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yuri-is-online · 5 months

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ruggie to (unknowingly) his kid: imma flirt with your mom and potentially erase your existence, sorry not sorry

*cracks knuckles* nothing but the best for my favorite hyena.

notes: they/them used for Yuu, for context on the fyuuture kid au can be found here and here.

The entire Yutu situation gives Leona a headache. He sees the portal, takes a sniff, rolls his eyes, and goes looking for the only hyena he (or to be more accurate Yuu) knows. He doesn't outright say “congratulations you're a dad” because he doesn't know if that would be too much to believe but Ruggie takes the whole "time traveler related to Yuu" idea fairly well. I mean, Yuu’s from another world and Ruggie was pretty convinced that was impossible until . What bothers him is Leona's saying Yutu is a beastman. That can only really mean one thing, but Ruggie doesn't want to bug Leona for any more details because what if his first thought is wrong and all his hopes are crushed? I mean he never said that Yutu was Yuu's kid... just that they are related. Maybe it's an ancestry thing and he can just adjust the streams a bit?

Meanwhile Yutu is thrilled to see what a great partner to his parent his dad is. It makes him feel very warm and safe, something Yutu hasn't felt in a very long time.

Ruggie! Yutu is a bit oblivious to certain things. He tries to socialize with people, really he does but things always just sort of come out wrong and leave him upset, lonely, and embarrassed. He doesn't have Ruggie's charisma or ability to schmooze, but he does have his laugh. Something that endears him to Yuu which is all he really cares about at the end of the day. Hyenas tend to be more solitary and stick to their clans/family units, and while he might not have his ears and tail in your world he still has his instincts.

Yuu remembers Ruggie as someone who took care of them and took a great deal of pride in that. They tell him about how Yutu shares his laugh, and how they know in their soul he would have loved Yutu to bits. Ruggie has a voice line about how he used to make flower crowns for the neighborhood kids back home, and I can see him teaching Yuu how he made them when they were preparing for Yutu so they "could make some for the kid when they get here." Yuu might not remember that's why they know how to make the little crowns Yutu loves so much, but it makes them nostalgic to watch their little dandelion prince run around their backyard in his crown.

Dandelions are his favorite flower from how often Yuu uses them to make flower crowns, and he quite likes making wishes on them. When he was a child he used to bring them up to Yuu and insist on them making wishes too, he never told them but he was convinced that one day Yuu's memory loss and pain would go away if they just kept wishing on them. He still makes wishes on them sometimes, but he feels very silly about it now.

He likes being useful, especially to Yuu, and is surprisingly good at negotiating for someone who isn't as unflappable as his dad. People tend to think he comes off as a bit stupid, so they're very blindsided when he knows all his figures and what to charge for his work. He doesn't fully realize this which tends to annoy people, which he does pick up on but he's too stubborn to let that affect negotiations. He needs that money more than whoever is dunking on him.

What does he use that money for? Well he wants Yuu to use it on bills, but you keep saying no so he spends it on fabric and yarn. If he's going to spend so much time alone he might as well be able to clothe himself. And you always praised him when he made you something new. Like I said, he wants to be useful.

As described here upon being transported to Twisted Wonderland, Ruggie! Yutu found himself transformed into a hyena beastman. His hearing is overwhelmingly sensitive, Crewel has to speak to him in whispers for the first few weeks, and still finds himself doing it sometimes. Losing Yuu clearly struck a massive blow to Yutu's sense of self, and now Crewel has to tell him about what happened to his dad.

Yutu really likes the idea that the dead in Twisted Wonderland become stars. He starts stargazing to cope with missing his parents, even picking out where in the sky he thinks you and Ruggie are watching over him. It evolves into an interest in stargazing that he keeps up when he travels back in time.

Now Ruggie. Ruggie. When Yutu meets him he's surprised at how accurate Yuu's memories of him were. He loves showing off how good he would be at taking care of Yuu while providing them the room to take care of themselves too. Ruggie has so much respect for what Yuu can do without magic it makes Yutu a bit teary eyed, he had always worried about Yuu feeling alone in Twisted Wonderland since he knows first hand mages can be very judgemental so seeing one not like that-

"Well it's just nice to see." His father can't see it but his tail his wagging underneath his hoodie. For some reason, Ruggie doesn't seem proud of himself though, he's just staring at the ground long and hard like he's thinking about something.

"Are you sure you should be thanking me?" Yutu thinks that Ruggie sounds sad, and he's instantly worried that he's said something wrong somehow but has no idea what it could be or how to explain himself if he had.

