#sorry for hijacking the post op

[icarusdiesatdawn]

jesus christ. fine. ill say it. im sleepy. im sleepy, okay? do you know what being sleepy does to a person? to their spirit? i should be pitied.

[mishy-mashy]

I said this in a whole reblog, but just copy-pasting to a separate post because I think it'll give some reading comprehension and reblogs don't show up in the search feature.. again, I'm reiterating what I said in another post.

Go check out @demidokuriya 's post for this; OP's post made me put this all down in like. 20 minutes. Mind went vroom vroom cuz HEY THEY'RE ONTO SOMETHING.

(They also reblogged the post with some hint to some behind the scenes of what led to the ideas if you wanna check that out)

Look below at how, when Mineta told AFO to spare Tokoyami, AFO specifically went "..."

He remembers Jirou and thinks, The braying howls of the weak...

He was going to take Tokoyami's Quirk. He took Hawks'. But after Mineta pleaded with him, AFO just straight-up left and didn't take anyone else's Quirk.

AFO saw Yoichi in Mineta.

These scenes are near-identical to each other.

Mineta and Yoichi (at that time) are both much smaller than the normal person at their age

They're both hurt, yet dragged themselves up from the ground to throw something at AFO, to get his attention and make their voice

Both are considered weak, even if they have a Quirk (Mineta's Pop-Off and Yoichi's undeveloped Factor)

The fact that Yoichi got AFO's attention here by throwing a can at him, while Mineta got his attention by throwing a Pop-Off ball; and it stuck.

Mineta's call for his attention landed and actually stuck to AFO. This is unlike when Yoichi and his can bounced off, and AFO kicked him, not listening to him; AFO listened to Mineta and left Tokoyami alone, technically doing what Mineta wanted—to not hurt this person.

AFO just went on to hurt more people away from Mineta's [Yoichi's] eyes so the small weakling wouldn't see.

Yoichi and Mineta both cried to AFO to not hurt in his ways, when AFO was intent on stealing people's Quirks

AFO even stole Hawks' Quirk during this time.

He had time to steal Hawks' Quirk, and though he could've tossed him to the side, he let Hawks stand in his way.

He had the energy. Right after this event, he flew off and left the scene. But he didn't go for Tokoyami immediately.

And this let Mineta play his part, and remind AFO of Yoichi.

"A putrid, festering Quirk Factor."

That sounds like Yoichi, AFO.

".. such garbage."

Hey hey hey, what did Yoichi throw at him when they were kids?

A discarded can. Garbage.

This chapter (385) where AFO listens to Mineta is literally called [A Youthful Urge].

Mineta told AFO to take his Pop-Off (hurt him) instead. But last time, AFO hurt Yoichi by kicking him; this time, AFO not only listened to Mineta to not hurt Tokoyami, but didn't touch Mineta at all.

Even though this time, Mineta [Yoichi] offered to take that place of suffering.

Yoichi didn't do that back then. AFO just turned on little Yoichi anyway.

Yoichi through his whole existence is literally [the braying howls of the weak]. AFO acknowledges he's weak and idealistic, yet he still loves him.

Side note about this panel, I think it's interesting that in this vision, this was the first time we saw Yoichi's eyes: when he was being defiant, despite being pushed down by someone much stronger than him.

Really characteristic of him, honestly. Yoichi's soft-spoken and frail, but it's always reiterated that Yoichi had a powerful will against his stronger big brother.

Mineta at this moment reminded him too much of Yoichi, because the two scenes are near-identical to each other. Parallels, really.

Reiterating something from OP's post that I reblogged this from;

"The reminder of his brother made him uncomfortable, so he hurried away."

AFO didn't want to hurt Yoichi again.

[ivanttakethis]

If we get more of Till’s perspective and find out that he DID look at Ivan, but only when Ivan wasn’t looking at him, I might die.

Imagine what a punch to the gut it would be if they just… missed each other looking…

It would add a new twist to the tragedy, in a way.

The Titanic didn’t see the iceberg until it was too late.

