#oops very long post

[anbaisai]

"Rest well, Jamil-senpai."

[gothwizardmagic]

god ok also gotta say as a choreographer, whoever did the superbowl choreo was a fucking GENIUS like. it manages to be so effective without ever being flashy or complicated & like. flashy & complicated are great but to do the basics this effectively is PHENOMENAL. the repeated motifs are so striking and so strong and so CLEAR in their meaning its PAINFULLY effective - the contrast of more relaxed dancers just vibin and having a good time at the beginning & end, when its just people being themselves vs. "what america wants" - disquieting, emotionless, rigid lines of soldiers throwing salutes while kendrick & sza are singing on stage in the middle, keeping the people entertained & distracted as the goose-stepping dancers circle like sharks

and thats not to even mention the SCALE - working with such crisp colour lines in such an ENORMOUS group is staggering to even fathom like. making sure all the reds are in the right place at the right time & you dont have someone who was a blue in one section but accidentally wound up in the white group somewhere in the shuffle....... the formations are UNBELIEVABLY complex & span such an enormous space, its mind blowing to think about. over a hundred dancers. over a HUNDRED people to keep track of at all times to make sure they're getting from one place to another in the right way at the right times in the right formations. over a HUNDRED.

the dancers executed FLAWLESSLY too - taking big steps and remaining PERFECTLY in line is incredibly hard & they made it look effortless. the amount of split-second transitions to nail and vibe-shifts to hit.... oh my god. also shot to the camerapeople who were working their asses off on those transitions just as much as kendrick & the dancers were

also thinking of scale like... arena choreography and stage/film choreography are VERY different things. on a stage or in a music video etc. you have ONE front. at most on a big stage the audience might wrap slightly around the sides but generally speaking, you're choreographing for the people or camera in front of you, and they're gonna have a pretty good view of your face the whole time. arenas are MASSIVE, and there are people on ALL SIDES. you can't pick A Front, you have to be entertaining people all around you simultaneously, which means completely rethinking how things are structured. you also can't rely on detail nearly as much, because the audience is Really far away. even if there are screens, you want to make sure that there's something to look at on the stage itself, so the audience doesn't feel like they're just watching a music video. it's still a live show & you want it to feel like one

so theres a balance to strike between giving the individual artist focus & acknowledging that they literally... can't face every direction at once. even if kendrick is facing away, there are always dancers doing something that'll be visually striking at a distance for the audience to enjoy. but at the same time because there ARE cameras, it also has to work for video & HAVE those detailed up-close elements, so the footage doesn't just look like a guy bopping around with people walking past him for the whole time. the most effective example i can think of is in peekaboo - the groups of white-clothed dancers in the X is visually strong from a distance - even if you can't see exactly what's going on, it's an interesting visual, whereas up close you have the strong music video feel of kendrick popping up out of nowhere; of all these different up close groups of dancers giving their full performance directly to one front while that front is rotating from one group to another, as opposed to the multiple surrounding fronts on the main stage. it transitions from an arena show to a music video (and then back when he walks out onto the main stage with that trail of dancers so the visual is most effective from above rather than up close) SO EFFORTLESSLY and makes absolutely brilliant use of the space

this is literally jsut stream of consciousness it could definitely all be phrased better & honestly i could keep talking for a Long time like i didnt even get in depth abt the use of colour in the costuming & the way every costume is slightly unique in the up close shots but when you pan out to the stadium they become lines of clones like. god i could go on!!!! i coudl go on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its a masterpiece choreographically fr its elegant its communicative its mindbogglingly complex ive watched it five times now trying to absorb as much as i can

[starcurtain]

Hello! I just saw your latest post and you might have been referring to my ask if it was the one about Ratiorine's differing philosophies or of what philosophies they abide by (existentialism, absurdism, etc) then that's me! If you weren't referring to that I apologize for the confusion. Sending it off anon this time so maybe it doesn't disappear 🥲

Sorry for the ask disappearing the first time; I'm not sure what happened, and I was so sad because I had been carefully holding on to it to answer it! I'm glad you were able to resend.

I do have to say first that philosophy is not my area of expertise, so there may be much more qualified philosophy buffs out there who can answer this more accurately than me, but I'll give it a go with my personal understandings of the characters:

First, Ratio is the easier of the two I think. As many people have said, he's a good fit for existentialism. His entire shtick is basically believing in the power of the individual to improve and enrich their own life, to fight valiantly regardless of the hardships imposed by their life's circumstances, and to make themself into a better person by their own choices.

It's important to underscore that this means Ratio believes in self-determination, in the idea that people's lives are not foreordained but are actually actively shaped each day by personal decisions. Therefore, people have inherent freedom to decide the course of their own lives by accepting what they approve of, refusing to accept what they disapprove of, and harnessing their own individual power to ultimately achieve self-actualization.

Essentially, Ratio works under the impression that life is not guided by something as intangible as destiny, and no matter where you start off in life, what ultimately happens to you is within your control (or at least within the control of whoever controls you). This is likely a small part of why it grates on him so badly that he wasn't recognized by Nous, because the fact that one can dedicate everything to a goal and still not achieve that goal runs contrary to his central philosophy.

If he believes that people have the power to determine the course of their own lives, then what does it say about him, who fought so hard to do exactly as he claims even idiots can do--seize control his own fate--and yet didn't succeed? Are there some things outside of man's power? It's enough to make even a renowned doctor question himself, and Ratio decided to come out on the side of "It's a personal failing, not a flaw in my philosophy." He literally said "Skill issue" to himself.

Changing tack a tiny bit here, I think it's also important to emphasize that there is a difference between existentialism and nihilism even though these philosophies dovetail. Again, I'm not an expert in philosophy, so my understanding is very limited, but the basic idea of existentialism is that "existence comes before essence"--that is, things start as a blank slate and gain nature and meaning after the fact. We are not created by some grand design, nor is there any inherent "purpose for living." Things just exist because they exist.

This is where existentialism intersects with nihilism, at the starting point that existence is inherently meaningless. But, in my personal opinion, nihilism as a philosophy fails to move beyond that. Pure nihilism is ultimately self-defeating because it leaves us with no motivation to commit to growth. It's a philosophy antithetical to the continuation of life as we know it. Existence is meaningless and any meaning you personally derive from existence is also meaningless, so why bother attempting to derive any meaning at all? This complete apathy is the Device IX that Star Rail paints as so dangerous.