"Um- is is there a reason I shouldn't?" Please don't make him guess that's his least favorite game and he always fails-

"Well I mean I'm flirting with your parent ain't I? That could potentially erase your existence." Ruggie is so serious about it that it shocks Yutu out of his spiral.

"Oh. I don't think that will be an issue."

Listen the instant Ruggie learns he can flirt with Yuu to his hearts content without causing timeline issues he gets three times as "insufferable" (Yutu thinks it's cute) with how direct he is to Yuu. He's still more reserved than some of the other boys, he wants you to make the first move, but he's happy that he wasn't misinterpreting your relationship up to this point. Really happy.

He is significantly LESS happy with what Yutu tells him about the future. Ruggie was raised by his grandma and while he loves her to death the last thing he ever wanted for his child was to A) have to struggle like he did and B) have to struggle alone. Don't get him wrong, he trusts Yuu to have given Yutu the best childhood possible given their circumstances but those circumstances never should have existed. It's literally the one thing he has been working for all this time and vowed never to accept failure for.

Very worried about Yutu's health now that he knows he's been a Hyena beastmen all this time under that hood. He uses his new found freedom to take up Yuu's time to keep them away from Ramshackle (until Yutu is ready to tell Yuu) so Yutu can have a bit more time to relax outside of his disguise. he's very impressed by Yutu's sewing skills and takes the time to teach him how to alter his clothes to be more friendly to his tail and ears.

From the bit of reading I did on Hyenas, and some of Ruggie's voice lines, bringing back food for the cubs is very important to them so Ruggie starts being very concerned about seeing Yutu eat enough. He won't even charge for it if he thinks his kid didn't get enough to eat, Rugginald is going to find that boy a sandwich if it's the last thing he does (but not really he's not going to die on Yutu again.)

Surprisingly, Ruggie is more than fine with Yutu's lack of charisma and social awkwardness. It takes all sorts of peoples to make the world go round and Yutu clearly has a good head for figures and a strong work ethic. He knows what his weakness are and he tries to make up for them, what else could a survival minded guy like Ruggie ask for? (One of those sweaters he made Yuu, a matching one preferably he wants to take holiday pictures he's heard rich people do that.)

Ruggie is another one who has no idea how to fix the future, but he's sure Leona will be willing to make it his problem if he learns just how much more work is waiting for him in the future if he doesn't stop things now. In the meantime he tries not to think about the death that could be awaiting him in favor of working to maintain what he has now, and that's you, your not cat, and your star gazing son from the future. Ruggie's never been one to take stock in the idea that a person can be poor in wealth but rich in friends, but damn if he doesn't feel like it every time Yutu asks him to show him something new.

#<3 asks #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #ruggie bucci x reader #ruggie bucchi x yuu #future kid au

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supersaiyanjedi14 · 8 months

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RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: THE RUSTED KNIGHT

“I’m sorry, I… I know I’m not okay. I- I’m not right, but… How am I supposed to be…? I’ve been alone… for SO… LONG! Here… On that bridge… I was the only one that could do it! I was the ONLY ONE! And I… And now I have to live with that forever… In here or back home…”

PHYSICAL

After falling into the Ever After during the Atlas exodus, Jaune Arc stumbled across a Clockwork Orange, an item that forcibly sent him back in time. Unable to return to the present, Jaune was forced to spend the subsequent years braving the dangers of the Ever After as he awaited Team RWBY to finally join him, eventually taking up the alias of the Rusted Knight, a supposedly fantastical character of the fairy tale The Girl Who Fell Through the World. By the time he finally reunited with his friends, Jaune had spent anywhere from ten to twenty years in the Ever After, placing him in his early-to-late thirties during the events of Volume 9. While ostensibly still in his physical prime, Jaune’s aging was far from graceful, his blonde hair and beard streaked with gray and his weathered features betraying the trials of his tenure. His mental strain was even more pronounced, his failure to revive Penny Polendina driving him into an obsessive preoccupation with protecting those around him, latching on to keeping the Paper Pleasers intact despite their frequent attempts at Ascension.

