#saved so much time and suffering because i could just focus on values

[lenorenevermore99]

Hwang In-ho: is he Redeemable?

I've noticed people are way too polarizing when it comes to Hwang In-ho's character. They either see him as just a psychopath with zero humanity and zero potential for redemption (looking at you, reddit) or this little traumatized meow meow who only did bad things because he's suffering.

But things are never that simple.

A few things I want to address in this meta post:

Where Gi-hun and In-ho are different

Why he became the Frontman (in my opinion)

His possibility for Redemption

In-ho is a very complex character, and I'll try to break it down in this post with the limited information we have.

Where he and Gi-hun are different

We all know the similarities between Gi-hun and In-ho. We know that In-ho himself sees his past self in Gi-hun. While they are similar in many aspects, I think they are fundamentally different.

Now, we don't really have In-ho's complete backstory. We know he had a pregnant, sick wife who died. We know has had a half-brother and a step-mother. We know he was a cop and that he lost his job.

I want to focus on this point in particular because, as I see it, this is where Gi-hun and In-ho are fundamentally different.

Gi-hun first worked in a factory, then as a shopkeeper, then as a chauffeur. For all we know, before becoming the Frontman, In-ho only ever worked as a cop, which is a job that can require you to kill.

Likely, he was already a murderer way before entering the games. Which is why, he tells Gihun that he knows that's blood money, but it doesn't matter to him if that's what it takes to save his wife and child. He went into the games the first time, ready to kill because he had already killed before. While Gi-hun, who had a pretty regular job before, was only ready to kill when pushed to the limit. And even then, he refused to do it.

But this guy? This guy never had any hesitation.

I'm not saying being a cop made him a bad person (before the games), even Jun-ho is a cop and he killed people too without hesitation; first when he infiltrated the island, and then to escape.

But he's not a good person either. This is another thing where he and Gi-hun differ. We know from the latter's backstory (the strike, the rebellion) that he puts collective needs above individualistic needs. You would think that a cop would do the same, but given the things he was willing to do to save his wife, I think it's safe to say he's pretty selfish in that regard.

It wasn't the game that changed him, it wasn't the game that traumatized him and made him this ruthless, calculating game master; he was already like that. Someone like Gi-hun, someone idealistic who values human life, would never become the Frontman, it doesn't matter how much they're hurt and traumatized.

The games didn't turn him into a cold-blooded murderer, the games took away the only light and hope he had in life, turning an already ruthless man into a ruthless man with nothing to lose.

Why he became the Frontman (in my opinion)

In-ho was a cop. A job that gives you control, gives you power over others. But when his wife got sick, when he was dragged into the games the first time, he lost control over his life.

I think that, just like Gi-hun, In-ho was unable to go back to his normal life. He was unable to look at his mother and brother in the eyes after everything he had done. Especially since the reason he did all that in the first place, his wife and child, was gone.

He couldn't go back to his family, he couldn't go back to his job, so he went back to the only place where he could have some sort of control. He couldn't control what happened in his life, he couldn't control the circumstances that lead him to the games, but he could control the games now.

All that bullshit about fairness is just what he tells himself to feel better, but the only reason he became the Frontman was because that role gave him some semblance of control over his own life. The very one he had lost.

And this is what drastically reduces his possibilities for redemption, because his reasonings were pretty selfish, and completely avoidable.

Possibility for Redemption?

I do believe there's still some humanity in him. I've seen people say that he doesn't give a fuck about Jun-hee, that if he did he wouldn't have recruited her in the first place. Which is crazy to me, because it's not like he recruits every single person himself, he has employees that do that and keep files on the players. He only ever goes to check those files when he needs to. Like during the glass bridge, he didn't know that player was a glass-maker until he checked his file, just like he didn't know Jun-hee was pregnant before she went to Gi-hun's team to ask for help.

Personally, I think there's no way he'll ever let Jun-hee die. I think whatever's left of his humanity is buried deep inside him, but it's still there. And Jun-hee might be the key to bringing it to the surface.

When it comes to redemption, I cannot see any other redemption for this character that isn't through sacrifice. Whether he sacrifices himself to save Jun-hee, or his brother, or Gi-hun, or to stop the games, that is the only way he could ever atone for what he has done. Because frankly, he doesn't deserve a happy ending. He doesn't deserve to return to his family and be happy when all the people who died in the games couldn't. But self-sacrifice would be a beautiful wrap-up on his character; In-ho finally understanding that humans can make selfless choices, coming to realize the error of his ways, would be a beautiful ending for him.

But of course, this is just my opinion.

[mari-lair]

I want to talk about Killua and Gon's separation.

There is a lot to untangle so let's start with Killua's mentality after the Chimera Ant Arc.

Killua is aware of how much Gon hurt him, and he understands that even if Gon's bond and dept with Kite is not something he can relate to, this pain isn't something he can brush off either, yet, he comclude his self-reflection by calling his dilemma a burden.

This need to be valued by Gon is what made him take things personally and feel useless during their invasion.

Regardless of his own feelings and issues, Killua blames himself for not sucking up and staying there with Gon. He has for a while... Take note of how horrified he looks after Palm tells him he is the one Gon needs the most.

Any possible joy he could have gotten from being important was far too small compared to the crushing realization 'Gon needs me and I left him alone while he was suffering.'

But Killua is hurting for himself too, at how he was put in a situation where everything felt out of his control.

That makes him angry.

When yelling at Gon about how reckless and selfish he is, Killua thinks to himself "apologies...?" as a question, a question that comes right after thinking "this time I won't forgive you'', like he is trying to find an answer to how he is feeling.

He doesn't really know what he wants from Gon, how or even where to direct his anger.

But he does know what he wants from himself.

'I will definitively make you better.'

It makes his declaration feel more like a "you will be alive to apologize. You will be here when I figure it out" the apology itself isn't nearly as important.

Because his recovery is so important, Killua doesn't allow himself to think too hard about it. He can't get emotional and make mistakes again, he needs to be level headed and get things done.

Even if the ever-present fear that he will be too late to save Gon is there.

He was too late once after all.

Killua immediately loses his calm when there are no hospital curtains or glass windows between them.

Even with Nanika by his side to give him strength, he is tense from the moment he reaches for Gon's hand. It breaks him to witness exactly how bad Gon state has become.

Translations vary but the sense of urgency is prevalent, even with his mission accomplished, his wish a touch away, he shows zero relief, he acts like he is too late again, desperate to help him.

There is no 'Gon is invincible. He heals super fast from everything.' mentality anymore, and even the hope he has been clinging to that 'Nanika is amazing, she can heal Gon' gets destroyed.

Is just him and the brutal reminder Gon can fall.

So when Gon gets up, against all odds, Killua is happy. The joy is stronger than his grief.

He downplays his worry, and keeps it casual, when he tells Gon to watch out for himself, but he is genuinely happy when Gon thanks him.

That's what I believe Killua really wanted from the start, not an apology but a thank you. It always hit him hard when Gon thanks him, be it when Killua is happy, or at his lowest:

Killua just didn't believe he deserved a "thank you", not after being put far too many responsibilities on himself and drowning in failures. But now, things are okay.

For as difficult as Killua's life is, he does like to focus on the good, so when he talks to Gon, who is alive and no longer blinded by grief, while being able to hold on to his little sister's hand, who is happy and free, he has no regrets, it was no problem. He would do it again and again and again for them, and Gon showing appreciation of what he has done is the cherry on top.

Killua doesn't really care about the apology anymore, because he already understands Gon didn't want to hurt him, he has been by Gon's side for years, and he knows better than anyone that Gon is a kind boy who loves his friends very much, and is far too harsh on himself.

So Killua acknowledges his pain but he keeps it light-hearted and brief. He doesn't want his best friend to focus on this, as Gon is prone to, so after Gon gets on his knees to apologize, Killua thanks him.

Which is something Killua rarely does, most of his thank yous are either casual or in monologues Gon isn't privy to. But he want to focus on the good he gained, on how his adventures and feelings for Gon are what let him take the needle out and go to Alluka's rescue instead of how he learned to fear loss.

He believes Gon is just as important to Alluka's rescue as Alluka was to his recovery. And he acknowledged Gon's issues but still value him.

So he does what he has always appreciated, and lets Gon know how valuable he is. Hurt or not, he always wants what's best for Gon. To cheer him up, to put his mind at ease.

And now that things have gotten more peaceful, they both decided that's what they focus on, on how valuable the other is. How much they enjoy each other's company and how hard it is to go their separate ways.

Even what Ging says about "What I was I looking for isn't what I ended up valuing" parallels their arrangement.

This is the end of their journey to travel the world in search of Ging, and the Chimera Ant disaster will definitively mark them, but they are still friends, and proud of it!

Which brings me to Killua's "you're number two" claim.

Personally, I do not believe he is being literal or trying to measure their value when he claims his sister is No.1. He just doesn't want to put too much pressure on Gon when he can tell Gon is still beating himself over how he treated Killua.

Palms's "You're the most important person to Gon" speech broke Killua, it crushed him with pressure, and it wasn't even Gon himself saying. Imagine how bad Gon would feel if Killua said "You're my most important person" or showed in any way how highly he holds Gon after the way Gon had snapped at him.

Add in how Gon already feels indebted to Killua, who had witnessed Gon destroy himself over his debt to Kite, and how hard it is for Gon to let Killua go... I can understand why Killua would want to downplay the situation as much as possible. Make it easier on Gon.

I don't want to downplay Alluka's importance to Killua though, she is the main reason they separate, the one that gives Killua confidence to turn his back on Gon despite how sad they look about diverging their paths, and makes Killua keep going.

Killua had nothing he wanted for a while. Now he wants to take Alluka and Nanika to travel the world, and while Gon is amazing and fun, he is also deeply intertwined with danger.

And Killua already has a lot of danger on his hands.

He needs a break from danger. From stress.

He can't protect Alluka and Nanika, while keeping an eye on Gon in their usual adventures. And he can't let himself go wild with Illumi on the hunt.

His priority is to keep Alluka safe and happy. Show her a taste of freedom and all the fun he knows exists out there.

And Killua is emotionally smart too, for as much as he is attached to Gon, I think he does realize they need time away. They will see each other again, they promised.

but right now they are too dependent.

[1nkwe4ver]

Okay had a thought from a comment on one of my posts that helped me articulate something

I was a few paragraphs deep into defending innie Mark’s feelings for Helly despite the persons issues with it (they’re only being together for a few weeks/months, the focus on whether Mark could tell the difference between Helly/Helena never being resolved, the shows sudden shift to having so much romance)

And like, I have arguments defending my opinions on Markhelly, sure. But I realized as I rambled them- my real feelings about Mark’s decision at the end of that hallway were not about Markhelly or Markgemma. Just like the show isn’t really about shipping or romance.

Here’s the thing: I’d argue that if Petey was still alive, (and their relationship remained platonic), he could have been the one at the end of that hallway, with a bit less romantic of a look, and I would have still bought the decision. Hell, I might have bought it as things are if Irving miraculously appeared. (would have been on the edge of my seat for how they explained that in season three, but just as an example.)

Because it’s not about the romance. It’s about the innies.

The show took a turn at the end of season 2- a predictable one, but at the same time one that seems to come out of nowhere.

We spend two seasons building up these characters, and their issues, and a whole new sci-fi-esque oppressed group of people.

And yet what was our conflict and goal really about? Who was our main character?

In one sense- Mark, of course.

But if we divide it between Innie and Outie Mark- Outie Mark is significant, but the show is not about him. And yet it has been. This whole show has been like- is Outie Mark gonna choose to help Petey? Reintegrate? Omg, his wife is down there? We have to save her!! And saving her has been the main goal for a while.

And Innie Mark wants to save her. He does. He’s a good person, he doesn’t want her to suffer.

But all this running around, romance with Helly, revolution, all that- it’s led to something else- he values his own life. We know it, we agree with it, and yet we still almost have the same surprised reaction Outie Mark does when he asserts it.

There is a distinct, hopeless tragedy looming over Mark and Helly this whole episode, because despite all we’ve been led to care about Innies being people and Innies having autonomy and innies having lives that end if their Outies never come back to work- in the final episode, doing the “right thing” is going to trap them.

It’s not the Innie’s world out there. Tomorrow they’re going to be gone no matter what they do. The last bit of good they do, is an act of good for the Outies. Mark *may* reintegrate if his Outie isn’t lying. If his outie will risk it after he has everything he wants. If that even still means some form of existence for innie Mark, cause won’t his 40 years swallow up innie Mark’s two? And Helly simply has no chance. Helena will never reintegrate. And Helly probably doesn’t want to be reintegrated with that kind of person.

So they are trapped. Alone, really. The show that seemed to be about the Innies has become Outies vs Lumon, using the Innies and their rebellion as foot soldiers to save one Outie woman. Innie Mark has been holding on by his finger nails trying to find a way to choose Innies, but there’s no way. No Option C. Mark and Helly expect to die.

But then our protagonist is faced with a pivotal decision. A couple of steps from leaving, making the final sacrifice for the Outies, ceasing to exist- which he hesitates to do even in his rush because that’s fucking scary-

Helly appears. Finally, Option C.

She’s not just the woman he loves. She got more Innies on her side. She’s got a minor resistance going. There’s a chance they could hold things off for a day. A few hours. An hour. A few minutes. Anything. Of course they’re not gonna win. Who said you have to win to make a difference?

Is it really love between them? Something objectively as true and full as what Outie Mark has with Gemma?

Who fucking cares? He’s been alive for 2 years. A couple of months must feel like a couple of Marks years, relatively. Not to mention, she changed everything about him. Set him free emotionally. Revolutionized him.

Who cares if it’s not quite up to Outie standards?

So what if they have half a love?

So what if they have half a life?

You expect them not to fight for it?