And Ratio is not this way at all. His philosophy absolutely reaffirms that life can have meaning, so long as people create that meaning for themselves. He simultaneously asserts that anything that people create is not meaningless ...which basically means that meaning itself cannot be meaningless. (If that makes any sense to anyone.)

Frankly, I would argue that this philosophy may be a core part of why Ratio has not been recognized by Nous so far, rather than simply his "being a good person." (Nous is a robotic AI super-computer, why would THEY care about the presence or lack of human empathy?) Ultimately, Ratio's central philosophy about people being capable of determining their own fates and purposes also applies to his understanding of knowledge--knowledge is not something which is inherent in certain beings from birth or limited to the purview of the "special" (geniuses), but is attainable by all people. People are not "born talented" or "born untalented," they are simply "educated" or "uneducated," with the only barrier between these categories being one's own personal willingness to change. The mundane can become the divine--if they work hard enough at it.

Thus, knowledge is not wealth to be hoarded, but a currency to be spent to enrich other members of humanity.

(By the way, completely random aside--it also surprises me that everyone relates Ratio to Alhaitham from Genshin when they literally have such a glaring fundamental discrepancy in their understanding of the concept of wisdom... But anyway, back on topic!)

Ratio may (sort of) respect the members of the Genius Society, may recognize their incredible knowledge and abilities, but at the heart of the matter lies a single all-important question: Does Ratio even really believe in "genius" as a distinction (other than as a concept to insult himself)? Does he truly believe there is barrier between brilliance and idiocy that "ordinary people" can never cross?

He speaks convincingly about geniuses being different from "the ordinary," but if his core belief is that people have the power to pull themselves up out of despair and achieve greatness through effort and self-development, rather than some form of luck or god-given talent at birth, then... do born "geniuses" even really exist? Is there really an insurmountable difference between brilliant and mundane?

If knowledge is the equalizer of all sentient beings, do we not all have at least the initial capacity to become geniuses?

I personally think this central distinction about the capacity for knowledge among all humanity is the actual deciding factor in Ratio's rejection from the Genius Society, because, at the end of the day... how do you become a member of the "Genius Society" when you fundamentally reject the distinction of "genius" as an exclusive category from the start?

Ratio wants to share knowledge and uplift everyone (even if he thinks most people are starting off at the rock bottom known as idiocy).

His mission is diametrically opposed to the concept of a "Genius Society" in the first place.

He wanted in to the cool kids club because he desperately craves validation and acceptance, but the philosophical values of the Genius Society are ultimately incompatible with his own. In short, he would have to cease to be "Veritas Ratio" to succeed in joining the geniuses.

Okay, okay, back to the original point again, and just one more note about Ratio: Even though existentialism also goes hand-in-hand with absurdism, I don't think Ratio is far enough down the philosophical rabbit hole to believe in the wider definition of absurdism. Although I think he does agree with the inherent meaninglessness of existence, I don't think he views existence itself as truly irrational and the universe as as manifestation of unknowable chaos. I think he'd at least like to imagine that there are some ontological principles and inherent laws governing the operations of reality, and I think he does believe that certain things can be predicted with the application of enough thought... He certainly seems to believe in some form of "objective truth," at the very least.

I think he'd at least like to believe the universe is semi-orderly, even if he might deep down admit this is also wishful thinking.

So, to me he reads as a strong metaphor for pure existentialism, with deliberate rejections to both nihilism's apathy and absurdism's lean toward solely subjective reality.

PHEW, this is already long and I still have a whole other character to talk about... I had more to say about this topic than I thought. Sorry for the long read!

Anyway... Aventurine.

I've seen all sorts of things thrown around for Aventurine's philosophy, and while I think he does inherit a bit of Acheron's absurdism by the end of 2.1, I actually don't think Aventurine is an absurdist, an existentialist, or a nihilist.

I think Aventurine is a struggling fatalist.

He doesn't like it. We see him actively question it, but ultimately, he does come back to the concept of destiny over and over.

First, I think it's important to draw a clear distinction between Ratio and Aventurine: Ratio's existentialism is a philosophy that technically works even in a theological vacuum. Nous doesn't have to exist for Ratio's philosophy to function. Ratio's belief in the self-determination of humanity is, in fact, somewhat opposed to belief in aeons in the first place, and only works because technically the aeons of Star Rail used to be human (or were originally human creations). It's essentially an atheist viewpoint.

But Aventurine is a religious character. Like, he's just... religious. That's a fact about him. Even though we do hear his doubts, at the end of the day, he actually believes in Gaiathra, and believing in a omniscient supernatural being that is not human in origin (is from outside the aeon system) comes with a whole set of philosophical foundations that most aeon-worshipping characters just don't have in Star Rail. (Sunday is the obvious exception here, by the way.)

Kakavasha's like the one practicing pagan in the middle of an atheist convention. Awkward.

Being more serious: Religion requires faith. Faith requires the ability to believe in things you cannot verify with empirical facts. To believe in things you can only feel, never see. The belief that a goddess is watching over you, blessing you, and guiding you requires you to also accept the idea that events in your life are not always in your own control--that some of what occurs to you is decided by powers beyond your comprehension.

In essence, faith requires belief in fate. And that leads to fatalism.

No matter how much he doesn't like it, no matter how much we see him struggle with it, Aventurine does actually seem to believe in the concept of fate. He believes that some events in life are destined to occur, that some things are outside of individuals' control, and that ultimately not everything can be changed.

This is the dead opposite of Ratio's mindset: No matter how hard we fight, how far we push ourselves... in the end, sometimes people fail. Sometimes the only answer to our endless struggles is that we die, as we were destined to, before ever achieving the greatness we sought or the futures we were promised.

As an aside, I don't think faith or religion are necessarily the only factors connecting Aventurine to this particular philosophy either. Even removing theological aspects from the conversation, his extreme focus on the gambling aesthetic suggests a strong connection to fatalism too--if not a goddess, then one's fate may as well be in the hands of luck itself, of the whims of the rolling dice--or the push and pull of "powers that be," those figures of authority in the room where it happens, who make their shady deals according to preset rules and expectations, every bet resulting in an ultimately predictable outcome.