Despite his premature aging, Jaune still retained his athletic viability as the Rusted Knight, continuing to demonstrate his exceptional strength and agility. His physical might was sufficient to overpower Jabberwalkers on a fairly regular basis and even stagger the Curious Cat with physical combat after the creature possessed the body of Neopolitan. While still disinclined to employ acrobatics, Rusted Jaune was quick on his feet, covering ground with running charges and employing balanced footwork and evasions to keep his target in his crosshairs. Furthermore, he grew into an exceptional equestrian and mounted warrior, expertly working alongside his jackalope mount Juniper on multiple occasions. Though he failed to catch the Curious Cat before it could possess Neo’s body and was later overpowered by the Furious Cat, this is no sign of weakness in either area given the Afteran’s overwhelming physical might. Where Jaune's athletic performance differed the most was in his dexterity and reflexes, something he was forced to develop in response to his damaged weapon and no doubt honed by his experience in the Ever After. With a much shorter blade than he was used to, Jaune was forced to rely more on technique and precision when fighting than brute force, targeting the weakest link and striking accurately.

Regarding Jaune's physical tolerances, he remained an extremely capable endurance fighter, focusing through hits and continuing to fight afterwards. During the battle with the Curious Cat, Jaune soaked up several major hits from the Cat and was later accidentally hurled from the arena by Weiss, yet he was only minorly disabled by this, regaining his feet and continuing to provide tactical support for Weiss, Blake and Yang. It was only after the Cat transformed into the Furious Cat, it’s exceptionally more powerful form, and struck Jaune square in the chest that his Aura broke and he was out of the fight. During his time as the Rusted Knight, he was noted for multiple harrowing adventures that tested his mettle, and he was even able to survive being poisoned by Alyx despite having little in the way of medical attention. However, Jaune's stamina was surprisingly cut short in his elder state. While he did not burn out immediately, he was still subdued at the Tree far quicker than his allies, his Aura breaking before any of theirs had even flickered. Far more detrimental was Jaune’s mental fortitude. While his will to persevere and fight remained indominable, his previous failures left him with an obsession with protecting his charges, leaving him anxious and prone to angered outbursts. However, despite his limited composure, the Rusted Knight retained his dogged determination even when under duress, and pushing him to the point of no return would be an uphill battle for anyone.

Despite the severe state of disrepair it had fallen into, Jaune’s armor remained strong and effective, and had in fact been further supplemented with additional plating. The cuirass was upgraded to provide greater coverage over his abdomen, while his pauldrons were replaced with a heavier set, though the gauntlets remained unchanged. He added to this with a full helmet, greaves, tassets, and a codpiece, under which he wore a gambeson and beige trousers.

RANKING: Tier 2, Peak Human Fitness

Despite his less than graceful aging and deteriorating mental health, the Rusted Knight has not actually underperformed significantly in the realm of physical ability, and he still solidly qualifies for Peak Human Fitness. He is a battle-hardened endurance fighter who leverages his strongest attributes for maximum effect, supplementing his grounded stalwart posture with solid mobility and top-notch equipment. In fact, I'd argue that Jaune’s upgraded armor serves as a solid compromise for his undercut stamina and discipline by bolstering his native durability. The Rusted Knight may be at greater risk of breaking than he once was, but the only way to put him down would be to shatter him completely.

MARTIAL

As the Rusted Knight, Jaune Arc continued to carry Crocea Mors as his primary weapon, but time and damage had taken a significant toll on it. The blade of the sword was snapped in half as a result of his confrontation with Cinder Fall, reducing its length to barely over a foot. Far more noticeable was the severe degree of rust and wear on the blade and shield, with numerous pits and scratches had made their way into the metal. However, despite this long-term damage, the weapon set retained its combative reliability, as the sword remained sharp enough to dispatch Jaune’s opponents, while the mechanisms allowing the shield to convert into Jaune’s scabbard remained unaffected. Overall, looks are deceiving, and Crocea Mors remains a lethal killing tool.

When analyzing the Rusted Knight’s capabilities as a martial artist, it is important to note both the substantial degree of development he attained and the significant trade off in his skill configuration. Due to being thrust back in time, Jaune was forced to spend anywhere from ten to twenty years contending with the dangers of the Ever After, a grinding trial by fire that went a long way towards compensating for his most significant weakness prior to Volume 9, his inexperience and lack of development. While the reliability and details of Lewis’s recounts of Jaune in The Girl Who Fell Through the World has not been established, even a conservative assessment would place the Rusted Knight as comparable to many of the most experienced and skilled Huntsmen on Remnant. However, between his damaged weapon and limited resources, Jaune was forced to heavily reconfigure his fighting style to compensate, resulting in a similar but very different combatant compared to what he was beforehand. Fortunately, the aforementioned decades of isolation gave Jaune plenty of time to refine his new style with his limitations in mind, and his developed skill upon reuniting with Team RWBY was, at bare minimum, comparable to theirs. Despite the handicaps imposed on him by his weapon, Jaune’s technique remained similar in its core ingredients; a grounded defense-and-counter oriented fighter who leverages physical ability through simple and direct swordplay. He retained a stalwart grounded posture in his footwork, eschewing acrobatics for sidesteps and evasions. Where the differences presented itself were in the defense/offense balance. Rusted Jaune displayed a much stronger offensive component in his style, alternating between shield blocks and sword strikes far more actively. To compensate for his shorter blade, Jaune adjusted his swordplay to perform swifter and tighter slashes and stabs, getting in close before laying into the target. The most significant additions to Jaune’s skill set were his expanded use of his weapons, his integration of hand-to-hand combat techniques, and his proficiency as a mounted warrior. He swapped techniques for his sword and shield, warding parries for the former and shield bashes with the latter, using the weapon set to mor effectively maintain offensive pressure while maintaining defensive coverage. Though still not a committed unarmed fighter, Jaune was more than willing to throw hands in battle, staggering the Curious Cat with sweeping kicks and headbutts. His strong bond with Juniper allowed him to coordinate and utilize her for multiple combative purposes, from tackling targets to serving as a cushion to safeguard her master.