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.204 thoughts

[Lord Forgive Me But It's Time to Go Back to The Old Me]

(Contents: Parallels - Nico/Feng/Ichico, Character development - Feng, Power system development/speculation - Souls, Character speculation - Sun/Luna)

Well! I guess we didn't need to worry about Nico staying a non-Negator after all, now did we? So much for keeping Nico "Unforgettable-free" eh, Ichico? Still, I feel better knowing that my prediction that they'd trigger it on purpose was correct, even if the exact method was a bit off

As usual, Tozuka continues to impress me with his ability to compose iconic panels. Nico's face when he absorbed all of the memories from Acopalypse is simply Unforgettable, particularly since it so immediately reverted him to his classic L100 appearance. What's really fun about that is that it's probably not that his body just suddenly remembered all of the stress and sleepless nights of Unforgettable, but rather it's the logical extreme of Artifact-based memory influx. We've seen characters develop headaches and nosebleeds from it before, most notably from Fuuko digging through an huge box full of Artifacts, so for Nico to absorb presumably ALL of Apocalypse's stored memories (stated to be the most of any Artifact), it makes sense that even the capillaries under his eyes would all burst at once from the pressure

The question now is whether or not this is a permanent change. I imagine not, since his previously haggard appearance was indicative of his suffering, the haunting knowledge that his most sacred memories would soon fade and be permanently replaced with the most wretched. L100 Nico had the opportunity to create new pleasant memories but actively rejected the possibility out of fear of losing the old, while in this world Nico is going to be able to embrace the support of others as he won't have lost Ichico this time. Honestly, no wonder Tozuka waited to introduce Mico to this world; he wanted to make sure Nico would be able to make room for her in his heart rather than keeping her at a distance

I wonder if that's another reason Tozuka chose Feng for this fight; not only is Feng's current focus on making himself unforgettable to future generations, but he's also a good parallel to Nico's role as a father. Both L100 Nico and Feng prevented themselves from properly forming attachments with their children, and L101 has given both of them the chance to make right on that. Shen explicitly acknowledges that he loves Feng as his father, and Feng even calls Shen his son, so while Feng may not be the best or even a good role model for fatherhood, he does make a compelling argument for parental redemption. If Nico really does have complete knowledge of the previous Loops now, the significance of this change won't be lost on him, and he'll be certain to make sure Mico can grow up happy and loved

Speaking of, Ichico's final speech in this chapter remind me a lot of Nico's in L100. She tells Nico that she knows he can save her because he's the first person she's ever loved, while as Nico was dying in L100, Ichico asked if he thought Mico could handle saving Fuuko's life and he replied "she's our daughter. She doesn't make mistakes." Both of them have absolute faith in their loved ones to pull through when the chips are down, and both of them hold each other in extremely high regard. These two really have such strong chemistry, I'm excited to see the sorts of interactions they have now that the cat's out of the bag

Now that I think of it, Nico's refusal to let Mico into his heart was pretty ironic since Ichico explicitly wanted to make sure that Nico wouldn't ever feel alone. Just like Leila asked Rip and Latla to find love in each other, Ichico wanted Nico to fill the void she left with Mico, and just like them, he couldn't let go of the past and move on. Leila and Ichico were also both in poor health and believed that since their lives were short they held less value, and instead sought to leave as much of an impact as possible in the time that they had, even if it was just to make the people closest to them happy

Looking at Ichico in that light, we can see another fun parallel to Feng! Feng's Unfade made him believe that he had all the time in the world and that he didn't need to leave anything behind because he'd always be there, while Ichico's Unsleep made her believe she had no time and had to leave as much behind as she could. Both of them, however, had adverse effects on their families, as Feng believed his children to exist for him to become stronger and Ichico believed her child to be an adequate replacement for herself, when in reality Feng should have focused on raising someone to surpass him and Ichico should have focused on preserving her life to be present for her family. Heck, Unforgettable manifested in Nico both times specifically because he saw Ichico's last moments and thought something to the effect of "I don't want her to die, I want to remember her." Doomed by the narrative, indeed!

Man, I'm so glad Tozuka used Feng here, I had no idea there was so much connective tissue between all these folks! I bet we still would have gotten something cool if it were Tella, but damn this is such juicy stuff!! I hope Tozuka keeps throwing all of his toys together in fun combos that get me to think this deeply in the other Master Rule fights too

Feng's inclusion here also continues to demonstrate how far he's developed, forcing him to put his money where his mouth is and sacrifice himself for someone else for a change. He was a bit incredulous at first that Ichico was suggesting he should die, which is pretty hypocritical coming from the guy who just last chapter said "you should sacrifice your wife to get stronger, it'll be cool." Once he realized that dying would help him understand souls better and that Nico could save him AND bring him back to life, Feng was all for it, and may well come to understand that being with people provides more opportunities for growth than treating them as expendable ever could

I am very interested in seeing how his death will improve his understanding of souls, though. The damage he took from Luna's soul blast as well as the damage he dealt to Sun (who Language stated has a physical body) with his knock-off Kamehameha both prove that souls can directly interact with the physical plane, something that Ghost previously stated couldn't be done. This may be a matter of interpretation, though, as Ghost also stated that Andy only couldn't move his limbs after having those parts of his soul cut off because he believed he could move his body using his soul. Ghost's interpretation was that souls couldn't touch physical matter and vice versa, so only a physical attack coated in soul could harm him by ensuring it didn't matter which form he was in

Luna's attack seems to be pure soul, so by that logic, she shouldn't have been able to deal damage to Feng's body, and yet she did. Is Luna's interpretation that a soul attack damages the soul and reflects its state on the body? Probably not, then one wouldn't be able to detach their soul for attacks in the first place, as that would cause the body to change shape (see Mahito's Idle Transfiguration in JJK). Does Luna interpret souls as having different properties at different concentrations? Is she coating her soul around the air to create physical pressure when launching her attack? Or is it something entirely different? Whatever it turns out to be, I think it will have pretty drastic implications for how battles are fought going forward

Finally, I want to touch on an interesting line from Language. She referred to Luna and Sun as "the Pinnacle of the Spiritual and the Pinnacle the Physical" respectively, and given Luna's hazy silver appearance, it does track that she is literally made of soul, but then does that mean Luna doesn't have a physical body at all? And in fact, if Luna is only a soul, then how did she exist prior to UMA Soul's creation? Is Soul really the Rule that allows souls to exist, or the Rule that allows other souls, existences like Luna, to be?

And if Luna is a soul without a body, then...is Sun a body without a soul? Can soul-based attacks work on Sun, or does the Union need to focus solely on physical attacks? Or, does defeating Sun require that Luna be defeated simultaneously, just like Ghost, because Luna is Sun's soul?

I know I say it all the time, but Tozuka really is following Oda's footsteps incredibly well. They're both so good at sprinkling in hints that make me ask questions rather than just spoonfeeding me answers, so while I desperately want the answers, the time I get to spend chewing them over and looking for them myself makes the questions stick with me and leave that much more of an impact. I sincerely hope that other mangaka are taking notes, cus I want to see so much more of this in Jump's future!

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[aotopmha]

Out of all of the elements of Ultima Thule, I feel like the tribes are the least talked about.

I think with fairly good reason – at its core Ultima Thule is about the journeys our main cast has been on.

But I love them just as much because they bring together some very long-standing threads.

In essence all three tribes had their reasons for succumbing to despair:

The dragons were broken by the suffering brought upon them and their planet by the Omicrons. Their despair came from war and oppression.

The singular purpose of the Ea was to seek more knowledge, but they learned time is finite, so to them, what they pursued became meaningless. Their despair came from their work not being eternal.

The Omicrons pursued their wish to become powerful because they were weak once. Their despair came from becoming so powerful, they had no equal.

The Ea are the new group here, serving as parallels to Y'Shtola and Urianger, and they're actually the odd one out here, having no prior history to Ultima Thule, so I'm going to mostly focus on the dragons and the Omicrons.

But to sum it up, Y'Shtola's answer to the Ea is simple: despite time being finite, any truths learned can be seen from different angles and people can reach their own conclusions about them.

For example, even if everything disappears one day, and new knowledge is finite just as the universe, as long as we exist, the knowledge we have has meaning and value to those who come after us.

It's the time we do have left that matters.

Or perhaps even if knowledge and time are finite, a pursuit to extend the life of the universe could be possible.

Or perhaps, if knowledge is finite, we could find happiness in some other pursuit.

The Ea, along with all of the other tribes and Meteion herself, see their perspective as absolute. And in a neat way, this also extends to Hermes.

Along with having very specific beliefs, they've been effected by what they've gone through so strongly, they can't see any other way of looking at their situation and thus no new purpose to find.

In that sense, Y'Shtola's answer leans on what I think is probably the best part of her character: getting straight to the point when it matters.

But the Omicrons and the dragons are the true cool part to me.

Midgardsomr's connection with Hydaelyn and his respect for her has been established since he was introduced, we just never went into detail with it.

And this explains it all: so much of the universe is dead and Midgardsomr saw that emptiness during his journey to Etheirys.

We will probably find life in the cosmic exploration content in Dawntrail, but Etheirys will remain special because of the strength and concentration of it.

Life is a miracle, so it must be protected.

So, Estinien's answer comes down to self-pity not saving anyone. There will always be conflict and more often than not peace will be won with fighting.

And Midgardsomr is proof that however difficult the path to it, resillience will lead to true survival and happiness.

It's bringing together the Midgardsomr plot thread, which has existed since A Realm Reborn, Heavensward and Endwalker itself in one swoop. I love it.

I think I love the Omicrons the most, though because their section gives so much more meaning to an entire raid series.

And I think this is one part of the story that absolutely was planned out.

What Omega says when Alpha is running across space is super specific. It's the mention of Ser that gets me every time because first time through the most you get from that section is that it's a log of Omega's own journey to Etheirys.

But when you add everything together, it gets layers.

To me Alpha has always represented Omega's own soul along with how he views feelings.

Something pointless to ultimately be discarded because it "serves no purpose", but because it is a source of strength, he wants to logic it out.

His testing, and the soul that Alpha represents became so cool to me – essentially Omega, for the first time, had his perspective as an omicron challenged when Alpha wasn't rejected by anyone else and valued for his participation.

The final boss of Omega having the WoL's theme in it was always super cool, but it is even cooler to realise how they're foils knowing what dynamis represents and how we can use it.

It's the most literal logic vs feelings fight ever thematically.

And in the Ultimate he finally stops disregarding Alpha, instead joining his strength with his.

And equally, G'raha's answer to Sir leans on this. If you have no purpose, you can always try look for a new one because you change every single moment you live and never stop.

So the Omicrons can look for purpose beyond war.

And the "waste of time" that is everything else, perhaps isn't a waste, but simply part of a more fulfilling life.

And to once again, bring it all together with Endwalker, I think they also represent a potential endpoint for the Garleans and a parallel to the Allagans.

All a source of pointless, wanton destruction because of a single-minded pursuit of power.

And ultimately left without purpose.

There is actually another strong perspective within UT.

Meteion's.

The key part with her is that by taking all of these negative feelings into herself, along with finding dead worlds by themselves, she also unintentionally doomed some of them.

So along with fearing to disappoint Hermes and facing all of those negative feelings from the different worlds, she also has massive amounts of guilt built up within, so her journey is a neverending cycle that keeps hurting her and the worlds around her.

And it all began with her basically having no choice on the matter because of her nature and Hermes pushing her into it all despite knowing and feeling how wrong it was.

I think she's probably the most tragic of the characters because she is in the most literal sense an empath child.

Ultima Thule is just so wonderfully thematically substantial to me. It ties together the general main cast and themes of all expansions with strongly-defined perspectives for all of them.

I say those who wanted everyone to die at the end of this can suck it.

Absolutely would be a betrayal considering the thematic focus of finding purpose and happiness after much pain.

[dhavaer]

Kinks & Cantrips: Balance Review

Kinks & Cantrips is a BDSM focused third-party sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5e, by T.S. Michaels. About half the book is a campaign setting, which I won't be mentioning from here because it doesn't interest me enough to look at it. The scope of this review will be the class, subclasses, and spells contained in the second half of the book, possibly later expanding to look at the feat, magic items, and monsters. Note that I haven't been able to playtest it, so I'm going off comparisons to similar mechanics.

I won't be explaining the mechanics of what I'm reviewing in detail, but the Pleasure and Pain system will be brought up a lot so here is a brief overview. Pleasure and Pain are numeric values, tracked separately, that can go up to half a character's Constitution score (not modifier). Having any amount of either has no intrinsic effect, but enables various abilities and spells, and if you would go over your maximum you make a Constitution save or suffer some conditions for a while, and for Pleasure some of it is lost. You will note that most PCs will have a cap of about 7. They also deplete at a rate of 1/minute, so both will be empty most of the time. There is no mention of ways to apply either outside of abilities to do so, so it's not clear if a character can, for example, go down on a ally to enable a Pleasure based ability. The Path of the Red subclass for barbarian refers to the combination of them as 'Sensation', and I'll be using that more generally.

Class - Escapologist

The Escapologist is pretty durable against attacks, with a d12 for hit points and proficiency in all armour, although unusually they can't start with heavy armour. They also have thieves' tools proficiency, giving a bit of utility. They have proficiency in martial weapons and get extra attack, but have no other offensive abilities except gaining proficiency and increased damage with improvised weapons. At 17th level you can dual-wield chairs for 1d12 damage, which is funny if nothing else.

Most of their abilities focus on evading damage or escaping from hazards. They have one ability that forces an enemy to target them with an attack that does any of several conditions (grappled, restrained, etc) and can determine if enemies have a suitable attack with an Insight check.

The subclasses add some more support abilities. The Guiding Hand gives advantage on saves against multiple target effects to allies if the Escapologist saves, can catch projectiles aimed at allies, and stop time to maneuver allies away from danger. The Virtuoso can give d6s to add to d20 rolls to allies who see them escape from various conditions.

It's not immediately apparent how an Escapologist is intended to be built - they have some Wisdom-based abilities, several that rely on Dexterity saves, heavy armour proficiency, Charisma-based abilities on the Virtuoso, and a Strength-only ability in the improvised weapon bonuses. This could be taken as flexibility or lack of focus.

Overall the Escapologist doesn't seem to add much to an adventuring party - their support abilities are very limited and while they're fairly durable against attacks, they can't do much in combat. Thematically, it seems a bit odd for the sole new class in a BDSM sourcebook to have the sole characteristic of being hard to do BDSM to. It would be fun if, instead of just escaping binding abilities, they could reverse them - when a tentacle monster tries to restrain them, they escape the tentacles and tie them in a knot, restraining the monster! Something like that would give them a more active style of play.

Barbarian

Path of the Red - the initiative bonus from Sensational Zeal is a bit tricky, since you're unlikely to have any Sensation when rolling initiative. Also it's a bit awkward that your best way to gain Pleasure is Relish the Feeling from healing or temp hp, but your best way to gain temp hp is from Zeal when you gain Pain, which is mostly easily done from Relish the Feeling, which takes your reaction. Maybe team up with a twilight cleric? Regardless, this is the best method of gaining Pleasure in combat.

The other abilities aren't very impactful. Using Don't Stop is generally a bad idea, Won't Stop is nice but won't come up much, and while Speak the Red Word gives you immunity to pretty much everything, it costs your entire next turn (as well as a reaction, again), which will sometimes be worth it but often not.

On the whole, strong start hobbled by lackluster higher level abilities and an overreliance on reactions. Make Relish the Feeling 1/round each for Pleasure and Pain instead of costing a reaction and it gets much better.

Path of Terror - Monty Python reference in this one! This is the 'mark me down as scared and horny' barbarian, except replace horny with angry. Maybe. It basically turns the frightened condition into a reverse hunter's mark/hex, but stronger. Advantage on attacks and double rage damage bonus are pretty solid abilities, although they don't work so well against groups of enemies. Definitely a subclass that wants to fight boss monsters.

This is also the first subclass I've seen with an ability that specifically buffs running away, and even incentivises the barbarian to be the last one off the sinking ship, so to speak.

Perhaps overly focused on fighting single, powerful enemies, but overall mechanically and thematically solid.

Path of the Titan - it makes you big and lets you eat people. And non-people, but that's boring. Free enlarge on raging is nice, although I've always found the effects of that spell to be a bit anemic. Only 1d4 extra damage?

Trampling Stride is some decent multitarget damage for a class that usually struggles with that, but I feel it could have been a grapple buff to set up Microvore? Or just give Microvore some ability to do better grapples? It's a cool ability - if you're into that - but it doesn't feel well supported mechanically. It's nice to be able to trample people under your feet though, fits well with the concept.

Enormous Physique feels a bit too safe. The strength buff doesn't stack with the Barbarian level 20 ability, so that feels bad. The size being set to huge rather than depending on your normal size, and the weight increase just being to 1000lbs is a bit dry. Making Dex saves with disadvantage makes sense but having a speed malus doesn't. And being only once per day when it's the only way to be able to swallow medium size creatures is just sad.

Some good features that don't quite come together as well as they should let down by a disappointing capstone.

Bard

College of Brats - have you ever wanted to be a tank bard? Have you ever want mechanical support for being an annoying little bitch? This may be the subclass for you!

Brats are all about marking a creature in the 4e sense - they get penalties if they attack someone other than you. You can also give them various penalties, gain temporary hit points (and Pleasure) when they hit you, and there's a fun wagering ability that can restore some of your inspirations if they miss you.

The only unrelated ability is that you can make an Insight check against a creature to maximise the damage of your Vicious Mockery. Spectacular.