[anti-dazai-blog]

I don't understand why fans in general are always so against critical analysis & always try to defend characters whenever someone points out bad writing. Bsd fans have huge issue like that I'm glad you're so vocal about dazai character writing tho cause lots of people just avoid it due to his fans taking it so personal

I think it’s mainly an issue of people not properly tagging their posts, so that when people search their favorite characters, they find negativity instead of the positive content they were hoping for. It makes sense why that would be annoying— but in the end of the day it’s everyone’s job to curate their own internet experience.

I tag all of my negative posts with #anti dazai, so it’s pretty easy for a person to just block that tag (or block this account), and so most people don’t have a problem with me. I’ve only run into any sort of problem with two separate tumblr users in the past (one of which is pretty infamous in these bsd tumblr circles)— so from my end of things, I don’t really see all the people getting angry about character-critical content. I know it’s out there, I personally just don’t come across it very often.

I also block very liberally, so that might be a contributing factor to why I don’t see that side of the fandom. But either way.

I’m glad you’re enjoying this blog!! For any given piece of media there will be positive aspects and negative aspects, and everyone can and should feel free to talk as much as they want about both sides. There also isn’t a single right answer— meaning one person could find a character to be written in a very compelling way and someone else can find the character writing shallow— neither person is wrong, so long as they can justify their opinions with textual evidence.

The only time a media interpretation is wrong is when it’s entirely made up. And I don’t mean “this person read the text and came away with a different conclusion than me,” I mean “this person is directly contradicting the text and is giving no reasons for why they might think the text is lying.” There’s always the concept of an unreliable narrator, but on tumblr, the website that’s infamous for lacking any sort of Reading Comprehension… yeah you’re not gonna get the brilliant literary debates everyone’s hoping for.

[ritzy-dream-boy]

i went to the theatre recently and the waitress, bless her, was so worried about things. i ordered chicken nuggets and she came back and asked if chicken tenders was okay and of course it’s okay! same food different shape! later on she was clearing the table and a knife fell off the plate and almost hit my hand when it bounced on the table, and she was so apologetic and i just ‘it’s fine don’t worry about it it’s okay’ because i would rather die than be mean or make someone feel like shit for literally no reason.

i have lots of flaws but i do at least take a fair amount of comfort knowing that, if i were a customer NPC in a fast food/retail management game, i would be one of the chill early-level ones that can wait a super long time before they start getting impatient, and you breathe a sigh of a relief when you see them show up in a harder level

[merionettes]

rubicon ask!!

first off I'm so so delighted that I picked up FE3H last summer and that it led me to finding your writing & especially this fic. what an amazing experience, what a treat with every update, I have all these fun memories now of places I was when I got the update email (and screamed internally every time). a little collection of sense memories colored in.

as for the actual question: very curious about your process. did you have an outline going in? I have to imagine yes (or else you're braver than black friday shoppers). how did you go about structuring this, ie did you have a series of Moments in your head that you wrote around and connected, or did you try to build scenes to fit the arcs you had in mind, or a mix of the two? anything and everything you want to share, I'm 🤲

you're killing me!!! man, thanks so much, seriously. 

as for the actual question, indeed. hahaha. ha. i delayed answering this for so long because it kept devolving into an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. well i give up. this is now two posts. one is the actual answer to your question, only ten times longer than it needs to be. the other is an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. so… caveat lector. 

first part under the cut. ← not kidding about the caveat!!!!!!

i've talked a little about the process before, so i'll piggyback on that post and dig a little more into the differences between the original idea and the finished product, including spoilers i couldn't get into when i'd only posted 55k. ("only." god.)

technically this did start with an outline. technically because at the time i was brand-new to fe3h and hadn't written anything but a few friend-ficlets in about 8 years. thought "skating au!!", spent a fevered weekend outlining all the major scenes, started in on the writing, and…. very quickly realized that i was nowhere near competent enough to actually. write it. "intensely frustrating" does not even scratch the surface, lmao, of what it felt like to have this thing in my head and only be able to produce what felt like the worst clumsiest tritest version of it. very apropos for skating, actually. 