While Jaune’s deteriorating mental health made him an anxious wreck in the grand scheme of things, they did nothing to diminish his capabilities as a tactician and strategist. He continued to demonstrate his strong aptitude for tactical analysis and coordinating with his allies, adjusting his approach to suit the opponent and exploit circumstantial factors. When confronting the various Jabberwalkers summoned by Neopolitan, Jaune focused on repelling the creatures and warding off their advance before turning around to counter. Against the Curious Cat at the Tree, Jaune quickly deduced the hallucinogenic effects of its leaves and ordered Weiss, Blake and Yang to set fire to them, forcibly expelling the Cat from Neo’s body. In single combat, Jaune applied these same tactics to endure the opponent’s assault before retaliating, seizing the initiative rather than passively responding. However, where Jaune previously relied on the integration of his Dust gadgets to break the opponent’s advance, he now opted for abrupt alternation between offensive and defensive movements, pressuring the opponent while still maintaining coverage. He will break off to defend if need be, but he will not stop advancing. What Vomit Boy achieved through leaning on alternative equipment, the Rusted Knight achieved through tested and developed technique.

However, while Jaune’s new approach was more developed overall, it also came at the expense of the versatility he displayed in his youth. With his damaged weapon and limited-to-unapplicable alternative tools, Jaune’s style and tactics were ultimately centered around leveraging his core technique for maximum effect. Jaune’s style may have been flexible, but it was also very singular and direct; what you see is what you get. Additionally, Jaune’s emotional instability manifested itself most profoundly in a resurgence of his youthful recklessness. Disturbed by his failure to save Penny during the exodus, Jaune became obsessed with protecting his chosen charges from everything around them, including themselves. Aside from patronizing the Paper Pleasers, this mentality led to Jaune overexerting himself and biting off more than he could chew, his refusal to stop advancing stemming from a pathological unwillingness to give up. Where Jaune’s Beacon humbling motivated him to pace himself and fight smart, his Atlas failures compelled him to run himself ragged in a misguided effort to keep fighting. As seen in the Cat’s Penny and Pyrrha illusions, this failure to take a more measured approach fed into a weakness to more subversive tricks and distractions, ironically making him vulnerable to the very tactics he once employed himself.

RANKING: Tier 3: Standard Mastery

While Jaune’s failures as the Rusted Knight seem to point to a middling level of effectiveness, his improvements and experience still more than qualify him for a Tier 3 ranking. He is a gritty, battle-hardened warrior whose style had been developed and honed into a far more complete package than he once employed, and he remains a highly capable tactical thinker when he puts his mind to it. Jaune’s problem, like many Standard Masters, is that he has fallen into the trap of going through the motions, basically doing the same thing again and again in every battle when dropped in cold. To be fair to Jaune, this is more the result of a limited arsenal and lack of comparable enemies rather than damaging oversights. The baseline reliability of his style and approach cannot be denied; he simply hasn’t meshed it with the versatility he used to have. Regardless, the fact that he came closer to killing the Curious Cat than anyone else tells me that his fabled reputation is very well-earned.