Overall: fits the theme, mechanically consistent, looks fun to play.

College of Sirens - despite the art, not aquatic themed. Rather, it's focused on Sensation, but it takes a while for them to do anything with it.

They're not bad at gaining it, although they're not that good at it either. Spending an inspiration gets them either Pleasure or Pain equal to the roll, and when they gain it in any way an ally gets 1 of the same type. Having it doesn't get them any bonuses until level 6, when it improves their Concentration and gives additional bonuses to their inspiration dice.

The thing that, you know, they have to spend to get it in the first place.

Their last ability spends all of one type of sensation for an AoE charm or damage, depending on type. Notice that this turns off their other abilities.

Overall, very poor inspiration economy, and doesn't really do much until at least level 6.

College of Warmth - this subclass specialises in close range inspirations - a whole bunch of abilities that cost inspiration dice and mostly need the target to be within 5 feet of you. There's a reasonably long list to choose from and you get more as you level, with some requiring minimum levels. The 17th level ones are naturally quite powerful, but having to be within 5 feet keeps them in check somewhat.

Other than that they get a few support abilities, advantage on Deception and Persuasion, and a substantial amount of psychic damage when the charmed effect ends.

A not entirely coherent selection of abilities, especially that psychic damage, but nothing broken or unusable.

Cleric

Exorcism Domain - demon hunter in chastity, basically. Really feels like this should have been an Oath of Chastity paladin rather than a cleric; all the abilities are either melee focused, anti-fiend/aberration/undead, or benefits/avoiding the downsides of the various bondage devices it wants you to wear.

I don't think anything is overpowered if you go straight cleric, but you get your proficiency bonus to melee attack damage at level 1, so any melee fighter with 13+ Wisdom will pick this up in an instant. Hell, any class with Extra Attack will want this.

Weird subclass that doesn't mesh well with the base class, but far too good a single level dip.

Peril Domain - the cleric that keeps your allies alive, but not necessarily healthy. At least, that's the idea, in practice it's very good at healing.

Most of its domain spell list is a greatest hits list of cleric healing spells and it gets a pool of Mortality points that can, among other things, give temporary hit points when you heal. The recharge on a long rest but can also be restored by reducing an ally's max hp to 3/4, giving you an equal number of mortality points and them the same as temp hp. This will basically always fully restore your mortality points, so you can spend them quite freely.

You can keep an ally on 0hp up and active by concentrating, although weirdly this only uses the Concentration mechanic and doesn't prevent you simultaneously concentrating on a spell. You get a party buff that improves the lower the targets' hp are, and gives Pleasure which is nice for a Path of the Red or College of Sirens. The benefit at 1hp is really quite bonkers, but of course getting to exactly 1 is the trick. Then the final ability just makes you incredibly difficult to kill.

Very, very good at making the party not die. Possibly too good. Keep an eye on this one.

Druid

Circle of the Lamb - a very, very supporting subclass. Gives a substantial amount of temp hp to allies on a rest to start with, then can sacrifice a modest amount of max hp (without reducing current hp if it's lower!) for a reasonable amount of healing. Then there's Giving Nature.

Giving Nature has two main effects. Firstly, you effectively have Subtle Spell on all your spells as long as your hands are bound and you're wearing a ring gag. Then, there's this:

If you are wearing an open mouth gag, both your genitalia and ass are exposed, and your hands are bound when you take a rest, any number of creatures of your choosing may use your body however they wish.

Firstly, I don't like the line 'your genitalia and ass are exposed'. 'Ass' is too casual to combine with 'genitalia'. Say 'buttocks' or 'anus' or something similarly clinical.

The actual effect is that they get a small buff and you get a level of exhaustion, but you also get the normal effects of the rest so as long as you only use it on long rests (and the buff lasts 24 hours so there's no reason not to) you won't go over 1 level.

The last ability is oddly similar, but only affects one creature and isn't as explicitly sexual. They get a varied suite of bonuses as long as you're nearby, including you taking half their damage on your behalf. It's not specified if you can use both abilities in the same rest.

This is by far the most straightforwardly sexual subclass in the book - mostly they do normal adventuring things in BDSM themed ways, or it's abstracted behind the Sensation mechanic. If you have a Circle of the Lamb druid, the party is probably going to gangbang them. It's what they're for. Technically they only have to 'use their body' - they could use it as a pillow or a pinata if they want - but come on. We know what's intended. Look at the art.

Speaking of which, is that InCase?

Circle of Pollen - Sex pollen! Everyone's favourite fanfic trope, now in subclass form! [note: I have never read a fan fic with sex pollen]

This is a long-awaited plant druid. You can turn into a plant (up to CR 6). When you're a plant, or do any of several plant-related activities, you release a spray of pollen on a nearby creature (not undead or constructs, still affects things like fiends that are usually immune to poison for some reason). You start with a choice of two pollen effects and get more as you level. Personally I think the best one is inflicting stunned at level 10. Then there's a hybrid plant-humanoid form that turns your pollen into an AoE 1/LR, and a Poison Ivy-style murder smooch.

Overall, well themed and neither overpowered nor useless. Will definitely want to buddy up with a cleric or paladin for undead.

Circle of the Tamer - the petplay druid. All of the features of this subclass revolve around being able to you your wildshape to transform someone else. As such, you would expect that it would be pretty similar to the other Wild Shape focused druid subclass, Circle of the Moon.

It is not. The only wildshape restriction a normal druid has that this can ignore is being able to transform your pet into a monstrosity, aberration, or dragon (you have to pick the type, no backsies). You can never transform them into anything above CR 1.

This pretty well destroys the subclass's viability. It gives a few bonuses, but nothing that will let your pet keep up with other PCs. The only way I can see this being at all useful is if you're using it on an NPC hireling instead of another PC.

Fighter

Dynamic Duelist - sick of the top/bottom binary? Be a switch! This stance based fighter can swap between ranged-focused Top and melee-focused Bottom stances, and specialises in the switchblade specialty weapon. This isn't a retractable knife, but a whip sword like Ivy Soul Caliber's preferred weapon. It's pretty similar to a whip/shortsword combo.

The Dynamic Duelist is balanced against other subclasses just fine, the problem here is internal. The basic starting ability of the Top stance is much more impactful than the Bottom's, and this is also true of their abilities up to level 15, where the Bottom gets an excellent ability that unfortunately requires quite a bit of setup. Then at level 18 you get the ability to combine the stances, freeing you of ever needing to bottom.

I do not feel this is the intended takeaway.

That said, it does look like a lot of fun and makes good use of the Pain mechanic. I'd be willing to give it a short, even if it looks like the optimal playstyle is to make repeated nutshots with a longbow rather than the cool flippy acrobatic fighter that seems to be intended.

Tormenting Hunter - the art for this is a drow woman with a whip, black leather, and heels. That's right, we've found our dominatrix!

The mechanics are surprisingly un-dominatrix-y, though. Their main ability is the inverse of a 4e mark - you get penalties when attacking someone other than your mark, and bonuses when attacking them. The bonuses improve until eventually you can cast Scrying on them 1/LR.

It's hard to say what situation this would be useful in, though. Because you're penalised against everyone other than your target as long as you target them, you're either massively nerfing yourself for a daily Scry or you'll just never use that ability. You would need a very low combat, social campaign for that to work.

My favourite of their abilities is their ability to cast Command - if the target succeeds on the save, you teleport to them and immediately attack to punish them for their disobedience! Now that's a good dom ability!

Overall, some cool abilities let down by a very peculiar capstone.

Monk

Way of the Feather - tickle torture monk? Wild. Mechanically it wants to grapple, letting it use its Nerve Assault ability to inflict Incapacitated. There are several other abilities improving either Nerve Assault or general grappling abilities, capped with a bizarrely out of place Pleasure generating defensive ability. The thing that's really missing is any way to grapple larger creatures. Fight a giant and you basically don't have a subclass.

Seriously, you can't tell me no-one's into tickling massive giant feet. That must be a thing.

Way of the Heelbreaker - note: they break things with their heels. This is the foot fetish subclass, for those who want to be 'mommy' in 'step on me, mommy'.

Mechanically, they want to make people prone and then kick (or stomp) them while their down. Yes, there is an ability that models stomping on someone's dainty bits, and yes, it's pretty devastating with enough set-up. The capstone lets you spend ki to make it an auto-crit!

I feel like the ability that lets you prevent people from standing up could have come earlier, perhaps in a weakened form, but you do have a good few ways to knock people prone so it's not that much of an issue. Just keep those heels away from me, thanks.

Way of the Wick - candle wick, not John Wick. No gun kata here. I suppose you can avenge murdered pets if you must.

This monk can do lots and lots of fire damage. It's pretty good at it, especially if there's another Pain inflicter in the party. The problem is that it does very little other than fire damage. Against a fire elemental you have two abilities that actually work: inflicting but not benefiting from a small amount of pain, and having 10 foot reach.

Does some cool stuff, but I can't highly rate anything so easily hard countered.

Paladin

Oath of the Indomitable - first up: the woman in the art for this totally looks like Adora and Scorpia had a baby, right? I'm not crazy?

So, the main thing this subclass does is dual wield tower shields (awesome) and magically absorb people into them for safekeeping (kinky). While you have someone in your shield, you're slow but they're very nearly invulnerable, and you get plenty of abilities to make you tougher too.

Perhaps too many abilities.

You can: give yourself resistance to all damage for a round, make yourself immune to some conditions, gain and give temporary hit points every turn, be resistant to energy damage as long as you have a bound creature, and become immune to all damage for 1 round.

Strap the wizard to your shield and you're both damn near invincible. This is too much. A speed penalty does not balance this.

Oath of the Sagittarian - instead of having a magical mount, you are a magical mount! No, you don't get transformed into a horse (until level 20), you just do pony play.

Being a mount, you can't make weapon attacks, although you can cast spells (it's not specified that you can do this regardless of wearing a bridle and having your arms bound, probably an oversight). You can also make charge and kick attacks, as well as buff your rider. Some of the buffs are very powerful - you can give them a constant +5 to AC with no resource expenditure beyond a bonus action at level 7, which seems like a bit much.

On the other hand, you can't do a whole lot other than run around, buff your rider, and dish out the occasional kick. Like the Circle of the Lamb, this is very much a support subclass.

The AC bonus is a bit much and spellcasting could use some specifics, but overall it's inoffensive.

Ranger

Horrorling Witch - my first thought for this was 'Venom', but on closer inspection I think 'Prototype' might be the better comparison. You have some kind of horrible gribbly integrated into your body and can use it to tear people up.

Having the horrorling removed hurts you increasingly badly as you level up, but no mechanics for accomplishing this are ever given. Possibly it's one of those theoretical consequences like destroying a Wizard's spellbook that rarely actually happen.

The horrorling gives you a lot of bonuses over the levels. Claws that get a very respectable attack and damage bonus, climbing, speed bonuses, extra save proficiencies, and eating corpses and eventually enemies as a reaction. Fun!

Overall a splendidly nasty and organic feeling subclass, although I'd keep an eye on those claws. I'd play one.

Slinglash Conclave - you get a little ooze buddy (cute!) and throw little pieces of it at people with a slingshot (...cute?)

The ooze stats are with the monster stats, even though there's a version specifically for this subclass. Annoying. There's not even a page reference, so you have to go back to the table of contents. They get scaling hp based on your level, which they need because your abilities cost its hp.

The best slingshot one gives restrained on hit, but costs enough ooze hp that you can't use it willy-nilly. At higher levels you can cover yourself entirely in the ooze, giving yourself temp hp and various resistances at the cost of being unable to breathe and speak, attach parts of it to your arms for sticky ooze-whips, or give yourself re-rolls on saves.

The other part of the class is buffs to slings. At first they're raised to longbow stats, then given an expanded crit range, proficiency to damage, and no long range penalty.

This subclass gets a lot. Great defences, incredible engagement range, solid damage, and access to a selection of conditions. I would keep a very close eye on it, especially if they will be able to take advantage of the massive range.

Rogue

Null Visage - Soulknife in a gimp suit. Review done.

Okay, Psionic Blades is not quite the same as the nearly identically named Psychic Blades ability. These have slightly different damage, exist outside the attack action, and eventually get a reach increase.

The rest of the subclass is pretty different from the Soulknife, mostly being about stealth. Would you, a rogue, like to get +20 and advantage to your Stealth checks, on top of whatever nonsense you already have? All you need are some admittedly unlikely circumstances. They eventually gain the ability to use Disguise Self.

The unlikeliness of these circumstances makes the balance difficult to judge. If they're available, the rogue will simply never fail a stealth check. If they're not, the subclass is basically useless. Bad feels either way.

Stitcher - you use oversized sewing needles to sew creatures together and throw them around.

This has incredible damage potential, but also a very low floor, and your ability to control which side you get is very limited. In ideal circumstances over two rounds you can deal 84 damage on average at level 3, plus the results of two successful attacks, but this does require to to land those attacks and have two very conveniently spaced enemies. Level 9 increases this to 126.

Later levels add in a reduced duration Dominate Monster, and Time Stop that lets you stitch together as many creatures as you can reach, giving truly apocalyptic amounts of damage.

Broken abilities are not balanced by making them really circumstantial. What is it with rogues and awful feast/famine abilities?

Sorcerer

Sanguine Hex - everyone loves a blood mage! Not this blood mage, though. This blood mage sucks, and not in the fun, vampire way that some people *cough* love so much.

Their base ability is that, if they hit a creature with a dagger (or other sharp melee weapon, but they specifically can use a dagger as a focus, so it's probably going to be that) and that creature fails a Con save, they can cast a spell! You may recall that casting spells is something sorcerers can do without bringing their d6 hit dice having unarmoured butts into melee. The Con save does give a little extra damage on the target's next turn, but that's not enough to make it worthwhile.

Every single one of their other abilities relies on this one. Until you run up and stab someone with your shitty little dagger, you have no subclass. One of them even has the gall to give you a metamagic option. Not a bonus metamagic, an option. Fuck off.

Soulfire - the self-bondage sorcerer. They are on fire and will turn into a raging inferno if they don't keep themselves tied up.

These bonds count as a magic item, taking an attunement slot, and let you ignore somatic components and move around using the Levitate spell, which you can cast at will. On the one hand, it means you have to concentrate if you want to move around. On the other hand, you can cast a second level spell at will at 1st level. Just let the paladin strap you to their shield.

This subclass also has additional metamagic options, which are fine to bad, get what is essentially an 8th-level druid's Wild Shape at will at level 6, resistance and later immunity to fire damage, and eventually the ability to maximise the damage of spells that do fire damage. Note - not 'the fire damage of spells'. 'The damage of spells that do fire damage'. Even 1 lousy point and everything else is maxxed out too.

This subclass is a bunch of unthematic overpowered abilities strapped together. It does have some legitimately impactful limitations, don't get me wrong, but what exactly does tying yourself up have to do with being a better shapeshifter than a druid?

Warlock

Alabaster - can't have fantasy fetishes without mind control, can we!

At level 1 you get a thrall - a CR 1/4 humanoid of your choice that adds your proficiency to various stats. This is bonkers. A drow with the buffs is not really weaker than a level 1 fighter, aside from sunlight sensitivity, and has spells into the bargain. The CR limit rises as you level, eventually hitting 2 and letting you get third level cleric spells with the Priest.

All the rest of the abilities buff the thrall, or let you do things with its Pleasure. There's a nice self heal that can alternatively do damage.

The thrall is way, way too good at 1st level, but the impact of a low CR ally eventually declines, though never entirely goes away. It's probably fine towards the higher end of Tier 2.