looking back on that outline, it had almost nothing to do with the finished product, especially on felix's side. it didn't have the nationals flounce, the timeskip, training in vancouver, the lake, the nhk trophy sports anime climax, the backstory reveal meltdown. (it did have the redemptive healing free skate.) what, critically, it did have was sylvain's personal arc—burned out, desperate to quit, wants to go to college. it ended at exactly the same place as the actual story, with sylvain and dorothea's final skate together. the last line was one of the earliest things i wrote. 

in other words, even though almost everything between the first and last scene changed WILDLY in the process of writing, i always knew exactly what i was working towards and that was invaluable. 

insert two year timeskip here! during which i would occasionally reopen the skating doc, take a stab at another scene, feel this ominous sense of foreboding, and give up lol. you can thank the 2022 winter olympics for making me get serious, specifically 1) yuzuru hanyu going out in a blaze of bittersweet doomed quad axel glory 2) shoma uno losing to some eighteen year old. i believe my exact words were (consults notes) "anyway time to go back to my fic where i control the narrative and i decide who wins." idk what made this attempt different than any of the others—right time, right inspiration, right circumstances—but this time it caught fire. in uh. in a big way. 

so that's when i wrote what i refer to in that post as a skeleton draft and what i've since come to think of as a storyboard on steroids. this is when felix's arc really took shape, beyond "he is sad… he is mad… he is perfectly positioned to see right through sylvain." the fallout from nationals crystallizing, in particular, was one of the things that snapped felix into place and helped determine the tone and focus of the story overall. (that initial outline had much more of a romcom/classic fwb-to-lovers feel.)

the other thing that did this, of course, was sylvain's narrative voice. when i committed to "burnout who is controlling every single word of every thought to avoid admitting that he is burned out" was when this story became what it is. the voice dictated every single scene, the tone, the shape, what was revealed, what was implied, what was never making it on the page. it led me places i didn't anticipate. it made the cuts for me! cute scene you've got in that outline lol sylvain would never. 

i see past me in that post dancing around the length, lmao. well the ""storyboard"", the skeleton, whatever you want to call it, was over 100k. and yet even then, EVEN WITH 100K ON PAPER, there was still so much i had no fucking clue was coming! felix pushing sylvain on what he wants was there, but sylvain never explained what happened. my oc jm gautier (thanks for nothing, three hopes!!!) was an ominous presence, but he wasn't the final boss. there was no memory of the first time sylvain and dorothea met. (<- insane.) there was no glenn skate. i had to write to discover all of that.

so like—i cannot emphasize how much i grew as a writer through the experience of writing this story. prose, structure, character arcs, thematic arcs. i was harder on myself than i've ever been. and if i hadn't had that end goal in sight i don't know if i would have made it through all those iterations—storyboarding, drafting, rewriting, editing. wanting to deliver that moment powered me through any amount of frustration/exhaustion/bewilderment.

wow this post sounds almost normal. nothing about this experience was normal. which is why you're getting a part 2.

[skitskatdacat63]

I love the f1 containment breach genre posts so much 😭😭 they're so funny . I feel so bad for the op bcs at first it's just a few random "#[insert driver] coded" in the tags, but then it truly breaches containment when they acknowledge it and then their post is just permanently an f1 post hahahah

[tethered-heartstrings]

very happy there is a "no reblog" option. the next thing tumblr should roll out is "people can reblog but no one can add anything to the post"

[blue-spider-official]

omg yes!!!

Dick is flexible and if he's an aerials as well then he has abnormal blisters and he is incredibly strong and can hold up his body weight with just one leg.

Jason is built like a tank but he is still graceful and able to keep his balance. Since hockey players are on the ice they need to have a good balance and even good accuracy with making scores, if that's even their position.

Tim has lean muscles and a slender physique. Tim actually probably fits water polo more than competitive swimming since it's practically a combination of swim and volleyball. So water polo would mean that he has strong legs, core, and arms and an incredible ability to multi-task.