SPECIAL

And now for the part of this analysis that I’ve been dreading, that being the assessment of the Rusted Knight’s special abilities and powers. This is the area where Jaune’s development is most unclear simply because, aside from a few uses of his gravity Dust, we never really saw him do anything in Volume 9. He never explicitly used Aura Amp on screen, and the times he used his Dust could be counted on the fingers of one hand. This is especially odd given Jaune’s ready use of his abilities prior to falling into the Ever After, especially in conjunction with his martial skills. However, I do believe that both discrepancies can be reasonably inferred given context. Firstly, it must be remembered that Jaune’s last recorded attempt to use his Semblance was on Penny Polendina, whose injuries he was utterly incapable of healing. Given his failure to save Penny was arguably the single strongest contributor to his psychological breakdown in his isolation, it follows that his confidence in his abilities was shattered, and he unconsciously avoided using his powers due to the weight of that failure. While I don’t believe Jaune’s proficiency with his Semblance truly atrophied, I also don’t believe he developed his powers beyond what he could do in the Atlas saga. As far as his Dust is concerned, I see his limited use being identical to the limitations of his sword, that being logistical shortages. There is no evidence that Dust exists in the Ever After, much less the incredibly rare synthetic hard-light variety that powered his shield panels. With nothing to replenish his stores should his shield get damaged, it’s plausible that Jaune refrained from using his Dust unless he absolutely had to, conserving a non-renewable resource and otherwise relying on physical combat.

However, this isn’t to say that Rusted Knight Jaune has no ethereal talents to speak of. He did in fact continue to utilize his gravity Dust repulsor in combat, and like his martial skills, his fluidity with it had clearly improved with practice. Previously, Jaune would simply use the pressure wave from a static position, allowing the shield to do most of the heavy lifting. Now, Jaune demonstrated a far more active defense, combining the gravity waves with sweeping shield bashes. Though never outright stated, I believe this technique allowed Jaune to slightly enhance the overall power of the repulsor’s push, getting more bang for his buck. Additionally, Jaune continued to demonstrate his talent for combining his powers and skills together with one another. Aside from the basic offensive applications, Jaune also showcased an ability to use his Dust to drive his other weapons, seen when he bounced his sword off the shield to turn it into a projectile against Neo’s clone Jabberwalkers. These new applications further showcased Jaune compensating for his limited arsenal with greater skill and refinement, sacrificing output in favor of control.

Now, normally I like to stay with concrete information rather than headcanons, but I do believe there may be evidence that Jaune did in fact use his Semblance at specific points in Volume 9, and both of my theoretical examples do speak to him still displaying great skill and power. Hear me out;

During his early travels with Alyx, Lewis and the Curious Cat, the Cat poisoned Jaune in order to get him off his back and sow distrust between him and the children. While Jaune’s physical fortitude certainly played a role in his survival, the Curious Cat is not a figure that comes across as leaving a job half-finished. Given that Aura Amp’s most obvious application was accelerating Aura’s healing properties, it is entirely possible that Jaune’s survival owed itself in part to using his Semblance to help purge the toxin from his body. Later, during the battle at the Tree, Jaune was confronted with a vision of Alyx after being blasted from the arena. While this episode was mostly a mental battle forcing Jaune to confront his demons, the flash of light that immediately preceded Jaune breaking out of the vision could have very well been Jaune using Aura Amp to dispel the effects of the smoke. Assuming I’m right, then this could arguably make Jaune’s use of his Semblance even more potent than before, as dispelling drugs and poisons is easily an incredibly useful talent to have that goes well beyond fixing broken bones.

RANKING: Tier 3: Specialized Combat

Even if my supposition is 100% on the money, it does not significantly change the Rusted Knight’s standing as an ethereal fighter, given his hypothetical applications are so few, far between, and limited to utility. That said, Jaune’s use of his gravity Dust more than makes up for it. His applications are not only just as calculated and powerful as they used to be, they are also far more technically sophisticated and pair up much better with his fighting skills. His only real limitation, as in other areas, is that he lacks versatility, and his more skillful use of his power still mostly amounts to a directly offensive ability that can only do so much. Jaune may lack the variety he used to have, but the far greater skill he has with the powers he still has firmly establishes him as a force to be reckoned with.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTSMAN

As in his youth, Rusted Knight Jaune Arc’s overall ranking is determined by his martial skills and special abilities, showcasing both his high improvement and the limitations he still suffers from. In all areas, Jaune is performing on a very high level, but his methodology is centered on direct application rather than the balanced versatility he used to showcase. In many ways, I consider Jaune’s most direct analogue in this state to be James Ironwood. Both are aging heavyweights who leverage their strength and fortitude for maximum effect, both are grounded heavy-handed fighters who focus on maintaining a heavy stalwart advance, and both leverage their special abilities and powers as direct supplements to their offensive advance. They are powerful battlefield operatives who make full use of all the tools in their arsenals, but their approach is based on the direct application of power, not tactical considerations. By operating as a one-man crusader in the Ever After, Jaune got so good at what he was doing that he simply couldn’t loose, leaving holes in his skill set and tactics unaddressed because they simply never came up.

