#still believe his backstory is different enough that it led to him being this version (if that makes any sense....)

[thefightinfoggy]

He sucks so bad

[mrinafria]

I'll gladly let you kill me then.

-That promise, make sure you keep it.

So I think Daon's backstory is significant for us to understand a bit more about Han Daon as a character. He's got this huge scar from his childhood incident that he never really healed from. Also, he's no saint. We've seen him wavering in what he should/should not do more than once so far.

He knows giving police protection to criminals is a waste but still does it because it's the lawful thing to do. He wavers for a couple of seconds there when Kang Bitna offers to kill his parents' killer for him because the law cannot. From what I see, he's always walked on a thin line between what is right or wrong according to society's definition. He definitely has a violent streak in him; he's just never had to fully give in to that.

You bet he'd have ended up on the dark side after his parents' death if not for his noona who never gave up on him, turned him away, with her love and kindness, from a path that could have led him to darkness and uncertainty. Now that Detective Soyeong is gone, the person who showed him light is gone too. His only family after he'd lost his own, gone. And he's back to being that kid again who had so much unresolved hurt, trauma and angst against the law that didn't believe in him (a wound he still carries). Law that wasn't enough to give him his well-deserved justice. Back then, he had Soyeong who was a human and law abiding individual. Now, he has Kang Bitna aka Justitia, a demon who serves justice in her own way because she knows the human law is faulty. If Han Daon was guided to life and light back then because of Soyeong, would he then give in to death and darkness now, because he is already spiraling as it is and there's no one to bring him back to light?

Why do I feel Kang Bitna actually wouldn't want that? It was different back when she'd stabbed him, but the switch is flipped now, and I think she'd care very much about Han Daon's future and fate. The way she goes 'HAN DAON!' and 'Then you'll end up in hell too' and stares at him like she doesn't recognize this version of Daon--I've replayed that scene far too many times.

Because Bitna may say Daon's morality and tenacity to get to the truth is annoying, but I think she doesn't even know that she appreciates it, which is also why she gets so worked up every time she feels like Daon's faked his emotions or betrayed her with his words: she expects him to be on the side of truth and righteousness.

Even though we see her supporting Daon in the precap for eps 9 and 10, she might go out of her way and even risk her own existence to keep Daon away from darkness later, because now if something happens to him, she'd be the first one to cry.

A part of me also thinks Daon cannot go ALL the way with his revenge because he'd made a promise to Detective Soyeong to always be a detective first and do his job. It's his vengeance talking right now but once that wears off and reason kicks in, I don't think he'd want to kill somebody unlawfully, disrespecting the promise he made to his noona.

Or we could totally have a switch up with Bitna becoming the superego and Daon, the id. It'll be interesting to see if Bitna starts shifting gradually toward the 'unevil' side while helping Daon, having his back and protecting him. She might have to take Daon's life after all (deal with the Demon and all), but at a time when it'll hurt her THE MOST doing so. Maybe the power of Kylum can come to their rescue then, reviving Daon? It also makes me think if the 'Other Thing' you need for Kylum to work its divine magic is unconditional love/sacrificial love, where Bitna would have to willingly give up her life to revive Daon?

*cough* ^I take no responsibility for what I just said above thank you very much T-T

[overdicebro]

Slay the Princess is a masterpiece, we already experienced the full game and walked endless playthroughs just to see how many changed and how many did not. Stp as the complete game is beautiful enough but I think we need to talk about the demo too, in the demo not much was revealed except the complete chapter 1s and a glimpse of the chapter 2 so we only get to just conjure some thoughts about the game's plot with what the game has, idk but I've been watching the game's demo since on Manlybadasshero's channel so yeah it was my introduction to the game.

So I've been rewatching the demo videos and I think there's something interesting about our assumptions before and how they differ in the full game, but even with our assumptions it still can be true since that's the games nature. Before I remember that many people believed that the narrator was the one who pulled all the strings and the narrator is bigger than both TLQ & TSM, some already caught on the main plot of the game but there were many comments discussing theories about the game is essentially just a "what if?" alternate version of Knights & Princess games, and how it's an edgy and more darker version of Stanley Parable etc. with the narrator gaslighting you and stuff. But the main thing is that the narrator was a BIG direction of the game and it's mystique led as to believe as such.

And I'm always emphasizing that one Nightmare Scene where she took off her mask is what made ME to believe that there could be a backstory to this. But there isn't, there wasn't people that could back up the background of the Princess, there aren't animals found in the world(construct), there were no birds but trees, there wasn't a story of the Princess that could back her up that she's HUMAN or even a real princess at that. Because she isn't a princess or THE princess, she's the Shifting Mound titled as a princess. (Quick Tangent here: I think the Narrator could have made TSM into something else rather than a princess, he could have made her a seamstress as he likes; maybe the Narrator just doesn't like royalty)

Especially TLQ, it's already given that he isn't human but his voices and his choices morale make him seem human a little. Many people in the comments actually thought TLQ was made to be a bird-like creature to be diverse to its players. There aren't exactly hints at the demo that we are a god and the half of TSM because the focus was centered on the Princess, even he has no backstory, no background, no nothing.

It was obvious that the 2 didn't really have a life except the plot device of TLQ slaying the Princess. So that should've been a big sign to ME atleast that I shouldn't expect a backstory or something to make things less vague. I thought in the complete game we will be given more hints about the 2(+narrator) and expand more on the personal things.

But no, in the full game we were given answers to our previous questions but were also given more. The “world” was just a construct representing many more worlds to be devoid of change. That's why there weren't many living beings surrounding the Construct, just Shifty & Gary (+ the trees). Because the Narrator wanted a scripted situation to happen in order to release his tension regarding death.

So basically the Narrator is actually the only one with an ACTUAL backstory, yet his story and where he come from isn't expanded more because, again, the game is centered around the two TLQ & TSM. 2 Gods and concepts reuniting again after being separated by a desperate man with a fear of death.

So again BASICALLY what my assumptions of how the Narrator was BIGGER than the two. He is actually smaller than the CONCEPTS of Permanence and Change. He tried to desperately remove death from the universe which is actually badass af by splitting the pair and making the other kill the other.

It just hurts my brain to think that the plot I subconsciously made was so drastically different compared to the final game. Yet it's satisfying at the same time, cause tbh I was expecting for there to be boss fight with the Narrator and finally breaking out of the artificial plot, instead we got an argument with Shifty and finally breaking out the artificial plot. Which is essentially the same thing just a WHOLE different execution of what I thought.

Thank you for listening to my ted talk

THIS SHI LONG ASFF bro I should go to sleep goodnight peeps

[chireikiden]

Do you think there's any reason for Hecatia being one of the strongest characters in the series? Someone from a religion that isn't believed in anymore being powerful, doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the series. If someone from a dead religion showed up in Touhou, the first question should be how they're even still alive.

I'm sure you could reverse-engineer some headcanon excuses, but my personal guess is that rather than any particular in-universe justification, once ZUN decided that he wanted to have a powerful, "independent" Hell goddess (outside the Ministry's hierarchy), it wasn't a long leap - if a leap at all - to "Okay, so let's make her more powerful than the Ministry".

I mean, I don't know what led him to go for specifically Hecate/Hecatia in the first place, so we don't really have any first principles to start from.

She didn't have to be especially powerful just to be an independent Hell goddess; could've just been someone from the middle or bottom of the pecking order. But the story of LoLK is about her and Junko clowning on the Moon, so the tone is pretty different depending on whether she's super powerful or some scrappy underdog (and DDC had just come out). I'm sure that like any other writer, a lot of the time ZUN just does things because the end result is what he wants, rather than every step following naturally from the previous one. Or hecc, maybe the only Greek goddess in the series just had some exotic prestige in his eyes that Japanese gods don't, I don't know.

If you really get into some weird... comparative mythology, you could make a decent argument for Hecate the pre-Olympian titan-killer (cherrypicking the best of all versions, as one does) to be more powerful than most of the gods we see in Touhou, but cross-mythological power level debates are probably even less fruitful than Touhou ones. The very question of characters that in human belief predate humanity and how they might come into being "retroactively", and what that actually means for their backstories or power levels, is a whole swamp I'm not gonna wade into. (This may include some Lunarians, but it's hard to say which - humans just kinda appear unannounced in Japanese mythology. In the Kojiki, they already seem to exist by the time of Izanami's death.)

Somehow the matter of fading faith and belief has never come up in relation to any characters outside Earth and Gensokyo, that I can remember. I can easily imagine that the afterlife itself and maybe the oni there still have enough belief in the present day for it to not be a problem, or that ZUN as the writer simply has other things to talk about whenever those characters appear. But whether the otherworlders are actually protected somehow or ZUN just doesn't bring it up, faith or lack thereof has never seemed relevant there on a meta level.

[patchdotexe]

the KG masterpost, again,

hey guys who wants to read 50 paragraphs about my oc ok great here we go

the original version of this was very.. me cutting out a lot of What The Characters Actually Were Like to try and give an overview of out-of-character origins? which is fun but also does not actually tell you anything at all about them. SO IT'S TIME FOR THAT NOW

Katie G.:

aka: KG, Prime pronouns: she/he/they

a cheerful and intentionally wacky person, KG has the permanent vibes of being "up to something". never anything malevolent (or at least not on purpose), but their friends are never really sure when they'll kick down their doors with an idea in mind. she's adaptable to just about every situation, treats everything like a fun game, and while she's able to take things seriously she never really sees a need to most of the time. he's just here to have fun! sure, chaos follows in his wake, but as long as everyone's having a good time it's fine, right?

in a setting where worldhopping was a normal thing, it became clear that something was up with Katie. originally her tendency to pop up regardless of universe was written off as her tagging along, but the difference between each version in appearance and backstory led to the idea that they had a lot of counterparts. except then one of the alternate KGs would reference something another version of herself did, or have knowledge that didn't make sense for her to know, and things stopped adding up.

KG is a case of isekai gone sideways. somehow they broke the multiverse and are existing in several universes at once-- each iteration shares awareness and memory unless stated otherwise, although it's all filtered through the pile of noise that is "existing as 17+ people simultaneously". as a result, KG mixes up names, dates, and universes, and has trouble keeping her story straight. it's not exactly something they can explain easily, so he does his best to handwave it or dodge the topic entirely if people start catching on. as an upside, she's basically immortal due to her status as a multiversal anomaly, but on the downside nobody's really sure what the long-lasting events of breaking the multiverse are.

how this works in practice is that KG has Really Weird Vibes, is permanently leaning on the fourth wall, and either goes Full Protagonist or relegates themself to comic relief to stay out of the spotlight. as a side-effect of The Incident, the "original" KG is firmly stuck outside of canon because of breaking everything she touches, but that doesn't stop her from causing a mess (to the annoyance of T1, her best friend and partner-in-crime) :D

under the cut: more of this guy! specifically the ~16ish other This Guys. i will make tumblr regret letting me add more than 10 photos per post and also not having a character limit

Landia:

aka: Kaylandia, Lan pronouns: they/he/she

kinda the basis for their own subset of AUs because you would not believe how many minecraft aus we keep getting involved in. occasionally younger (or older?) sibling of Leonaut and/or Leontids, resident self-proclaimed memelord, here to have a good time not a long one, etc.

despite their immaturity, Landia's been around a pretty long time. ..sort of. he predates the existence of dogs, but didn't really start being a Thing again until around 1.15 and his memory of The Before Times is very fuzzy. still, in a fandom where players from near the start are considered old gods, applying that to this doofus is really funny.

has a couple spinoffs including Dashtwo (time traveler that's more likely to mess things up than actually fix them, got adopted by the resident polycule) and...

Outlaw:

aka: Landia, Lan pronouns: they/he

(minecraft skin is a bit out of date, outfit in artwork is accurate)

branches off of Landia, but is separate enough at this point to get a fully distinct entry because [looks at notes] i love him. hailing from the far future, Lan used to be an infobroker for the ConVex thanks to their multiversal knowledge. then things went south when the ConVex found out he knew too much about them. on the run and in a panic, they tried to get off-planet as fast as possible, got knocked out, and woke up in the cargo hold of a spaceship belonging to a fleet of outlaws. somehow they managed to endear themself enough to the captain to not get kicked out immediately, and now he's a pilot for one of the ships in the fleet!

somehow none of that is the most notable thing about him. what is the most notable thing about him is that after getting a neural implant to better interface with technology, he immediately got infected with sapient malware. and also that sapient malware is also the AI of the ship he woke up on, which itself is a fork of a brain scan of a wanted criminal that attained digital immortality. the Broker AI is actually rather harmless; they mostly sit in the backseat and try to keep Lan from getting themself killed.

he's somehow even more overenthusiastic and overeager than your baseline KG. he's living like full-throttle, usually traumatizing himself in the process, and his plucky attitude is a bit out of place in life-threatening gunfights and dogfights. he knows the rest of 77-2 has his back, though.

Twone:

pronouns: they/he/she (alternating/scrambled)

cringefail pokemon trainer

hailing from Goldenrod City in Johto and then also Jubilife City in Sinnoh due to Reasons, Twone has a tendency to get in over their head. he mainly trains electric and fire types (with her starter being Eclipse the Luxray), and proudly calls themself a gym leader despite not having a gym. or any badges to give out. but she has plenty of enthusiasm and that's almost the same thing

through a series of Currently Undefined Events, Twone ended up joining up with Team Rocket and assisted in the radio tower takeover before getting sorely beaten by our other Pokemon OC Robyn. embarrassed and reconsidering her life choices, they bailed out while they still could and settled down in Sinnoh... and also stole a bunch of Rocket stuff on their way out.

currently known for: disappearing into the jungle for 3 days with a friend and returning with 3 Mews and a Mewtwo, alchemizing a bicycle, agreeing to get murdered by one of his best friends on the condition that they reference The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, getting exploded by voltorbs

technically newest addition to the roster, but he's been around a while? there was just. no art of him and the comic he was planned to show up in self-destructed before he could. but now he's back! and also is now the missing link between KG and Landia because of pixelmon.

KG the Foxcat:

aka: Foxcat pronouns: she/they

Foxcat answers the long-awaited question of "what if KG was a furry?". happily sitting in the same zone of non-canonicity as Prime, Foxcat's job is to annoy the heck out of T1, reminisce about old fanfic, and make sprite comics of herself and her friends. they are very much not part of CV but that doesn't stop them from having a noncanon friendship with CVTails that mostly involves bullying him and locking him in the same room as T1 for comedy purposes.

Foxcat is currently the only non-hedgehog example of an Outsider, which is a thing from our old Sonic continuity Shattered Worlds that basically translates to "worldhopper with weird powers". i guess if Shadowy is Mephiles and Chrome is Silver, then Foxcat is Tails? which makes her hobby of collecting AU Tailses make more sense i guess. she thinks they're neat.

would eat a Chaos Emerald for fun.

Ellis:

pronouns: she/he

didn't make the cut in the original masterpost, but then i noticed some wording in one of the MSPaint doodles of her and connected some dots so she's here now!

Ellis is the closest to pre-incident Prime in backstory and vibe, with the major divergence point being "suddenly there was an alien invasion". despite the rampant devastation, he banded together with her friends and was able to uncover the truth behind the invasion, stop it at the source, and hopped worlds a few times until settling down in somewhere close to home.

and then suddenly there was a zombie invasion.

Ellis is not a lucky person.

as far as out-of-universe timeline goes, Ellis is maybe the first instance of a KG? as in i think she was my first self-insert character, and the other KL era ones (kh!Katie, Plus, Self) were variations on her. between that and the worldhopping, Ellis is probably whatever part of Prime successfully got isekai'd instead of getting dumped in the noncanon void. where is he now? i dunno! he might've exploded. either that or she's a cryptid.

nicknamed "Ellis" because of that one time the friendgroup got really into Left 4 Dead. this may be related to the zombie invasion thing.