Contract - it's all about making your own magical deals, acting as patron to NPCs (or other PCs?)

I'll be honest - I'm not reading all of this. The contract system is too fucking complicated and relies on negotiating with NPCs anyway, so its inherently circumstantial. The available benefits don't seem too overpowering, and you can only have so many, so it's probably fine. What isn't okay is getting any warlock's level 1 ability as yours. That's right, Thrall is back!

Sublime Slithering - tentacles! Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion lovers rejoice!

It's a little gishy, giving your some more armour and weapon proficiencies. You can summon stationary tentacles that cause difficult terrain and add damage you any melee attacks you make against creatures near them. They later become able to grapple.

Then there's the obligatory hentai ability, where they all mob you at once. You get steady Pleasure gain, cover, and the ability to make the tentacles attack on their own. They're good at multitasking, and this is a solid defensive ability that later additionally gives you regenerating temp hp.

The capstone lets you give birth to a chuul. That sounds painful (they're large! and spiky!) but they're solid combatants.

Baby chuuls aside, this is a solid subclass for a blade pact warlock who doesn't want to be a hexblade.

Wizard

School of Dilemmaturgy - a fascinating idea: a D&D spellcaster built around what Magic: the Gathering called 'punisher mechanics'; ones that give the target a choice as to what will happen to them, and as such can have a bit more power than otherwise.

In the case of Dilemmaturgy, this is manifested as Predicaments: combinations of two spells of different schools that you prepare like spells. When you cast a Predicament, you give a target a choice of which of the spells will take effect, and if you target that creature with the chosen spell they have disadvantage on the save (or you can advantage on the attack roll). This seems like a fun mechanic that encourages selecting a variety of spells, especially single target ones.

This is joined by Dilemmaturgy Savant, which is a lot more generous in terms of what spells it applies to than the other savant abilities, but they're not that good anyway. Then there's Plight Proficiency. This is simply the Diviner ability that gives you back lower level spell slots when you cast divinations, but does the same when you cast a spell from a Predicament. As Predicaments are much less limited in application than divinations this is incredibly powerful and gives you far too much endurance in spellcasting.

The 10th level ability is pretty trashy and unlikely to see any use, and the level 14 ability adds an additional layer to the Predicament mechanic by giving you additional benefits if you can guess which spell the target will choose, but ultimately both a meaningless because Plight Proficiency is simply far too powerful for this subclass to see play. Modify it to a more reasonable level (and buff up the 10th level ability a bit, not costing a reaction would be good) and this should be a fun subclass with a novel playstyle.

School of Inscription - last one! This one lets you write stuff on yourself for power. Or kink. You choose.

For starters, the savant ability applies to spells with a range of Self or Touch. They can also write spells on their body to have them permanently prepared. This costs gold and time similar to copying them into a spellbook, the total number is low, and they don't get anything else until level 6, so it's probably fine.

Then there's Compose Boon. You can extend the casting time of a Self or Touch range spell cast on yourself to write its name on your body, letting you not concentrate on it, sort of. You still have to make concentration checks if you take damage, at an increased DC for each spell, but it means you can stack concentration spells. This is very concerning, but the limitation on range and the increased casting time should mean that it's not too easy to go full Voltron, especially as you lose everything if you fail a save.

The next ability lets you get a touch or self spell from any list, which you can cast for free a few times per day. Probably a cure spell of some kind would be best. Lesser Restoration? There are enough limits on this that it would be very hard to break, although I note this subclass is getting a lot of always prepared spells.

The last ability, when you hit with a touch spell or its target fails a save, they must make another save each turn or be affected by the spell again. Looking at the Wizard spell list I don't see a single spell that works with this, but if you can get your hands on Inflict Wounds you can pump out a lot of damage as long as your target doesn't have a good Charisma save.

All in all this seems like a reasonably balanced subclass, but I would keep a close eye on the Concentration ability.

Next: Spells!

[nijigasakilove]

Best romance and show this season by a mile. The gooners took roshidere, but I’m keeping Makeine pure with my life. A-1 are doing a masterful job with this. This episode is a reminder of tan tomboy supremacy!

Lemon and Nukumizu’s heatstroke debacle after school was brilliant. Tan girl enthusiasts ate good there lol. Don’t even think I’ve ever heard of ice spray, but it’s erotic!!

New nurse milf waifu dropped?? “When you get laid the ceiling is the only thing you can see” Sensei is hilarious, sounds like she used to be getting it on in the nurse’s office during school when she was a student 💀 must be something in the water of this town because everyone is wacky

That omarice Anna bought Nukumizu was probably worth 600 yen, but by the time she gave Lemon half of it that dropped the value quite a bit. She’s got a long way to go to pay off that debt lmao.

“People aren’t allowed to be friendless after middle school” well I got news for you Kaju.. your brother is exhibit A of just that.

I feel bad for everything that went on with Lemon today, but at the end of the day Mitsuki had a girlfriend already and the president getting him to admit that really saves Lemon prolonged agony and suffering in the long run. She needed to hear that so she could move on and focus on herself.

From the looks of that track scene at the end, there’s so much more to her than just a relationship or crush and this should give her more time to work on that! We’re rooting for you lemon!

A-1 seem to have a thing with ending these episodes with a gust of wind and some profound life changing energy for the heroines lol. Let’s see if they keep that trend going next week

Oh yea and Anna needs a JOB badly lmao. All the money she had paid back she’s basically given back now with that 2800 yen at the end 😂

[nitro-nova]

Birthday devblog

I'll post a small oops large gamedev update on Combat Nightsuit Saboteur. My last post about it was in April.

During that month, I started working on concept art for the character and sprite.

Starting to get into May, I was working on art for interior areas like you're seeing above, and was starting to develop an idea for the art direction overall. Developing art assets like these while maintaining a full-time job is pretty difficult (every game's a miracle blah blah blah), so I had to accept that my pace would be slow.

I was doing some basic level designs here and testing them out with Clem while taking notes on feedback. I was researching platformers as I was doing this, so it took a little time.

In July, I wanted to find ways to mitigate how long it took to develop art assets. I started working on a prototyping art style so that I could have something in place. I also made a tool for calculating pixel art columns and gutter widths.

I also started taking notes on what lightness values of the character to avoid using in my assets, so that she doesn't blend in too easily. I took a break afterward to visit family with Clem.

I resumed work in August and started sketching out ideas for individual rooms.

I use GIMP for pixel art, but one of the unfortunate gripes I have is that its color palette mapping produces inconsistent artifacts. To combat this, I employed Dither Machine for more consistent pixel gradients.

By September though, I was getting frustrated with my pace, and a burning thing in the back of my mind was that even though the scope was small, the game wasn't fun or interesting, and I wasn't even making progress in the one level I was planning.

I mean, up until this point, I was trying to be kind to myself. I had a full-time job and was sleeping 6-7 hours a night so I could use the time after 10 hour shifts to draw pixel art and watch videos. I was making time for friends and going out with them.

Maybe I have an attention disorder? I do watch more YouTube than I really should (generally I try to use it for listening to music while I create, but I admit I sometimes get sidetracked by bops too lol). I imagine getting suboptimal sleep every day and having to catch up on weekends doesn't help.

I decided in September to change the project. An increase in scope, because I needed to make something I was more familiar with. Six characters, but you only play as one. No longer a jump-and-shoot, but a Strider-like, with an added focus on a beat-em-up combat system. I spent a few days writing backstories and getting the setting more in order, which would help me develop assets with more direction to it.

I refined my character sprite some more, started working on animations.

This shift in design was giving me a second wind, and I knew that I needed a more-than-basic platforming system. I was also promoted at my job, which came with a schedule change (I also got married lol, October was a big month). I decided to adjust my sleep schedule to 8-9 hours a night, and dedicate a single hour per work day for chores. As of today I am much healthier.

October was a major programming month. I started development on what I do best -- a Strider-like platforming engine.

Running, jumping, walljumping, corner grabbing, and ceiling grabbing were implemented. By the end of October, I was finished and successfully deployed the code into the project. To celebrate, I played around with anime color palettes and tried out my art style with a Blender project.

God it looks badass, I don't regret spending time on that art, after all. Despite how much I suffer, productivity-wise, it's stuff like this that motivates me to push on and create. It sounds a bit silly, but this image saved this project from death, because I can't let go of how much I dream of making games and animations.

If I really do finish this project, I can only imagine how much the world would like it. I just know I'm cooking, here. I've been thinking about inviting friends to help (the promotion came with an income increase, but it mainly helps me afford things more comfortably, sadly). I know for sure I need a project manager who may be able to secure full-time development funding, a Kanamori of sorts, to help develop a schedule and try to stick to it. Artists and quality checkers would be amazing, too.

November's development is smaller, but that's because it focused a ton on figuring out a pixel art animation process.

A/B Pose Sketches: Sketching multiple before after poses, like the ones my friend Rawri drew.

Selection, mainly determining which A and B sketches look best.

Joint-Keyframing: Those are the head and joint versions you see me make, with the pink helmet.

In-Betweens: Planning how the motion is meant to carry out.

Limb Shaping: Adding the limb silhouettes

Detailing: Adding the blues, golds, silvers, and black parts. Includes a check for any details I missed.

And that's where I'm currently at!

Edit: Actually, no, I need to say that people HAVE been helping me, here's who I'm shouting out:

Clementine - My wife! Thank you for loving me and supporting me and buying groceries and cooking meals for me and working hard. Genuinely I could never make progress without you helping me.

Mechanicalrot - Our partner! You also help give advice on projects and cook sometimes. I love you as well!

Robin and Eli - My family. Thank you for also buying groceries and helping me with dishes/trash and for your support. (strange-alchemy gets a shoutout for being supportive as well <3)

Saphica - Additional moral support and partner in crime. Thank you for reviewing my artwork and helping me stay positive even when I was feeling rough.

Rawrienstein and AndromedaZach - Amazing friends lending their art experience to help improve my art and animations. It means a lot that you hope for my success.

Rose - Another wonderful friend, thank you for having us over and cooking and showing me movies.

Jaycee - Wonderful friend, thanks for liking my posts and supporting me, too. :]

[thetentaclecommander]

This is an 18+ blog. Pretty much anything under the Ao3 archive warnings section, and then some can and will likely be represented here, so no histrionics, plz. I don't have a DNI or 'required reading' but do have 'things' listed at post bottom in case they are like deal breakers or whatever so you cannot say you weren't given advance warning as to my content. *I will not waste my time reading DNIs, strawpages, Carrds or whatever new not on tumblr page. The block button is a great (sex) toy and you are free to use it at will. I sure as hell do.* +++ FAQ Who is this? Hi, I’m TTC

I write Nemesis and Jill boning a lot. For the plot, supposedly. Been doing so forever ago. What are you? An immortal sentient tentacle who moonlights as a jaded fandom old. I can and will out-drink you. What other names have you've gone by? I've lovingly been called That Tentacle and Server Satan. I'm a walking kink-filled perv factory full of bad ideas, hence the names. + What fics do you write? Fic list for the Devil's Saga AU. The Ships in the AU My AO3 + Tags for Blog Navigation Here. + (Con't under the cut for more general info and disclaimers)

Why is...this? Because I want to see more Nemesis/Jill content, and it’s a bitch to find. Also, after years of putting off even joining Tumblr, I wanna share my AU and keep this crack ship alive. Maybe even fanwank on my thoughts about Toll and Onery or even on Jill, the long-suffering bad bitch that Cap keeps forgetting has a compelling storyline right there. But this is mostly just blatant shilling of my AU + What’s your fandoms? Resident Evil. To be clear, I mainly stan RE3: Nemesis, not the remake one. The 1999 one. But in general, I like this goofy series, boulders, nonsense science, bad plot, and all. I do like other stuff that I might occasionally reblog. Could be silly shit like Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel or Arcane to heavy shit like BTD. I'm random like that. + Format of each post: A snippet, a link to Ao3. I’ll list any pertinent CWs if needed. My fics tend to be 18+ some of them marked with Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings and DD:DNE (ie unapologetically dark shit cause RE is a survival horror franchise), so keep that in mind. I might drop early snips; I haven’t decided on that yet. + Is Nemmy -ever- nice in your fics? Pffft (well, he’s 'nice' in bursts, as in a burst of tentacles through Brad’s face). In seriousness, in my take on him, he’s complicated, having the ability to be ""kind"", and ""caring"" but is a Tyrant through and through - basically closer to canon. I like canonical villains and I like my monsters monstrous and, at times, barely grasping that human/monster line. Expect infestations and murder. + What is your stance on RE3: Nemesis (1999) and RE3 (2020)? 1. remake Carlos got the glow up omg 2. Jill was sassy in both and I do love og but ngl remake!Jill was so done and I feels her 3. the monsterfucker vibes was mostly immaculate 4. og Nemesis was hotter and scarier. 3make massacred my boy (I don't judge those that like 3make, but maaan my boi T.T) like my biggest gripe along with the cut content was the game missing the point of Nemmy entirely reducing him to an annoying superman jumping nuisance and honestly lessening the N/J shippy vibes for me + Do you do fic requests? RPs? No. I simply don’t have the focus/time to do requests or things outside of my stories. I write what I want when I want. + Do you do DMs or Asks? I just flit in the night and talk when I feel like it. I prefer all convos in the broad daylight on public posts. But I’ll open my Asks. Be stupid, and I’ll simply close them. Capisce? Also if you DM me wastes of time things like 'Hi', 'hello' - the kinda shit ppl mock on dating sites especially with a pretty much blank profile, you'll be blocked. In fact, I block pretty freely as I value my time. + Don't Whine, You Know What I'm About [Disclaimers To Save People Time] This Tentacle posts here: -sex acts that ranges from soft to oh gods please don’t kill me -urk- -tentacle murder/parasitic 'fun'/horrible things occurring -high/low brow story drama (think Gothic Horror-esque) -crack ships mixed in with canon with zero regard about their 'purity' -monsterfucker shit, duh This Tentacle: -believes that fiction does not have the power of a death note over one's actions and believes people are not inherently stupid or unable to understand for themselves what they engage in -holds sex positive/pagan/kink and leather/poly/queer friendly/profic views -is against the -isms and/or -phobias used against others -laughs at killjoy puritans; your hell/churchy-speak means nothing to me a lifelong heathen eldritch egg laying being If you hate any of these you’ll -not- have a fun time with my works. Also, this shouldn't have to be said, but kiddos (under 18) Be not seen or heard as per ye old adult fandom rules. I reject all signal boosting requests/callouts; promotions will be at MY discretion. (More than likely, the answer will be 'no'.) We team SALS/DLDR/YKINMKBYKIOK in these parts. Be freely stupid with your ships; none of it’s real. Fandom is stupid, don’t take it so serious. Also, the murderkink. Gotta have the murderkink and worms. A'ight, Enjoy!

[iverlove]

Beloved Souls

I want you to know that I miss you already, the minutes and days go by and my Love for you grows more and more.

[Transforming Hearts in IverLove's Soul Gym Chapter 10.]

Do not suffer any more beautiful Soul; trust in the process, and do not fear the unknown; moreover, I affirm that even if you feel that you are present and have everything you have desired? There is still much more to discover.

I know that many of the hidden things in the 3rd dimension have been created by the enemy (The Devil and his Demons) to stop you from evolving and achieving the abundant Life promised by our Creator.

Trust first in God; Trust in the Universe and rest assured that everything that has been taken from you will come back to you; all the suffering that has been caused to you has not been forgotten.

That is why I exist, and that is why I cry out with the Power of the Celestial Realms and their Divine Justice to Manifest through this Humanitarian Movement, your Freedom.

You will be happy again, you will shine again, you will live again under the Protection of our Almighty Father and He will receive you; He will forgive your mistakes; and He will restore you.