(He keeps gambling and gambling, hoping that he'll get a different result than the one he knows is inevitable...)

This is, of course, an inherently pessimistic mindset, a perfect dark-mirror to Ratio's deep-down optimism. Fatalism puts humanity into a position of powerlessness. All hopes and dreams are given over to the goddess, by whose judgment and whims the actual events of one's life are decided. Pain and poverty are inevitable trials. Suffering and death are foreordained.

And yet Aventurine has to cling to this, as much as he doubts it, as much as he hates the idea that things in his life are beyond his power to control.

Because if fate doesn't exist... If it wasn't destiny, if the tragedies of his life weren't trials from the goddess, if things weren't supposed to go this way... Then every single thing in his life really is meaningless. Everything he suffered, everyone he loved and loss, his mother's and sister's sacrifices, the torment he went through--just sheer bad luck. All of it, completely and utterly meaningless.

How can you convince yourself to keep living, in the face of such supreme and all-encompassing Nihility?

This is the central struggle of Aventurine's character, the actual mental and emotional journey we see him undertaking from 2.0 to 2.1. He is literally on the precipice, swinging between a viewpoint that he hates--his fatalistic belief in destiny--and an entirely self-defeating philosophy--nihilism--whose only possible final outcome is suicide.

This is what his talk with Acheron at the end of 2.1 is all about. This is how she saves him. In that final cutscene, we witness Aventurine reach a mental compromise, managing to finally reconcile his necessary faith in the concept of destiny with the reality that life may truly begin meaningless--but beginning meaningless does not mean staying meaningless, and believing in destiny does not bar you from making your own choices or finding your own purpose in life.

Later on in Penacony's story, we literally see Acheron use Ratio's philosophy to reject the same nihility that crept into Aventurine's:

Acheron wards off nihility's apathy through an absurdism all her own, but one which manages to enclose both Ratio's and Aventurine's otherwise incompatible mindsets: We have no way of ever knowing for certain whether the events of our lives are fated or mere nonsense. We have no way of knowing if our choices are our own or foreordained. But we don't need to know this to find meaning and value in them. Whether life is nothing more than unpredictable chaos or a predetermined pattern of cause and effect, what matters is what you make of it.

Ultimately, I think that this post has really helped me recognize just how well Aventurine and Ratio work as philosophical foils.

They really are perfect opposites.

Aventurine's fatalism is deterministic, while Ratio's existentialism is self-deterministic. Aventurine's philosophy is inherently pessimistic; Ratio's is inherently optimistic. Ratio's philosophy operates on a core belief in the freedom of humanity to decide their own paths in life, while Aventurine hates but does ultimately believe that people aren't really in control, that even if no gods are guiding us, we can't rise above our own natures. Ratio's philosophy makes meaning from growth; Aventurine's makes meaning from loss...

And they both struggle with fundamental doubts in their own philosophies, core questions that are directly tied to their own lives. Aventurine worries that his faith might be misplaced, that destiny might not exist, and that everything he suffered might have been in pointless, empty vain. Ratio faces the crisis of recognizing that his core belief in the power of humankind to determine their own paths and make their own meaning might not actually apply to everyone--because it doesn't seem to apply to himself.

It's literally only by bridging this philosophical binary with Acheron's anti-Nihility absurdist rhetoric that we can reach some sort of healthy outcome. That's why it takes both Ratio's note and Acheron's comments to finally lead Aventurine to acceptance. Ratio probably needs a little bit of Aventurine's "If you didn't make it into the Genius Society, there's got to be a reason" mindset to finally reach some peace with his situation too.

I'm not even a philosophy expert and even I can see that there's really only one takeaway here: These two characters were totally written with each other in mind.

Aventurine and Ratio need each other on core metaphysical levels! 😂

It's so good guys. You can't see it, but I'm making chef's kisses, I promise.

[ejga-ostja]

six of bunny hare rabbits

[koobiie]

its my blog and i get to make the silly oc posts. anyways differences in jake/harley driving styles. harley first -

vs jake-

bonus-

[meamiki]

5% of a color headcanon.... two versions since b&w emphasizes the dagger more i think but i still like the warm tones ASFSADA

i am not biased towards rainbow daggers whatsoever i promise (lie)

((also friend is streaming now and im there too!! bit more info linked here, its rated mature tho))

[thefandomenchantress]

Okay I know none of the people following me know what this is but my post introducing The Music Freaks as something I want to talk about will probably end up being long, and I have a smaller thought I want to share, that being:

I don't think people acknowledge enough how weird it is that Liam never utters the word "freak" a single time throughout the whole first season.

One could try pinning this on a few different things that aren't deliberate characterization. The first being that the word freak as an insult is mostly just Drew's thing anyway. But it's not like he's the only one who says it. Jake also does, obviously, as it's a major plot point, but Henry also does it in a rather casual manner. Which means that in their four-person friend group, it isn't just Drew that says it but literally everyone except Liam (though Jake's circumstances were a little off when he did it).

Or, you could try saying it's just because Liam is probably the one who gets the least lines and/or focus in Jake’s friend group. While it's probably close between him and Henry, since they're both comedic relief for the most part, Henry still probably manages to beat him out. Henry has more little gimmicks, those being his interest in anime, lettuce, and his massive crush on Lia, whereas Liam mostly just sticks to jokes revolving around his general "girl-obsessed horny guy" stereotype. Plus, because Henry is a bit more outgoing, he usually has the chance to do things of his own accord more, instead of just following along.

But even if you did buy into that argument, it also doesn't completely hold up, because Liam still gets perfect chances to say his group's signature insult...He just actively chooses not to.

There are the two instances I associate most with this topic. The first is the scene where Drew and everyone else are all pressuring Jake into saying some bad things about The Music Club. And when it's Liam's turn to agree with the rest and pressure Jake, he says:

“This Sean guy”. Not 'freak', or even any other insult. Liam literally just calls Sean by his name, which isn't something The Music Club members always have the dignity of when they come up in conversation. In fact:

Just before this, Henry speaks up and calls Sean "one of the freaks" without much thought. He says this rather casually, proving that yes, calling them that is completely normal for the people in this group. But if it's so normal, why didn't Liam also refer to Sean in a similar manner? Maybe it's just a fluke. The creator didn't want to lines to sound repetitive, so she made Liam word his point differently. But that's not a sufficient explanation, because this is not the only time this happens. In fact, this next example provides what may be the most perfect opportunity Liam could ask for to call The Music Club by their titular insult.