Jaune’s greatest strength and weakness as the Rusted Knight is that his previously broad skill set has been significantly reduced, forcing him to throw all of his eggs into one basket to compensate. The result is a tradeoff. On the one hand, his fighting method is blessed with a substantially greater degree of developed skill by way of his combat experience, and he effectively blends them together into a singular, high-performance technique. But on the other hand, this also means that he no longer has the versatility he used to have, relying on a singular method rather than balancing out between his options. He is skilled and powerful enough to capably overcome the vast majority of challengers, but it also means he could get into trouble very quickly if confronted by someone his style is poorly suited to engage.

As with most things, this ties directly into Jaune’s mental state as the Rusted Knight. Between his traumatic experiences, forced isolation, and fixation on preventing the same failure all over again, Jaune simply fell into the motions and got into the habit of doing the same thing over and over again. This may have been an okay coping mechanism at first, but there is a stark difference between dedication and obsession. He never really diversified because, not only did he never really need to, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so since he was convinced that he was doing the only right thing he could. Fortunately, unlike Ironwood, Jaune’s self-destructive stubbornness was the result of improper healing rather than arrogance, and he was the first to admit that he wasn’t in the right headspace to be the hero he was trying to be. As with the rest of his life, Jaune’s friends were there to pick him up, setting him on the path to properly heal. Whatever Jaune’s status as a warrior may be upon his return to Remnant, he will at the very least be on the fast track to achieving a healthier self-actualization, and finally move on from his trauma. The Rusted Knight may not have been the hero, but Jaune Arc still may be.

* images taken from RWBY Wiki and @talia-pumpkinwand*

#rwby #rwby combat analysis #jaune arc #rwby jaune #rusted knight #ever after #team jnpr #peak human fitness #standard mastery #specialized combat

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howtofightwrite · 10 months

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How effective is clapping (boxing?) someone's ears in a fight? Like on a scale from like mild annoyance to taking someone out of a fight entirely. Something about it always seemed childish but I swear I've read something about the pressure change really messing up your eardrum and inner ear.

Boxing the ears works very well.

Your sense of balance is regulated by a fluid filled organ in your inner ear. Sensory hair cells track the way the fluid moves, or more accurately, fails to move, when your head and body move around. This is the fundamental, physiological basis, for your ability to tell up from down.

Unsurprisingly, when you get that fluid moving and doing things it's not supposed to, your body's ability to maintain your balance starts to experience some “difficulties.”

The inner ear works off some fairly reasonable expectations for how things will behave. Unfortunately, when those expectations are no longer true, for example if someone just delivered a shock of air pressure down both ear canals, it becomes surprisingly difficult to override that information.

So, when you box someone's ears, you can temporarily disrupt someone's balance, and if executed correctly, it can even cause them to crumple to the floor. Now it doesn't actually incapacitate them, and you can power through your inner ear getting slightly stirred from a hit (though, it's not going to be a fun experience. Especially if your body stumbles across the idea that your balance issues are from a poison you consumed, in which case expect to throw up. Though, if you have the ability to weaponize that, being able to literally throw up into your opponent's face is one way to offer a very clear opinion on getting your ears boxed.)

However, that's the shallow end. Boxing the ears can, as you mentioned, cause an ear drum to pop. This isn't quite as simple as it might first seem, as there are a lot of ways this blow can cause temporary or permanent damage to the ear and your ability to hear, ranging from the membrane itself being perforated (though, that's more likely if there's a sharpened object getting driven into their ear, or “ossicular dislocation,” where the bones you rely on to make the ear drum work become separated (and fixing this will require surgery.) However, it can get muchworse if enough force is applied.

There are a lot of delicate bits of bone in this part of the skull (including the malleus, incus, and stapes mentioned in the previous paragraph.) A lot of these are part of the temporal bone as a whole, but breaking parts of that can have some really unpleasant side effects including, and I'm not exaggerating (much), your brain leaking from your ear or sinuses. (Though, it's far more common that this leakage is cerebrospinal fluid, rather than the brain itself which is usually non-life threatening, and those injuries dotend to heal on their own, but in rare cases surgery is necessary to deal with CSF leakage.) Which is to say, it can get reallybad.

So, in a word, “yeah.” Boxing the ears works. A fairly light tap to both at the same times can completely scramble someone's sense of balance for a few minutes, and if you can land the hits, it is a valid way to create an opening for a hasty exit. The more catastrophic outcomes are extremely unlikely unless you're driving a lot more force into their skull, or get supremely unlucky.