Cass being a ballet dancer is cool!!! the flexibility and balance combined with gratefulness is cool!!! Also if she started younger then that means that her bones and muscles are developed for ballet. Also the skill and strength of a pirouette!!! Insane!

Steph makes sense!!! the strong upper body as well as back and core!! more focus on upper body for the ability to get the ball over and legs to run and jump.

However, I think Steph would have a softball player build or an MMA build. Mostly softball though. Softball can mean that she has strong endurance, upperbody, and lower body, as well as multitasking to be able know when to swing, steal a base, and where to direct the ball.

Duke being a soccer player means that he has strong endurance, resilience, and leg muscles as well as core. Duke needs to be able to go end to end of large, miles long feilds in order to play offense. A strong upper body specifically if he is the goalie and ability to multitask well because he needs to know where the ball is and anticipate the movement of the ball.

Damien being a mixed martial artist makes sense considering his background with the league and then as Robin. I think when he gets older he will go into horse back riding because of his love for animals and how in that sport you need to be connected with your horse.

Bruce might have a build of an MMA fighter, Boxer, and light most hand to hand sports.

I'm not a professional, I used to play softball and have friends in sports. And ofc I love dc.

Dick has the build of a gymnast (obviously), Jason has the build of a hockey player, Tim has the build of a swimmer, Cass has the build of a ballet dancer, Steph has the build of a volleyball player, Duke has a build of a soccer player and Damian has the build of a martial artist.

And Bruce is overcompensating.

[favroitecrime]

this is just the plot of that phineas and ferb episode when candace accidentally ends up on mars

[lightofraye]

When he looked genuinely happy to be at Cons. Now in most photo ops he doesn't look like he’s enjoying them. I think it’s becoming a job for him rather than connecting with fans. I miss this Jensen

Hey there, spn300!

I'm kinda glad I didn't post this until after my big anon ask and my even bigger essay response.

Because... this is a perfect point to what I was making.

In earlier photos and cons and everything, Jensen... seemed full of light and life. But as time went on... that light seemed to dim and diminish. Staying in an unhappy marriage would more than likely do this. Staying with someone who was likely emotionally abusing them... would do that too.

Sure, sure... it could be growing older, but... I'm not that much younger than Jensen and... no. It's not getting older. It's finding less joy in life as everything around turns to ash and dust. Because so much is going wrong.

Sorry, spn300! I hijacked your post.

Yes... I miss his smiles too.

[ordinaryschmuck]

I saw a post about how Carmen Santiego has great character designs and diversity through race and body types. I considered it a good post and one that makes a good point...And then below it was a reblog about how a person went "If Carmen Santiego can have a diverse cast of HUMANS, then what the hell is up with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss?"

First of all...What the hell do either of those two things have in common? They sure are animated shows, I'll give you that. Except that one's a children's animated spy thriller and the other two are adult musical comedy dramas in Hell. Stylistically and tonally, neither of them have anything to do with each other and you just randomly made a point because...you hate Hazbin and Helluva? Cool. Congratulations. Now get a new personality and just fucking watch something else if these two shows made your hatred this obsessed when you randomly attack a show through a post that has NOTHING to do with it. The OP wasn't attacking Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss. Unless they constantly attack it and they made that post to prove a previous point, something that does NOT come across in that original post, there's no reason to go "Hey, why didn't these completely different shows with their own styles take notes of this kids show with ITS unique style?"