After the incident I already described, Drew, Henry, and Liam discuss why Jake isn't in class. And Liam suggests:

Why doesn’t he call them ‘the freaks’ here? If you replaced the word "club" with "freaks" in this sentence, nothing would change. It would have the same exact meaning. The title of the show is based on replacing the word 'club' with 'freaks'. No one brought up The Music Club before this, so this isn't another instance of it just being for less repetitiveness. Liam just chose to not refer to them by his group's signature insult and instead called them the club. This line is what makes me think it's possible it was a deliberate choice, because the fact that the side antagonist refers to The Music Club not by an insult but just as the club, (not to mention while he already seems a bit resentful towards them in the moment for keeping Jake away), is weird. It would've been so easy to just have Liam insult them in this moment as he makes a joke about Jake apologizing like he's in a cheesy rom-com, but it just doesn't happen.

And for what? It honestly seems like more work to make sure he refers to them regularly when Drew's group usually makes a point to do the opposite.

So what's my point here? Liam has never actually referred to the Music Club as freaks despite the fact that Drew and Henry have done so multiple times, possibly deliberately. So?

Well, the thing about Liam is that he's supposed to be a little bit more laidback than Henry. Not quite as eccentric, a little more down to earth, even if his internal logic doesn't always add up. In a lot of scenes, he can be seen reacting to what others say just as or even more than speaking himself. And I think that, sort of branching off from that, it allows Liam to come off as a little more...Observant than Drew and Henry.

Of course, this isn't to say I think he's secretly super smart or anything, I just think he notices a little more than he is credited for. This is pushed a little harder in the later episodes than the earlier ones, I'd say, a good example being Liam's text to Jake.

Henry doesn't seem to have texted Jake directly, and Drew asks why Jake is ignoring them, seemingly angry. Liam, however, instead asks if he's coming to school and attempts to bribe him into talking with them. Liam and Jake's dynamic is interesting because despite the fact that him and Jake probably have the least touched upon dynamic out of the entire friend group, Liam is the only one who seems to be trying to communicate with him properly here. Drew is already accusatory, asking why Jake is ignoring him, and further disincentivizing Jake from engaging. Henry is either oblivious to anything being wrong or is ignoring it for deep character reasons. But Liam's text is almost concerned, but in a way where he can play it off as just joking around, because showing vulnerable emotion usually isn't stereotypical high school boys' strong suit.

He asks if Jake is coming to school, meaning he must know Jake is currently upset enough that he may not go to school. And then he follows it up by offering something Jake presumably likes and is special enough that Liam thinks it might convince him to talk it out with them. (Side note, since Liam says he has Haribo peaches like it's not a common occurrence, (he wouldn't need to tell Jake he has them if he usually possesses them), do you think he went out of his way to buy them? Do you think he knew something was wrong with Jake and went out and bought candy for him because of it? Though I might be stretching it at that point haha).

All this rambling is to say that Liam does seem to care about Jake, and that's why he makes an effort to reach out to him like this. Clearly, he knows something is wrong and that's why he does so, showing that he is in fact aware that Jake isn't doing so well. Liam comes off as oddly emotionally intelligent at points, and this is one of them. And not much later, he and Henry react to the fact that Jake got kicked out of The Music Club with expressions that clearly depict the well-known emotion of "uh oh". Unlike Drew, who doesn't understand why the club was so important to Jake in that moment, the other two immediately see this as really bad because they, to some degree, know that being a part of The Music Club was important to Jake.

And I think that may be the reason why Liam doesn't ever call them freaks. He, on some level or another, understands that the club is important to Jake, and Jake has told them to stop calling them freaks before directly, only for this to get ignored. Maybe, it's possible that he took note of this and actually did stop referring to them in a way that Jake seemed genuinely upset over. Because even if they weren’t as close as Drew and Jake are, Liam still cares about him. Of course, he’s too much of a follower to speak up and stop the other two, or stop bullying The Music Club in general, but still.

To be clear, I'm not saying Liam is a saint or anything, even if he never says The Music Club are freaks, he still joins in on bullying them. But I did want to bring attention to the fact that Liam never calls the Music Club freaks, and that's kind of notable in my opinion and maybe says something about his character, that he's a little more aware of the things going on around him than it seems. Or maybe it means something else, feel free to suggest what that something else could be, if you want, I think about this way too much haha.

[aliferous-ly]

BigB knew he was in a death game. It wasn't like he wanted to lose - on the contrary, he strove to win. But, and this was a very Big But, he also strove to have a good time. Those two goals were not entirely cohesive.

So, Secret Life. Everyone had good reason to act like goofballs, since the tasks weren't reasonable actions in the slightest. BigB didn't need a slip of paper to act strange, and thus the BigB Hole was born. It caused suitable chaos.

With so much weirdness going around, it shouldn't have been a surprise that BigB was, well, surprised. Skizz and Tango asking him to join their group, living on a little island, was an unexpected drop in the bucket. He had a group! He had a squad!

The Heart Foundation was, as many charity organizations were, very poor. They didn't have a roof over their head. Instead of inviting them to his slowly-growing backrooms he lay down with them in the grass. Skizz and Tango both glowed softly, and BigB knew his eyes gleamed in the starlight, but nobody said a thing about it.

"Tomorrow we should build a house," Tango grouched.

"I'm workin' on it!" Skizz, who'd been collecting resources, said.

BigB laughed. "Yeah, I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow." He had no idea what tomorrow's weather would be like. Sometimes it was nice to just say things.

"Aw man, really?" Skizz said.

"I hate rain," Tango said.

BigB hummed. In short order the other two fell asleep - Tango snored like a chainsaw and Skizz made little mimimi noises, but BigB didn't mind. It was nice, actually. Better than eerie cave noises.

He turned on his side to gaze at them. Neither were particularly skilled at these death games. He shouldn't have been so delighted to team up with them, if he were dead-set on the crown.

They were fun, though. BigB grinned to himself and thought about the shenanigans happening server-wide. He still wanted to win and would try his best, but goofing around and confusing fellow players was just so fun, and this go-around was looking to be particularly exciting.