Now, “supremely unlucky,” can still happen, and you are battering someone's skull, so boxing their ears isn't exactly, “safe,” but as intentional strikes to the head go, it's one of the less dangerous options. Then again, it's also not trying to do much to your foe.

-Starke

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#writing reference #writing tips #writing advice #how to fight write #starke answers #starke is not a real doctor

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bestworstcase · 2 months

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Your post re: Salem's attitudes towards magic got me thinking about "Why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans, when we can replace them with what they could never be?" from Lost Fable again. I'm finding it a little difficult to blame people for believing she thinks the current crop of humans are just inferior when the only subject on offer in that sentence is "these humans." Of course when you stop to think for two seconds why Salem says or does anything she does it makes total sense that her hangup is with the gods, but that just makes me wonder even more why write the script like that? How unreliable is the direct dialogue in Jinn's vision supposed to be taken vs. her narration? (The simplest read of that episode seems to be of course the narration is biased per the question asked, but otherwise it's a frame narrative for the flashbacks which may or may not be more objective portrayals of events. The fact that the characters are also physically witnessing these scenes means they can't be 100% objective I think, but still leaves open the question of what's skewed and by how much.)

Unreliable or not, it's just a surprisingly absolute statement to put in her mouth considering how often we're invited to question her motivations everywhere else.

i do take the dialogue in the lost fable to be accurate to what the characters said, perhaps with some smudginess if what we’re seeing is ozpin’s memories exactly – in which case the dialogue in scenes he wasn’t present for is suspect because it’s what he imagines was said based on what salem told him, and the rest is probably closely accurate paraphrase because no one could be expected to remember the exact wording of conversations from several thousand years ago! but even then i would expect the parts he was there for to be reliable enough.

so much rides on the lost fable and specifically this one line that it would be beyond cheap for the resolution to be “she didn’t say that at all, actually.”

the first time i watched the lost fable, i did intuitively interpret that line as salem alluding to the gods – so i think there’s probably some degree of her statement reading as ambiguous or not ambiguous depending upon how one habitually uses the word “redeem.” specifically: how precise one is about the verb requiring an indirect object.

to ‘redeem’ something means to take some action to settle a debt, or redress a wrongdoing, which—inherently—implies the presence of a creditor or wronged party. in some contexts, the implied creditor is only an abstraction (think “the city’s robust public transportation is its only redeeming quality”—redemption is used here in a figurative sense to mean that the one making the statement dislikes everything but the city’s transit system); and in casual speech it’s fairly common to leave off the indirect object if it isn’t necessary to identify the wronged party (think the common phrasing of “so-and-so redeems themself”).

but while it isn’t incorrect to drop the indirect object, necessarily, there always is an indirect object; it isn’t possible to redeem a debt or a wrong that doesn’t exist, nor to have a debt without a creditor or a wrong without someone wronged. (as an aside, this is why redemption arc discourse tends to always be arguments about forgiveness—redemption does, inherently, definitionally, necessitate forgiveness—and this is also why i’m pedantic about differentiating ‘redemption arc’ vs ‘atonement arc’ vs ‘villain-to-hero arc’ and dislike the popular usage of redemption arc as an umbrella term.)

anyway, in simpler terms: when salem says “redeem these humans,” the apparent meaning of the next clause depends on whether or not one is predisposed to hear that phrase as a clipping and mentally append the implied indirect object, which makes her complete statement “why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans [from my sin in the eyes of the gods] when we could replace them with what they could never be?”

<- and then the question becomes, which “them” is she referring to? “these humans” or the gods who will judge whether redemption has been earned? her elision of the gods is entirely within the realm of common vernacular, and salem is a character who regularly circumlocutes (and earlier in the lost fable itself we have ozma’s quizzical “what are you saying?” signaling that salem’s speech is cryptic or confusing – because ozma doesn’t understand her; this is an intended trait versus the writers fumbling), and she says this in a moment of emotional distress (which she mostly bottles up, but while ozma is explaining all of this to her she’s leaning on the desk with her arms folded, listening intently – this is the same posture she has when she’s huddled in the shadows making herself miserable with conjurations of her children in 8.4).