And here's the thing: I like Carmen Santiego. I like the way that it looks, and I think its style really is unique compared to other animated series that have come out around the same time. And I do agree that it has a great diverse cast that shows off a lot of body diversity where every single character looks unique in their own way. But here's the thing: I would not go out of my way to attack other shows, to the point where I'd hijack someone else's post to say, "Yeah, this show is WAY better than this other one I hate." And if I had in the past...I'm sorry. I really am sorry. I hate that I acted that way and I will try to do better. Because that's what I do with media criticism or talking about stuff I don't like. I try to act BETTER than I have in the past because that's not how you talk about media. Whether you like it or hate it, it's never a good thing to talk about something you hate when the discussion is about something someone else loves. Sometimes it makes sense, as there are often two products that are similar to each other. Like Marve/DC, Star Wars/Star Trek, and The Owl House/Amphibia. Those are media where there's a lot to compare and contrast, with people being unaware that the main reason why they like the other basically boils down to personal preferences when it comes to consuming media. But with Hazbin/Helluva and Carmen Santiego, there's really NOTHING to compare and you're just going out of your way to talk about something you hate when it's not relevant to the conversation. It's like people who hyped up Puss in Boots: The Last Wish just to shit on Velma. Yeah, The Last Wish is a thousand times better than Velma, but there's nothing similar about both products that make the discussion worth it. You're just using something you love as a weapon towards something you hate.

I get it, people like some things and hate others. It's how we're wired as human beings and I can't stop that. Nor do I think I CAN stop it. But just feel like this is making media discussion worse when all we can think of to do when discussing something we love and bringing in something we hate into the conversation. It's not necessary, and you're feeding the creators that thing you hate by still talking about it. You want to know the best possible way to react to "objectively bad" media? Stop talking about it. Stop watching it. STOP ENGAGING.

If you don't fucking like it, stop consuming this piece of media and go watch something you enjoy instead. Give THAT your time. Show how THAT does everything right and sing its praises. Raise up this one thing that you believe is "objectively good" so it can effectively overshadow this thing you consider "objectively bad." There's a way to discuss media without shitting on something you don't like.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

OP i completely agree but I am gonna hijack your post for a minute to add in my two cents:

what if it’s the diazes asking christopher this question and christopher goes “well, he’s like my dad but he’s not… dad’s my dad… so buck is my buck.”

and the diaz parents are just like “wtf” and they ask what he means by buck is like his dad, and chris starts telling them about everything buck’s done for him and eddie over the years and he ends his explanation by mentioning the will and they’re both like “the WHAT?”

and that’s what sparks the will conversation and we get ramon and helena both ebing confused about it, helena on the defensive as always and ramon actually trying to hear eddie out

especially if this is after a conversation w pepa or abuela about how eddie was always such a ‘sensitive little boy ™️’ but that his parents had changed him by expecting him to grow up too quickly which sparks a conversation about eddie having a queer uncle who always doted on him (eddie not remembering him) and how eddie always reminded abuela or pepa of him before he passed away and ramon/helena tried to erase his existence from their kids’ lives

we then get eddie questioning why he was so similar to his uncle, PLUS eddie starting to question why he wants buck to be chris’s guardian, and he talks to frank about it and frank goes “i know what you are 👁️👄👁️” and BAM we get feelings realization

then after he spirals for an episode, coming to terms with his feelings for buck as well as the idea of figuring out his sexuality in his 30s, he has a heart to heart with ramon that kind of finishes resolving their reconciliation arc, meanwhile helena is still helena-ing™️ over everything and it results on her saying something akin to “dragging christopher down” and chris OVERHEARS and gets angry and that is the catalyst for him returning to LA- still upset with eddie, their own tension not yet resolved, but they finally started down that road, and it sets up a whole arc for eddie accepting that buck is what completes his family, whether he has him romantically or not, and that helps heal the rift with chris…

but then we get buck having his own simultaneous arc of wondering about his place in their lives when someone points it out- he starts to recontextualize his entire relationship with eddie under the lens of his recently discovered bisexuality and has his own “oh shit” moment that sparks some more drama w buck having to navigate this realization while still thinking eddie is straight and realizing the risks that these feelings had on his relationship with eddie and we possibly get a mini-divorce era (no longer than like 2, maybe 3 episodes, nothing too drastic and crazy) where buck only spends time with christopher and eddie thinks that buck somehow found out about his feelings for him and blames himself for the awkwardness, while buck thinks the same thing (although slightly different circumstances) and it’s not until they’re working a bad fire and eddie slips up and says something along the lines of “you better come back to me” and then later on after shift, they’re in eddie’s kitchen and buck asks what eddie meant by what he said, and eddie is all like “what hahaha i didn’t say anything who said anything?” and buck is like “when you said it, i registered it as you telling me to come back to you and christopher, but you said come back to me, so what did you mean” and cue soft quiet love confession scene in eddie’s kicthen and eddie is crying and apologizing for making things awkward and then we see buck be the one to take the step (having worked through his apprehension to taking the risk) and kisses eddie super softly and the episode ends with them looking at each other for a moment before smiling.

