation with Daniel might be interpreted differently, if you stretch things up, to a more “innocent like” explanation (that I personally don’t see how could fit at this point). And trust me, this blog is for analyzing the main canon of the official game, if there was any other feeling or evidence, I would point it out... but some things are beyond any explaining, like why the bed is all messed up at night if you have a domestic android just to take care of stuff like that (even Kara makes Todd’s bed).

So, for me, the first chapter (or “demo”) sums up the end of an abusive relationship on a love triangle that torn apart a marriage and a family (like even Magazines during the game indicate, that because of “sex androids” couples where getting divorced).

But tell me what you think or if you have found any other evidence that points out otherwise!

[elencelebrindal]

Alright, can you rank which modern Golds are often portrayed closest to their canon parts in fan fiction and which are practically fanon (even if we love it).

I sure can! Keep in mind this is my personal experience, so people might have read different stuff than me. If you see something you feel like it’s wrong, it’s probably because we have different sources.  I mostly rely on English and Italian fan fiction. I started reading something in Spanish and Portuguese, but my understanding of the language is not smooth. 

I’m going to use a scale from 1 (least accurate) to 10 (most accurate), and then write my explanation. 

Mu 5/10 He’s mostly depicted as calm, collected and gentle in any situation, with no regards toward his actual somewhat “aggressive” nature in combat. Mu is not Shun, he’s not that diplomatic and he’s not that kind with everyone. Though, I’ve seen a fair share of works in which Mu is considered a gentle man with a tough attitude, so it’s fine. 

Aldebaran 10/10 As far as I know, Aldebaran is very well depicted in the works he appears in. It might be because there’s already not that much information to use for him, because unfortunately Aldebaran doesn’t get the same amount of attention of other characters, but his personality is almost always spot on and even when it’s not, it’s still compatible with his canon version. 

Saga 4/10 I read too much stuff of pre-Ares Saga that completely ignores the fact he was really gentle and kind. Most people use his aggressive and demanding personality when it’s not the case to do so, especially if he’s written as part of the pairing Aiolos x Saga. And then, the works that depict him after the entire ordeal with Ares still have him as somewhat evil and ready to betray. I know the Hades Chapter has a good influence on that, but Saga himself is not evil. Some authors, though, handle this character really well, so he still gets his justice. 

Kanon 7/10 While he gets a lot better treatment than Saga, I still come across works with him as the Gemini Saint still depicted as inherently malevolent, in some ways. I love what people do with him as the Sea Dragon, it’s almost always perfect how they capture this character, but there are some hiccups here and there with his Gemini self.

Deathmask 10/10 Deathmask is a character that can change depending on what major source it’s used to describe him, but I’ve never seen (aside from ooc representations) wrong depiction of him. People are really amazing at describing him as a heartless bastard (thus using the classic as inspiration) or as a man that has evolved and got his redemption (thus using Hades and/or Soul of Gold as inspiration). To this day I’ve never really seen his canon self being distorted.

Aiolia 8/10 He is amazingly close to the canon counterpart in fan fiction, but sometimes people tend to focus too much on the fact that he has to be brave and strong all the time. We had Aiolia prey of his own emotions in canon, so why going this heavy-handed only on one side of his personality? Rarely I’ve seen Aiolia described in his worst, like when he was grieving and angry. A couple works I’ve read perfectly summed up Aiolia using the entirety of his emotion range, and it was one of the best representations I’ve seen of him. 

Shaka 9/10 I feel like people actually got what Shaka’s character is. Sometimes there’s something that goes too far into the fanon side of the things, but it’s not that prominent in the community so I’ll let it slide more than I’d normally do. I like that people take into account his emotions without using them too much, and I like that people never forget how powerful he is or how messed up his early life was. The only thing I don’t like is how easily some authors make him get close to another person, with no second guesses or thinking, because canon Shaka is not that close to his companions. I made that mistake myself, after all, so I count in the list of those people. Most of the times I’m only disappointed when it’s clearly an ooc situation, and those don’t count because it’s intentional. 

Dohko 10/10 He’s pretty spot on, if you ask me. Dohko is relatively easy to get right, because he has a good balance (ironically) of irony and wise thinking, sprinkled with a good old-fashioned fighting spirit. I’ve never seen a fan work mess this up. Dohko is probablt the most “human” fictional character I’ve seen, because he acts a lot like a real life person (paranormal stuff notwithstanding), and I think that’s something really helpful in writing him.

Milo 5/10 Milo is either a hit or a miss in fan fiction. I see so many people focusing on the wrong stuff when tackling him, like only caring about the “sexiness factor” or making him a mischievous trouble-maker. Milo is a complex character, with a proud nature and a loyal attitude towards Athena and his companions, and this side of his personality is almost never showed. It’s always him being a goofy man with an inclination for disaster, and not enough about him being an actual competent Saint with more than his looks. I read a whole lot of stuff with him, and I was pleased in a good number of works, but at the same time I was disappointed in seeing how many people don’t actually care about how Milo is presented in canon. 

Aiolos ?/10 I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t read enough about him, and I’m conflicted. Some people depict him as an overall perfect character, others like to make him more human, and a few just have fun using Aiolos without giving him a proper personality. Though, I haven’t seen anything that made me go “no, this is wrong”, so I guess it’s a good thing. Aiolos is one of those characters that really depends on what specific vision people have of him, since canon works don’t help as much in pinpointing a set behavior. 

Shura 8/10 Aside from those works that love to put him as a helpless participant of the chain of events, he’s very well depicted. Faithful? Yeah. A bit crazy? Also yeah. I don’t like when he’s described as someone who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, because I’ve seen very bad works with him as a Saint that was forced to follow Ares so “killing was an order and nothing else”. I like when people give him awareness of his own actions, because it’s something that actually appears in canon (and most notably in Soul of Gold). 

Camus 5/10 Too many times I’ve seen him depicted as a traitor that loves to betray anything and anyone for his own amusement, and too many times people threw away the kindness hidden under the ice. This particular side of his personality only shows up in fan fiction that depict him with Milo, and in works where he’s with Hyoga as a child. Most of the time, aside from these examples, he’s always cold and heartless, or lacks personality. I might have been unlucky with what I found, but this is my experience. 

Aphrodite 1/10 Please. Aphrodite is one of the Saints that gets the worst of everything. People love so much giving him a narcissistic and self-centered view that they forget how, on the contrary, Aphrodite is not like that. I mentioned this in one of my earliest posts, but it’s easy to guess why: because he’s feminine, because he wears makeup, and because he comes off with a somewhat sensual vibe, Aphrodite is often depicted as this inherently androgynous man with a deep care for beauty.  Guys, that’s not him. That’s Misty. Misty is narcissistic and fixated with his beauty, Misty hates getting blood on himself. Aphrodite thinks power is beauty, not the opposite. He doesn’t care about spilling blood on himself. He’s cruel and he’s merciless, and he willingly betrayed Athena, willingly killed Shun’s master like nothing. Stop depicting him as this weak Saint that cannot stand an insult or a stain on his clothes.  I almost never see a good depiction of him. His canon personality almost never shows up in fiction.