Sighing happily, BigB closed his eyes, mind whirring with possibilities for the days to follow.

[lampochkaart]

Are asks still open? If so then I would like to talk about the thing that bothered me in Chapter 2 of V3. I'm still angry that Kirumi killed Ryoma. She took advantage of a man with almost no will to live and expects everyone to feel sympathy for her because she is the "Prime Minister of Japan" or whatever the writers called her. And before anyone gets upset, I know that in Japan, politicians are seen in a more positive light. But God, seeing no one in the game actually caring about Ryoma, but instead feeling guilty about Kirumi makes me sick to my stomach. Like I don't care if she is a prime minister, there are thousands that can easily replace her and potentially run a country better than she ever could. In conclusion, Chapter 2 is my least favorite chapter because I felt as though the trial was dragging on and on, Ryoma was killed for a pointless reason and Kirumi was just the worst person for pulling the victim card Ryoma was forgotten. (Sorry if my writing is a little confusing.)

Asks are always open, I like talking about drv3!

But I don't think Kirumi should be hated too much. It's not that simple

Important thing to note is that Ch.2 motives were very much specifically targeting Kirumi and Ryoma. We haven't seen all of the videos, of course, but we have two videos made for others that we can use as a reference. In both Kaito's and Kokichi's videos someone important to them is shown and then it's vaguely hinted that something bad happened to them. Just a basic setup for this type of motive. And I think we can probably assume that videos of others are more or less the same. But Kirumi's and Ryoma's videos are different.

In Kirumi's video it's heavily emphasized how much responsibility is on her, how important that job is. And for Kirumi it's a very big deal. Her whole thing is that she thinks she always has to serve people, and if she accepted a request, she has to complete it. Maybe there's someone who can do this job for her and maybe even better than her. But her core belief is that if she accepted request it means she has to fulfill it. She can't just refuse or let someone else do it. All that is already way too much pressure. And that pressure is also added to the pressure from all the requests that she was getting this chapter. The game was very obviously showing that the pressure on Kirumi was growing and she was trying to bear more than she could handle. So, given all this, it makes sense that Kirumi would eventually snap and do something drastic.

As for Ryoma's motive video, it was just a shot straight to the heart. He has no one. This video is brutal in it's simplicity. And the wording was very mocking. It completely shatters Ryoma's shaky hope that he'll find a reason to try to survive with everyone.

The way I see it, Ch.2 motive was made specifically for Kirumi and Ryoma. As soon as they saw those videos their fate was sealed. Everyone else was given a motive video just so it wouldn't be obvious (neither for the characters nor for the player).

It really does suck that everyone was more focused on Kirumi than on Ryoma, but there's an explaination for that too. People just weren't really close to Ryoma. It's the same thing that was with Rantaro. Sure, it's sad that he died, but he just wasn't that close with anyone. So when he died their main priority was investigating and finding the culprit, because that's what they need to do to survive. It would be nice if they expressed a bit more regret about Ryoma's death, but I don't think they should be strongly blamed for not doing it.

With Kirumi it's different. Everyone relied on her, a lot of people even specifically requested her services. And they watched her break down (that moment where she screamed and tried to run for her life, because that's clearly the moment she completely shattered under the pressure) and then get killed in a torturously brutal way right in front of their eyes. It makes sense that they're gonna feel really bad about her.

It's sad, but it kinda makes sense if you look at it from that point of view. Usually when people grieve, they grieve for the ones that are closer to them. Both figuratively and literally.

Also when I comes to dr, it doesn't focus too much on grief. Mostly the ones that grieve are the ones that were friends with the deceased. Shuichi grieves for Kaede throughout the whole game. She's also a important character narratively so she and her wish are also brought up by others. And from the characters' perspective a lot of them were sad about her because she had a good intentions and posthumously became their symbol of hope. Rantaro was mostly brought up only when he was plot relevant. The student council was upset about Angie, but Angie and Tenko's deaths were mostly affecting just Himiko. Kiyo didn't have anyone he was close to. People were very upset about Gonta because he was very nice and didn't deserve to be put through so much suffering. Miu was mostly brough up in the context of the 4th case and her inventions. Maki and Shuichi were heartbroken about Kaito's death, but out of everyone only Kiibo took Kokichi's sacrifice to heart. And finally Kirumi and Ryoma. Kirumi was always offering her services to everyone and she was always making delicious food, so everyone got somewhat attached to her. While Ryoma wasn't really becoming close friends with anyone and sometimes was even simply avoiding others. It's tragic, but that's just how things are.

There are also some characters that are sad about every death, but I didn't bring them up right now.

I wanna specify that I'm not talking about all that to say that Kirumi deserves more pity than Ryoma and that she shouldn't be judged for what she did. She absolutely should be held accountable for her actions. What she did was really wrong. She didn't just kill Ryoma, she did it in a very painful way, and then tried to frame another vulnerable person for that murder. She was trying to get away with it and that meant everybody else would die. She lied and even used such underhanded tactics like manipulating everyone's feelings. That's very cruel and undeniably bad. But I'm saying that her actions make sense for her specific character in that specific situation.

I agree that it would've been great if Ryoma lived. He could've had a nice arc about finding reasons to keep going, to survive, to fight. Slowly bonding with people and realising that they're his new reason to live. But the tragic thing about Danganronpa is that sometimes characters die without getting their arc. There are a lot of characters so it's impossible to let everyone have their development. Inevitably some of them would die way too early. Some even die during the arc they're going through. This happens in every game.

It's fine to dislike characters. You can still hate Kirumi. It's valid to dislike characters that killed the characters you like. But I just wanted to explain that there's nuance to this whole case. It's not as simple as Kirumi heartlessly killing Ryoma and no one caring for him because they're all awful. Things aren't just black and white. Most dr cases are more complicated than just someone killing because they're cruel and heartless. And that one is not an exeption.

On one hand, yes, Kirumi really did kill Ryoma — a person with almost no will to live. But on the other, she was specifically given the motive that pushed her to do it and Ryoma got the motive that broke him and made him give up. The motive was specifically tailored to make that outcome happen. And, yes, that really sucks that everyone payed more attention to Kirumi than to Ryoma. But also that's a pretty understandable reaction given everyone's relationship with either of them. I'm not saying it's right, but it can be understood

[chanellelize]

On Thursday, February 20, 2025, I got hit by a freight train.