anyway, sorry again op for hijacking your post but you gave me so many thoughts that i had to write down omg

I need an episode where someone asks why Chris calls Buck “his Buck” and not “Uncle Buck” or plain old “Buck.” And I want to see Eddie grasping at straws trying to find a platonic answer for it.

[hypnoneghoul]

im always so nervous and paranoid everytime you vent about people using tumblr wrong lol!

im new here and im trying to learn and doing everything well but im still so afraid that im doing it wrong

do you have maybe some tips what to do and what not to do (like reblogs, comments etc), please? i don’t want to make anyone mad or something:(

tysm!🖤

first of all I'm very sorry I make people worried that's absolutely not my intention. unless I'm rambling about a very serious issue I'm just throwing it out and also this particular thing is not something I'd, I dunno, block someone over

I went through my notifications and got some examples, so I hope it's understandable. censored ofc, I wouldn't put someone on blast for this

also please don't make it a drama, it's just my opinion and if yours is different we can agree to disagree. I know a lot of people will agree with me, tho, because it's not something I just came up with and decided is right but it's the tumblr culture and it's just what is considered polite and what is considered rude at this point

under the cut

the point is that when you're reblogging something just to share it and express your opinion on it, and not adding any real content to the post, it should be in the tags

when you add something meritorical to the post that's supposed to stay with it through further reblogs by people (but make sure the op is okay with that, don't just go out there hijacking a post because you need attention), you use the comment reblog

and you do not reblog personal posts. not only personal, some posts just don't need reblogging. if you read someones vent and you want to op you're there for them use messages or replies. don't share their personal rambles

[asaka-lucy-dr-rc]

The series is not 100% clear on the matter. But a lot of fans have observed that there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest that Nagito wasn't lying about his illnesses, despite surviving his original prognosis. And that him insisting he was lying afterwards was just his attempt to keep Hajime from getting close to him.

There are multiple pieces of evidence in the various mangas showing his inner thoughts, that point to the stuff about his dead dog and the plane crash being truthful. And if he was being truthful about something as insane as a meteor hitting a plane at the exact moment it was being hijacked, the dementia + lymphoma claim isn't quite so unbelievable.

There's also his behavior throughout the series. People have pointed out that a lot of it is fairly consistent with symptoms of someone with fronto-temporal dementia. His tendency to ramble, impaired empathy, inappropriate social behavior, etc. His pale skin and hair, along with his skinny physique also suggests his body is quite sickly.

Sorry for dragging this out a bit. It's just that when it comes to Nagito's illnesses, a number of fans can treat him very hypocritically. To use Nekomaru for example, he frequently does strenuous physical activities that a person with a heart condition shouldn't be doing. Yet no one accuses him of lying about his illness. Nor do people claim that Toko fakes her split personality, even though Syo isn't a very accurate portrayal of dissociative identity disorder.

Oh, thanks for taking the time to message me! First of all, I want to say that I'm not specifically accusing him of lying, just that it can be interpreted as a lie because the math between the life expectancy he said and the actual time he lived after he was declared sick doesn't add up. I'm not sure about the EN fandom, but I think more people interpret it that way, at least in the JP fandom.