Katie & Teixak:

aka: Heart (Katie), Tei (teixak) pronouns: she/her (both)

them. hoo boy, these two. Heart regularly hung out with the OCs from the KL era and was mostly slapstick, up until Sora's appearance and the involvement of the remnants of Organization XIII ended up being a herald of a Heartless invasion. side-by-side with her friend, Heart fought off as many as she could, but the two of them got overwhelmed along with the rest of her world and became Nobodies.

picking up where Katie left off, Teixak got recruited into the New Organization led by Rasemtix with the goal of "okay but what if we Did actually get everybody's hearts back". mostly she got left to her own devices, though, which included taking the mission objective of "study the canon KH characters to get an upper hand" and turning it into "hey Leixand what if we just locked everybody in a mansion for a few months and played truth or dare" until Rasemtix found out and yelled at her.

eventually Rasemtix's plan went off without a hitch because Dream Drop Distance hadn't come out yet, Teixak became Katie again except for the final chapter of YAToD where they both existed at the same time???, and then a decade later i found all my old fanfic about them and realized i should probably rewrite the KG masterpost

Kay Gee:

aka: Kay pronouns: they/them

older sibling of local overworked CCC field agent Leo Naught, Kay is a troublemaker through and through. somehow they've ended up with the same Retry power as Henry, although they haven't quite ascended to the rank of master thief or high-ranking Toppat or special ops agent or whatever. mostly they just goof off and cause a little bit of chaos here and there, which leads to them being on the run from the CCC most of the time.

thanks to basically being immortal from both "being a KG" and their Retry power, as well as outright being able to rewind time and take a different path at any time, Kay doesn't take stuff too seriously and needs to be reminded now and then that their actions do in fact have consequences. whoops!

they are in SO much trouble.

comes bundled with their Stickmolus counterpart, a!Kay (or Akay). they're the exact same, it's just this one has inbuilt psychic powers on top of Retry and also is a fuzzy alien.

Zephyr:

aka: Zeff pronouns: she/her

a novice Dream Traveler, Zephyr is along for the ride more than anything else. she's very naive and prone to messing things up, but puts her all into fixing any problems she causes and tries to leave each world a better place than when she showed up. it doesn't always work.

she crosses paths with Klonoa now and then, and they have a kinda-sibling-ish dynamic? she's also friends with the reincarnated King of Sorrow because Reasons. (she calls them "Koss".)

i don't remember why she has four ears. i don't think it was ever explained. when she was younger / first starting out she hid them under her bandana but then she got self confidence about it. she also either has her own Wind Ring or borrows Klonoa's, i don't remember which - i think originally she borrowed Klonoa's, but then got her own later on?

stop everything. klonoa, get the banana

kaoticGenome:

aka: Katie A., kG pronouns: she/her

(image on right is Very old)

remember when homestuck? yeah. part of a 4-player (later 6-player) fan session from 2011ish, and while she wasn't quite the voice of reason she was definitely the voice of "WHAT THE FUCK?". originally her actual initials were KG and not just her chumhandle, but after finding out about her session's ectobiology she decided to break the mold and took her ecto-dad's last name.

her ecto-dad is also a First Guardian, a late-arrival session member, and the son of Ninten from Earthbound. i didn't process the implications of that last part until 10 years later.

originally she was the Scribe of Dawn in the Land of Ruins and Twilight, but she'd probably be a Heir of Heart now when using the canon classpects because [gestures at this entire masterpost]. her weapon of choice was bladekind i think, and eventually she ended up with a kusarigama But With A Sword and somehow didn't kill herself with it.

was like the only KL-era KG that wasn’t interchangeable with the others but HAHA NOT FOR LONG! although i think her reaction to being a crucial part of KGverse would be to turn around and leave. see you space weeb, have fun playing okami

Karami:

aka: karelessGuitarist, kG (the other one) pronouns: she/her

the troll version of Katie A., sort of! ish! they're both KGs and are a rare instance of there being more than one KG in the same setting, but they're still kinda from different universes so eh. i don't think they ever met.

in the previous version of the masterpost i described her as "the sequel to Nepeta" and that's still accurate. i don't have much documentation on her but i think her deal was that she would just beat the absolute shit out of people that were mean to her matesprit online. imagine you're blogging and a catgirl crawls through your window to punch you in the face

she didn't get much use but did cameo in a MSPFA as a cute kitty alien! (she's the one on the far left :D)

Plus & Minus:

aka: Katie R., the Ride System pronouns: she/her (both), they/them (plural)

a resident of Echo Ridge and rather withdrawn, Katie R. struggled with identity and finding a place to belong. despite making friends and having the whole world open up in front of her, finding out about the extended multiverse only made her struggle harder to find somewhere to fit in, and this rising stress (along with the chaos of being one of the first KGs) caused her to buckle under the pressure.

this got the attention of the FM-ian Gemini. now with the ability to wavechange into Gemini Spark, the two Katies scuffled over choosing to be heroes or be villains. Plus wanted to use her new powers to fight evil and help her friends, while Minus was teenage angst and trauma personified and would sabotage Plus at every turn. this led to Gemini Spark being more of a hindrance than anything else, especially once the Andromeda Key came into play.

these two are terrible plural rep. but they also ended up being a stepping stone to figuring out my plurality! so they have one (1) rights.

two of them thursday

Adagio:

aka: Katie Adagio pronouns: she/her

originally a percy jackson OC, now is... i don't know??? generic urban fantasy? in the PJatO incarnation she was a daughter of Apollo and got cursed to be a cat after royally screwing up a quest (it never fully wore off). on the plus side, she now has catlike reflexes on top of her demigod powers of incredible aim!

also she a cane (not pictured) because apparently she got mauled by a hellhound and has a permanent limp as a result and i did not remember this until looking up the deviantart posts Just Now? what the heck. she also has a mechanical wolf as a companion, which you'd think would set off the hellhound-induced dog phobia that's mentioned several times in her old bio but.. eh...?

her non-fandom incarnation, on the other hand, got caught in a gateway between the human and magical worlds which gave her a) truesight b) cool glowy magical tattoos and c) being a catgirl. the "being a catgirl" is a constant.

might've graduated from being a KG but i like including her anyway because her design's fun and it's not like i ever wrote the urban fantasy story she was gonna be the protag of

Self:

aka: SI pronouns: she/her

second instance of a KG after Ellis, and out-of-character she's one of the reasons why the "multiversal anomaly" thing started in the first place because she was interchangeable with Heart, Plus, and Ellis. she just straight up doesn't bother making a distinction between herself and her "other selves", and everybody around her just kinda has to deal with it. it helps that she's from the KL era so worldhopping and AUs were just kinda a thing that happened all the time.

she kinda ended up being part of a trio with two other characters that would show up in other timelines, although Self's universe was the main one where all three of them were together i think.

her Personas are Nekomata and Byakko and i honestly don't remember anything else about her compared to the other KGs from her era because of the whole "being interchangeable" thing.

ok that's everybody. bye

[shoechoe]

If I remember correctly, wasn't "Solido Naso" only ever implied to be Diavolo? S.N. is only called Diavolo's alias, and when they get the impression of his face, it has Diavolo's eyes and it's never questioned that it's Diavolo. Did the anime try to make "Solido" some sort of err middle ground between Doppio and Diavolo by giving the baby Doppio's eyes and making him look more like Doppio? I wasn't even aware that there was some sort of question to whether "Solido" was Diavolo. I've kinda seen Solido treated as an entirely different person and not just a younger Diavolo, but I wasn't aware that there were all these fanon complications around it.

I've always believed it's pretty clear that Solido Naso is supposed to be Diavolo, but there is fanon out there that pushes other things. Some say that Solido was Doppio under an alias (which I really don't buy because you're pretty clearly led to believe that Diavolo was the one forging aliases and moving place to place) or that Solido was some kind of "merged" version of the two before they developed DID (which seems contradictory to me because it's stated in-universe that DID starts in early childhood, but I've seen it), which would probably explain Solido kinda being treated as different entirely.

The anime's backstory does kind of confuse this a little, though, because it does make it more Doppio-centric:

In the anime, their backstory is moved back to right before Doppio's introduction, while the manga has their backstory right before Diavolo's reveal.

In the anime, the baby is given Doppio's eyes, whereas in the manga, the eyes aren't given enough detail to tell:

(There's also a moment in the anime where the baby's eyes flash bright red for no reason...? I honestly have no clue what that's about, though.)

3. In their scenes with Donatella as a teenager, the anime gives "Solido" Doppio's personality and voice, whereas the manga keeps them silent. (Though, I find this addition from the anime weird as Doppio does not seem to possess any memory of Donatella- in the Risotto fight, he was carrying around a photo of her for Diavolo and did not make any remarks about recognizing her. Unless Diavolo has some ability to erase Doppio's memories that we never heard about or something, if this scene with meeting Donatella is supposed to be Doppio, I think this would be a plot hole.)

4. The manga states that their legal name listed on the town's records was "Diavolo", while this is omitted from the anime.

I'm not a fan of the debate over whether Diavolo or Doppio was the "original" because I find it largely pointless (not to mention inaccurate to real DID), but if I had to say, I believe the manga is more implying that Diavolo is the "original" one, while the anime more implies that Doppio is the "original". Both adaptations have lines about Diavolo being the "true identity/nature" of the two, though, so interpret what you want from that.

Despite all of this, though, it's pretty obvious to me that "Solido" is mainly Diavolo's alias that he created for himself. Doppio might've had to go along with it as well, but it's very much mainly a Diavolo thing, I think.

Also, little note about the imprint of "Solido" made by Moody Blues: The eyes, to me, actually appear to be something of a mixture of both Diavolo and Doppio, with Diavolo's eye lighting but intact pupils.

This mixture of the two's eyes happens a couple of times in present-day VA when Diavolo is near the "surface" or present at the same time as Doppio.

I believe that this is the best evidence there is for the "Solido Naso is a fusion of both Diavolo and Doppio before they got DID" theory I've seen, but again, we know that in-universe, DID starts to form in early childhood and is fully pronounced and separate by the time adulthood is reached, so this still wouldn't make sense. I don't believe there's a real, full explanation to this, as you have to remember that Doppio and Diavolo's backstory is very vague and intended to leave more questions than it gives answers.

Personally, I've always thought that the eyes on the statue imprint were what Diavolo's eyes used to look like, but as he became more powerful and retracted away from society, becoming more of a paranoid recluse and entirely losing his heart, his eyes became broken like you see in present-day VA- but that's just my own theory. (Though I believe the real real answer as to why Diavolo's eyes have that weird shape is because they needed to be distinguishable from Doppio's in the black-and-white manga.)

[fancoloredglasses]

[RERUN] X-Men (As The X Turns)

[All images are owned by Marvel Disney and Saban Entertainment. Please don’t sue me]

(Thanks to Miguel Sac)

Due to a major update to the series 27 years after the series went off the air (and not due to any desire to update my posting style or videos being taken down), I’m dusting off this review and giving it the RERUN treatment. I won’t be linking to the original review, as nothing much really changed.

X-Men was, at the time, the greatest animated series done by Marvel (the greatest overall animated series up to that point was Batman), but first a bit of background.

(Thanks to Marvel)

When Marvel was creating its Silver Age lineup, nearly every super hero was created due to some sort of accident (Spider-Man was bitten by a spider infused with radiation, the Hulk was caught in an explosion of gamma radiation, Daredevil was hit in the head with a canister filled with radioactive waste, the Fantastic Four were exposed to cosmic radiation (there was a LOT of radiation in the 60s), and Tony Stark made Iron Man in order to save his life after stepping on a land mine)

However, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wanted something different, so the X-Men were Mutants, born with their powers. There was no small parallel between the struggle of Mutants trying to gain acceptance from the regular humans they defended (who feared and/or hated them) and those of blacks in the 60s suffering under segregation and “Jim Crow” laws.

The series wasn’t popular (I know. It’s hard to believe, given modern eyes)

(Thanks again to Marvel)

It wasn’t until 12 years later when the team expanded beyond the original 5 (plus Professor X) that the team gained popularity (no doubt due in no small part to Wolverine joining their ranks) The struggle between humans and mutants was still there, but over time other “oppressed” subsets of society (such as the LGBTQ+ community) began to see the X-Men as beacons in their struggle for acceptance.

(Thanks to Dork Tower)

The 1992 animated series was actually the second attempt at an X-Men series. The first was attempted in the 80s only got as far as the pilot.

(Thanks to Heroes Network)

Yes, they gave the very Canadian Wolverine an Australian accent. According to rumor, Crocodile Dundee was popular at the time and the producers wanted to latch onto it.

For whatever reason, this pilot wasn’t picked up, which is a shame. It looked like it had promise.

But enough backstory, on to the series!

For those who don’t know, the X-Men are a group of heroic mutants who defend the very humans who fear and hate them.

The team is led by their founder Charles Xavier (AKA Professor X), a powerful telepath who runs a “School for Gifted Youngsters” that secretly teaches young mutants how to control their abilities and use them to benefit society. Due to an accident in his younger days, he is paralyzed from the waist down. He “has a dream” of a world where humans and mutants can co-exist peacefully.

Xavier’s field commander (since he can’t exactly go into battle in a wheelchair) is Scott Summers (AKA Cyclops) who fires energy blasts from his eyes. Unfortunately he lacks the ability to control them, so Xavier had special ruby lenses made for him that can stop the beams. His visor is one such lens (he wears special sunglasses when not in costume)

Scott’s girlfriend is Jean Grey (AKA…well, in the comics it’s Marvel Girl. In pretty much every other version she doesn’t have an X-Men code name), who is an even more powerful telepath and telekinetic.

However, Scott isn’t the only one vying for Jean’s affections…

Logan (AKA Wolverine (AKA James Howlett in the comics)) is a Canadian native who has heightened senses, a massive healing factor that can recover from any injury (and apparently slows his aging, as he’s over 150 years old in the comics!) His skeleton was also infused with adamantium, a nigh-indestructible alloy, by the Canadian government for some reason.

He is also very likely the most popular character in Marvel Comics (at least until Deadpool showed up in the early 90s)

Rounding out the team, we have…

Ororo Monroe (AKA Storm) is an African native who has the ability to control weather, but suffers from severe claustrophobia due to childhood trauma. She is also second in command in the field.

Rogue (AKA Anna Marie) is from the southern US and has the ability to drain the strength, powers, and memories of anyone she has skin-to-skin contact with, whether she wants to or not (you can imagine what that does to her love life) Somewhere in her past, she held contact with a hero known as Ms. Marvel longer than she ever had, putting Marvel in a coma and permanently giving Rogue Marvel’s heightened strength and flight abilities (in the comics, Ms. Marvel (AKA Carol Danvers) would eventually recover and become the third Marvel hero to carry the moniker Captain Marvel (but not the third hero to ever have the name))

Rogue has a flirtatious (if somewhat tragic, due to her abilities) relationship with…

Remy LeBeau (AKA Gambit) is a Cajun ex-thief from Louisiana who has the ability to charge small objects (he prefers playing cards) with explosive energy.

Hank McCoy (AKA Beast) is a genius-level intellect with heightened strength and agility. His powers were amplified due to a lab accident that enhanced his mutant genes. This accident also gave him his current appearance.

[Quick note: in the comics, Hank, along with Scott and Jean, were three of the five founding members of the X-Men. For more info about one of the other founders, check out this review]

Rather than Kitty Pryde as the inroad for the audience (as was the case in the failed pilot), the producers created a new character named Jubilation Lee (AKA Jubilee), who can create plasma bubbles (that she calls “fireworks”) that she can control and explode. When the series begins she’s just coming into her powers and isn’t actually part of the team yet.

Of course, if you have heroic mutants trying to save the humans you need evil mutants trying to destroy them.

If Charles Xavier is the mutant version of Martin Luther King Jr., then Max Eisenhardt (AKA "Magnus", AKA Magneto) is Malcolm X. He has the ability to manipulate magnetism (though he has manipulated non-ferrous metals as well, such as the adamantium in Wolverine’s skeleton) Magneto sees a war between humans and mutants coming and is determined to ensure mutants win.

Magneto and Xavier are friends and want to save the mutants, despite their very different approaches.

He is also the leader of an organization known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (way to give away which side you’re on) I won’t cover the rest of the members, as many only make a handful of appearances.

However, Magneto and his ilk aren’t the only threats to the X-Men, as humans have their own weapons, including…

…Sentinels, three story tall robots programmed to detect and capture/eliminate mutants.