Let me explain…

When I saw @wizard-loving-wizard post that Aabria was teaching a free masterclass in Hamilton, Ontario, I was crushed.

I live in Montreal, Quebec, which is a seven-hour drive from Hamilton. Round trip tickets would have cost me ~$200, which would have been perfectly affordable if it wasn’t for the dire financial situation I’ve been in for the last several months. I felt like I was missing out on a dream come true because I was just too much of a fuck up to reach out and take it.

I retreated to my Aabria appreciation post on Discord and vented about my inability to attend the event. Fifteen minutes later, a fellow Aabria fan, who I will refer to as “Ruby” replied, “Tell me how much it costs to get there and back- I will sponsor you.”

I almost immediately refused. They explained that they wanted to pay my way as a birthday present for themself, because they really wanted to see me follow my dreams. So, I decided to look up the current ticket prices. I did my research and learned the most efficient route was to take a bus from Montréal to Toronto, then from Toronto to Hamilton. Four tickets, round trip. Then, I registered to get my ticket for the masterclass, just to make sure I didn’t secure bus tickets only to find that the class had sold out.

I asked around some local social media groups to see what options I had and found someone who was looking to trade a bus ticket from Montreal to Toronto on the exact date of the event. They ended up trading me the ticket in exchange for a faux fur blanket that I forgot I had. Ruby congratulated me for snagging one of the tickets, but reminded me that their offer was still available.

I kept looking, in the hopes that I would eventually find a way to get from Toronto to Hamilton, and then back home again without having to accept freely-given financial support (no, I don't have a therapist, why do you ask?), but I had no such luck. I felt like I was on a perpetual roller coaster of hope and disappointment, but every time I got discouraged, I hummed “Impossible” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella to myself – the Brandy and Whitney Houston rendition, specifically – and kept going.

On Wednesday, I had to accept that I probably would not be finding any more bus tickets on my own, so I thanked Ruby for reiterating the offer and told them how much I needed for the remaining three tickets. They sent me $200 regardless.

I bought the rest of the tickets and left for Toronto at 6:30 am Thursday morning.

On the way to Toronto, I got a Spill notification (Spill is a Black-owned social media app) reminding me about the weekly “Advanced Audacity” lecture series I had signed up for. It suddenly hit me that, last Thursday, I had said that I simply didn't have the funds to achieve my dreams. Naya, the audacity coach running the lecture series (yes, audacity coach) asked me what dream I didn’t have the funds for, and I said “becoming a performer/storyteller in the TTRPG space.” And there I was on a bus to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario to watch Aabria Iyengar teach a D&D storytelling masterclass, exactly seven days later.

Wild.

I got to the venue safely and settled in for the show. It was phenomenal, unsurprisingly. Aabria was joined on stage by four local D&D players, one of whom was a Black woman named Renée. Aabria began by giving a short talk on storytelling within the context of D&D (and the sociocultural implications that come with it), before spending the rest of the show DMing a brilliantly thrilling one-shot. I took notes throughout the entire event and had a lot of fun writing speculative marginalia about the thought-process behind her storytelling choices and jotting down the insights she shared as she paused to explain why she was doing something the way she was doing it.

I was also particularly struck by Bubbles, Renée's unsettlingly over-friendly Tiefling character. At some point, I leaned over to @wizard-loving-wizard (who I met and got to sit next to at the event) and whispered, “Bubbles is the Tabby to my Evan Kelmp.”

After the show, Aabria sat on the edge of the stage to chat with audience members, and my wildest dream of being able to nerd out about storytelling with Aabria Iyengar… was immediately shattered when she looked over at me and I reacted like Troy Barnes meeting LeVar Burton. I broke eye contact and starred at the ground, absolutely furious with myself. Thankfully, I remembered that I wanted to ask Aabria to record a video message for Ruby, so I did end up meeting her.

I told her about the blanket–bus ticket trade and Ruby's generosity, and then I tried to ask for a video message, but I just said "Um," forever until she asked me if I wanted to send Ruby something. I jammed my phone into her hand, and she said, "Oh, I'm doing it?" and I said, "I DUNNO," to which she replied, "No, we're all in this now!" turned into a selfie stick, and recorded a minute long heartfelt message for Ruby with WLW and I just kinda hanging out in the background. Then she asked me if I wanted to take a photo with her. After the photo, she said something that I cannot remember, but I remember saying, "I am not here," in response, to which she replied, "No, don't dissociate!" And then I dissociated, and I don't remember what happened between that and saying goodbye, but I do remember that after I said goodbye, I said, “Flee the scene!” and legged it.

So, I didn’t exactly get to discuss any of the notes I had taken, but I did meet Aabria Iyengar, and that alone is a dream come true, even though I became a version of myself nobody has ever seen before and I hope to God no one ever sees again, because, what the fuck… was that.

Anyways.

WLW couldn’t stay for the after party but kindly dropped me off. I was starting to get pretty tired, and I was disappointed that I didn’t get to properly talk to Aabria, so I didn’t actually want to go anymore, but I also didn’t want to give up on having the opportunity to have a conversation about storytelling with somebody. So, I went inside.

I spent a long time just kind of standing in a corner by myself until I worked up the courage to approach someone else who was also just kind of off to the side, and we ended up striking up a conversation. We chatted about the show, and as we spoke, I slowly came to the realization that most of the people who came out to the masterclass were motivated by an interest in D&D.

Now, this sounds like a dumb realization to make after traveling for seven hours to attend a D&D masterclass, but it was an important one, because I don’t give that big of a fuck about D&D. I’ve never played a single TTRPG in my goddamn life. Would I? Sure. But D&D had nothing to do with how desperately I wanted to go to that masterclass. I was drawn in by something else.

Last Thursday, Naya the audacity coach said that one of the ways we think ourselves out of our dreams is by assuming that everybody would be doing what we want to be doing if it was something that anybody could just up and do. But that assumption is false. Everybody has different dreams. Not everybody wants to be doing what you want to do. And I looked around the room and saw Renée on the other side and realized we were the only Black women there.