I also do not want to criticize anyone who thinks his illness is true. I was more wondering why there is a difference in interpretation between the JP fandom and the English fandom wiki. The Danganronpa Fandom Wiki says "While it is left ambiguous in the game, his illnesses and backstory as well as his school profile in Danganronpa 3". I don't have the official setting materials of the anime, so I'm not sure, but I did a search in Japanese to see if anyone mentioned anything like Nagito's illness was written in them, but I couldn't find any mention of it. So I just said that the source of that line is vague, but that's all. I mentioned that more people in the JP fandom have the interpretation that his illness was a lie, but of course there are various fanfic made under the assumption that the story of his illness is true! I am a fan who played DR2 almost immediately after it was released in Japan, and if I remember correctly, there was a mixture of both interpretations among those who finished the game at the beginning, and gradually fans accepted the one that the illness was probably a lie, because the life expectancy he talked about and the time when the school trip in NWP started did not match. (I guess a lot of fans just wanted Nagito to live).

Sorry for repeating almost the same sentence, but I know there are people in both the JP and EN fandoms who would interpret it as real, and I'm not trying to determine which is canon at all. In the post I commented on, the OP seemed to be considering which way to interpret it, so I thought telling about the interpretation in the JP fandom might be a kind of clue to the story. I don't want to criticize those who interpret his illness as true.

However, as for the information written on the fandom wiki, I want to know the source! If anyone knows where the information is written, please let me know!

I didn't mention some of the things you wrote, but I hope you understand that's because I don't want to be particularly critical or anything like that. (And since we were originally only talking about Nagito, I don't intend to expand the discussion to other characters.)

Again, thanks for taking the time to message me!

[mythicalmagical-monkeyman]

uhh added thoughts!

It's like the whole beliefs thing in PJO.

Because Kronos is truly evil, he wanted revenge on his kids and power and didn't care who he had to go through to get that. His actions were all evil: manipulating, murder, etc. He was the villain and he didn't care.

But then Luke (Azure/LBD) thought he was the hero because he believed what he was doing was good but his actions just led to pain. He thought his beliefs and actions were good because they were coming from a place of genuine care but at the end of the day he missed how bad those actions actually were. He was the villain who thought he was the hero.

Percy (Wukong) on the other hand could understand where Luke was coming from (because come on the gods are dicks some times) but he couldn't stand by and let Luke go through with his actions because people were getting hurt. But at the same time Percy would let Olympus burn so long as friends didn't get hurt because the gods are dick.

And then there are people like the good half bloods (Pigsy, Sandy, Tang) on the hero side who are just trying to do the right things, save the day, and they aren't deep enough in the morality yet to see things the way our final boys do.

Ethan Nakamura (Macaque) understood that there needed to be balance because both sides can be tipped so dramatically, both sides could destroy the world without ever realizing it because they're just to caught up in their own goals to know.

Also another random thought Macaque says “everybody wants to be the hero of their own story.” But MK is different. He says he relates to the warrior in Macaques story and is convinced he will be the villain of his own story if that’s how “evil monkey demon thing” can be interpreted. This means something but idk what rn

MK is different in certain aspects, and he may not view himself as the hero, but he very much wants to be the hero of his own story. He wants to help people, and he wants to use his position of power for good and to protect his friends.

Now, that sounds simple, but lmk has muddied those basic motivations.

Wanting to help people is great, but what if helping those people is at the detriment of others? What if it risks the entire world?

Using your power for good is super cool. But what defines good? What defines bad? What if you can't tell who is the hero and who is the villain? The "good guy" or "bad guy"?

Protecting your friends? Awesome! But what if you go too far getting the power you need to protect them? What if you only push them away in your constant reach for something more?

The thing about being good, or at least trying to be good, is that it's hard. It's a lot harder to figure out the right thing to do and then do it than it is to just not care. And I think that's what Curse MK was really pushing at, that's why he was telling MK to embrace a path of chaos—because, well, if all paths lead to pain, why care? Just do whatever you want with no regard for anyone else! That's much easier, right? Just give in! Embrace your Destiny!

But that life is also empty. It's self-destructive in it's own way.

However, attempting to be the Hero? That can also eat you up from the inside out. Trying to do what you think is "right" is what lead the Lady Bone Demon and Azure Lion to their own destruction. It's pulling MK into his own downward spiral.

And that's why I think the path of the Warrior is so important! It's a third option outside of the "hero" and "villain" binary. It's someone who still cares, but not someone who is going to destroy themself for the sake of a better world.