Breathe my Soul and do your work...

In this Chapter, I just want to reaffirm 5 Laws of Karma:

1. NO ONE ESCAPES THE CONSEQUENCES OF LIFE, EVERYTHING COMES BACK.

In Life everything will always come to light, everything is always discovered. In life everything has a price; whoever has hurt you, no matter how much he enjoyed what he did to you, be sure that he will come back to you multiplied.

ROMANS 12:19

Avenge not yourselves, my beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. So, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for doing so you will heap coals of fire on his head.

Let God work in your place.

2. FORGIVENESS IS THE BEST REVENGE.

When you have gone through events where you have been crucified; and you have been hurt on every level trying to end your life the best thing to do is [DO NOT DO ANYTHING]; Never take revenge for your judgment; evil with evil is not revenge.

Let the Narcissist or the Narcissist Demons sing and enjoy their [SHORT VICTORY]; by Forgiving (Accepting that you cannot Control others and their actions) you can focus on your evolution while they continue their destructive course adding fuel to their fire which is [ENTRANCE TO HELL] with no ticket back.

3. HE WHO HURTS YOU BY LAUGHING, PAYS FOR IT BY CRYING.

Often at such times, our emotions are all over the place; control and dominate our emotions; pray for them, for they know not what they do. Many of those who hurt you don't even know why they do it (The Devil and Demons use them because they have rejected God) so they are key instruments for the destruction of God's kingdom.

The Crucifixión

... 33 When they came to the place called ``The Skull,'' there they crucified Jesus and the malefactors, one on the right hand and one on the left. 34 And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they cast lots, dividing their garments among themselves. 35 And the people stood there looking on; and the rulers also mocked him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his Chosen One...

4. HE WHO DID NOT LOVE YOU WHEN HE COULD, WILL NOT LOVE YOU WHEN HE WILL.

Never allow second chances; neither in relationships nor in jobs where you have been unjustly fired; nor to the so-called "Friends” who are only there when you have something to give them and when they see that they cannot take anything more from you, they abandon you.

If you allow them to return; they will betray you even more strongly; Human beings and Souls delivered to evil forces never change; and if you accept it and give them entrance to your life this is what you want to give them to understand: [YOU GIVE THEM TO UNDERSTAND THAT IT WAS GOOD WHAT THEY DID TO YOU].

GIVE THEM “ACCESS DENIED” Value yourself and never back down.

WHOEVER HURT, BETRAYED, BELITTLED, BELITTLED, STOLE AND TRIED TO HARM YOUR EXISTENCE WILL ALWAYS TRY TO COME BACK TO YOU.

Yes, indeed this is how the Narcissist acts; being led by the Demons and do it because they enjoy doing it; just notice that after you they continue their same pattern of behavior consecutively with the next victim; and so, they continue; harming everyone who falls into their clutches.

They are the [PARASITES OF SOCIETY] they leave one relationship and immediately enter another; also, like flies, hopping from one side to the other with no social values trying to fill their high emptiness in the Soul; but as they have sold their Souls to the Forces of Evil! that Emptiness is not filled by anything or anyone.

Luke 23:47,48

When the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying: Surely this man was innocent...

The Universe will always do you Justice beautiful Soul, So stay with me; and Awake....

If the world does not Love you, I Love you.

God Loves you.

Blessings,

IverLove,

Ivan Enrique Varela

[strawberryseeded]

WOAH i really liked this analysis!!! 0_0 It gave me so much to think about ad re-evaluate! Love it to pieces!!!!!! (IM SO SORRY i wanted this to be much shorter but got excited i guess.. a good part of this reply is a re-work of things already said in the post but hopefully i can contribute a bit to the discussion w my own thoughts/analysis T-T)

I specially liked the parts analysing the way Yuuji's strenght has warped his worldview and contributed, in conjunction with his need for human connection, to his hero's complex. And also how this hero role, this enormous task, can (and has) break people (Higuruma and Geto).

Higuruma even points out the flaw in his mindset, well if you loathe yourself for being weak, then what about other people who are weak do you loathe them too? I think it's no coincidence that Yuji is paralleled not one, but two (Geto, Higuruma) people who tried to use their strength in benevolent ways only to start out loathing the people they were trying to help. I'm not saying that Yuji secretly hates weak people, but his mindset of black and white, weak and strong, a mindset that can't accept the greys of reality is a dangerous mindset to have and Yuji has the potential to become like those two. However, these parallels exist for us the audience to see just how close Yuji was to repeating the cycle, because it makes it that much more meaningful when Yuji grows in ways that Geto and Higuruma doesn't to move one step forward towards breaking that cycle instead.

This is such a good point!! I totally agree, Yuuji's laser-focus desire of saving people is naive; frighteningly lacking in self-preservation and, since the beginning, it has deeply affected the way Yuuji interacts with other people, as well as the way he views himself. It always has.

Despite what he told Mahito about saving people “for no reason, just as Mahito kills and makes people suffer for no reason,” Yuuji's desire to help people says a lot about him on a personal level.

(I think that this is (partly) what Mahito was trying to tell him in their fight in Shibuya: that Yuujis values and actions come from who he is, from both his humanity and the peacefulness of the time/way he was raised in. That shaped him, in a way that its neither good or bad, just "natural to him". Thats why he's "just like Mahito", whose second nature as a curse is to hurt and kill people.

PS, i could be wrong? but for me curses in jjk, even if they are so "humanized" are not actually human or at least are not treated as such in the narrative. I think they most likely represent something akin to human fears or evil. After all, unlike humans, they dont really "die", they are able to come back).

Yuuji values ​​human life to the point of putting them above his own needs, his own survival. Like any other human, he fears death, but even stronger than his instinct is his desire to save and protect in a way that a lot of times comes across as unhinged instead of noble (and yeah, the story constantly punishes him for this, one of the most recent examples being Sukuna betting on this when he decides to rip off his finger... and, sure enough, in the part of their deal that stipulated that Sukuna must not hurt anyone, Yuuji… did not include himself in it).

The thing is that... Yuuji measures the value of his own life in his ability to protect other human lives. He is only worthy and valuable when he is able to save people. It gives him a role to play, a reason to live, a way to connect with others.

BUT ALSO, this is something this post made me realize (and i feel so dumb cos the pieces were all there, i saw them but wasn't able to put them together): Yuuji sees himself as "strong" (and yeah, compared to "normal", non-sorcerers, he is) and therefore, those who are (or who he perceives as) weaker than him, he must save/protect.

Yuji in Amai Rin's flashback is beating up bullies, a heroic notion, but from the perspective of somone spineless like Amai who was just going along with the bullies so he himself wouldn't be bullied because he didn't have the strength to stand up with them, and wasn't born with the body of an MMA fighter at fifteen, Yuji looks scary. The reason why reducing people to labels like strong and weak is reductive is that humans are complex and contradictory creatures. Let's take Amai Rin for example, an incredibly minor character. In the real world, Amai Rin would be someone as equally complex as Gojo Satoru. Amai Rin a middle school bully would have just as many layers to his personality, inconsistencies, contradictory behavior, different sides of himself as Gojo Satoru himself. Humans are complex in the first place because we can't see inside their heads, we can only see inside our own heads and know that we're complex and sometimes say things we don't mean, behave differently depending on the situation, do things we're not proud of, but we also usually don't perceive others the same way because we are not inside their heads like our own. Amai Rin is just as complex and multifaceted a human being as Gojo Satoru, he is a person with his own memories and life experiences that shape him, but from Gojo's worldview Amai Rin is a minor character. By reducing him into someone weak, Gojo doesn't care to try understanding him. So Yuji for the longest time does not try to see the humanity in weak people (except for his big moment with Junpei) he just sees them as people to be saved. Which is why his real moment of progress to me comes the next chapter, with the way he shows empathy to Megumi.

So, actually his power to protect people, his strenght, and -i repeat- this way he has found to connect with others, have actually isolated him from the people around him.

Yuji is someone who experiences the same loneliness as Sukuna and Gojo for being the strongest, though to a lesser extent because he wasn't born into the realm of sorcerers. At the start of the manga we're introduced to Yuji a kid who despite being someone friendly to everyone he meets and incredibly social, has a friend group consisting of two friends. Two friends who hang out with him because they need a third member for their occult club. Yuji for the whole manga excluding one exception really only knows how to form relationships based on someone else needing him.

Being born strong turned out to be somewhat of a curse for him, similar to Higuruma and Geto's cases... but also veeeeeery similar to the whole thing Sukuna has going on.

And his grandfather's last words turned out to be exactly what Yuuji interpreted them as: a curse.

AND YET.

Strangely, though, it's this curse which also saves him; it's this curse which allows him to not become someone like Higuruma or Geto, or even someone like Sukuna, despite it all. Because, as one of JJK's main themes states, love is the greatest curse.

One thing leads to another, really. Yuuji wants to fulfill his grandfather's wish because he loves him. That's why he becomes a sorcerer… And after that, he keeps going because he loves Nanami. Because he loves Kugisaki. Because Yuuji loves people.

Megumi can immediatly recognize the flaw in this "unconditional" love; he asks Yuuji: what will you do if the person you save hurts others? But, ultimately, Yuuji still decides to try to save everyone; to love and save imperfect people (like Megumi), a choice that kills him at the end of that arc.

As OP points out, Yuuji is no god nor Buddha, he's a teenage boy:

Yuji's conflict is that he pursues the role of a bodhisvatta, and he holds himself to the standard too of someone who exists to be a sorcerer because by doing his job as a sorcerer people will get saved as a result. However, Yuji as a person will always fall short of this ideal, because ideals by the nature of them being IDEAL and therefore not compatible with reality.

So Yuji may genuinely hold onto an unbreakable ideal, but is his inability to let go of that ideal necessarily a good thing? His ideal might break but what about Yuji as a person? Yuji will in the end always fall short of that ideal because of his humanity, especially since Yuji is the most human character in the story and practically the only one with a normal background.

His imperfections are part of what makes Yuuji so human.

And i've said this before but, for Yuuji, wanting to help other people is not just an instinct: it’s a choice he keeps making, again and again.

This is why the final "hunting" scene of Yuuji and Mahito's final fight feels so… bleak (COOL AS FUCK TOO, NO DOUBT, BUT): It feels like Yuuji lost an important part of himself. All to get stronger. All to keep saving people.

Because in the arc in which he embraces his role as a "cog" to keep saving people (in what i think was clearly a way to cope with his guilt and despair) he does so after coming to understand that caring about people is in his nature because he is human, but also that something like human values ​​become inconsequential in the face of cruelty and death.

He becomes something animal (inhumane), impassive and indestructible, in order to fulfill this goal of protecting others, even if that means destroying curses; destroying himself. Yuuji must do this because, once again, he realizes he's not strong enough: not as much he thought, not as much as he wanted. He's only human, he can't save everyone... But that notion is hard to accept; therefore, to save people, he has to kill as if it's second nature to him. Because that’s what Yuuji’s made for. That's his role.

It's such a hard truth, because it's not at all what he envisioned when he decided to help people.

The hardest pill to swallow so far, tho, is the existence of Sukuna himself.

Sukuna is a monster. Someone who doesn't even want to be human, who “stopped” being human a thousand years ago of his own free will.

And yet, the story gives us clue after clue indicating that he's still human no matter how much he rejects the rest of humans and their “weakness." The biggest monster in history is a human.

But even if Sukuna is human, Yuuji doesn't love him, can't. Yuuji hates Sukuna, has hated him for a while now.

Like OP says, Sukuna has his own definition of love... but the way he talks about it implies that he himself never experienced it, and never will. Because according to Sukuna, love is something that only the weak feel for the strong... and he is the strongest, so who could he ever love?

Sukuna could never love anyone, because he despises the weak. In a world in which everyone is weaker than him, he's incapable of love (Why is he so addicted to fighting strong opponents? Why was he disappointed when Gojo and Higuruma lost to him? Why is he so hungry all the time?).

The main thing i don't really agree with this post is the interpretation of Yuuji's intentions in ch 265. (I already wrote a post talking abt it but) I think Yuuji wasn't trying to appeal to Sukuna's humanity in that chapter. By showing him his own childhood memories, Yuuji wasn't saying "isn't all of this super precious? How could you take this away from someone? :( c'mon be a nice guy so i wont have to kill you :(" (as Yuuji himself says, he wasn't counting on Sukuna changing his mind or agreeing with him).

The way i see it, Yuuji was... subtly implying that Sukuna must also have his own life experiences, his own precious memories, and that those make him human (and therefore, his life valuable) in Yuuji's eyes. Sukuna doesn't catch onto this, confused at first because... What? The brat is suddenly trying to see the good in him, or something? Convert him? ...Until he realizes "oh that is not what he's doing. Oh. He's telling me just how much im about to lose... How DARE him."

So taking in consideration the rest of op's really cool analysis, i think Yuuji was actually very much humanizing Sukuna in a way Yuuji had a lot of trouble doing before.

This chapter makes it so clear that Yuuji has never seen Sukuna as human until recently: Sukuna is a monster, a curse, pure evil. And the moment Yuuji realizes Sukuna is actually human, it's also probably the moment he realizes he can't "save" everyone.

He's not treating Sukuna as good that must be saved or evil that must be erradicated; as weak (someone to be saved) or strong (someone with the duty to save).

That's why Sukuna gets soooo mad; Yuuji was –yes, that part was super on point– giving Sukuna a false choice: "come back inside me and play nice, or i will kill you. Which i don't really wanna do even though i hate you". And, yes, Yuuji was offering him that "choice" in that moment because he had the power to do do. But, more importantly, as i said he was treating Sukuna as human, which in Sukuna's eyes is treating him as someone weak... Because Sukuna is not like other humans, he has no equals. He's the strongest.

Except in that moment Yuuji tells him "no, you are not. You are human, just like everyone. Just like me".

Yuuji's reason for this ultimatum is simple: Sukuna has done (and is willing to do) too much harm to other people. Yuuji is not like Megumi, he doesn't pick and choose who he saves, he's not a moral judge; Yuuji will still try to save as many people as (humanly) possible, because he believes each and every human life is valuable.

He's not asking Sukuna to understand him, to agree with him (the same way he's not forcing Megumi to "be saved), but (if Megumi does want to be saved, to live) Sukuna is in the way. And if Sukuna can't be saved, and if he won't save others, he has to be stopped. Yuuji will either become his cage or his killer.

BUT LIKE YEAH the story isn't over so maybe Yuuji's arc still has room to keep evolving, idk!!

sorry my ramblings became a reply long as the bible i genuinely loved ur analysis op.. helped me see a lot of stuff i passed over multiple times b4 and incorporate them 2 my understanding of the main themes tho obvs this is just my interpretation

PITY VS. EMPATHY

Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 265 quickly surpassed Gojo's death chapter as my favorite chapter in the entire manga. It's a high point in both Yuji's character development and the Sukuna fight, a notion most of the fandom agrees with. That being said, it's once again time for me to take a stance contrary to most of the fandom opinion. I was going to make this post two weeks ago but I'm glad I waited, because this week's chapter helps me illustrate my point in the contrasting way Yuji treats Sukuna and Megumi.

As you can probably tell by the title, my hot take of the week is that what Yuji is showing Sukuna isn't true empathy. It's not atn attempt to understand Sukuna's worldview, but rather condescending pity from a place looking down on Sukuna, which is why it infuriates him so much. This is illustrated in Yuji's atual actions this chapter, which is to go at great length to show memories from his past to make Sukuna understand HIM and not the other way around.

Whereas, what Yuji shows Megumi is compassion, because he's not telling Megumi what to feel or imposing his own views on him but rather accepting the fact that Megumi might be suffering too much to keep living on.