I didn’t feel quite up to breaking the ice, but thankfully my conversation partner wanted to go ask Renée what Bubbles’ class was, because she had the other three pretty much figured out. So we walked over and joined the conversation. Bubbles turned out to be a druid, and the reason she was hard to identify was because Renée did not take a single combat action during the entire one-shot and Bubbles was still a fascinating and engaging character nonetheless. I’m not exactly sure where the conversation went from there, but I remember getting really excited because Renée said Bubbles’ whole “unaware that she’s freaking people out by being too friendly” vibe really resonated with her, and I excitedly told her that it really resonated with me too, and then there was this lovely moment where Renée started talking about how much harder it is to be a weirdo when you’re already a visible minority, and she started a phrase that ended with “when all they see is,” and she looked me right in the eyes and paused for the tiniest fraction of a second before saying, “sharp teeth and horns.” I already knew how common it is for a Black person to play as Tieflings, but using a Tiefling as a literal metaphor in order to talk about your experiences as a Black person while physically, not figuratively, but literally standing in a predominantly-white space and simultaneously protecting that expression of self from getting hijacked and repurposed as a teachable moment for the benefit of everybody else in the room but you absolutely blew my mind.

I have strongly identified with the song "In My Own Little Corner" since the first time I heard Brandy sing it as Cinderella, but "Impossible" didn't resonate with me until I watched the first episode of “Burrow’s End” on YouTube and Aabria became my Storytelling Fairy Godmother. Since then, I’ve been hearing “Impossible” playing from some vague, untraceable location in the distance that I had no real hope of finding. But, on Monday, it crystallized to a single point over Hamilton, Ontario, and on Tuesday, it started getting louder, like the horn of an approaching freight train, and it kept getting louder, until Thursday, February 20, 2025, the freight train hit, and I’m different now.

Fuck it, I’m different now.

It was Impossible for me to go to the masterclass, so somebody else sent me. And it was Impossible for me to achieve my dreams because if they were possible, everybody else would be doing it too, but I just sat in a room with 300+ people who don’t want what I want, so…

I’ve never been fired, but I did find out that I’d used up all my student funding last semester in the middle of midterms when I was too stressed to do anything about it, and I haven’t been able to pay rent since September. So, fuck it! I have the audacity. This is my Doechii moment now.

I’m going to go to a bunch of studios and ask if they have any internships open and ask questions, and by that I mean I’m going to connect with the Renées and the Aabrias, and all the other Black women storytellers, and talk to them about creating, and playing, and performing, and critiquing games, and stories, and characters, and worlds.

I’m going to message Renée and tell her I really enjoyed talking with her about her unique approach to gameplay and I’m going to ask if she’s free to chat more about it.

I’m even going to tag @quiddie and not even panic a little bit about it. Sup prof, lecture was sick, do you do… office hours…?

Anyways, that’s the story of how I got hit by a motherfucking freight train.

[prince-liest]

I’m a sex-repulsed ace, and reading the latest chapter of 666 (as well as your analysis here on Tumblr) made me realize that I have been subconsciously thinking about MY OWN sexuality from an allo perspective? And that it has kinda been messing me up?? Like, ever since I learned that sexual attraction was actually a Thing and that it’s Important To People, I had been carrying around a fear of being deficient in some way and not being able to love to the same extent as allos. (1)

Even though I know logically that’s complete garbage and totally untrue, I felt left out of the loop because people seemed to care strongly about this thing I couldn’t even imagine. Whenever it looked like a relationship might happen I panicked for a reason that I couldn’t understand. But now I’m starting to realize that it’s because I was subconsciously terrified of an ‘ulterior motive’ behind the other person’s reasons for wanting to be with me. (2) That part of the reason they even cared was because of something I don’t experience. So thank you, because this realization just clicked into place while reading your work. The thing is, this way of thinking was just internalized in such a way that I didn’t even realize it was there until literally this week. And I think you’re right; one of the main reasons behind that is because I’ve always consumed media written from an allo perspective. (3) If ace/aros are shown at all, they’re depicted as “lacking” and their character development usually revolves around being “fixed” by the story. When I was ~10 years old my mom sometimes let me watch the Big Bang Theory with her (looking back, maybe not the best decision). Anyways, there was one episode deep into the series where Sheldon (who for the past nineish seasons was probably the closest thing to mainstream ace rep) has sex with his girlfriend for the first time. (4) Afterwards, he says something along the lines of “that was better than I thought it would be”, and it’s presented as a Very Good Thing and a big step in their relationship. I think a lifetime of stuff like that makes it very easy to internalize aphobia and feel like the lesser part of the relationship. Or to feel like the other partner is making a huge sacrifice to be with you. That got wayy too long, sorry. All that was just a lot of words to say that I appreciate you. Take care of yourself!(5)

The portrayal of asexuality that you see in media being almost exclusively as you described is very tedious to me because it presumes that something is inherently lacking in aro/aceness rather than that feeling of "lacking" being something that is induced by societal norms. Actually, one of the things that I find additionally alienating is that fandom spaces specifically have been getting better and better about ace characters - but got damn does fandom not jive with aromanticism. Like, a character doesn't want to fuck? That's becoming a liiiittle more fine, it's 2024, we stan consent. But not shipping someone romantically?? Not so easy, now.

I'm glad that my work has been something that resonated with you in this respect! Alastor cares a lot about his reputation as a demon but is pretty blatantly a person who could not possibly give less of a shit about being "wrong" for not being experiencing romantic or sexual attraction. The explanation Viv gave at one point for his own understanding of himself (that he thinks he's just "waiting for the right woman") actually stuck out to me a lot because it's a very "well, nothing is wrong with me for not feeling anything, it's the world that's failed to produce a suitable person" perspective.

But having that kind of confident perspective of your own rightness in the world is really not often portrayed in media, or even in fandom, which even ten years ago was still in the throes of standardizing "Oh, no! Me, gay? These feelings are so wrong!" style m/m content and is honestly not that far off from essentially that for aro/ace characters.

Anyway, all of that is to say that there's not yet much out there that doesn't frame allo/amatonormative values as the default that "even aro/ace people can (and should want to) achieve," and that it's really fun to write a fic that is unequivocally from the perspective of a character who is aroace and doesn't see it as even remotely a fault in himself. Does he have moments where he's a little confused and trying to process how things fit for him? Absolutely. But he just doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who thinks he owes romance to Vox of all people, hahaha. I've written him trying to conform to allo/amatonormativity more with Mimzy, because I think the social standards of their time could push him into it, but Vox? Absolutely not, he does not respect Vox enough for it to even enter his mind.