The series was fairly unique at the time, especially for US animation, in that it was aired as an ongoing story. Most episodes were built off of events in previous episodes. In addition, the action at times took a back seat to the drama within the team, either through the love triangle of Scott, Jean, and Logan or the tragic relationship between Remi and Rogue, and Xavier’s struggle for mutant acceptance among humans.

The series ran for 5 seasons (from 1992-1997) The fifth season had a reduced number of episodes and lower animation and color quality due to Marvel having serious financial issues (this was the time that Marvel started selling movie rights of their franchises in an effort to stay afloat)

As a result, Jubilee's appearance changed slightly, making her more Asian in appearance (her ethnicity was never discussed in the series, so it's possible she was always Asian, even though her features didn't reflect her heritage)

However, in 2024 Disney green-lit a sixth season (under the title X-Men ’97) that picks up where the series left off. Most of the surviving voice cast returned (Alyson Court, who voiced Jubilee, felt that an Asian voice actor should be in the role. Her request was granted, and Disney cast her in a different role instead)

The series is available on Disney+. If you would like to see an episode (or storyline) reviewed, let me know.

[vowled]

Kill Your Darlings: An Analysis of its Twists and Themes

A few days ago, I watched Kill Your Darlings, and needless to say, I became completely mesmerized by it. Naturally credible characters with well-crafted backstories portraying a true story of Love, Obsession and Murder, it's everything a person could ask for in a movie. The colour palette of the movie radiates comfort and the sound track takes you back in time when these two bright young men were falling in love. Right from the start it was apparent that there were many themes in the undercurrent of the movie, and these were such that required some amount of thoughtful contemplation. And I was incredibly sorry to not find any post or review which critically discussed the themes of the movie and did it justice- so after doing some reading and digging up as much as I could, here I am making an attempt to analyze the twists and themes of the story.

The Crucial Plot-twist

The Night In Question- why the movie's recounting of the events is fictitious:

When faced with the prospect of writing the deposition for Lucian, Allen tried his best to gather information about the events that led to David's murder. However, it proved to be a difficult feat as Lucien himself would not speak much about it clearly. So he pieced together what he could from the bits of information he got. However, we see Lucian vehemently opposing the deposition written by Allen and claiming it to be false. After some thought, I find that I believe Lucian's claims. Most of the following arguments are rooted in the fact that Lucien's relationship with David was an abusive one, where David basically groomed Lucian and was a sexual predator. I suggest reading my post here to gain more insight about how the abuse affected him.

"You weren't there, you don't know what happened." These words right here- they're the words of a victim. Being subjected to a form of sexual abuse myself, I found these words hitting me like a brick ton. These are words coming from a pained soul that refuses to recount traumatic incidents. He's practically saying that the abuse was so bad he had to kill his abuser to be free from it.

Even after Allen saw first-hand what a total creep David could be, even after knowing the man had stalked Lucian across multiple cities, he had to ask Lucian why the latter killed David when he "could have run". This tells me he couldn't exactly relate to Lucian's situation and wasn't very keen on believing him. Although he displayed a moment of intimate affection, there's still a lingering feeling of yeah but he broke my heart inside him. After learning how Lucian drowned David, he even begins questioning if he should help him at all. At this point, Allen doesn't trust Lucian enough to actually care how accurate the story is. So he wrote what he could, what he felt right. But even he couldn't condemn his friend/first love to such a fate as prison, so eventually he submitted it as his final paper. In all honesty, I thought that turning it in was a brilliant move, and one which also further proved that the "once you loved him too" version was mostly fanciful fiction.

Throughout the movie, sequences have been played in reverse frames (and I found this so pleasing) and from the nitrogen-inhaling scene, we know that these sequences designated memories playing out in Allen's head or his subconscious creating dreamscapes. And here's the catch- the entire scene of Lucian taking a walk with David and eventually killing him began with frames played in reverse order. This gives the absolute proof that the movie's depiction of the events were fictitious.

Allen's P.O.V. of the events mainly relied on the argument that at some point, Lucian genuinely loved and needed David. This couldn't be further away from the truth. When you're 14 and and being groomed and coaxed by an older guy, a lot many things could feel like love because you haven't experienced them before; but in reality, it's never love, it just is another form of violence.

Themes running through the movie

"There can be no Creation before Imitation"

We see Professor Steves saying this at the beginning of the movie, hinting that it would be a theme in the story. This statement is reflected throughout Allen's progression and development as a poet:

In the beginning, we see him being hugely influenced by his father's works and possibly trying to imitate him through poetic devices such as consonance.

Next, we see him imitating Professor Stevens' style of writing in his poem "the rose that scents the evening air, grows from by beloved's hair" which Lucian outright criticizes.

It is only with the poem Allen recites to Lucian on the boat that he starts developing some sort of originality. That poem in particular is directly drawn from his personal experiences and delivers splendidly.

This development continues as he proceeds to write "The Night In Question" wherein he brilliantly describes his opinion of how things went down. It was this streak that would eventually propel him to write his most celebrated poem, "Howl".

The Circle of Life and How Allen Breaks it

We see Lucian telling Allen how "Life is only interesting if it is wide" and about Yeats' "Circle of Life". As displayed by the linked document, turns out the circle of life is quite complex a thing, and the movie displays a lay-man's version of it. As Lucian tells about it to Allen, unbeknownst to them both, Allen also enters the circle and changes the turn of events:

It is obvious that at the party at David's, Allen was a misfit. David even goes so far as to literally call him out and point how unremarkable he was, but says how given the correct circumstances, even Allen could change things. And what's extraordinary is exactly this happens next: the liquor runs out in David's party and Allen suggests they should change the venue of the party- hence hijacking David's party!

We see Allen's life widen as he becomes closer to Lucian and starts doing things he'd never done before. At the same time, he also plays an important role in changing Lucian's life as well. It's Allen who suggests at first that Lucian should break up with David and stop taking his help. Later in the movie, after learning about David's obsessive behaviour, it's again Allen that said "we should get rid of him". Again, here we see some foreshadowing. Allen could have worded it in any probable way, and yet he suggested getting rid of David which subtly implied killing him. I do believe that this happened to become a subliminal suggestion to Lucian and furthered his murderous intent.

Hence, although Lucian radically changes Allen's life, the latter does so too in unlikely and unexpected ways.

Sacrifices (and Rituals?)

Since the beginning of the movie, we know that the characters are all extraordinary men and that they are capable of something revolutionary. But it was apparent that all of them would need a catalyst to set things in motion- a sacrifice of some sort which would help them break their moulds and free their inner poet. Allen's love for Lucian and his wish to impress him did make him work toward become better at writing. It was the fear of completely losing Lucian to Jack that made Allen put all his effort into writing, and made him come up with his best work yet - here, the fear acted as the catalyst.

However, the most significant thing in connection to this happened in this scene where Lucian cuts both of their palms and holds them up together - this can be considered a Blood Ritual.

"A blood ritual is any ritual that involves the intentional release of blood. Blood rituals often involve a symbolic death and rebirth, as literal bodily birth involves bleeding. Basic to both animal and human sacrifice is the recognition of blood as the sacred life force in man and beast. The participants may regard the release of blood as producing energy useful as a sexual, healing, or mental stimulus. In other cases, blood is a primary component as the sacrifice, or material component for a spell."

The fact that this event took place inside Allen's head during a trippy session outlines how Allen had subconsciously taken a blood oath with Lucian to further The New Vision. This process of developing their revolutionary ideas would successfully progress for the rest of the movie; however, before its completion, the oath demanded a sacrifice- and the murder of David became this blood sacrifice.

"With Death comes Rebirth"

In the first half of the movie we see the initiation of this theme; after they've agreed upon to bring up something revolutionary, Allen talks about how rebirth comes only after death, and in their naivety, they play out a pseudo-suicide scene to imitate death. Little did they know greater sacrifices would have to be made. Eventually as events play out, we come to realise that it is David's death that became the cause and medium for their rebirth- both academic and intra-personal. Jack and Bill co-wrote the book "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" about the murder of David Kammerer, and eventually rose to fame, while Allen became popular with "Howl and Other Poems", none of which could have been initiated/inspired without David's death. As for their personal growth, none of them were the same as they were before the affair. I like to think all of them changed for the better. Lucian must have finally felt a sense of relief after getting rid of his abuser, while Allen finally took-off his rose-coloured glasses, saw Lucian under a more critical light, and developed a sense of self-esteem.

A Study in Violence (I was unsure whether to include this point in this analysis or not due to the violent nature of it. But I figure this analysis would remain incomplete should I leave it out. So here it goes..) The sequence from 1:10:00 to 1:12:00 was an in-depth survey of Violence and how it can occur in different forms. In particular, it focused on how any form of penetration is intimately violating.

We see a lonely Allen being so lost that he's about to have sex with a complete stranger. This itself is very unlike him, who in the beginning of the movie was shying away from Lucian kissing an unknown girl. A few sequences later we see how he wasn't very comfortable with this idea (he wanted to turn off the lights but the other guy turned them on) and yet he was made to shift into a position he did not prefer and hence was made to have rough sex.

We see Bill looking very solemn and injecting drugs into his hands.

We see the violent altercation between Lucian and David. We see David forcing himself on Lucian and eventually being stabbed by him.

We see Jack recieving the news of the death of his friend.

In this way, we see every member of the group being exposed to some form of violence, be it sex, drugs, physical altercations or death.

First Love and its aftermath First love is also an important theme of the movie as it shows how one's first love has the capacity to radically change a person from within:

Allen's first love changed him from the shy, people-pleasing always-upright persona to the bold, radical, critical and unafraid person he became at the end of the movie.

Allen's discovery of his own style of writing can also be majorly attributed to Lucian's criticism of his rhyme-schemes.

All in all, it was his love for Lucian that drove him to become a more out-going person and ignited the mischief in his spirit, while the heartbreak of realising Lucian didn't feel the same for him also lent him invaluable insight and allowed him to develop confidence and a sense of self-esteem, which would play a significant role in him eventually becoming his own person.

While Allen's first love furnished him with the overall better things in life, the same could not be said for Lucian, sadly. Lucian's first love reminded us how oppressive love can become if the other person isn't suited-well for us; it showed us how sometimes love and obsession are separated by a thin line, and how dangerous it becomes when the line is crossed.

Lucian's story also showed us how sometimes a relationship can be more abuse than love, and when that happened, how easy it became to confuse violence with love.

The most significant message that the theme of first-love portrays is that there will always be consequences.

With this, I bring my arguments and analyses to a close. I hope a future (or even past) lover of the movie happens to stumble upon this someday and learn something fascinating about the movie (or reignite their love for it). Thank you for reading this far!

[P.S. an uplifting fact: in real life, Lucian, Allen, Jack and Bill each got the type of life they wished for, and remained friends for the rest of their lives :) ]

[floralovebot]

what are ur thoughts... on helia's relationship with masculinity? his earlier wardrobe was softer colors and peasant blouses and his (beautiful, beautiful T^T) hair was kept long. obviously we know that shit slapped even if the show wont acknowledge it now. his look always made him super distinct from the rest of the guys, but i feel like that may have also been an alienizing factor? red fountain is a military school and i promise im not asking for your take on gender roles or toxic masculinity of the entire magic dimension or to write helia a planet and culture and backstory from scratch (unless? 👀, bc your takes are always fascinating), but do you think he was ever taken with that, or felt subject to other's opinions on that sort of thing? has he always been comfortable with his presentation, or did he have any clumsy teenage overcompensating? if the latter, would you say leaving red fountain helped him come to terms with that or reinvent himself to his tastes? or maybe had him overcorrecting in the opposite direction, to distance himself from the red fountain lifestyle as well as account for his two haircuts and more traditionally masculine style later on?

anon i'm in love with you.

I have so many thoughts about Helia's overall aesthetic (and some about his concept designs heheh) but I won't get into all of them since that would make this way too long. To be honest, within canon we don't know a lot about Helia's personal thoughts about Red Fountain or the culture surrounding it and other military/paramilitary establishments. While this does make it harder for people to give him a solid characterization, it actually makes a lot of sense considering how quiet he is in terms of his own thoughts on things. We have random tidbits and rumors from other characters but almost nothing from him.

When it comes to his looks in canon, honestly I don't think it would ever be an issue. While long hair on men is stigmatized in real life, in Winx Club it's not that big of a deal, in fact, it's pretty normal. We see multiple male characters with long hair and not typically considered masculine wardrobes. Saladin, Palladium, Avalon, Valtor, and even background Specialists are just a few examples. Longer hair on men is a normal thing throughout all of the planets and only seems to be weird on Earth (ie Sky and Helia cutting their hair to blend in). While I do have a lot of thoughts on Helia's hair, I really doubt it was ever an issue in canon. It's only an area of topic in the fandom due to a couple of things that don't factor into canon (such as men having long hair being stigmatized in real life or the rumors that Helia was originally a female character [with absolutely no proof of that besides his long hair and slightly more feminine looking face]).

I think when it comes to Helia feeling out of place, it would likely have more to do with his personal interests, aka art, and not necessarily wanting to be a Specialist. Contrary to fanon, Helia likes being a Specialist and we know he respects Saladin and Red Fountain as a whole. Him leaving was largely due to being more interested in art than the "family business" so to speak. It's shown multiple times in canon that Helia feels a lot of pressure from being related to Saladin and that his own actions and opinions affect both Saladin and the school (which says a lot about how the Magix Dimension feels about families and relations). His back and forth between being a Specialist and being an artist have to do with him not wanting to disappoint Saladin or affect his image in a negative way.

We do know that other Specialists and people outside of the school have opinions about him and what he does but we don't actually know how he feels about that or how he deals with it. It gets brought up quite a few times; random people who aren't close to him talking shit for no reason (Brandon in ep.8, Riven multiple times in the comics, other random specialists, etc), and yet, Helia's own feelings about the matter never get revealed. Again, I think this plays into how quiet he is about his own emotions, not wanting to start shit or get into a fight that could later damage Red Fountain's image.

In that way, you could say Helia deals with some amount of rejecting masculinity, but personally, I think his actions have more to do with feeling like he needs to have a "good" image because of his familial relations. Helia doesn't start conflict, he doesn't push things or engage in arguments, he's extremely conscious about how his actions affect Saladin and the school (he even uses this to his advantage in the Shaab Stone arc). We don't know the extent of how much people talk about him, behind his back or to his face, and we don't the extent of how much it affects him.

Personally, I think Helia is conscious enough to have dealt with toxic masculinity, specifically trying to get away with it, earlier in his life. While Red Fountain is a paramilitary school, it's shown explicitly that they don't tolerate that attitude and try to knock it out of any boy that enters (aka don't start dumb fights, don't insult your teammates, don't do dumb shit to prove your worth, etc). The only reason the main boys managed to stay in the school is that they're canonically the best students and Codatorta believed in them (also cause yknow,, they're the love interests).

While the Magix Dimension definitely has some degree of toxic masculinity, Helia in particular mostly battles with toxic perfectionism and family legacy. He's not consciously or subconsciously trying to be the ideal version of a man nor does he base his life or opinions of himself on that. Helia tries to be the perfect Specialist and the perfect grandson. He tries to be the perfect student in a school that's largely associated with the best soldiers in the universe and that's also run by his grandpa, while also dealing with his own actions and opinions affecting the image of said grandpa and school. So honestly, no, I don't think Helia particularly gets affected by masculinity, toxic or otherwise, and I don't think any of his actions in canon could be led by it. However, I do think he's in an awkward situation and tries too hard to live up to other people's (and his own) expectations of him and that some of those expectations can run into the "ideal" version of masculinity (such as Brandon saying "he doesn't like to get his hands dirty" as an insult).

While I do love the idea of Helia going through a little teenage rebellion and him going to art school being a result of that, in canon, it's partially implied that he really didn't change. Saladin sees him as the same person and the specialists recognize who he is. There is no "whomst the fuck are you" kind of moment with any of the characters. This is more implied by canon than directly shown but, I do think that Helia was one of those people who had to mature quickly as a kid. And that him leaving Red Fountain multiple times is mostly him trying to get away from those expectations. We see this theme with multiple characters so I don't think it's a wild conclusion.