I'll explain more under the cut:

Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy

Yuji is, not as far along in his character development as he might seem. I don't want to undervalue his growth, this chapter shows definite progress, and I understand why it would seem that this is the completion of his arc of being a cog in society because he straight up says people don't need roles, and it seems like the manga is quickly coming to a close.

However, sometimes characters words don't exactly match their actions. Sometimes characters aren't self aware. People often call characters multi-layered and complex, but what does that mean exactly? For me, a mutli-layered character is the embodiment of "people are never what they appear to be."

A story has multiple layers when you're not supposed to take everything the author says at face value. Every time you read a story, whether you are aware of it or not you engage in some level of personal interpretation. You're not supposed to automatically accept everything the author feeds you without question. Therefore characters are not exactly what they are stated to be, and good character writing allows room for interpretation for what is going on in a character's head beneath the surface.

In a jungian sense this would be the ice berg model of consciousness. There's the persona, or the ego, which is what the person presents to the world and the people around them. Their own-self conceived image. Then there's the part of the ice berg that submerged, which accounts for all of their internal mechanisms and facets of their personality they aren't aware of. This could range from anything to like, how trauma can affect people's actions without them realizing it, things they are in denial of and don't want to admit to themselves or just like someone who's bossy but not self-aware about that trait until someone else points it out for them.

Everyone's have that friend who you try to call them out on their bad behavior, but no matter how hard you try they just won't admit it. That alone illustrates there's a difference between self-perception, how we view ourselves, behavior - how we actually interact with the world, and pther people's perception of us. Somewhere in between these multiple points of view there exists a vague outline of a person, and personality, whatever "personality" means exactly.

To step away from Jung, in a character writing sense this means a good character's motivations, personality, and actions can be viewed from multiple angles. There is conflict between how Yuji views himself, his actual actions in the story, how other characters might view him, and how he's framed in the story. The first two, Yuji's self-assigned roles, and what his actual actions amount to is a conflict that's run over the entire story.

It starts from chapter three, where Yuji's answer for why he wants to become a sorcerer is that he wants to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish, and Yaga immediately says "Is that what you really believe, or are you just using your grandfather as an excuse?" The story shows us Yaga was right to point out the discord between Yuji's stated motivation and his actual desires because Yuji changes his answer.

This stated motivation, "To do something that only I can do", or have a role as another way of putting it is Yuji's central motivation for most of the manga. Of course as I said people have multiple layers, so he can also have multiple motivations. Yuji's desire to have a good death, him wanting to be surrounded by people when he dies, his belief that fulfilling his role as a sorcerer will save other people from curses, all of these things are equally true but that one desire to have a role to play in the grand scheme of things is at the center of it.

The role Yuji has chosen is to kill curses so people can have more natural deaths, and also to stop more victims of curses from piling up. He's also resolved from the start to die with Sukuna in his body, to also spare victims of curses Sukuna might attract, and also kill Sukuna for good.

Even these stated motions are challenged right away, and then again continually through the comic.

I'm not going to go over Yuji's entire arc here, but the fact that Yuji is someone constantly interrogated for his motivations and even punished in story for his altruism is a constant pattern in his character arc.

It extends deeper than just the fact that Yuji is a selfless person in a world where selfish people like Mei Mei, and Sukuna get ahead while people like Nanami die young. A world where it is in your best interest to stick out your neck for others.

For me a lot of the harsh consequences Yuji's conflict in the story also centers around the fact that he can never live up to the role that he has assigned himself. Not only is Yuji mistaken in his perception of himself, but the fandom in general is as well, because most people tend to take Yuji's stated desire to guide people to good deaths and save them at face value.

For example, people were excited to point out the Guanyin symbolism directly referenced this chapter, and also the significance of the seal for Yuji's domain.

There is much speculation, but it seems certain that this hand sign is an invocation of Ksitigarbha, a revered bodhisattva in East Asian Buddhism. Ksitigarbha is also known as Jizo Bodhisattva in Japan. His name can be translated as Earth Womb, Earth Matrix, and Earth Store. These translations evoke the image of a vessel, which seems relevant to Yuji's role as Sukuna's vessel.

While I agree the symbolism is well suited for Yuji's goals, someone who wished to guide people to a more peaceful death, and also the way Yuji opposes Sukuna right now determined to kill him who lingers in this world as a parasite for a thousand years finally back to the cycle of reincarnation. It even alligns with his desire to try and make Sukuna understand the value in one individual's life by showing him his memories. In that way Yuji is fitting the role of someone guiding others to enlightenment.

However, Yuji is not a bodhivista in the end. He is a normal teenage boy. In fact this is the crux of Yuji's character to me, he is a good kid, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. If anything this is what this chapter goes to great length to demonstrate, that Yuji despite being a science experiment to create the perfect vessel for Sukuna for Kenjaku's 1,000 year plan, had a normal childhood. All of the things Yuji says in this chapter are for the most parts the musing of a normal kid his age.

This isn't me criticizing Yuji. I'm just trying to state the message I believe Gege is getting across in this chapter. It's similiar to the conclusion Yuji himself comes to, the conclusion that the value in life lies in the memories you make on a day to day basis, even if you're not living a life full of adventure.

Yuji's conflict is that he pursues the role of a bodhisvatta, and he holds himself to the standard too of someone who exists to be a sorcerer because by doing his job as a sorcerer people will get saved as a result. However, Yuji as a person will always fall short of this ideal, because ideals by the nature of them being IDEAL and therefore not compatible with reality.

To use an example for another media, it doesn't matter how hard Shirou Emiya strives to save others, or how selfless he tries to be, he will always fall short because the ideal of saving absolutely everyone is impossible. However, in most versions of Fate's story Shirou absolutely refuses to compromise on this and in the future, Shirou will continue to strive towards the ideal of saving everyone until his inability to achieve that ideal and the number of people he's failed to save eventually breaks him.

So Yuji may genuinely hold onto an unbreakable ideal, but is his inability to let go of that ideal necessarily a good thing? His ideal might break but what about Yuji as a person? Yuji will in the end always fall short of that ideal because of his humanity, especially since Yuji is the most human character in the story and practically the only one with a normal background.

There's also as I stated above Yuji might not be aware himself of the ways he falls short of his ideal, because he has a flawed self perception. Yuji is getting closer with his revelation in this chapter of looking at reality instead of trying to have a role like a character in the story, but that doesn't mean he's finished (since the story's not finished) or he's become a fully realized character.

One of my favorite quotes from my favorite Yuji video helps describe the point I'm getting at with Yuji's lack of self awareness and the way he sometimes falls short of the savior he sees himself as.

By assigning himself the role as heroes, and the other characters as victims to be saved Yuji sort of condescends to the people he endeavors to save. I describe this as condescending because this way he doesn't see the people he saves as fully fleshed out human beings who are separate individuals from himself.

Yuji is alligned with Higuruma of all people, someone who shares Yuji's savior complex and becomes disillusioned because the people he decided of his own free will to protect as a defense attorney are not perfect victims.

Someone who becomes disillusioned when looking at flaws in other people, and also cannot deal with his own guilt when he too, becomes like the crimminals he once defended after becoming a murderer.

In fact Yuji sees himself in Higuruma's inability to live with his guilt, and only being able to see himself atoning with his death. Yet, despite Yuji seeing himself Yuji also seems uneasy with Higuruma being unable to see one other way forward in life.

Also, remember that Higuruma is a defense attorney. The whole point is he's supposed to defend crimminals even if he knows they did the crime and try to get them off their sentence and win the trial. Therefore at this moment Higuruma has failed to live up to his ideal.

There's another character Yuji is paralleled to constantly, who also shares Yuji's symbolism of being associated with a divine, and benevolent figure.

Geto's ears, his dressing as a monk in a Gojo-gesa, this official art all connect Geto to be Budha and yet it's quite obvious that Geto has failed entirely to live up to his role as the budha.

There's so much symbolism aligning Geto as a divine figure bringing salvation to others, and this corresponds to his original ideal as a sorcerer who belived that sorcerers had an obligation to use their powers to protect others, because in a just society the strong protect the weak.

Geto is an outsider who wasn't born into the Jujutsu World who entered in with an attitude different from most sorcerers by trying to become a sorcerer for altruistic reasons. However, Geto, like Higuruma grows disillusioned when he's confronted with the fact that the people he wants to save are flawed.

However, Geto's ideal was mistaken to begin with because much like Yuji, by distinctly separating people into the weak and the strong, he's separating them into two categories where the former is inherently inferior to the latter. Other people existed to be saved by Geto. He couldn't cope with the fact that the people he wanted to save were people and not victims.

So we finally circle back to chapter 265 where Yuji is attempting to relate to Sukuna and see some humanity in him... or is he?

Yuji shares the same flaw of both Geto, and Higuruma where he sees the people he wants to save as existing in a separate category than himself. So, is what Yuji is offering Sukuna understanding and an attempt to emotionally reach out to him, or is he attempting to show Sukuna the mercy of a conqueror.

Even if Yuji wins the battle and spares Sukuna's life in the end, it won't be Yuji's compassion or empathy that won him the fight. If Yuji wins against Sukuna it's simply because he's stronger. Yuji only feels confident trying to offer Sukuna in the first place because this time he's finally confident he's stronger. It's mercy, offered at a threat with the same time. Yuji, like Geto, is still separating people in categories of strong and weak, he's just showing mercy to someone he now considers weaker than him which is why Sukuna reacted the way he did.

As I said above, Sukuna begins by just assuming that Yuji had just let go of his anger, and was now trying to reach out to him on some other way. He calls him weak for being unable to keep hating his worst enemy, because in Sukuna's world view Yuji should keep hating him and wanting to defeat him with all his strength to the end. Sukuna mistakenly believes for a moment that Yuji is the kind of person who, cannot sustain his anger even towards his worst enemy.

It's when he realizes that Yuji is just showing him simple pity that he snaps. Yuji doesn't care for understanding Sukuna's worldview or seeing the humanity in him, in the same chapter he says he can't forgive people who act like lives are worthless.

To Yuji's credit he admits he doesn't really know which side of the fight is truly human, or whether or not he's right, he admits it's his own personal belief. A lot of Yuji's wisdom this chapter, I'd argue, comes from admitting the things he does not know, and acknowledging that there's no objective truth or "meaning" to the world. However, he still separates people into "good guys, and bad guys".

Yuji isn't actually that interested in considering the perspective of those he considers the "bad guys" he just still had a faint hope that he could somehow convince Sukuna to see worth in his life by sharing memories, therefore convince Sukuna that an individual's life can have value.

He doesn't want to understand what Sukuna thinks, he wanted to change the way Sukuna thought so it was more like himself. Yuji doesn't ask Sukuna any real questions about himself while exploring his memories. Kind of ironic, because for some reason Sukuna of all people was patiently listening and even engaging Yuji in conversation while he went through the most mundane memories of his childhood.

Irony on top of irony, Yuji's worldview does resemble Sukuna's in some ways. They're supposed to mirror each other after all, Yuji is literally the son of his identical twin brother reincarnated. First and foremost Yuji's offer of mercy isn't really breaking away from Sukuna's ultimate ideal of "Might Makes Right." Yuji isn't seeking some other way of settling this besides fighting Sukuna, he's going to make Sukuna submit because he's stronger.

Maybe there was no hypothetical "third way" for Yuji to put down Sukuna other than fist fighting him into submission. There probably wasn't, Sukuna's pretty up front what he's about, and what he's about is being the strongest and nothing more. He lives and dies by violence, a Sukuna who isn't the strongest is nothing more than a corpse so can that person be reached? However, I just wanted to point out that Yuji wasn't interest in solving this in any way other than a fist fight to begin with. As opposed to say, the way that Takaba handled Kenjaku taking a third route by making Kenjaku feel entertained for the first time in 1,000 years.

In the middle of that fight Takaba even APOLOGIZES to Kenjaku, for saying that it doens't matter if he doesn't understand his audience and he fails to make 1% of them laugh as long as the other 99% of them are laughing and states it's his duty to make everyone laugh otherwise he's failed as a comedian.

Yet, another reason why this is the greatest fight in the manga. Yuta even remarks in the end that Takaba isn't someone who can kill people. Not only does his cursed technique negate most damage to him by turning it into cartoonish antics, but Takaba's comedy is also all about understanding his audience and trying to get his audience to understand him because his comedy began when he clowned around as a kid when he was lonely. All of this to say we've been shown more points of view than just "Might makes Right" and there are characters who've resolved conflicts in other ways. Kenjaku is also, probably as monstrous as Sukuna, and yet Takaba engaged him right from the start by asking him about his motivations and if there was some other way he'd be happy than the merger.

You could argue that maybe Sukuna can't be understood. Characters in the story certainly try to and all they amount to doing is projecting their own ideas onto Sukuna. Yorozu projects her obsession with love onto Sukuna and we get the idea that Sukuna must somehow be lonely at the top, but in the end Gege subverts this expectation by showing us that Sukuna was never lonely, rather characters like Kashimo and Gojo projected their feelings of unresolved loneliness onto him. They are strong, and he is strong, ergo he must feel the same crushing loneliness as them. Gojo himself demosntrates not understanding Sukuna as he expresses regret in the afterlife that he was unable to make Sukuna go all out and that he related to that guy's loneliness only for Sukuna's response to be a very gratified "You cleared my skies."

Sukuna: Others love us for our strength, and we respond to that love.

The twist of that is Kashimo and by extension the audience assume that Sukuna must not understand love, and therefore he's lonely. However, Sukuna all along had his own definition of love, that people express their love and admiration for him by trying to fight him and he receives their love by facing them at his full strength and giving them the chance to prove themselves. Sukuna's habit of toying with his opponents is an extension of this he wants to see them realize their full potential in their fights with him. Sukuna does understand love, he just REJECTS our understanding of love. Sukuna does not think in the way that we do, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have things he values, or is devoid of positive traits. Respect for his opponents, honoring strength, these are all values they're just not Yuji's values.

As stated above, the irony of all this is that Yuji does buy into "Might makes Right" to an extent. To reiterate, following Geto's "the strong exist to protect the weak" still divides people into two categories strong and weak and implies the weak are helpless. A benevolent might makes right, as you might say. Yuji wants to show compassion to the weak, but he also loathes weakness, he loathes himself for being weak.

"There still may be lots of people who are weak like you."

Higuruma even points out the flaw in his mindset, well if you loathe yourself for being weak, then what about other people who are weak do you loathe them too? I think it's no coincidence that Yuji is paralleled not one, but two (Geto, Higuruma) people who tried to use their strength in benevolent ways only to start out loathing the people they were trying to help. I'm not saying that Yuji secretly hates weak people, but his mindset of black and white, weak and strong, a mindset that can't accept the greys of reality is a dangerous mindset to have and Yuji has the potential to become like those two.

However, these parallels exist for us the audience to see just how close Yuji was to repeating the cycle, because it makes it that much more meaningful when Yuji grows in ways that Geto and Higuruma doesn't to move one step forward towards breaking that cycle instead.

Yuji is someone who experiences the same loneliness as Sukuna and Gojo for being the strongest, though to a lesser extent because he wasn't born into the realm of sorcerers. At the start of the manga we're introduced to Yuji a kid who despite being someone friendly to everyone he meets and incredibly social, has a friend group consisting of two friends. Two friends who hang out with him because they need a third member for their occult club. Yuji for the whole manga excluding one exception really only knows how to form relationships based on someone else needing him.

Noritoshi Kamo: Itadori why did you become a Jujutsu Sorcerer? Itadori Yuji: It just sort of happened. i'm a loner. I wanna help a lot of people so when I die I'll be surrounded by people.