And then, on the other hand, writing it from an aroace perspective centers the way that romantic and sexual interest can feel like a betrayal of a good thing. With a character like Alastor, it frames romantic and sexual attraction the same alien way that we usually see aromanticism and asexuality framed as.

In the end, this is just one of a plethora of different experiences that aro/ace people can have, but it's one that I really wanted to see represented more, so I'm very happy to write it. I'm glad that you're enjoying it!

[quinn-pop]

astral things…(aka orb cats)

y’know that cute thing cats do where they sleep with their paws out??? yeah

[spacetimeaccordionfolder]

... were we supposed to know that the icons on the chapter titles were supposed to be the heralds (also also wit) because I didn't realize that till the end of wind and truth

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Brother saw my outfit for today and said Is That Sebastian Shaw chat should i kill myself now or wait until im with family

[bookatans]

This is probably going to be a very long post but the more I think about the rise (and subsequent fall) of the New Mandalorians, the more that I get wrapped up in not only the colonialism committed by Satine and the movement, how it began in such a horrifyingly understated way, but also how it paved the way for Mandalore to be destroyed thanks to the almost-complete erasure of their culture.

First of all, Canon verse deciding to remove the True Mandalorians (and placing the "Old" Mandalorians in a similar, though less prominent position) feels particularly underhanded and paints everything in a black and white manner. Satine: a sympathetic character who is the only one standing against Death Watch, the last shred of peace left for Mandalorians to cling to. Which. Last standing? Yes, definitely. But not the only one.

A war where Death Watch and the New Mandalorians were the major players, only to have Death Watch defeated – even with the assistance of the Jedi keeping Satine alive – makes little sense from a technical standpoint. Is it impossible? Probably not. All sorts of things can happen in history, pure dumb luck makes every difference, but it's unlikely. A party which seeks peace is not going to survive against another ultra violent, volatile party that's pissed off at you because you want to erase the culture that they so deeply value.

Which, yeah I don't buy it. Even with the Republic stepping in later on, it's fishy. But for the sake of my sanity, I'm mostly focusing on Legends, because the more you try to create a coherent timeline (seriously, how is Clone Batch Math easier than this?) for the Mandalorian Civil Wars, the harder it is not to give up entirely.

Anyways. Satine did not survive years of conflict due to mere smarts and perseverance, and did not end the war by being charismatic and having good people skills. She was the LEAST THREATENING PARTY in a three-party war, hunkering down with her Jedi protectors and playing politician while the actual warriors in the conflict weakened one another and – for the True Mandalorians – were wiped out.

True Mandalorians. Death Watch. New Mandalorians.

So, okay. The approximate dates of the beginning and end of the Mandalorian Civil Wars don't necessarily make sense with Satine’s age. She'd have been slightly younger, and Canon seems to have a tendency to just wave their hand in the general direction of a time period and deflect onto another topic.

Which, you know what? Fine. I can work with that without having to think too hard about the dates. It kills me not to delve into it further, but. No. It's not like Disney's gonna pay me to fix their broken timeline.

(But if I had to, I'd shift Jaster's death to 47BBY instead of 52BBY, and push the Battle of Galidraan a year back to 43BBY, and—)

Here's what's important to remember, though:

- There are two Mandalorian Civil Wars. The first being True Mandalorians vs Death Watch. The second being the much shorter, and quickly solved Death Watch vs the New Mandalorians.

- The massacre of the True Mandalorians happened shortly before the beginning of the second civil war.

- The True Mandalorians had already been dealing with Death Watch for years, and they were winning. Death Watch wasn't just on the run, they were weak, they had to resort to TRICKING THE JEDI into killing the True Mandalorians for them.

Who wasn't weak? The New Mandalorians, the people that actively choose to turn their back on a culture that had survived for centuries. And yes, Death Watch remained even after the True Mandalorians fell. Tor Vizsla targeted Satine and the New Mandalorians viciously after that, there was even more destruction, but it wasn't with the severity with which he'd prosecuted the True Mandalorians.

Here's what happened next: Jango Fett escaped his enslavement. He hunted down Tor Vizsla, and he killed him. Whatever strength Death Watch had regained in those few years didn't matter, because the second their leader was gone they were certainly left unorganized and at a disadvantage.

Giving the New Mandalorians the opening they needed to cement in people's minds to their beliefs and convince the House and Clan leaders that abandoning their old ways was the solution. After all, how much more of Mandalore was left to destroy? How many more had to be lost?

With the public's approval and the Republic’s help, Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians scavenged the corpse of Mandalore, and they took what they deemed fit, left the rest to rot and – given time – be erased completely.

What's worse is that Satine's activism and speeches made it sound like that made sense (because, to Satine, it did make sense); abandon what Mandalore once was because that's the reason we've been destroyed, isn't it? (Not entirely untrue.) And these people, whose world had been ravaged, who's clans and families had wrecked everything with in-fighting, were tired and desperate enough that they listened.

Actually, here's what's really worse — Satine got LUCKY! The first time! It should not have ended like that. But because she got lucky, because it worked once, she tried to do the exact same thing when the entire galaxy went to war. And she ignored the suffering of people whom she should have known empathy towards, who were going through the very same torment she experienced as a child. Because her position of superiority where peace is the only answer was so ingrained in her beliefs, because she was ARROGANT.

And because peace was the only answer, because she'd disavowed any sense of warrior culture from her people, Satine had as much a hand in dooming Mandalore as everyone who went in with the worst intentions. Does it matter that it was doomed regardless, because Maul was the great evil that came to destroy them? No. Maul was just the most convenient means to an end the resurrected Death Watch could find, but if not him it would have been anyone — anything – else.

I do feel for her. She had to experience her father's death so young and step into a role he'd left behind, didn't get a proper chance to grieve because she had to be strong for everyone else who was grieving. She gave up the possibility of love for duty. Satine was a good leader, I won't argue that, and she was the last stand between Mandalore and total annihilation, but she was also deeply flawed.

[faragonart]

@1driedpersimmon I just thought it'd be neet if they meet hee hee~

with @pali-himbo 's Vatii Kiri~