When it comes to his haircuts and different aesthetics, I think that's mainly Rainbow mucking things up. His aesthetic change in S4 is so they can blend in, it's not him being himself. Even when their identities get revealed and everyone knows they aren't from Earth, they're still trying to fit in and live within that Earth culture. His changes in the later seasons are largely due to Nickelodeon not understanding the characters and just wanting a group of masculine soldier dudes.

Unpopular opinion but: I think a better way of showing how out of their element the specialists were in S4, would actually be to cut Helia's hair super short, not just the uneven shreds he got, and then have him grow it out through the season (maybe even magically like they did with Musa) to show that they're chill on Earth and people aren't scared of them. Is this an excuse for me to imagine him with a wolf cut? Yes.

[patchesthegothictramp]

Feather Seeker and the Okinawa Jail

So anyone who’s been talking to me knows Feather Seeker is a game that’s perked my interest from the get-go, and I’ve been thinking of talking about it for a while. Now that I’ve been able to replay Royal and play Strikers, some other things have come out in the meantime and I’ve been paying more attention to additional media, I want to make a meta post about Feather Seeker, the Okinawa jail from Strikers and it’s connection to Akechi specifically. Be warned, this ended up being a very long post.

Let’s start with just getting a few questions out of the way:

Isn’t it just a mini game made to raise your stats?

Yes, absolutely, it’s optional and honestly if you don’t care for playing the video games it’s easy to miss. I don’t think it was honestly intended to be some massive breakthrough on a character’s backstory but rather an Easter egg that gets you to think about it.

It’s just about Neo-Featherman, there’s references to it in all persona games, so why is this one different?

It’s not different. There’s been plenty of times when Easter eggs have led to something bigger in this game, even specifically featherman ones. There’s an episode of Featherman that describes exactly what happens in the 3rd semester, where a character loves another so strongly it brings them back to life. Now whether you want to apply that to Futaba and her mum, Ren and Akechi or whoever it still fits- there’s an entire semester where at least one character loves another one and wishes them back to life through Maruki’s power. So having another piece of media, like the Feather Seeker game, be another allusion to something else isn’t entirely unjustified.

Feather Seeker is just detailed cos it’s about Featherman, why are you comparing it to other games?

See, here’s the thing and why I needed a second playthrough to make sure I was right about it. Feather Seeker is the odd one out. All of the games have some kind of plot or something going on (except for Golf sim but y’know... it’s a golf sim), but they’re all very, very basic things. Train of Life is just board game with very simple characters, the Goemon game has you just walking through hell but doesn’t really go more in depth with characterisation. Whereas you find out so much about what’s going on with Gray Pigeon and Osagiri in Feather Seeker that it feels a little… weird to simply ignore it. Do I think that the simplest answer, that they just wanted some plot in there for fun, is the right answer? Honestly I think that’s highly likely. But it’s the boring explanation too, it’s easy enough to just write any kind of intrigue like that, so whether what I’m writing about was intentional or not, I still want to discuss Feather Seeker and see people’s own thoughts on the possibility that it could be more than just a basic game.

So with that out of the way… let’s get into it.

First, there’s establishing who’s who. I can pretty confidently say that Gray Pigeon is Akechi in this entire metaphor. This one is the most obvious for multiple reasons, first of which being that it’s the exact same costume Akechi gets in the featherman outfits DLC so there’s the direct correlation there. Beyond that, Gray Pigeon is a character who awakens to a new power and wants to become a hero of justice, just like the feathermen, the hero’s he’s heard about before. Ring any bells?

Also the final revelation of Feather Seeker is that actually the Feathermen see Gray Pigeon as their enemy, who ends up sacrificing himself so they can keep fighting.

Which brings me to discussing who Osagiri and the Feathermen are. Given the timeline presented, I don’t think it’s possible for them to be one specific character or even group of characters. I think these aren’t supposed to be characters, but rather the major influences in Akechi’s life. Osagiri is a scientist (possibly Wakaba, I’ll get into that later), but also the one who pushes him to do bad things. Osagiri starts by training Gray Pigeon to become one of the Feathermen, the good guys, but eventually ends up manipulating Gray Pigeon into trying to kill them. Osaigir at the bare minimum has to be two people- the cognitive scientists who were able to uncover more thanks to Akechi’s escapades in the metaverse and the people who pushed him to commit crimes- the conspiracy.

The Feathermen, at the end of the game, have to be the Phantom Thieves- they’re the ones Gray Pigeon/Akechi ends up sacrificing himself to save but… that can’t be possible. Gray Pigeon’s journey starts with him gaining a new power and wanting to use it for good like the Feathermen do and of course the Phantom Thieves weren’t an inspiration for Akechi to do what he did. I think then the Feathermen are what Akechi aspired to be- the heroes of justice who fought the bad guys.

I can’t lead myself to believe that at 15, Akechi thought of this overly convoluted plan where he would help Shido to become prime minister only to then ruin him, there’s way too many factors in this that could change. I think originally Akechi wanted to avenge what happened to him and his mother, make sure that the man who wronged him would face justice. That’s what the Feathermen would do, right? They fight bad guys. Translating it from Feather Seeker, Akechi was angry, furious even and that rebellion woke hm up to Robin Hood, the embodiment of justice for him.

There’s plenty things that point to Robin Hood being first, his placement when Akechi awakens to Hereward on 2/2 being in the same spot as everyone else’s, the fact that for all of the other Thieves their third tier personas are different versions of their initials personas and that applies to Hereward/Robin Hood and that the trend of initial/second awakening personas is that the first is a fictional who was considered a criminal (Robin Hood) and the second is described in game as a ‘mythological trickster’ (Loki).

Here is where I want to get to the Okinawa jail and why I didn’t post this theory/metapost sooner.

I mentioned earlier that Osagiri could have been in some part Wakaba, Futaba’s mother, and when I initially wrote this I didn’t have all that much to go off of. There’s concept art in the original p5 artbook of Wakaba experimenting on someone. There’s no context given and it’s sort of the odd-one-out. Of course, human subjects would have been necessary to study the cognitive world but this research is so under wraps it seems it’s almost impossible to get. There’s no military connotations anywhere so why is it such a secret? Well, illegal human experimentation would certainly be a good reason to keep this away from the public. They must have figured out somehow that killing a shadow can cause a lot of damage, even death, to a person, we know that from the research notes, but Wakaba was a scientist, working in a lab, she must’ve done experiments that weren’t entirely legal.

Here I wasn’t sure because accusing Wakaba or anyone of illegal human experimentation was a pretty big reach but the Okinawa jail in Strikers shows us that illegal human experimentation is something that was used for cognitive research. I don’t think that Akechi was experimented on there or that was where Wakaba worked, there’s no indication of it but… Konoe and Owada seemed to build on the work that Shido and his scientists began. That being said, I think the Okinawa lab is a continuation of that human experimentation, with whatever lab Wakaba worked in being its predecessor before Shido probably shut it down to prevent it from ever being discovered. Which is also why he had Wakaba killed- the research was only meant for him and no one else.

Beyond what we see in Feather Seeker of Osagiri/sometimes Wakaba experimenting on Gray Pigeon/Akechi, we’re also told (albeit this is of course biased information), that he only targeted people he deemed deserved it but… Wakaba is the odd one out here for the most part. Okumura was hardly a good person and the principal decided covered for a sexual abuser, most of the others were survivors except for accidents which are mostly uncontrollable and unpredictable. Wakaba however, like Kobayakawa and Okumura, were targets that were supposed to die, Akechi intended to kill them. How then was Wakaba a bad person? Illegal human experimentation would explain that, especially if it was done on Akechi himself.

So then, Akechi was experimented on by Wakaba. I don’t think he was fully informed about what he was doing either. Gray Pigeon certainly wasn’t. Akechi was still trying to be a good person, using his power for his own vengeance yeah but I don’t think murdering random people was part of his initial plan at all. I think that Feather Seeker also emphasises just how little he knew about what his actions were doing. How would he know what his effects of shadows are on the real world? He could only know that from the scientists, from Shido. Of course he did find out, eventually, and that rage he must have felt about being used and lied to gave him the power to awaken to Loki, as Futaba puts it, the representation of his anger. It’s only then that he forms his plan, to get back at Shido for all of this, not just him abandoning him and his mother but for using him for his own means as well.

And we know how the rest of the story goes.

The overall story presented in Feather Seeker, as I see it, is this: Akechi awakens to Robin Hood, and realises that his anger is no longer a hopeless endeavour, he can use it, show that he’s useful and get acknowledged by his father. Shido sees this, sees that he can use this power and subjects him to experimentation, as someone who can actually survive the cognitive world and even have an impact on it. Wakaba sees what he can do, tests him but he’s never told what he’s done. He’s manipulated through praise and lack of information. One day he does find out, he realises this wasn’t getting him any closer to vengeance or getting acknowledged by Shido, he’s just another test subject being used by them. He’s angry, he awakens to Loki and now with the unique power of psychotic breakdowns, Shido recognises him and hires him as his assassin.

Granted this is all just my own theory, I think there is a lot pointing us to at least something similar but of course I also think this is wishful thinking as well. At this moment, my biggest wish is that Atlus makes a game that actually delves into what happened to Akechi. All the explicit information we have is given to us from biased sources, ie. Akechi himself, and it’s really the only question I have left for persona 5’s continuity.

[twh-news]

‘Loki’: Behind the Scenes of the Crumbling Time Variance Authority

Find out what Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Owen Wilson, and Tara Strong all have to say about the TVA.

by Rachel Paige

[spoilers to Loki S01E04]

The Time Variance Authority sure seems like a cool and fun place to work! That is...until you start peeling back the layers of the previously unseen and unheard-of organization, and realize that they’ve been lying to everyone this entire time. Welcome to the TVA, y’all!

In Episode 4 of Marvel Studios’ Loki, “The Nexus Event," the truth starts to come out, and when it rains at the TVA, it pours. Where to even begin?

For starters, the Time Keepers did not create everyone working at the TVA, and it turns out the employees walking the halls and filing paperwork are all variants — with their memories scrubbed, of course. And if that’s not enough to swallow, the Time Keepers are actually robots and completely useless figureheads. Oh, and Mobius and Loki find themselves pruned at the hands of Judge Renslayer. That’s still just scratching the tip of the TVA iceberg!

So what’s it like when everything you thought you knew about your job turns out to be a lie? Marvel.com chatted with Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Judge Ravonna Renslayer), Wunmi Mosaku (Hunter B-15), Owen Wilson (Agent Mobius), and Tara Strong (the voice of Miss Minutes) about bringing the TVA to life, and what happens next in the series.

JUDGE RAVONNA RENSLAYER

Renslayer wasn’t always sitting behind a big desk in a big office at the TVA. “She has worked her way up to the top. She wasn't born into power. She started as a Hunter,” Mbatha-Raw tells Marvel.com. As viewers see at the start of Episode 4, Renslayer was the Hunter tasked with grabbing the Loki variant — aka Sylvie — from her timeline to stand trial.

Now that she’s in a higher position, she’s not going to veer off her straight and narrow path.

"She's really worked hard to get where she is, so she's not going to be reckless with the power that has been hard-earned for her,” Mbatha-Raw continues. “She, in some ways, is deeply indoctrinated with the ways of the TVA. She's completely conditioned by their thinking and the idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the concept of free will is quite alien to her. She's a believer. She believes in law and order, and it's done quite well for her so far in terms of getting her to where she is. She's not going to abandon her philosophy lightly.”

We see this in action when Renslayer realizes that Mobius has gone behind her back trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Hunter C-20. After a meeting with Renslayer, Mobius swipes her TemPad and discovers that the young Hunter was questioned, and in the process confessed that she knew they were all variants. And the person interviewing her? None other than Renslayer herself, who ends the interview abruptly. This is the sort of information Renslayer does not want to get out.

“It was fun to start off with everything being sort of very orderly and black-and-white for Renslayer. As her reality begins to crumble, we discover that alongside her. She has put everything into this. This is her whole world. Her career is her life.”

Renslayer isn’t going to let anything and anyone stand in the way of what she’s worked hard to accomplish, and that includes Mobius. Mobius tries to confront his superior about Hunter C-20, the variants, and the TVA, and in a shocking twist, Renslayer orders the agent pruned for being compromised!

“Her only friend, really, is Mobius, and she kind of betrays him,” Mbatha-Raw says. “Or she sees it as he betrayed her, and they have this massive schism. And you sort of think, gosh, where is she going to go now? Who's going to be in her corner? Who's she going to have a drink with at the end of the day. It's a lot of stress!”

HUNTER B-15

Someone else who has led their entire life believing in the TVA and what it stands for is Hunter B-15. The part of no-nonsense Hunter, originally written as a male character, ultimately went to Mosaku after her audition.

While reading the dummy sides (fake scenes for the audition), Mosaku and director Kate Herron determined the gender didn’t alter who Hunter B-15 is at the root of the character. “Despite being written a man, Hunter B-15 is a Hunter and works for the TVA. It didn’t change the scripts. I have free reign because she's new. B-15 doesn't exist in the MCU, so I really got to start from scratch and explore different ideas and themes, and take her wherever Kate and I wanted to.”

But, one thing the character couldn’t do? Be swayed by Loki’s charms. Mosaku was excited to step into this role, and not take any nonsense from Loki.

“It's very rare to have a [character], especially as a woman, [who doesn’t want to be] sweeter, nicer, or make people like you. She's not interested in that at all. And therefore, she's not interested in [Loki] — and Loki is very interested in that. He's charming and all that stuff, and it's all about luring you in. She just doesn't take any of it. It's not attractive to her. It's not intriguing to her. She's just, ‘Let's get the job done, please.’”

While Hunter B-15 starts off all commanding and tough, slowly she, too, begins to realize that not everything is what it seems at the TVA. After she’s enchanted by Sylvie at Roxxcart, Hunter B-15 has memories come rushing back to her — but what are they, and what did she see? That’s still a mystery for Mosaku, too, who explains, “I'm as intrigued as you are to find out what that backstory is.”

Whatever she saw, it propels her to take a stand against the TVA. This meant Mosaku went through training — in more ways than one, “They drilled us on the physical vocabulary of the TVA and the fight sequences that we had.”

At the end of Episode 4, Hunter B-15 comes to Loki and Sylvie’s aid when they come face to face with the Time Keepers, throwing the latter her machete (which she’s clearly stolen from Renslayer’s office). What follows next is a battle for power in front of the Time Keepers, one in which not everyone survives.

“We did have a trainer to make sure that we were physically capable of doing it all and not injuring ourselves,” states Mosaku. “I really loved that, because I love to box. I felt really strong and able to use my physical power in a way that I hadn't been able to before.”

MOBIUS

Agent Mobius is having a day. Not only is he watching his whole life and career crumble around him, but he then winds up on the wrong end of a pruning stick by the end of the episode. While he might have started off as a through and through company man when we first meet him, after Loki tells him they’re all variants, Mobius starts to think about where his true allegiance lies. (And if he ever had a jet ski??)

The biggest revelation in the episode for Mobius is not necessarily that he’s a variant, but rather that his closest friend, Renslayer, has been concealing the truth from him this whole time.

“The relationship between Mobius and Renslayer, it's the way you might have with your boss. Or when you're back in school with the principal or someone in a position of authority and having to sort of try to charm them so you're able to pursue your projects,” Wilson tells Marvel.com. “That's the dynamic between Mobius and Renslayer. She sort of loses patience with Mobius and with another one of his schemes. But, I think, she also sort of enjoys that he's a little bit of a rascal.”

That certainly might have been true at one point in time, but after Mobius swipes Renslayer’s TemPad, as Wilson continues, “by the end of that relationship, it has become something very different”

Mobius might have caught Renslayer in a lie, but it’s Renslayer who orders him pruned — and Loki witnesses the whole thing.

"The betrayal of Mobius by Renslayer is pretty shocking. And it's a little bit of a hall of mirrors within the whole series, that people aren't quite who they seem to be. In the same way that Loki, when he lands in this bizarre place called the TVA, Mobius will have sort of the same struggles. What is this organization? And is it something that is worthy of his devotion?”

MISS MINUTES

There’s one other very important person at the TVA: Miss Minutes! She’s not really a recording, and she’s not really alive, she’s sorta both! So what’s going to happen to the organization’s spokesperson as the TVA starts to fall apart?