Yuji has also appeared in flashbacks in early culling game as someone who doesn't really understand, or even take notice of weak people. Yuji in Amai Rin's flashback is beating up bullies, a heroic notion, but from the perspective of somone spineless like Amai who was just going along with the bullies so he himself wouldn't be bullied because he didn't have the strength to stand up with them, and wasn't born with the body of an MMA fighter at fifteen, Yuji looks scary.

The reason why reducing people to labels like strong and weak is reductive is that humans are complex and contradictory creatures. Let's take Amai Rin for example, an incredibly minor character. In the real world, Amai Rin would be someone as equally complex as Gojo Satoru. Amai Rin a middle school bully would have just as many layers to his personality, inconsistencies, contradictory behavior, different sides of himself as Gojo Satoru himself.

Humans are complex in the first place because we can't see inside their heads, we can only see inside our own heads and know that we're complex and sometimes say things we don't mean, behave differently depending on the situation, do things we're not proud of, but we also usually don't perceive others the same way because we are not inside their heads like our own. Amai Rin is just as complex and multifaceted a human being as Gojo Satoru, he is a person with his own memories and life experiences that shape him, but from Gojo's worldview Amai Rin is a minor character. By reducing him into someone weak, Gojo doesn't care to try understanding him.

So Yuji for the longest time does not try to see the humanity in weak people (except for his big moment with Junpei) he just sees them as people to be saved. Which is why his real moment of progress to me comes the next chapter, with the way he shows empathy to Megumi.

Yuji begins when speaking to Megumi by relating his frustration with his grandfather for not wanting to go through chemo and accepting his own death in old age. Yuji is now mature enough to understand that just because his young body is tough enough to endure chemo, doesn't mean an old man's body can withstand that pain. When he was young Yuji had a very immature viewset of "Well, I can endure it, so why can't they?"

Yuji then compares the situation with his grandfather to Megumi. Yuji wanted his grandfather to keep living, so he couldn't understand why he wouldn't even try the chemo. Yuji wants Megumi to keep living, but he now understand why Megumi wants to give up. Yuji' fe elings of wanting Megumi to live are not more important than Megumi's own feelings of despair and wanting to escape pain.

Yuji is no longer imposing his feelings onto Megumi. Yuji is respecting Megumi's feelings, because in the end he can't FORCE Megumi to live. It has to be Megumi's choice whether he wants to live or not.

Yuji is no longer pushing Megumi away, or acting protective of him, while disregarding his feelings. He has gone from "as long as I'm around you'll suffer" to "I'll be lonely without you." Yuji doesn't ASK Megumi to live even though he wants to, because he knows he can't tell Megumi to keep on living. What Yuji does is just an honest expression of his own feelings. He's sharing his own feelings after listening to Megumi's ideal life with Tsumiki and Yuji, because that's what empathy is, an exchange, a conversation.

People often jokingly use the term "yap sessh" on Twitter, but yeah that's the different between a conversation and a "yap sessh" in the former you actually care what the other person has to say, in a latter it's only about expressing your own opinion.

That's why this panel, is such a perfect contrast with this panel.

One is Yuji offering Megumi a choice. The other is Gojo taking Megumi's choices away by giving him the false choice of "go to the Zen'in Clan and be a sorcerer and your sister will be abused, or come with me and be a sorcerer." Gojo railroaded Megumi into being a sorcerer and never let him decide for himself if he wanted a normal life. Gojo didn't see Megumi as his own person either, he, just like the Zen'in Clan just saw Megumi as the holder of the Ten Shadows Technique.

This is entirely different to Yuji who respects Megumi's feelings. Yuji expresses that he'll be lonely without Megumi, but that's just laying the cards on the table. In the end Yuji leaves what happens next entirely in Megumi's hands. Yuji cannot tell Megumi to live, even though he wants him to live so badly, he cannot tell Megumi to just get stronger and keep on trucking because he's not Megumi, he's not experiencing Megumi's pain right now.

Yuji does not tell Megumi to live and therefore becomes the first person in Megumi's entire life to give him a choice. This choice is the most important choice of all, a choice we make every day of our lives. The choice of whether we want to keep on living in this world.

Hopefully, Megumi chooses yes.

[casspurrjoybell-29]

Healing Ties - Chapter 33 - Part 3

*Warning Adult Content*

Fanner's eyes began to well up and a single tear trailed down his cheek before he rubbed it away.

"If I give you a child, I need you to do what's right for me even when it's not the best thing for anyone else. Maybe even including yourself or someone you care about."

"I will gladly accept that deal. If you make me fertile again, I'll make sure you have a permanent home here for as long as you want it and that for as long as I live, you'll be protected in all senses. We'll have to figure out how the debt is inherited when I die. I trust Slone the most when it comes to upholding those values but he is a bit of a wanderer which could leave you vulnerable."

"Well, it's worth making arrangements for because things can happen but don't expect to be dying any time soon. It'll take time but if I'm staying with you, of course I'll heal everything else as well."

"In exchange for what?"

"That doesn't matter. I want to help you, Yore. I really, desperately do. I only made this about an exchange because I'm scared. Because if I'm going to be open about this, I need to know I'll be protected. Beyond that, I don't care about getting anything in return."

"Well, we'll negotiate, okay? It doesn't feel right to be your protector in every sense, yet also let you dedicate yourself to healing me, changing and ultimately saving my life, and offer nothing in return."

"You've saved my life three times."

Yore smiled.

"True. I don't count things the other person didn't have the opportunity to negotiate as debts, though."

"Well... okay. I just worry when you say that because I don't want much but one of the things I do want is to help you. I like you. I don't want you to be in pain and I definitely don't want you to die young from something I could have easily fixed."

Why had Yore's heart done a silly little leap in his chest when Fanner had said 'I like you'?

Was he just feeling emotional because of the situation or was he actually catching feelings?

If it was the latter, it probably wasn't a good idea.

Especially with their new arrangement.

He was supposed to be Fanner's protector.

Of course that didn't necessarily conflict with anything more intimate but it certainly risked complicating things if those feelings only ran one way.

"We'll figure things out," Yore promised.

He let out a sigh and rubbed his hands over his face, then continued their path up over his hair to smooth it down.

"Sorry. I feel like I should be showing my excitement and appreciation more but this just doesn't feel real yet. I believe that you can do what you claim. You're a timid, soft spoken guy and I can't imagine you speaking with this much confidence unless you were absolutely sure in what you were saying. It's just... I thought I was going to spend the next few years suffering more and more and then I would die. I thought I would never have kids, never inherit the position I've spent my whole life working towards. And now you're telling me I can have that. I can have all of it."

"It won't be quick or easy," Fanner warned.

"Scar tissue is slow to work with and I have to dissolve it away and open up those wounds again to heal them, so it won't be painless, either."

"That's fine by me. Just knowing I'll be getting better rather than worse is incredible."

"Would you like me to do something today, since you're being forced to rest anyway? The fertility issue was the original deal but if you'd prefer I focus on something else..."

"No, no. That would be fantastic. I really do need an heir. I want one. To be a father."

"I'll have to touch you," Fanner told him.

"I promise to be respectful about it, though. I understand this isn't... Well, I'm not a Companion anymore. I'm not going to try to be one."

"I trust you, Fanner," Yore said as he sat up.

He gestured down at his pants.

"Should I...?"

"Yes. You'll need to be naked or at least have the relevant area exposed."

"Okay."

Yore stood and began to take his pants off.

Nudity really wasn't a big deal to him or any werewolf but he had to admit that stripping down when Fanner was sitting on his bed felt a little different.

Especially when Fanner seemed so adorably unsure whether he should be averting his gaze entirely or continuing to look at Yore as though nothing had changed.

"How do you want me?"

Fanner looked startled and then his face flushed red as he seemed to realise what Yore meant.

His gaze jumped away again.

"Oh, um. Just lay flat on your back for now. I might need to lift your legs later to... well, the male reproductive organs have a few parts to them. I've seen a diagram. But just try to get comfortable for now."

"Okay."

Yore lay down on his back on his bed as instructed.

"I should mention that I don't actually know anything about how fertile I am in terms of, uh... sperm quality or general production, I suppose? The issue I've had, specifically, is that I can't get an erection because of the scar tissue."

Fanner sat down next to him on the bed.

"I could try only healing that if you like. This will probably be the most painful area to heal."

"What do you think we should do?"

Fanner was silent for a moment as he mulled the question over.

"Ultimately, I think I should heal every part of you and if I don't finish this area today, I doubt you're going to be overly enthusiastic for me to return to it. I think it would make sense to get it all out of the way. Then it can be done with and we can be certain you won't have any more issues around reproduction or sex."

"Okay. I agree."

"If the pain is too much, though..."

"I can manage."

Fanner nodded.

"Okay. I'm going to touch you now."

As Fanner's hand brushed against his inner thigh and gently wrapped around his flaccid cock, Yore was glad he'd attempted to masturbate so recently.

Having that pain so fresh in his mind doused any arousal.

Getting an actual erection would have been one thing but getting semi-erect only to injure himself in the process would have been embarrassing on a whole other level.

[teecupangel]

I’m desperately need your thoughts on a possible idea but I’m not sure if I wanna commit. Desmond somehow finds his way to Altairs time, specifically right before Abbas begins his takeover and Des manages to save Sef and Malik. Fast forward to everyone’s return, Maria and Darim are like oh my god you’re alive and Altair is like oh my god *blushing*

Obviously Maria is cool with a third (inspired by Maria/Giovanni/Des). Altair is still in love with her but a different love than what’s going on with Des, and Sef and Darim don’t know how to cope that their father is in love and actively having sex with a man significantly younger than they are.

Bonus idea* this is the same universe as your The Relentless Pleasurable Suffering of Desmond Miles on AO3 and Darim is just ranting about everything and Sef is just sweating in the background while Des stares at him from across the yard.

Let’s set up the AC setting first, since you wish to set this after Darim assassinated Genghis Khan, we’ll have to deal with the following:

Desmond’s place in Masyaf while Altaïr and the others are away

How Abbas’ coup affects the Levantine Brotherhood as a whole

Now, we can just chuck Desmond right as Abbas finalizes the details of his coup. However, in this scenario, Abbas’ influence had been festering for a very long time now.

For his coup to be successful, he must ensure that Altaïr and his allies would be discredited to some degree beforehand.

And he has a good idea on how to do it: Altaïr’s Apple and history.

The Apple is self-explanatory at this point and I do enjoy making use of it in some of my fics, like in The Second where Abbas pretty much outright states that Altaïr is hoarding the Apple’s secret for himself.

So let’s focus on how Abbas could push others to his side by using Altaïr’s history. His main points would be:

He went rogue before and assassinated people without the permission of a Rafiq or Al Mualim (an oversimplification of what happened in Altaïr’s Chronicles)

He had failed a very important mission that led to the death of a brother and it’s only by Al Mualim’s mercy that he wasn’t killed for his failure (AC1)

He killed Al Mualim without real proof of his treachery (AC1 - this would gain him the support of those who still believed Al Mualim did nothing wrong)

He spent years away from Masyaf when he should be there, being the mentor they needed during a time of change (End of Bloodlines when he joined Maria in her travels)

Abbas would also whisper poisoned words to the Assassins who feel that their work isn’t being valued enough as the Levantine Brotherhood is structured more on the side of meritocracy. Also, at this point, there are many Assassins who are too young to remember Malik as one of the more promising Assassins in the field before Jerusalem happened. These ones would be those weak in spirit that Abbas could whisper about how Malik became the acting mentor because of his close friendship with Altaïr. Why else would they choose such a man as Malik instead of other Assassins to act as the mentor, considering what he ‘lacks’? It doesn’t matter that Malik has done more for the Brotherhood than most of them. It doesn’t matter that he has lost so much for the Brotherhood.

What mattered was that Malik is stuck taking care of what should have been Altaïr’s job high up the office while Abbas was the one on the grounds, having enough time to observe which Assassin could be turned to his side.

What about Sef then? Sef has a very deliberating factor against him. He’s Altaïr’s son. Considering his age and his current position in the Brotherhood by the time his family left for Genghis Khan, we would be around 19~20 years old when he took the role of Malik’s second-in-command. Whether this is an official position or does not matter. Sef’s high standing in the Brotherhood could be taken as another evidence of why Altaïr doesn’t deserve to be the mentor: nepotism and favoritism. If we include the idea that Malik and Sef were having an affair like in The Relentless Pleasurable Suffering of Desmond Miles, you bet there are going to be rumors about their secret affair as well which will make some of the more conservative Assassins balk.

Abbas might even stoke the flames himself.

The main reason why I spent time dealing with all that setup is that I promise that Desmond managed to save Sef and Malik (and their allies including Rauf because it’s implied his ‘sickness’ had been orchestrated by Abbas) because he immediately went to Masyaf the moment he got kicked into this time period. Desmond easily got into Malik’s office thanks to the ‘borrowed’ Assassin robes he got from the nearest bureau he found before making the trip to Masyaf and he tries to play it off like he had been made aware of a coup.

Malik isn’t stupid. He knows Desmond is not saying everything he knows but he cannot dismiss his claims as well. But, if what Desmond is saying is true, then he needs to see what can be done first.

In this case, nothing could be done.

Abbas’ claws had dug too deep into the very foundation of Masyaf itself at this point. Desmond was simply too late and the tides of change are already on their way.

What they are left with is to either hold their ground or go with the tides.

Malik chooses the later. Because he believed that Altaïr will be able to turn the tides once he returned.

Also, he cannot… he will not risk the lives of their remaining allies and their families just on the chance that they can survive the tides.

Especially his new born son and…

Sef…

(Sidenote: in this scenario, let’s make Malik’s wife his beard who knows about the affair. Hell, let’s make them each other’s beard. Malik and Sef are having an affair and they married two women who loved one another. They planned for their children to all grow up as siblings.)

So Malik gets their allies out of Masyaf. Send some of them faraway missions. Get their families to leave Masyaf to ‘visit’ relatives. Rauf’s declining health got him to send him and his family somewhere else with an explanation of ‘there’s a doctor there who might be able to help’.

Of course, Abbas isn’t stupid. He sees this happening and knows something’s up. He’s not sure just how much Malik knows but he is sure Malik knows something.

So he accelerates the timetable.

This makes it easier for Malik to see his moves though. It comes to a head where both of them tipped their hands: Abbas arranged a late meeting at night. The following dawn, Malik and Sef’s family leaves Masyaf (together with Sef).

So Abbas makes his move. No fancy false charges. No assassination attempts.

He and his coconspirators take Masyaf.

Of course, with such a blatant takeover, there are more Assassins who would not like this. Not enough to push them back as Malik had made sure the ones they are sure are allied with them were far away in Masyaf already.

(It would be later on that Altaïr would ask him why he did not simply do the opposite. Why not have Abbas’ allies be the ones sent away from Masyaf. To that, Malik would answer, “To contain a festering wound, you cut off the limb before it infests the rest of the body. Masyaf’s wound has festered far too long to be saved. Not by me.”)

And Malik was the only person truly loyal to Altaïr left in Masyaf. Everybody else was either on Abbas’ side or those who didn’t care either way.

Just as Malik planned.

Because this way, Abbas would have a prize. Abbas’ anger and thirst for vengeance would be quenched even for just a bit.

And…

Malik was betting that his death would be enough for Altaïr’s eyes to finally be opened. For Altaïr to finally do what he should have done all those years ago when Abbas used the Apple during the burning of Al Mualim’s body.

For Altaïr to finally let go of his childhood hope that Abbas would finally see the truth and they could reconcile their shattered friendship.