Coy with her response, Tara Strong, who voices the perky clock, explains, “It's safe to say that Miss Minutes knows absolutely everything, and it's also safe to say I wouldn't mess with her too much.”

Recording for the character, Strong actually watched episodes (over video chat), and synched up her dialogue with the action in each scene.

“The show was already done before I stepped in, which was such a great gift,” she explains. “Had I gone first and watched a placeholder, it wouldn't have been as magical. But getting to sit there and witness the animation, and how cute it is and how stylized it was, and of course, to play off Tom Hiddleston, who's so brilliant, it was really a gift to have it all come together in front of me.”

For every scene, Strong recorded dozens of different versions of dialogue “to play with for the production crew to see what would fit in the best and what would make the most sense.” As the show was coming together, Strong knew she had the difficult task of giving Miss Minutes life and unloading “exposition while still making it fun and playful.”

“Everything she says is important and funny and interesting. I also love that even in the very beginning, when she's like, [Miss Minutes’ voice] ‘Don't hesitate to let us know how we're doing. We could explode you in a minute, but drop a line to let us know how you feel about it!’ It's like the perfect mix of who she is that she can be giving you such dire information with a smile on her face, and you still want to sit down and have a cupcake with her.”

Considering what she knows, and how many times she’s now dumped information, how else might she be able to step in and help Loki?

“She knows so much about the TVA, and it’s her job to relay this information to Loki,” says Strong. “[She needs] him to get past some of the things he's done [in order] to improve himself as a member of this universe, and how to grow and help. I [navigate] these moments with him, careful to not give away how much I actually know in the world.”

[shimmershae]

Some, okay a lot, of pre-mid season (tri? season) finale thoughts.  As if you actually asked for them, lol.

And no, I haven’t actually watched the last episode yet.  I’ve been putting it off all morning.  For reasons.  Reasons that I felt the inexplicable need to put on paper, er, screen.  

If you care at all to read the purging of my fatigued TWD fangirl mind, please look beneath the cut.  Fair warning.  It’s long so pull up a chair maybe, lol.  

I’ll admit it.  The spoilers indicating a significant lack of Carol/Melissa content has dampened much of my enthusiasm and there wasn’t all that much to start with.  

Let me tell you why--

The season, so far, has been woefully unbalanced in favor of the Reaper storyline and the Maggie/Negan conflict (which ties back to the Reaper storyline by the flimsiest of strings) and I’m just not invested.  

Why?  

Well, it’s multifold.  

#1 reason why?  Having a third of the last season ever of TWD devoted to going inside “the lions’ den” of villains I have no emotional connection to or curiosity about is a big fat fail.  

You might say “but there’s the Daryl double agent” aspect and I say “so fucking what” because it was so poorly conceived and has felt like such a WTF set of fraying puppet strings for this plot Angela was apparently jonesing to tell from the GO, damn the torpedoes she had to know where inevitably coming her way.  

Seriously.  I had talked myself into accepting that which I could not change, citing Daryl’s emotional brokenness after Rick.  Convincing myself he’d lost his anchor to goodness and hope and fulfillment in his years of self-imposed exile from Carol and what was left of his family and to a certain extent?  I can still by that explanation.  But really.  It’s the Leah of it all.  

Let me attempt to explain.  

To do that, maybe I should detail how I’ve always perceived Daryl.  

Daryl, IMHO, began this journey with us and the rest of Team Family with a figurative fortress erected around his true, core self.  

He was prickly.  Defensive to any overtures of kindness because he inherently did not trust them.  Loathe to form any real connection to anyone other than Merle, his blood.  

Daryl balked at the possibility of emotional connection and flinched in learned fear from physical touch.  

He did not recognize or accept affection or respect at face value because it was something rarely shown to him before.  

Anybody else remember that childhood abuse book from Consumed?  You know.  One of those first times the showrunners/writers dumped a character nugget in our laps and left it to us to do all the backstory in our own imaginations so they didn’t have to enrich their own characters beyond the scratch and sniff, wham bam this is who they are work?  

Anyway.  We were left to extrapolate from that what most of us h ad already suspected--that Daryl’s formative years were already a living hell before the ZA ever happened.  

So he was standoffish.  He didn’t form emotional connections lightly and physical intimacy was something light years out of his comfort zone.  

Until Carol.  

Daryl’s defenses started to crumble from the very start with Carol because she piqued his interest.  He looked at her, watched her withstand Ed’s abuse, and recognized something of himself.  

Against his will, Daryl started to care and when Carol lost the one good thing that had come out of her miserable life with Ed--Sophia--Daryl’s core identity started to be revealed to us and probably?  To himself after burying it so deep for so long.  

Long story short?  Daryl connected with Carol pretty quickly on a base level through the trauma of Sophia’s loss.  

The real connection, the emotional work it too to peel all those protective layers away took more like--like planting a flower from seed and tending it to help it survive and flourish.  

Simply said?  The work was put in and Daryl bloomed with Carol’s (and Team Family’s) care.  They all put in varying degrees of work but Carol planted the seed of his “belonging.”  

And the thing about Daryl?  Once he bloomed?  He grew strong.  He stretched toward the sun.  

He and Carol essentially bloomed and fought their way toward the sunlight together.  

And little by little, Daryl learned to accept the kindness, trust, and love he always deserved.  

From that newly confident man emerged a Daryl not so fearful of forming connections and none have ever been more powerful than his connection to Carol.  

I’ll spare ya’ll the paragraphs of how Daryl and Carol gravitated toward each other like magnets no matter the means of separation.  

I’ll just spell it out like this:  their bond supersedes all others, even Daryl’s bond with Rick.  And with Daryl only accepting affection from those he trusts implicitly, Carol and Daryl have been the only potential “romantic” pairing that has ever fully made sense for his established character.  

At least the character before Angela launched the grenade of Leah into the mix.  

Leah was a fail from the start.  

And you know what?  I’m thinking that was largely intended (for various reasons) but I still think they could have shown Daryl as receptive to having a “romantic” relationship to those willfully blind to the possibility that he’s actually been in a “romantic” relationship with Carol since Season 2.  Never mind that Carol and Daryl haven’t (yet) crossed certain physical boundaries yet.  Emotionally? They are already there even if neither is able to admit it out loud with the actual words yet.  But I digress.  The people that never wanted to “see” Carol and Daryl as “romantic” because they couldn’t fathom Daryl as seeing Carol in that light had already deemed that Daryl just didn’t feel that way about her, that maybe he didn’t feel that way about anybody (if they couldn’t have their way and have him feel that way about their preferred choice for him, they preferred him alone), and Angela wanted to show them differently.  To show them the light.  

That said, if Angela was so hellbent on doing Leah?  There were a multitude of better ways.  

Here.  I’ll give you one of them.  

Daryl isolates himself from his family after Rick’s “death” same as he did in Angela’s version.  

Carol’s been being pulled more and more to the Kingdom because Henry’s needing a mother figure is like catnip to her hurting natural-born, hurting Mama’s heart.  So Daryl’s anchor to the man he’d matured into, the one with all these earned emotional attachments, is reeled back in, little by little, leaving him unmoored.  

Dog literally runs into him just as before.  It hardly makes sense given how young and floppy and uncoordinated puppies are and thus vulnerable to danger, but this is the least of things we need to worry about suspending disbelief for right?  ;)

Dog and Daryl continue to have these run ins until Daryl decides to retrace the puppy’s clumsy trail and viola!  He finds Leah’s cabin and Leah inside.  She levels the same shotgun at him, they have a standoff, until---

Leah suddenly lowers the gun and incredulously says Daryl’s name.  

That’s right.  One simple change and Daryl and Leah have an undefined past already.  

Daryl doesn’t completely let his guard down because he’s Daryl, but he relaxes enough that we see he doesn’t immediately regard Leah as dangerious to his own well-being.  

From that point on, instead of tying Daryl up and threatening him, we could have been told the story of how they knew each other from before.  

My version goes a little something like this--

Daryl met Leah through Merle.  Merle, in turn, met Leah through the military before he got discharged.  He and Leah had an ongoing “I scratch your itch if you scratch mine” thing and Leah?  Well, she always had a bit of a soft spot/interest in Daryl that Daryl never really returned.  

The thing is, though?  With losing the chosen brother that filled the hole left behind by his lost blood brother Merle and losing Carol to her chasing after a chance of a new family (because she feels Daryl’s out of her reach too, our too blind and stupidly, silently in love idiots)?  Daryl finds himself embracing the shared memories however minimal of that brief past and his grief and loneliness leave him receptive to Leah’s eventual advances in ways he never was before.  

We’re still given hints of their unfolding relationship and we still don’t like it, but it makes more sense for Daryl to cling to the past when he feels he’s lost his future.  

Leah still gives her ultimatum (there’s a reason she gravitated toward Merle in perhaps his most toxic state, she’s more than a little fucked up too) and it’s not as much of a hard sell that Daryl might be pulled in Leah’s direction when he feels Carol is all but lost to him.  

Hell.  They could have even explicitly discussed Carol.  But wait!  Angela would have never allowed that because she doesn’t want to shatter all the crackship dreams in one fell swoop.  

But the story from that point on could have continued just as it has and probably I still wouldn’t have liked it but I could have at least bought it somewhat and understood it.  

Obviously, it didn’t. 

I don’t buy the Leah of it all.  Angela built that “relationship” with monopoly money and it shows.  

Because I don’t buy Leah period.  I don’t buy Daryl giving even giving a shit about trying to or feeling like there’s a snowball’s chance to redeem her so I’m not engaged whatsoever with this Daryl double agent story and him even givign her crumbs about his real family.  

That part rings false.  

So that’s a big problem right there and we haven’t even gotten to the other part I don’t buy.  

You know what else I don’t buy?  

#2?  

Why the hell are the Reapers so bloodthirsty for Maggie’s departure from this mortal coil?  

Without giving better reasoning than they’re just cray-cray, the entire faceplants and considering it’s taken up about 70% of 11A’s focus?  I’m pissed.  

Because, IMHO, they should go big or go home on this to give it any entertainment value because it’s all stale, recycled air if not.  

Maggie’s been established as a much darker character this season.  Which led me to believer the Reapers probably had a legit beef against her, but it seems Angela is reluctant to go all that way down the rabbit hole and doesn’t want to commit to what could be a more entertaining and potentially fascinating story than just Maggie’s in the right, the Reapers are just evil.  

Maggie is right about Negan, IMHO, but she’s also wrong in not listening to him when what he’s saying reeks of simple common sense.  Ignoring sage advice makes her seem more like an angry toddler stamping her feet in defiance than the leader they are so bound and determined to tell us she is.  

You know what?  The window for me to give more than the half a fuck I’m giving right now as they beat this dead horse to dust closed when Maggie decided letting Negan rot in the ASZ jail cell was enough and spared him when she finally had her best chance to end him once and for all.  

Maybe if they stopped having the same damn conversation and they didn’t take up 20% of the screen time left after the boring Reapers/Leah shit, I would be less resentful but I’m not and again, I’ll tell you why.  

BECAUSE.  We are in the last season of the OG TWD ever and this show has chosen to waste screen time on stories nobody cares about to the exclusion of the ones we’re yearning for more of.  

Like ASZ.  We’ve barely seen more than an hour of the eight hours devoted to Carol, Aaron, Rosita, Lydia, Judith, Kelly, Jerry and Co. in total.  Especially since they’ve been trying to establish the Commonwealth on the side, too.  

I mean, I never really expected to dig the Commonwealth so my expectations for it were lower than low so they’ve been exceeded at a miniscule level.  But I expected and hoped for ASZ and those characters we’ve cared the most about to receive much more emphasis and the fact that they haven’t in this last season so far has been the biggest FAIL.  

And okay.  Selfishly, I want more Carol.  She’s like salt.  She makes almost everything go down better.  

But really. Give me more of all the characters we actually care about, please.  The Reapers and the offshoots from that story wheel aren’t it.  I love Daryl but I hate this retread story for him.  Leah is a weak point that pressed upon?  Makes this weak ass arc collapse.  Maggie and Negan are giving us nothing new.  They are the definition of the word STALEMATE and that’s not what you want or need on the finale season of a show.  

Yes, I have enjoyed the majority of the episodes overall, but that was because the moments I loved I weighted more than the ones I didn’t and know they have the most impact on the show down the road.  

Probably 11A will fare better when all is said and done and the show can be binged but standalone?  It’s been an overall disappointment and that saddens me more than I can say.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop rambling now and try to psyche myself up for episode 8.  I’ll be back with thoughts on it later, maybe.  

Sorry for the word vomit, but I felt maybe I could in someway give voice to some of the feelings floating around out there and let you know that you are not alone.  

Until later, lovelies.  

[bigskydreaming]

That last reblog is very informative and useful in figuring out where to find certain storylines. Purely on a personal recommendation note, for anyone looking for good reads and who tends to like my take on things, my recs from that list (and not saying that others I don’t rec aren’t good, just what immediately popped into my head) would be:

Batman: The Long Halloween (yes. its a good)

Batman: Birth of the Demon (if you want to set canon on fire, as many people are wont to do, a good place to start is aggressively ignoring Morrison’s take on Damian’s birth and origin and instead treating this story as his origin and just building off the idea that Talia lied at the end which is waaaaaaaaay better and just like...go from there)

Batman: The Killing Joke (kill it with the fire. we’ve had enough of the killing joke. it can die. even alan moore hates it and he wrote it and alan moore usually loves everything he writes and hates everyone ELSE for like, liking it the wrong way, so I mean, that should tell you a lot)

Batman: The Cult (holy shit I totally forgot about this story and now am off to go reread it again myself)

I have Issues with how ADITF AND A Lonely Place of Dying play out and most popular takes on them, so like, I’m not like, recommending RECOMMENDING them, but I mean like, they are pivotal.

Batman: Knightfall, Legacy, Cataclysm and all things No Man’s Land related have some good stuff throughout all of them. Like, things I don’t like, sure, but overall, there’s a lot of good material in them. Also, a good way to get a strong sense of actual canon Tim, who is not fanon Tim, and who would probably take one look at fanon Tim and go LOL nerd, and kickflip away on his skateboard to go tell Nightwing about this AU version of himself he just met, as like, he actually likes and respects Nightwing, among other differences.

JLA Tower of Babel (its a yawn from me, lads. the source of pretty much all “Batman can beat all of the JLA because he has the greatest superpower of all: PREP TIME!!!” hot takes and I mean, yeah that’s pretty core to Batman and who he is at this point, but the story itself its just like. Eh. Could you not. Idk. Basically I just mean this is all part of an era of JLA that for the most part I actually tend to LIKE Bruce’s interactions with the rest of the team, but then there was this and it was just like. Eh. Could you not).

Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive (Quality reads IMO that emphasize the Detective part of the Batfranchise and contain good moments for the whole currently present Batfam, lots of great Cass and Dick stuff in particular. Idk. I havent read them in awhile but I have fond memories)

Batman: Hush (this gets a bad rep and not entirely deserved IMO. Like, its not the greatest story in the world but I like how it portrays Bruce as having flawed dynamics with a lot of his loved ones but not shying away from his role in that but also without overly vilifying him....he’s an appropriately complex character in this, is what I mean, and I also like that this is another story that emphasizes the often lost-and-forgotten Detective part of his core concept. Also, it utilizes some of my fave villains in ways that bring home how much potential certain combinations/team-ups of villains could have if they were utilized more instead of overlooked in favor of ITS TIME FOR THE JOKER AGAIN WHEEEEEEEE!)