Even if it wasn’t…

Malik was betting that Sef would avenge his death.

And that’s when Desmond comes in and saves him. Malik is unsure how Desmond was there when he specifically ordered Desmond to ride to Alamut to tell the Assassins there about Abbas’ plans and to ask for sanctuary for their allies.

Desmond did that… by sending a pigeon then keeping an eye on things in Masyaf all in an effort to find a good time to assassinate Abbas (didn’t work. Abbas had become too paranoid because of all the moves Malik had made).

Malik is the one who stops Desmond from killing anyone, tells him that doing so would further fracture the Brotherhood.

So they run.

They meet up with their allies in Alamut and that’s where they stay, sending pigeons to all the bureaus and other Brotherhoods about what has happened in Masyaf.

(And on this part a scene between Malik and Sef concerning Malik’s plan and Sef chewing him out for it)

And it’s in Alamut that Altaïr and the others go to after their mission was done.

Just enough time has passed that Desmond was able to store the important memories in the memory seals in Alamut for Altaïr to watch.

No matter what questions they ask Desmond, he refuses to answer any of their questions.

Because he wants to tell Altaïr first.

He wants Altaïr to be the one to know who he truly is.

More than anything, he wants Altaïr to be the one to decide his fate in this world he finds himself in.

Unorganized Notes:

We can go either way with how this pairing would work. Either we make this full on Altaïr/Desmond/Maria where Desmond becomes both of their lovers or this is more of a case of Desmond being Altaïr’s lover and having a close friendship with Maria.

If you prefer for Desmond to be Altaïr’s lover alone, it could be that Altaïr and Maria’s relationship had changed. They still love one another but they feel no urge for anything physical anymore. But Altaïr felt it once more for Desmond.

In this scenario, Altaïr and Desmond would start their relationship only when Maria gives her blessing. Before that, there’s gonna be pining on both sides that everyone could see.

Once they start their relationship, it’s gonna be tricky because Altaïr wouldn’t want to hide Desmond at all while Desmond would want to hide their relationship because he knows Abbas could use their relationship to further smear Altaïr’s reputation.

And that is when Altaïr decides to do what he had always been planning to do: retire.

There will be the 12th-century version of “Oh god, he’s finally having his midlife crisis” outrage, and the fact that Altaïr is doing this AFTER Abbas’ coup will be fanning the flames even more.

So they make a compromise that Altaïr will retire once they get Masyaf back but he also makes preparations for his final contribution: to push the Brotherhood back to the shadows.

At that point, the plot can either: focus on the plans to get Masyaf back or on Altaïr and Desmond’s developing relationship. (Pick one and the other one will become the background setup, kinda like plot B)

Darim and Sef would have an awkward relationship with Desmond. Darim more awkward than Sef as Sef would play off the awkwardness by joking “should we call you ‘father’ as well?”

Sef is honestly ‘oh okay’ son in this scenario because he is in a similar situation with Malik.

Oh yeah, Altaïr and Maria knew about their relationship BEFORE they went to assassinate Genghis Khan. They were just waiting for Sef and Malik to fess up.

They still gave them hell and Altaïr enjoyed giving the shovel talk to Malik just for the hell of it.

Malik turned the table on him later on by saying that, since Desmond is technically an orphan (“He’s an adult, Malik.” “Who needs someone to keep an eye on him and it’s certainly not going to be you. How much have you spent on the gifts you’ve given him this past month, hm?”), he gave Altaïr the shovel talk as well since he is the ‘adult’ (“Again, he’s an adult as well”) who had worked closely with Desmond the most.

I do have the habit of making Darim have a crush on Desmond so if you want Darim to be super awkward, make him have a crush on his father’s lover. XD

Darim ranting about Altaïr and Desmond’s relationship to Sef is funnier when you remember Darim knows Sef and Malik are secretly lovers. Darim had assisted Sef more than once in making sure Altaïr didn’t know about it so he’s ranting to Sef knowing Sef can relate to Desmond more than anyone in Alamut. He’s doing it on purpose to make his little brother squirm.

Maria would definitely have tea parties with Malik and Desmond. Desmond dubbed it the “Altaïr Support Club” and the name stuck.

If Maria is part of the pairings, pegging will be involved. Desmond would definitely be the most bottom of the three of them and there will definitely be scenes where Maria or Altaïr watches Desmond getting the life fucked out of him.

Also…………… kinky sex making use of the Apple’s hallucinations and mind control capabilities.

[magicalgirlpictureencyclopedia]

I found that entire argument weird, lol. Seeing two people go back and forth about Sailor Moon and Madoka Magica being feminist and yet them seeing both shows as fundementally different is what got me. Besides it being 14 year old rehashed discourse, both shows reach the same conclusion - that kindness, love, and selflessness beat out misery and that it's better to be optmistic in the face of sorrow than giving up. A lot of the "magical girl warrior" shows have this as their message, with even the shows that aren't in this subgenre having this core element (Minky Momo did this a lot.) It's just weird seeing people argue over series with the same thematic structure, ignoring that, and then getting into a fight over a silly feminism animanga list in the first place.

As for the Urobuchi talk, yes, Madoka is very tame violence wise. I still find it odd how people make the show's intent on torture as if they were looking at something like Genocyber. You can dislike the show, even outright hate it, but it's still a bit silly to make the entire show out to be some kind of (I find this term gross but--) "torture porn anime where the director gets off on seeing young girls suffer" as many detractors make the show out to be. At some point people who highly dislike Urobuchi and Madoka itself need to let go, because every week someone is fighting strangers online about a 12 episode anime from 2011.

Also, I do think this is main consequence as interpreting the genre as "wish fulfilment fantasy" and other things by a much older age demo. People then go back and forth on which magical girl shows mattered more, which subverted tropes more, is more feminist/progressive/etc when missing that most of the genre is for young girls. The shows are made for things like toy sales and moral lessons, so the mindset of them only having any value to self insertion to adult daily life I see online is odd. Excluding Madoka's key demo not being children nowadays despite the staff wanting a general audience... what purpose does it serve for two adults to debate shows in this manner when they aren't the main demographic and then miss both shows have the same core values anyway? It's never based on what the actual creators have stated about their projects, just their reading of these shows and many times people assume author's intentions. You can view a show how you want, sure, but the assertions made about both series in that debate aren't things I have ever seen from actual interviews from Takeuchi or Urobuchi and co.

But of course, this was on Twitter, and the magical girl community there is more focused on propping up shows off which is more feminist/a deconstruction/whatever the hell instead of noticing these shows have more in common than not. The ones that don't have these elements (ie themes about growing up being a positive part of life, love, kindness, accepting others, etc) or are subdued on stuff like saving the world they don't watch anyway.

They could instead find series do focus on topics such as gender roles, stuff tied to feminism more intentionally (even kids series like Sugar Sugar Rune manage to do this) or patriarchal structures, but they won't, so I didn't bother responding as MG Twitter's scope of what they watch is fairly low as is.

I do not think it's *torture porn* or anything like, Madoka isn't even that dark or cynical especially not for Urobuchi lol, Madoka was seen as perfectly optimistic enough for them to ask him to write a season of Kamen Rider for kiddos lol.

Madoka just... isn't about feminism though. It's about desire, wishes, selfishness and all the good and bad that comes with it. It's a be careful what you wish for narrative, but without the evil genie who punishes you for being an idiot.

Mami regrets not wishing for her whole family to live. Kyoko tells Sayaka to wish for what she actually wants and not what she thinks makes her a good person because it'll hurt her in the end. Madoka spends days ruminating on what a good wish is, and decides to make an extremely detailed wish for the sake of saving the magical girls. It's a story about how your desire can cause pain but it can also bring joy to others. Sayaka wanted that boy to love her, but she also really DID want to help him. those also just aren't the same wish. Madoka's desire was purely selfless and in the end Homura's desire caused her to become a devil cuz repeating the same month 398305235 times might make your brain fry a little.

[blanketorghost]

Weeping Wisteria

-Yuu Fujisaki after his debut performance of Fuji Musume, 10 y.o

I've been slowly working on Yuu lore and how it'd affect the current twst story + his relationships and manerisms.

One of the things I've focused the most on is his childhood as an Onnagata trainee.

I think that to follow up on Yuu's literal " a genius that's god's punching bag" trope, I'd do a couple of retconning to his backstory. Most of these are minor changes, but methinks it will impact how he interacts with people— esp a couple NRC students.

(Base info pre-retcon about the Fujisaki clan can be found here)

To start off, Ataru (Yuu's father) would be laid off right before Yuu was born, meaning Yuu wouldn't have known a life before Kabuki training.

This would serve the purpose of reinforcing Yuu's belief that he himself is a bad omen or a bad luck magnet for people, as his family probably wouldn't have struggled so much if Yuu was not born.

Also, though it's common for women in JPN to be housewives after marrying, Yuu's mom, Kanna (環花), would probably also need to resume working if they're struggling. I think Kotonoha would also start tutoring underclassmen for some extra cash to help her parents out + save for college education. His family adores him and each other, of course. And would try to spend as much time together as possible, but sometimes it just can't be done.

This would change Yuu's upbringing in two major factors:

1. He would have spent a lot more time with both his grandfather and great-uncle, which would mean he'd be inducted in two very different sides of Kabuki + also very different, contrasting expectations of what he should be like.

2. He'd have to learn to be independent fairly quickly.

Hiroshi and Nagisa are complete opposites of each other. Whilst Hiroshi gives indiscriminately no matter how little he has, Nagisa is overzealous of the family's wealth─ both knowledge and resources.

Nagisa may have accepted his grandson back into the family, but he only accepted his grandson. He would pay for his education and help with Yuu's needs with a monthly allowance, but that would be it. The rest of the family would still be left to fend by themselves.

Yuu's not dumb, he would notice the difference. After all, why was he given expensive brand-name clothes and attended a prestigious academy that he had to be taken to and from with a private driver, whilst his sister shopped in thrift stores and went to their local public school by foot? Why did his dad never come pick him up from practice and was picked up by his uncle instead? Why were his parents so stressed about pinching pennies to pay next month's rent when grandpa's manor was full of empty rooms?

He would've caught on quick to his position as a very real bargaining chip to maintain his family's finantial stability.

So, I think that Yuu, even though he would grow to hate performing as an onnagata, would not quit Kabuki as soon as possible. In fact, I think he'd continue until high school, were he'd enter an indefinite hiatus just so he could have a normal teenage experience + focus on university before returning to perfom.

Also, I think with how close he is to his cousin Nagihiko, he would not want him to suffer under the stress of becoming the Fujisaki heir— at least not while their grandfather is alive and imposing such standards. He wants Nagihiko to have the carefree childhood Yuu was robbed of because of family politics.

Because of this fact, I think Yuu would be much more prone to sacrifice his happiness if it brought out a greater good. I don't think it's out of pure selflessness, though. He's very pragmatic about the pros and cons of things— and ifthe suffering of one ensures the happiness of many, he does not see any problem with it. I think he would also see his self value in what he is useful for, hence why he would eventually hone his abilities to the point of polymathy.

Then, there's uncle Hiroshi. God bless his man because he actually tried to give Yuu a normal childhood. Whenever he wasn't at his grandpa's slaving away at different subjects, he would be at his uncle's theater office or exploring the backrooms of the place. Hiroshi was a busy man, of course— he had his own business to run, but he did his best to keep him entrtained with what he could. He also was the one to notice Yuu's academic potential as the little bugger would rather read his uncles dusty finance and politic books than the fairytales and picture books he bought especially for him. Hiroshi would have been Yuu's biggest advocate, and since Ataru didn't have the money or leverage to fight back against Nagisa, I think Hiroshi would take that place instead. Hiroshi is described to be extremely generous to a fault, so, as a result, I think Yuu would've witnessed the various times his uncle was backstabbed and taken advantage of, yet still managed to rise back and continue working on his passion.

That's what Yuu's goal was before he got interloped; he wants to bide his time and keep his head down, so once he has enough strength and leverage himself, he can finally stand up for his family... or at least the side that genuinely cares about him.

Yuu loves and admires his uncle, but he does not want to be hurt as many as he was. So Yuu would end up being much more closed off and stand-offish than his own personal hero. He would be reluctant to have close friends and confidantes, effectively making most his relationships superficial except for maybe 3 or 4 close friends he holds very dear to him. None of which are from TWST. I think he's the type of friend that listens to all your problems and knows so much about you, but when you look back— Yuu's NRC friends would realize they don't know anything about him other than the very rare nuggets of trivia he allows them to have.

Yuu is also observant and patient. Let's be real for a second— Yuu is at an infinite disadvantage. He has no magic, no money, no family name, and his smarts can only get him so far in a world he knows nothing about. He knows he needs to play things safe if he wants to survive NRC and its students— at least until he finds something he can fight back with. Humans are endurance predators, after all. (He's still a piece of shit with a big mouth, though)

There's so much more I want to elaborate on, but much like Galatea, it'll take me a while organize all my word vomit. Either way, Yuu's backstory and family dynamics are something I have so much fun of thinking about, because his life was so rich before twst! He had friends, a family and responsibilities to take care of. It's both tragic and freeing that he got taken just at such a pivetal point in his life, where he would have to make the choice to continue living for others or start living for himself.

[object-show-analysis]

I’m curious what your thoughts are on season 2 of ONE thus far, particularly with Liam’s actions. I saw someone say he could be falling down a ‘become what you swore to destroy path,’ what with him ignoring how his actions affect others (mainly Bryce) in pursuit of his goal. Do you think this could be the case, or do you think Liam has enough morals to snap himself out before he does something truly careless?

I think this is a very interesting take on Liam’s character, so I’m going to give my two cents.

Liam and Bryce have very different and conflicting feelings on this situation. But I wouldn’t necessarily consider either of them to be toxic or similar to Airy in any way because of this.

I’m certainly not the only person to point this out, but ONE season 2 has put a lot of focus on the effects of grief and trauma that can happen depending on circumstances before and after traumatic events. And I think this really shines through in Liam and Bryce’s actions.

On one hand we have Liam, who had everything to lose. A stable job, friends, a life. All of which was ripped away from him when he was taken away and assumed to be dead.

On the other hand we have Bryce, who had everything to gain. A failing job, possible alcoholism problems, struggling to pay his rent. Having everything taken away from him is what pushed him to start over and get his life together.

We see how these experiences effect them throughout season 2. Liam wants to make sure no one had to suffer like he did. And he’s willing to do anything to make that happen because he has nothing left for himself. He sees no issue in checking as many homeless shelters as he can find or breaking the law because it’s of no consequence to him. He’s lost absolutely everything at this point and now his only purpose is saving others from that fate

Bryce on the other hand has a good life now. He enjoys and values what he has. He has a stable job and all he wants is to put the past behind him. He put so much work into building this life for himself after ONE that he doesn’t want to give it up just to save others. But I don’t think that makes him inherently selfish either.

Both of them went through similar, and yet opposite experiences. And their conflicting views on the situation is what caused so much turmoil. But now, with the newest episode out, we see something interesting. I think we’re starting to see these views change as a result of each other.

Liam started to give up. He felt like he hadn’t gotten anywhere and that everything was just a waste of time and energy. And as they get to SF, he realizes how much he misses his old life, and how he wants so badly to return to it.

But Bryce has been inspired by Liam. He wants to keep trying. He wants to save others. He even says directly to Liam that he’s grateful that Liam changed his priorities, and now he’s set on saving the contestants of ONE

So no I don’t think Liam is doing something evil or equivalent to Airy. I think he’s hurting. And I think Bryce is hurting as well. But it seems like they’re starting to heal with the help and encouragement of each other.

Now let’s just hope nothing bad happened to Bryce.