Batman: Under the Red Hood (hahahhahaha no. like could you imagine me reccing this? LOL its not realistic. Nah, stick with the animated movie retelling. At least Bruce doesn’t slit his son’s throat in that one to save the damn clown again)

Batman: R.I.P (I reluctantly rec this not because I like it, cuz I don’t, its Morrison back on his bullshit in a most I AM THE MOST GALAXY BRAINED OF ALL THE GALAXY BRAINED AND ALSO IM A CHAOS MAGICIAN DID U KNOW THAT HUH DID YA DID YA, like, fashion. Its. A lot. The story is A Lot. I don’t say that in a complimentary way. BUT I recommend it anyway out of pure stubbornness and Dick Grayson fanboy spite, as its set like, directly before Bruce is believed dead and gets lost in time, and like, A LOT happens to Dick in that story that SHOULD BE extremely relevant and crucial to examinations of his mental and emotional state at the time of him assuming Bruce’s role in the family and as Batman, but that just like....ISN’T, and that annoys me. Also, the primary villain of this, Dr. Hurt, like.....

his grand endgame involved torturing the fuck out of Dick to hurt Bruce specifically, and pretty much the first thing that happens when Bruce DOES come back from being lost in time is Dr. Hurt pops up out of nowhere and shoots Dick in the head, like FIRST THING, like this is the absolute first thing Bruce has to deal with when coming back, and this is just like....NONEXISTENT in most fics about that era. Because lolol how can we blame Dick for everything that went wrong and make Bruce be mad at him for how Dick wronged Tim and Jason and all of Gotham probably, if we’re going by actual canon and thus dealing with the fact that Bruce is preoccupied with hovering over his just-shot-in-the-head-specifically-to-fuck-with-Bruce son’s bedside and WORRYING about him. LOLOL hashtag Fandom Willfully Erases The Majority of Dick’s Canon Traumas Not Because They Want To Set Canon On Fire - they’re usually fine with sticking to every instance of canon in which Dick does something even in the ZIP CODE of wrong - but rather because if we acknowledge Dick’s traumas then eww, he might come across as....sympathetic? No, we can’t have that. ERGO HE WAS NEVER SHOT IN THE HEAD HAHAHAH WE FIXED IT, WE FIXED CANON).

But I digress.

Battle for the Cowl (another reluctant rec because like, its dumb and its bad, but its one of those things that I’d still rather more people read than didn’t, because like it is pivotal and relevant, and it contains key plot points like oh Idk, Arkham literally blowing up as all the currently locked up inmates escape, which led to Dick having Wayne Enterprises rebuild it himself, and like, the only villains present in it when he was Batman being the villains he and Damian CAUGHT while he was Batman, which did NOT include the Joker, and thus all the hot takes about how Dick locked up Jason two doors down from his murderer like the uncaring bastard that he is, like.....instead of the reality that Dick pulled strings to have Jason put in Arkham instead of Blackgate when the POLICE ARRIVED ON SCENE AND LOCKED UP THE ANONYMOUS RED HOOD BECAUSE HE WAS CLEARLY DEFEATED AND CLEARLY A WANTED CRIMINAL AND THUS LIKE, HIS IMPRISONMENT LITERALLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH DICK OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT DICK DEFEATED JASON RATHER THAN LETTING HIM KILL HIM AND DAMIAN.....

like, its literal canon that Dick explains himself for having Jason put in Arkham instead of Blackgate because it allowed him to keep Jason OUT of gen pop where he had literal dozens of enemies that he, Jason, WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PUTTING THEM IN THERE HIMSELF, and it was to keep Jason SAFE, and it WORKED as Jason’s only actual canon complaint at that time was that he was BORED. So in conclusion, AS ALWAYS, you can do what you want, but when you literally manufacture the fake fanon - and completely fail to make any effort to establish that this is NOT actual canon and that you’re not actually riffing off of an actual canon moment - that Dick callously locked his brother up a few doors down from his own murderer (the dude that Dick himself literally once beat to death because he killed Jason).....like, inquiring minds would like to know, why are you trying so hard to make Dick look like THIS MUCH of an asshole, hmm?)

Batman: The Gates of Gotham (a weird, but fun little read IMO, that delves deep into the backstory of Gotham, the Waynes, and also Dick’s ancestors the Crownes, and establishes a lot of the history revolving around all of the above, and like, it actually has Dick as Batman and being competent and respected by the rest of the family in that role, and its also one of the only times Cass and Damian interacted one on one, stuff like that)

Batman and Robin Eternal (eww no, kill it also with the fire, burn it, I hate it, uggggggh why is this series so praised, its so baaaaaaaaaaaad, its like what if literally every character involved in it is an asshole to Dick for no valid reason whatsoever.....huh, weird thought, wonder if the fact that its so praised as being so good and Dick’s so hated for weird reasons by a lot of fandom are connected....almost like.....the fiction influenced how people viewed his character....and thus....critical commentary of how the fiction was bad is....relevant....HMM I MUST PONDER THIS STRANGE AND NOVEL THOUGHT).

[elyvorg]

Imagine if the students successfully “defeated” Monokuma in trial 5, and also that Kaito incidentally had about one more day to live as of that point in time. (This is the end result of my trial 5 AU, not that any of the story in that post is particularly relevant to the AU story I’m about to present here.) An anon suggested to me that, from here, the students could demand that Monokuma owes them a life – in other words, he has to nurse Kaito back to health for them.

I had my doubts over whether it’d be the right call to actually trust Monokuma with Kaito’s health in that situation… but then again, that’s the fun part. What if they did make the mistake of entrusting Kaito’s life to Monokuma? What cruel things could he do while still technically complying with their demands?

Here’s what I thought of: Monokuma “saves Kaito’s life” by making a huge Flashback Light full of Kaito’s backstory plus all his experiences throughout the killing game itself, and all those memories get shoved into a fresh body. This would create a new person who is essentially still Kaito and is also perfectly healthy. Ta-da, Kaito gets to live!

Meanwhile, Kaito – our Kaito, the one who actually went through the killing game with his friends – well, he’s not needed any more. So, completely unbeknownst to anyone else, Monokuma just leaves him somewhere to die.

Aaaaand my thoughts on this idea escalated rather a lot, to the point that there’s kind of a whole story here.

Kaito’s death

Kaito is taken to some empty room somewhere – I dunno, maybe there’s a bed in it to at least give a vague impression that it could be some kind of hospital room, but maybe not even that – and told to just wait for the nurses to come and see to him. So he waits, his suspicion growing, and it doesn’t take long for him to get the sinking realisation that nobody’s coming, are they. He goes to open the door to try and look for Monokuma and yell at him to stop screwing around and keep his goddamn end of the bargain, only to find it locked.

With a chilling dread, it hits him that this was all a trap – a really obvious one at that, one he literally walked right into like an absolute moron. Monokuma never had any plans to cure him at all.

He’s going to die here, in this room, completely and utterly alone.

Kaito wouldn’t just give up, of course. He’d furiously try to bust down the locked door keeping him trapped there, but… his body would be so weak by now that he wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d only end up hurting himself even more, and after a while he just wouldn’t have the strength to keep trying.

And he might have more or less resigned himself and been mentally prepared for the fact that he’s not surviving this illness – though losing that glimmer of a way out he’d almost thought he had really, really kind of sucks – but, this is worse than he thought it’d be. Up until now, he'd finally begun to feel some relief in that, even if he does still end up dying, at least he'll die something of a hero, surrounded by his friends. Not like this. He never wanted to die like this – pointlessly, uselessly, alone and forgotten like he never even mattered. He doesn’t even have anything to distract himself with or to do to feel like he’s making a difference in his final hours. There’s just nothing but waiting to die, the pain getting harder and harder to bear as he feels his body slowly tear itself apart.

This is probably the absolute cruellest possible way Kaito could die from his illness, so much worse than how it happens in canon. (And, damn it, he hasn't even been to space…!)

Kaito would have no idea what's happening outside of the room he dies in, so he might be able to console himself to some extent by thinking that, once he’s gone, when Shuichi and Maki never see him again and realise they were tricked, they’ll be furious and will fight to avenge him. (Or, perhaps there’s still a chance, if they realise that something’s up soon enough, that they might be able to come for him in time and somehow save him after all…? It’s such a long shot – his death feels so close, dammit – but they’re his heroes, they’re amazing, so maybe—!)

But in reality... they wouldn't even know. They’d just obliviously leave him there to die, because Kaito would be right there with them, cured like Monokuma promised.

Kaito’s survival

That’d be the second horrible part of this – but not because this new Kaito who meets up with Shuichi and Maki all “cured” would be like some hollow imitation who isn’t truly Kaito at all. No; that’s not how it works. Flashback Lights create real people.

While I said at the beginning of this post that the one who died alone was “our” Kaito, that wasn't really quite fair of me. The other Kaito who's here now deserves to be thought of in exactly the same way. He would be our Kaito too, one hundred percent. Much like how Alter Ego Gonta was another Gonta, this is another instance of Kaito, separate from the one who died, but still him.

On the one hand, the new Kaito could have been made from a clone of the original Kaito’s body, so that he looks completely identical and nothing seems amiss at first. But on the other hand, he could be in an entirely different body – which is the version I’d rather lean towards, because that’d make things get awkward and painful a lot more quickly.

(If you want something to picture him as looking like: because it makes sense that Team Danganronpa would have picked a body that looked kind of similar and still fit his character, I’m imagining one of Kaito’s beta designs. I went for the one with poofy hair and eyebrows to rival Taka’s, specifically because he doesn’t look too similar to our Kaito, yet he nonetheless still has a very dorky Kaito energy to him. Meanwhile, his clothes would presumably be exactly the same. That and, despite the poofy hair, Kaito would totally grab some hairspray at the earliest opportunity and attempt to style his new hair into his trademark spiky upwardsness, just to try and look and feel a bit more like his usual self. The result would be, uh… something. It’d be something, all right.)

Some time after taking Kaito away to be cured, then, Monokuma presents Kaito’s miraculous recovery, brazenly handwaving the new body by claiming that extensive plastic surgery was totally necessary to save him. Maki and Shuichi would initially be all “?????? don’t mess with us, how the FUCK do you expect us to believe that this is Kaito”. Except... it is. His face and voice are completely different, but everything about how his eyes light up when he sees them, and the way he talks, and how quietly hurt he seems when they question if it's really him - it's still absolutely Kaito. And he appears to be just as genuinely confused as they are by the different body once they point it out to him and show him to a mirror.

Maybe they'd also confirm it by asking him things that only the real Kaito would know – and he knows all of it. Not just knows it, he obviously feels it, too. After asking him his favourite spaceship and seeing him visibly restrain himself from launching into a huge excited ramble about why that spaceship is so cool (exactly like he didn’t restrain himself from doing last time)… they can't deny it's really him.

The last thing Kaito remembers is being led away by Monokuma, and then he woke up like this; he must have been unconscious for whatever the hell was done to him in between. He and his friends end up concluding that Monokuma must have saved his life by… transferring his consciousness into a new body? Which seems more possible than they might have imagined considering how the Virtual World worked, now that they think about it, so maybe they'd be able to accept that.

(Is transferring a consciousness like that actually possible in this universe, though? Or does the Virtual World computer just create a virtual copy of them from their memories while the original one sleeps, and then Flashback Light their virtual self’s new memories back into their real body when they log out? That’d mean the virtual person would have to be deleted afterwards. It’d be painless and they’d never remember it, but in a sense, it’d be killing them.)

Kaito himself is pretty chill with it once he’s got over the initial shock. Sure, it’ll take some getting used to looking like this – he’s gonna have to grow himself a new goatee, to say nothing of the hair – but still, he’ll take this over dying any day. (He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to not be in pain.)

It'd still be super awkward for Shuichi and Maki, though, trying to adjust to Kaito looking and sounding completely different on the surface, constantly reminding themselves that this face and this voice is still Kaito. The two of them – especially Maki, who has a harder time trusting people instinctively – wouldn't quite be able to shake off the nagging possibility this could be some kind of impostor aligned with Monokuma who's just really really good at acting like Kaito. Of course they'd want to believe in him, because a different body is still infinitely better than losing him, but it wouldn’t quite come naturally.

Kaito, being Kaito, would very much pick up on the signs that his sidekicks are still a little subconsciously suspicious of him. It’d sting, but he wouldn't bring it up. Kaito's always fine! Now that he's healthy again, he’s got absolutely nothing to worry about! …which is to say, he doesn't want to go admitting to his new worries, not when doing so would be giving them even more reasons to feel like he's not quite Kaito and secretly not really want him around.

Kaito’s existence

But just when Shuichi and Maki have started to really get used to Kaito’s new body and things are beginning to feel somewhat normal between them again, everything would come out during the equivalent of trial 6.

As Shuichi figures out what Flashback Lights really do and Tsumugi starts trying to make everyone despair over how “fictional” they all are, Kaito, because he’s Kaito, would be having none of her bullshit. (However, I’ll keep this part brief here since I’m hopefully going to do a regular trial-6-with-Kaito AU at some point that should really be the place I expand on this properly.)

Sure, learning that they’re “characters” created from fake memories when the killing game began is kind of a lot to take in, but it doesn’t change the reality of who they are right now. The only thing that matters is what they want to believe, and they obviously want to believe that they’re real, just like they always have! Hell, their pasts being fiction is great news in Maki Roll’s case – she never really killed anyone, and she’ll never have to!

And Tsumugi’s claims that nothing matters because it was all “fiction” for entertainment are even more bullshit. Their pasts may be made up, but the entire killing game really happened. All those people really died. Every bit of the pain and suffering they and their friends went through in it was absolutely real.

But as he’s saying this part, Tsumugi turns to Kaito with a scathing grin. “How would you know? You weren’t even there.”

Before anyone can question what she means by this, she turns on another video – and this one’s not an audition tape. There were Nanokumas in the room where the original Kaito died. His final hours were recorded, as proof that Kaito is dead.

They wouldn’t watch the entire thing – he was in there for something like twenty-four hours – but she could have put together a “highlights reel”, some of the moments where Kaito couldn’t help but express exactly how lost and scared and desperate he felt. And of course it’d culminate in the moment of his death, just to hammer it home and make sure they know that it’s far too late to save him.

As Shuichi and Maki are reeling in horror from the suffering Kaito went through and the fact that they let that happen to him, Tsumugi goes for the decisive blow. She explains how the new Kaito came to be here, calling him a “fake”, an “imitation” who “tricked” them while they left the real Kaito to die.

And… Kaito kind of starts to believe it.

…See, one of the reasons this scenario really grabbed my interest (other than the prospect of Kaito dying scared and helpless and alone while also not being gone from the story afterwards) was that until now I didn’t think it was possible to give Kaito existential issues. He just has too much conviction in who he is. Under regular trial 6 circumstances, the reveals about Flashback Lights and his backstory being fake memories would barely faze him at all.

His memories are fake and all those things in his past never really happened? Okay, so he’s kind of shaken to realise his grandparents and fellow astronaut trainees don’t exist – but in that case, if none of the people in his memories are real, then the only person those memories matter to is himself. And if he feels like they were real, they might as well have been, at least in terms of the person he is now because of them. Oh, but the person he is now isn’t real, because the “real” Kaito is that murder-happy asshole in the audition video? Well, no, that dumbass was just somebody else, duh. Maybe he had the same body and possibly even the same name, but that doesn’t matter. The real Kaito, the one and only Luminary of the Stars, is right here! That's who he wants to believe he is, so it's who he is, dammit. End of discussion.

But in this situation… the real Kaito was undeniably the one who died alone in that room. Not him. His memories might feel real, but he doesn’t have the right to feel like those events happened to him, not when the memories belong to somebody else – someone who actually experienced all those things, whose friends that he experienced it all with are right here. It’s like he’s just stealing those memories, stealing that identity, stealing Kaito’s entire life. That’s not fair.

He still wants to be Kaito; he’s never gonna want to be anyone else, but… there’s no way he deserves to decide that, does he? Not when the real Kaito died, and Kaito’s sidekicks are still here and grieving for him. Knowing that, and with Maki Roll and Shuichi giving him these hurt, horrified looks that say You're not Kaito… maybe he really isn't.

(But Kaito is the only person he wants to or even knows how to be. So if he's not Kaito, then… who the hell even is he?)

Kaito’s friends

With Kaito stunned into speechlessness, and Shuichi and Maki shaken from the undeniable demonstration of how easy it is to just fake an entire person, leaving them also questioning how real they really are despite Kaito’s earlier efforts, it seems like Tsumugi’s succeeded in making everyone despair.

(at this point Keebo is supposed to barge in with his hope nonsense, but hey, how about we don’t have that clogging this up when I’m trying to tell an interesting story here)

But after a little while of none of the others having it in themselves to protest Tsumugi’s claims, Kaito (or, well, someone who once mistakenly went by that name; it doesn’t matter now) speaks up – hesitantly, because he still isn’t sure he really deserves to. “Hey, c’mon, Shuichi… This isn’t like you. You can’t just give up like this.”

(He resists the instinct to add, “You’re my sidekick,” because no, he’s not.)

It doesn’t matter about him, but Shuichi’s still absolutely real. He’s Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective who’s gonna save everyone, right? Never mind what Tsumugi says – that’s who he wants to be, who he’s always been trying so hard to be, so that’s who he is. And if that’s the case, then he can’t let something like this get him down!

“I guess this doesn’t mean much coming from me, but… I believe in you. For real.”

Shuichi stares at him in dawning realisation. This is… exactly the kind of thing Kaito would say to encourage him at a time like this. Especially the way he’s selflessly helping someone else even though he’s the one who’s got to be suffering the most right now. He… really is Kaito, isn’t he?

Kaito doesn’t meet his eye, muttering that that’s not really for him to decide. But… if Shuichi and Maki Roll want him to be Kaito, then – he glances at Shuichi hopefully – then maybe…?

Shuichi firmly tells him that no, that’s wrong. Kaito was just asserting that Shuichi and Maki and everyone else here get to decide who they want to be, so why should it be any different for him? If he wants to be Kaito, then Shuichi’s with him all the way. And Maki feels the same, right?

Maki puts in, slowly, like she’s still figuring this out as she speaks, that she’s been thinking hard about things since he pointed out that this means she never really killed anyone. It’s true that it’s a relief to know that nobody ever died because of her, but… she still feels like she killed all those people. It still hurts, because all of those memories feel real to her.  So in that sense, it’s like she might as well have actually gone through all that hell.

Then… it must be the same for him, right? Even if it wasn’t really him who trained with them and supported them, he feels like it was, doesn’t he? So… he might as well be the same Kaito. If her feelings matter even if they came from fake memories, then so do his.

Hearing both their words to him, Kaito’s face gradually lights up into a huge, somewhat desperate grin. Of course he wants to be Kaito; there’s nobody else he’d rather be! And, Shuichi and Maki Roll, they… they still wanna be his sidekicks, right?

Of course they do. Shuichi and Maki were pretty shaken by the initial shock of seeing Kaito’s death and realising where the Kaito standing in front of them came from, to the point that their kneejerk reactions in that moment might have made him feel like they didn’t see him as Kaito or want him around. But having a little bit of time to process it and reflect on it, and seeing how badly Kaito was hurting from thinking this is how they feel about him… there’s no way that’d be what they settle on. They’re his friends – and they can’t bear to lose him twice.

Maybe they messed up in the sense that they let Kaito die on his end, but they also simultaneously didn't lose Kaito on their end. This person who's here for them right now is still him, and none of what happened to the other Kaito is his fault. How could they just throw away this second chance? They’re still going to need Kaito’s support – and this Kaito needs them, too, more than ever. It’s awful that they failed Kaito once, but they can at least make sure to never fail him again.

(Kaito tells them firmly that no, they didn’t fail him. There’s no way Kaito would have ever thought that, no matter how afraid he was at the end.)

Epilogue

After escaping and settling into the outside world, as the survivors put together a gravesite for the friends from their game who didn't make it, they make sure there's a grave there for Kaito as well. Kaito, Shuichi and Maki visit it from time to time. It only seems right to do so.

The other Kaito, the one who died scared and alone, would have been happy to know that this’d be how it ended, Kaito reflects: to know that he still gets to live on, in a way, and keep being there for his sidekicks. That he didn't just die useless and forgotten. He's certain of it - because he's Kaito, too.

  [part 2 to this post - because I had another fun idea that branches off partway through this one - here!]

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #235: Havoc on the Homefront!

September, 1983

Welcome to the Wizard’s Mansion of Mechanized Mayhem!

This cover has got it going on!

Where “it” is “multiple things.”

Still, I love covers that are just like ‘here’s a couple things happening today’ and this is a great version of that concept with the things being viewing screens that the Wizard is looking at.

He’s watching the Avengers in various peril channel.

This is a good cover!

So last time: uh, a couple things. Wasp called Vision and Scarlet Witch in as reservists when Annihilus tried to blow up the universe with an invisible dome. The two basically contributed nothing but Vision was thrown into a robotic coma.

Wanda and Vision in a tube moved into the mansion while he recovers and Wanda recapped her entire backstory including new retcon that Magneto is totally her dad.

Then she had a Dr. Strange crossover. Since it also involved Monica, two Avengers makes it notable enough to synopsize in brief. And its titled Assault on Avengers Mansion! so its like its baiting me.

Dr. Strange astral projects to bother Wanda when she’s trying to get some grief reading in. He wants to find the Darkhold and she’s the last known possessor or vice versa because thats when she was possessed by Cththon and had to be saved with a care bear stare from the Avengers. But Dr. Strange really wants the Darkhold to stop Dracula from getting it. Yes, Dracula.

Since the Darkhold is being stored in a vault at Avengers Mansion after Beast brought it back from Wundagore, Dracula’s cult attacks and manages to break into the Mansion. Dr. Strange, Wanda, and Captain Marvel all fight off Dracula’s cult and then Dr. Strange trolls Dracula by teleporting the Darkhold somewhere else.

Also, Avengers Mansion got trashed in a break-in in Fantastic Four #257. Dammit. Whats with all the intertextuality in this era?

So that story there is: mostly a lot of Galactus eating the Skrull homeworld and fallout from aforementioned Annihilus story. Only the last two pages are relevant.

Mr. Fantastic shows up to Avengers Mansion to check on Vision, Wanda goes to make him tea, and then he’s teleported to a space trial leaving a giant melted hole in the mansion.

Honestly, I don’t know why FF got asterisked instead of the Dr. Strange issue. They both messed up the mansion but the Dracula cult was more of a break-in than someone leaving a giant hole in the wall. Although that’s more mysterious.

Anyway, with two different ‘read this also’s between issues that messed up the mansion, no wonder the opening splash has to be devoted to a repair crew patching things up.

Wasp is putting her size-shifting to good use to literally micro-manage. Zipping around at tiny size telling everyone how to do their job.

Captain America who is also supervising and impressing people with how buff he is gets annoyed and goes to tell her to stop but stops himself.

Captain America: No... No. She’s in charge here, and I have to let her handle things as best she can. Her methods do seem to bring results... They’re just not my methods, that’s all. Yeah...

And then he sulks off, ignoring Wasp when she asks what he’s muttering to himself.

Hm. The new leader honeymoon period is off, it seems. Cap was Wasp’s biggest supporter as chairperson and now he’s grumbling and second-guessing.

Dang.

I hope this isn’t snapback to Wasp not being leader because she’s flighty and silly. I hope we’re not just going to do that.

Cap wanders over to where Vision-inna-tube and Wanda are. Wanda is still glued to Vision’s side. And either Wanda can read minds or Cap says something between panels because we have Cap wondering in a thought bubble whether if Vision has shown any signs of improvement and then Wanda answering that he hasn’t shown improvement or worsened.

Cap(tain) America: “Well, don’t let yourself get too worried, Wanda. That husband of yours has been through worse scrapes than this. He’ll pull through!”

Scarlet Witch: “When you say it, Cap, I can really believe it!”

Inspirational Cap! Charisma rolls: Very.

Still, Wanda is sad because Vision is lying in a tube helpless and she can’t even touch him.

Cap wanders off again, without even saying goodbye (rude) while musing how much it sucks.

Cap: Blast it! Those kids were just starting to make a life for themselves, and this had to happen! Why was it that of all the Avengers who went up against the threat of Annihilus -- it had to be a couple of reservists who suffered most?

And then starts musing how weird it is that Scarlet Witch and Vision as reservists since they were active Avengers for so long!

Remember, Wanda joined the Avengers not very long after Cap did! Only a couple months in-universe! She was one of his Kooky Quartet!

Cap: At times I wondered if the Avengers would survive -- but somehow, through all the tumult and changes, the team not only survived -- it grew stronger! I pray it always will... with the menaces we so often face, we can’t afford to weaken. We’ve gone through so many changes lately. We’ve picked up two fine new Avengers in Captain Marvel and the She-Hulk, but we’ve lost Hank Pym... and now we’ve lost Iron Man, too. Even Thor has taken himself off the active roster to pursue a personal mission. I hope he won’t be gone too long.

Cap is clearly in some sort of dour Mood.

A dour and monologue-y mood.

And what’s Thor up to leaving the team roster OFF PANEL?

(Sigh)

Well, since the asterisk is telling me to see Thor #334... oh geez, Don Blake is under suspicion of killing Jane Foster. Thor, and Lady Sif take Keith Kincaid (the non-Thor love interest of Jane) on a trip to get the Runestaff (long story) and restore Jane Foster (long story).

Annoyingly, the Thor issue does show him telling the Avengers he’s going to be gone for a while and to take him off the active roster. And borrowing a Quinjet.

I think that it would have been nice to see at least a panel of that. Or something. I don’t want the book bloated with ‘see alsos’ but I’m confused why it put the most emphasis on the FF one when it was literally two pages where Reed manages to ruin the wall while getting kidnapped.

Whatever.

Anyyyyway.

Even though he thinks the new Avengers are good, Cap worries about having both Thor and Iron Man off the team.

Especially Iron Man.

He was their science/technical guy. And on the current team, the only one with any sort of science expertise is new trainee Starfox.

Who is busy making out and not being on time for his daily training session.

At least he remembers that he has a prior obligation.

And he’s only two minutes late. Or to put it another way, he’s a whole two minutes late. And Cap(tain America) is a notable stickler for punctuality.

Cap: “Punctuality may be an anachronism in this day and age -- and, for all I know, it may be unheard of on the planet Titan -- but in my day, it was something that was expected of people!”

Wow, Cap really pulled a ‘in my day.’

Frankly, I’m surprised he doesn’t pull that more often.

Starfox does seem contrite and apologizes for putting pleasure before business which sends Cap into an introspection about why he’s really being so harsh on Starfox.

Protip: It’s Tony. It’s almost always Tony.

Cap: Pleasure versus duty, that’s what it always comes down to. It was Tony Stark’s ‘pleasure’ which led him to giving up his Iron Man identity... leaving the Avengers. Some ‘pleasure’! He’s crawled so far into the bottle, he may never get back out. And there’s nothing I can do to pull him out... Nothing any of us can do, unless he lets us. That’s what’s really bothering me... isn’t it?

And he accepts the apology with a “just don’t let it happen again.”

You sound so old sometimes, Cap.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk is off on a jog through New York, listening to some Beach Boys’ California Girls.

An overeager driver scoots forward and cuts her off at the crosswalk and (I assume) in frustration, she punches the hood of the car.

And given it’s She-Hulk, she kinda punches a hole IN the hood. And probably engine.

The guy being either an idiot or incredibly unperceptive runs after She-Hulk to grab her arm and yell at her.

She does not care for that at all.

Like, why would you? She’s seven feet tall and green and just punched a hole in the hood of your car.

Luckily for the guy’s skeletal integrity, Spider-Man pops out of nowhere to be Friendly Neighborhood and mediate this conflict.

They both air their grievances.

She-Hulk: “This creep grabbed me!”

Creep: “Hey! She... she crunched the front of my car!”

She-Hulk: “That was you who cut me off in the crosswalk? You’re lucky I didn’t rip out your axle!”

Spider-Man: “Now, now! Let’s keep this friendly! Sounds like you’re in the wrong, chum! The lady had the light!”

Creep: “Lady?!? She’s no --!”

Spider-Man: “I wouldn’t say that if I were you! That’s the She-Hulk, dummy! Remember what she did to your car? Well, just imagine what she could do to you!”

Creep: “Oh yeah.”

And with the power of Spider-Man’s bomb-ass mediation, the guy realizes that he was in the wrong, apologizes, and leaves in a hurry.

(Her skeptical glare cracks me up for some reason)

Moral of the story: Don’t be a jerk. Stay behind the line when the little man is lit up.

After the guy takes off, She-Hulk praises(?) Spider-Man’s amazing mediation skills by saying he should have been a lawyer. And then they catch up.

She-Hulk is still having trouble adjusting to the East Coast lifestyle and lack of beaches so Spider-Man suggests checking out the Jersey Shore.

She-Hulk: “My big problem right now is housing. Avengers Mansion is nice, but I want a place of my own.”

Spider-Man: “It’s tough -- rents are pretty steep.”

She-Hulk: “The real trouble is finding a place I like. With the thousand a week I get as an Avenger, rent’s no big deal.”

Spider-Man: “I guess not, if you’re making a... a thousand A WEEK?!? I passed up a chance to become an Avengers, and they make $1000 a week?!? Oh, NO!!”

Ha ha, that ol’ Parker luck.

Maybe Thor should have mentioned the money when he tried to recruit Spidey.

Meanwhile, at a federal penitentiary in Vermont, a scene change.

Bentley Wittman, aka the Wizard, aka the Wingless Wizard, aka the adult man who thought the best use of his time was bullying a teenager, is being questioned about Plantman Sam Smithers’ escape from jail.

The Wizard claims that he knows nothing about Plantman’s escape and that he barely knows the guy anyway. They were airlifted from Ryker’s in the same helicopter and that’s it.

But a convenient x-ray tells a different story.

And that story is that “the Wizard” doesn’t have any skeleton bones.

... Were we really at the point in 1983 where we didn’t know about the dangers of overexposure to x-rays? They just causally scan both “the Wizard” and the guy questioning him?

Anyway, the ruse being rumbled, the fake Wizard rips the bars out of a window and jumps out to his death.

Or it would be death if he wasn’t just animate wood wearing a fake skin suit.

Kinda gross if you think about it.

Anyway, where is the real the Wizard?

Obviously, he escaped jail a while back. Not only is he a sinister criminal mastermind who has sinister masterminding to mastermind but also he was tired of the prison hair code. Because dammit, he wants to rock the goatee!

(Literally a comment he makes, calling the prison barbers butchers)

The Real Wizard gets a BLIP-BLIP-BLIP priority alert that informs him that the plant-him has been discovered which means that the authorities will be looking for him now.

Wizard: Now every law officer in the nation will be looking for me. Well, let them! They’ll not find me, unless they look here! And if they do look here, they’ll have a fight on their hands! The Wizard will not bolt and run like some common criminal! My home is my fortress! They’ll never get me out of it! Never!

Anyway, within an hour of the discovery of Plant-Wizard, a disgruntled agent of the national security council named Mr. Sirkorski receives a briefing.

Usually, this problem would be Gyrich’s problem but he’s busy somewhere else, probably making mutants miserable if I had to guess.

-checking- Yup, he’s over in the X-books, being involved in Project: Wideawake, the project that will later accidentally shoot Storm with a demutantifying gun that will take away her powers, leading her to kick Cyclop’s ass, leading to him leaving the team and feeling sad about being happily married.

Wow, Gyrich, you’re the worst.

Anyway, since the Wizard is tied to the presidential hostage crisis via Plantman, that makes it Serious Business.

Hence, Mr. Sikorski’s serious business.

And he hates it.

He hates this bonkers superhero universe. He just wants to live in a spy thriller universe without all this specific nonsense.

Mr. Sikorski: “Oh, great! Plant-Men... criminal scientists... prison breaks! Don’t they think I have enough to do, just keeping track of what the Russians are up to?”

Also Mr. Sikorksi, on the following page: “And it’s up to me to call in the appropriate parties. I feel a little weird doing this! It’s hard enough for me to believe there are such things as Avengers! I certainly never thought I’d be calling them for help!”

This guy is great. I hope he becomes a recurring and just continues to be low-key pissed about what genre he lives in.

SCENE CHANGE TO AVENGERS MANSION’s actually looking cooler than ever meeting room.

The table looks enormous and theres a giant viewscreen that they can display stuff on.

Only misstep in my opinion is that the seats don’t have personalized icons on the back.

On the big viewscreen map, Cap(tain America) is displaying for Captain Marvel known properties and hideouts that the Wizard has used in the past.

And then big boss the Wasp comes in with She-Hulk to start the meeting.

Since the government has requested that the Avengers help search for the Wizard, Captain Marvel suggests that she could zoom around and check off the whole list in no time flat by using her lightspeed.

Cap(tain America): “You probably could, C.M. -- that’s up to Jan to decide, of course. It would save us some time. After all, the Wizard could be in any of these places... or none of them!”

Wasp: “You think so? If I’d escaped from prison, I’d want to go home. But that’s just me, I suppose.”

Cool contribution, Jan.

I don’t mean to mock, its just she makes a goofy face.

(Hey, I wonder if her new costume was inspired by the FF’s negative zone’d ones. It’s kinda got a similar palette and rough design)

Anyway, Scarlet Witch asks whether she can be excused from superheroing for the day to keep an eye on the Vision.

Wasp: “Why, Wanda! I should say not! You agreed to fill in for Thor while he’s off in space, and I intend to hold you to that! I’m the chairwoman, and I’ll decide who goes where!”

In fact, since somebody does need to watch the Vision, Wasp chooses the most reasonable candidate.

Captain Marvel!

Who needs her to get the task done in five seconds! She can watch the coma-robot.

You make interesting decisions, Jan!

The remaining Avengers will split up into squads.

Captain America will take Scarlet Witch and She-Hulk to check the hideouts on the east of the map. Wasp and Starfox will check out the western ones.

She-Hulk: “You and Starfox, huh? That’s rich... the All Flirt Squad!”

Pfft.

Cap(tain America) isn’t feeling the humor and tells She-Hulk to save her jokes for when they don’t have a job to do.

Minutes later, the Avengers land a Quinjet on the front drive of the Wizard’s Long Island estate. He has one of those.

Cap: “Come on Avengers -- let’s get this over with!”

Good attitude, Cap.

Wanda notes that the grounds look neatly tended considering that the estate has been empty for the past several years but She-Hulk thinks a gardener was probably kept on retainer.

The Wizard was stupid rich.

When they get inside, Cap changes his tune. The place looks too tidy and ready for occupancy to be empty so maybe the Wizard is here.

So he pulls a ‘lets split up gang’ and splits up gang with each Avenger taking a wing.

Cap: “Oh, and She-Hulk, try not to break anything if you can help it. This is private property!”

Priorities!

Granted, She-Hulk is known to break things. Why just today she broke some dude’s car.

The Wizard is watching all of this on his home security system and springs individual traps on the individual Avengers.

She-Hulk finds herself in a series of identical small non-descript rooms, each more identical than the last.

So identical that its the same room, looping.

Wizard: “Through the circuity in that doorway, I’ve activated a dimensional matrix which will keep your walking back and forth ad infinitum through the same room!”

Except without seeing herself leaving which you’d think she’d be able to see.

It’s a smart way to trap a Hulk, provided they don’t run out of patience or get frustrated and smash something.

Meanwhile, Cap gets locked in a chamber where an anti-gravity field has been activated, leaving him flailing through the air.

Oh, and dozens of high-intensity laser torches pop out of the walls and start trying to carve up Cap.

Meanwhile, Scarlet Witch’s individualized trap is the most individualized of all.

Because She-Hulk’s and Cap’s could be used on any number of people really. But Wanda’s feels like it was created to counter Wanda. Pretty on the ball from the Wizard considering he doesn’t often fight the Witch.

When Wanda enters the room she suddenly starts spinning out of control, flies across the room, and lands in a chair.

Wizard: “Marvelous! I’ve ensnared the Scarlet Witch within something against which her astounding hex powers are useless. My field effect devices have generated a pocket of non-causality within that test chamber! Within the area, all actions have an equal chance of occurrence. Therein, all probabilities are skewed. She won’t be able to stand, much less cast a hex!”

Wow! That’s some high octane comic book nonsense science!

The point being that every time Wanda tries to do something, something random happens instead because its all equally likely. She tried to walk into a room and ended up standing on the roof. She tried to back out of the room, she started spinning. She tried to stop spinning and she flew into a chair.

Sure.

With the Avengers all trapped, the Wizard turns his attention to deciding how to dispose of them.

Except, as cleverly foreshadowed by my snide comments, She-Hulk’s trap is only as good as Jen’s patience.

Which is good forrrrrrr. Two dozens loops.

At that point, she’s sure some bullshit is up and scratches the wall with her nails to leave a tangible mark. When she sees the same mark in the ‘next room’ her suspicion is confirmed.

And now that she knows someone is jerking her around, she decides to ignore Cap’s suggestion to not break private property by breaking private property and rips the doorframe (and the dimensional matrix) to crap.

There’s a backup trap that drops slabs of six-inch omnium steel around her but yeah she’s a hulk and she’s not playing considerate anymore. She starts KRUNGing the walls with her fists.

Meanwhile, Cap uses physics to get out of his jam. He throws his mighty shield to break some lasers so action/reaction will propel him backwards and he can jump off the wall, grab his shield back, and uses one of the broken-off lasers against the others.

Also, meanwhile, Scarlet Witch tries to figure out her own, incredibly specific trap.

Scarlet Witch: This is like a nightmare! Whatever I try to do, something else happens. Just in making the attempt to call on my hex power, I wound up falling flat on my face! I can’t even... wiggle my fingers? I... I can! Oh, but only very close to the floor! Whatever is causing my actions to go awry must be weaker near the room’s outer surfaces! Then there’s HOPE -- !”

Wizard must have gone cheap on the pocket of non-causality projector for that room if it’s not completely covering the area. Sure, the area it doesn’t cover is relatively small but now what’s about to happen is going to happen.

So Wanda gets as low as she can go to the floor and uses her probability-altering powers.

This causes the non-causality field to reverse because why wouldn’t it? And causes feedback through the circuitry which causes the master control to shock the Wizard.

It also causes every logic circuit in the master control to overload and the whole dang thing explodes, Wizard barely flying out of the control room in time.

Right in She-Hulk’s path.

She’s not happy. He’s not going to like her not being happy.

She-Hulk: “After what I’ve been through, it’s gonna be a real pleasure to pound that helmet down around your ankles!”

Wizard nopes right out of her way and decides to abandon fortress.

Then Scarlet Witch probability alters his battlesuit flight controls to malfunction to halt his escape and make him crash to the-

...

I’m pretty sure his neck is broken now.

I mean, it’s apparently not because he keeps talking and moving and living but he look at that panel. Guy should be dead as movie Zod.

Y’know, if the Avengers are going to kill the Wizard, the FF should really get them back and kill one of their villains. I suggest Grim Reaper.

Anyway, surrounded by Avengers, Wizard pulls his trump card.

Wizard: “Your confidence is ill-founded, Captain America. There is one resource I can yet draw upon. There is a thermonuclear devise beneath my house -- powerful enough to destroy half of Long Island and make the remainder very unpleasant for a very long time. Much as I hate to see this place destroyed, I would press the button, so to speak.”

“You being such renowned public heroes, would hate that even more. But unless you allow me to go unharmed, I shall active the timing sequence of the bomb’s detonator.”

And Cap is like ‘do you mean this detonator’ and pulls out one he prepared earlier.

HAH!

You know, ironically, if he had just hidden in a safe room or on the roof or something, the Avengers probably would have came and went without noticing him. Springing traps on them really backfired in oh so many ways.

The threesome return to the mansion, presumably after turning Wizard over to the authorities, and Wasp comments that it sounds like they had a bit of excitement (Starfox grumbling to himself more excitement than he had searching the Bronx with the Wasp ha ha).

Cap(tain America): “You’ll be glad to know, Wasp, that your instincts were correct. The Wizard had indeed gone home. He gave us all a pretty good challenge... a welcome challenge, I dare say.”

Wasp: “Looks like I assigned the right people to search the right place, huh?”

Cap: “Yes, Ms. Chairwoman, I’d say you did!”

And elsenow, Wanda goes to the medical bay to check in on Vision and relieve Captain Marvel.

Scarlet Witch: “Can you hear me, darling? I hope you can. I was feeling awfully blue today... And I was given a duty that first seemed annoying, and later became dangerous. But I didn’t give up... I came back, and I won. I know that you can come back, too, darling! It’s just a matter of time... and hope.”

“It’s funny! I thought the Wasp was silly for sending me on that mission. But -- in a way --it was something I need. I think the others needed it, too!”

Captain Marvel: “Then that’s why she sent you, Wanda... because she knew what you needed! And that’s why she leads the Avengers!”

Secret friend mastermind Janet van Dyne sends you out for punch therapy when you need to punch something.

Reminds me of when Captain America picked a fight with Goliath Hank Pym to lift his spirits. Except with a lot less fighting her own friends and more pointing them in the right direction.

Something I love about this era of Avengers and with the big shift in Wasp after Hank’s court-martial is that while her character has changed she’s still recognizably and uniquely herself. She’s still a bit goofy. She’s still playful. And on top of that, she’s proven that she’s a good leader for the Avengers. It’s not mutually exclusive.

Cap (previously Wasp’s biggest supporter as leader) started this issue grumpy and even had his own ideas what the best tactic for searching for the Wizard would be, but by the end he agrees that Wasp made a good decision.

Despite playing the ditz for a long part of her career, Wasp isn’t dumb. And she’s got a good head for the interpersonal challenges of running a team too.

I’m reminded that during the much later Busiek run, when the Avengers need to expand and modernize to match up to expanding challenges, Captain America turns the leadership of the team over to the Wasp.

My point being, I was worried that there’d be snapback on Wasp being leader because she is flighty and silly. But instead, she can be flighty and silly and still a good leader.

I’m pleased with this take, Stern.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because there will probably be more Wasp being a good leader. Fingers crossed. Also, like and reblog this post maybe if you also like Wasp being a good leader.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

So on the Danganronpa subreddit, I usually see posts of people editing a character's sprite to mimic a different character's talent. Like, what if Ibuki was the Ultimate Gymnast, or what if Hajime was the Ultimate Detective. It got me thinking, just how much different would the games be if the talents were switched? So just for fun, I thought I'd write up some ideas on how the first game would differ in this scenario. The one rule here is that the story, twists, deaths, and character relationships remain the same, despite the talent changes. EDIT: Okay, mostly the same, obviously parts of the story have to be updated or changed in order to accommodate the talent changes.

The changes (Junko remains the Ultimate Despair though for story reasons):

Makoto Naegi is the Ultimate Affluent Progeny / Kyoko Kirigiri is the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader

Byakuya Togami is the Ultimate Soldier / Toko Fukawa is the Ultimate Lucky Student

Aoi Asahina is the Ultimate Moral Compass / Yasuhiro Hagakure is the Ultimate ??? (Detective)

Mukuro Ikusaba Junko Enoshima is the Ultimate Fanfic Creator and the Ultimate Programmer

Sakura Ogami is the Ultimate Gambler / Celestia Ludenberg is the Ultimate Pop Sensation

Hifumi Yamada is the Ultimate Clairvoyant / Kiyotaka Ishimaru is the Ultimate Fashionista

Mondo Owada is the Ultimate Baseball Star / Chihiro Fujisaki is the Ultimate Swimming Pro

Leon Kuwata is the Ultimate Martial Artist / Sayaka Maizono is the Ultimate Writing Prodigy

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Now the changes I thought of:

1) Makoto is still the wholesome, lovable boy we know him as but this time, his attitude on life has changed thanks to his wealthy lifestyle. He's "humble" for a rich man but it's clear he's not used to living among the "regular" people. Examples of this could be a scene where Makoto is surprised that the cafeteria menu isn't five-star quality, complaining that his shower only has one shower head when the Naegi mansion has five, and mentioning in passing that Komaru's favorite necklace is worth $100,000.

2) Junko says that she specifically messed with Yasuhiro's memory since he was the sole threat to her operation. In the final chapter, she mentions that she had to restart the game since Yasuhiro, with his memory as the Ultimate Detective still intact, managed to solve the mystery within the first few hours. So before she restarted the game, she screwed up Hiro's mind so that he became a bumbling idiot.

3) Kyoko's cold nature now comes from the fact that she's one of Japan's most notorious criminals. However, she secretly despises what she became as apparently, her father disowned her after he found out about her biker gang connections. She believes that her father was trying to protect his reputation as it would be a bad look on the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy if he had a criminal daughter.

4) Sayaka's childhood relationship with Makoto is changed to that her early writing career was supported by the Naegi family. Apparently, she came to the Naegis for help in publishing her novels, which is how she met Makoto.

5) Byakuya's dickish attitude is now more of a tough drill sergeant. He sees everyone around him as "weak" and wouldn't survive a day in the battlefield. (basically, Byakuya in this version is every tough soldier guy stereotype who thinks civilians are snowflakes that need protecting)

6) I'd like to imagine that Mukuro would be somewhat of a zany fangirl. Like, she still has her fun personality, but now it's directed to talking about her favorite fandoms and the latest story she wrote. Then, when we get to the "Mukuro Ikusaba, 16th student, watch out for her" section, we learn that she was actually the Ultimate Programmer. Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya then hypothesize that maybe Mukuro set up Hope's Peak Academy to trap them all in. It makes sense as only a master computer programmer could maintain control over the entire academy. - side note: Alter Ego is also changed to that of a mysterious program with no face. It wants to help the students escape but won't reveal its true face since it doesn't want to expose its "creator's" identity.

7) Okay, I admit, I made Mondo the baseball star intentionally. Just...imagine chapter 2 but instead of dumbbells, he used a baseball bat. But on a serious note, in this version, I imagined that the accident that led to Daiya Owada's death was that Mondo hit a ball right into a drainage ditch during a heavy storm. In a fit of stupidity, Mondo tried to retrieve the ball (the ball could be a heirloom to the Owada family) but got caught in a sudden rush of water. Daiya managed to pull him out but at the cost of his own life.

8) Celestia's arrogant behavior now comes from her being a "celebrity". She believes the entire class loves her music and that they worship her like her legions of adoring fans. Makoto also makes a side comment where he mentions that Celestia attracts people because she has the "alternate, lolita goth" thing going for her, even though her music fits with the typical J-pop scene. When it comes to her name, "Celestia Ludenberg" is her stage name and she refuses to go by her real name as she wants to be seen only for her pop sensation persona.

9) Toko's internal hatred is made even deeper in this version as she thinks she doesn't belong with the class. It's bad enough that she already hates herself, it's made worse since she knows that she doesn't have a special talent as she was just picked on random. However, the luck side also works to her advantage as it's explained that Toko somehow managed to avoid capture from the police even though she's an active serial killer.

10) I imagine that Hina as the Ultimate Moral Compass would be more of an "etiquette cheerleader". She's still fun and bubbly, but now she'll make you laugh while also telling you to eat your vegetables and clean up your room. But she still loves donuts and she fully believes that only a person pure of heart could've came up with the idea of donuts.

11) Not much changes with Sakura's character. She's still best friends with Hina and she still loves the class, enough to commit suicide. This time, she talks about her suicide as if she was making a huge gamble. In her mind, she believes that if she goes "all in" and bets her life away, that will lead to the remaining students banding together to stop Monokuma.

12) Hifumi Yamada is still a gross pervert, but instead of making fanfic/2D art/manga/anime jokes, he now makes clairvoyant jokes. Stuff like, "I see in my future...Ms. Maizono will be my girlfriend!" or "Mr. Naegi, if you keep doing good deeds, I foresee in your future that not only will you live a long, happy life, you will also marry both Ms. Kirigiri and Ms. Asahina!"

13) Kiyotaka is still a really forceful person but now he's all about people's fashion. Stuff like, "MAKOTO NAEGI, FOR AN AFFLUENT PERSON, YOU CERTAINLY DON'T DRESS THAT WAY!" or "MONDO, YOUR ATTITUDE IS AS BAD AS YOUR AWFUL OUTFIT!". Guess you can say he's the actual fashion police. But on a serious note, his backstory is changed to that of a successful male model who has inspired legions of men to always look their best. Something about how you should look your best in order to be at your best.

14) Chihiro is still scared of everything around him but takes comfort in the idea of swimming. He explains that swimming is the one thing he isn't afraid of in life and that by focusing all of his life on swimming, he reached Olympic levels of skill.

15) Leon Kuwata isn't really changed. However, now it's revealed that he managed to block Sayaka's attacks and throw Hiro's glass ball at the incinerator with his ultimate martial arts skills.