so there’s quite a bit of weight here on the side of, “salem just discovered that her partner has been manipulating her into serving the gods she abhors throughout their entire relationship, she’s deeply shaken, she isn’t awesome at clearly articulating her thoughts in general; is it really surprising that she might misspeak to the tune of saying ‘them’ in reference to an (elided but necessarily implied) antecedent of ‘the gods’”

it (clearly) isn’t going to occur to most viewers as an obvious interpretation of the line, but i think it’s well within the bounds of what is reasonable for the narrative to later reveal that salem really meant this, particularly given how deliberate and how clear the storytelling themes are. definitely a risk, because some section of the audience is undoubtedly going to feel lied to and cry retcon, but rwby takes creative risks all the time.

and then there’s the ‘fairyales of remnant’ piece of it – the anthology is very much in dialogue with the lost fable across the board (on this see also ‘the two brothers’ presaging the thematic treatment of the brothers in v9, and ozpin’s paired commentaries on ‘the infinite man’ + ‘the girl in the tower’ being discussions of truth, propaganda, and forgiveness). so why does ‘the shallow sea’ begin like this:

Long ago, before the fish had scales, before the birds had feathers, and before the turtles had shells, when our god still walked and crawled and slithered the earth, there were only Humans and animals. (And Grimm. There have always been Grimm. There will always be Grimm. But those creatures don’t figure in this story, so just put them out of your mind, if you can.)

and end like this, after a story about the god of animals leading their chosen people to transform by submersion in magical waters, to the horror of those humans who refuse to change:

From that moment on, there have been animals, Humans, and Faunus. And the descendants of the Humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. To this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.

humans and animals (and grimm) -> animals and humans and faunus, and the last line – the mythic explanation for human hatred of faunus – is a nearly direct repetition of the last thing salem says in the lost fable?

now obviously not everyone can be expected to read ancillary material like the fairytale anthology, and that’s why the shell game with the implied indirect object matters; but it is interesting that ‘the shallow sea’ is stated to be a very old oral tradition (one which “contains deep truths,” no less) and that it repeats that line in a context that is quite plainly not about genocide – but rather cultural pride in the face of intense, often violent, persecution.

this story also 1. explicitly belongs to a closed tradition, and 2. is (obviously) one ozma knows despite there being no indication that he’s ever reincarnated as a faunus. which – together with the story’s age – adds up to at least the implication that it is possible he heard this story from salem, because the reasons she might be conversant in ancient faunus oral traditions are. well. obvious.

…and if that’s so, then ‘the shallow sea’ as written in the fairytale anthology completely recontextualizes salem’s last statement in the lost fable as salem quoting from a faunus creation myth both she and ozma knew in order to express her rejection of the brothers’ mandate, which would 1. neatly explain why ozma seems to have understood exactly what she meant even though none of the lost fable witnesses picked up on it, and 2. provide an elegant and very simple opportunity to ease the general audience into this revelation by having a character in vacuo retell this myth, using that same closing line. you don’t even need to mention salem directly – the turn of phrase is memorable enough that a lot of viewers will go “…why does that sound eerily familiar” and that plants a seed for later. (or if you’re going for more of a sudden record scratch moment, salem is the one declaiming.)

from a character standpoint, it also makes a lot of sense for salem to respond to ozma in this way – his liking for stories is, one presumes, not a new thing that developed after the ozlem kingdom’s collapsed, and he also clearly isn’t just cynically using fairytales to deceive and manipulate – else he wouldn’t have apologized to the kids by referencing ‘the girl who fell through the world’ and comparing himself to alyx. stories are just important to him and part of how he communicates.

so if salem heard everything his god told him and then said “no, none of that matters, why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could [paraphrases the conclusion of a story where the hateful envious people who refuse to change are simply sent home and not allowed to live in the harsh but free new world with the people who chose to embrace change]” – she made an effort to say what she meant in his language, and what she meant was either 1. figuratively associating the brothers with the envious humans who were sent home and “these humans” with the faunus who were now free to determine their own fates, or 2. “okay yeah these humans aren’t great, have you considered more faunus as a solution” (<- this would be extremely funny if it turns out the shallow sea is a more literal story than i think it is, but i think it’s much less likely).

more broadly, to the question of why the line is written that way – i can only speculate based on what i would be thinking in the writer’s shoes, and the overall structure of the narrative around salem – but i imagine the absoluteness is sort of the point. it’s meant to be a really shocking and frightening thing to hear coming out of her mouth, while also being, if you pause to think very precisely about what she said, quite plausible as a verbal stumble – the alternative antecedent of “the gods” for “them” is implied and eliding the indirect object of “redeem” is common vernacular – and then there’s this other possibility hinted in an ancillary text that she might have actually been quoting a story as a verbal shorthand both she and ozma understood.

there’s a narrative expectation that the viewer will be right there with the kids making the same snap judgment about what salem meant – because i think the kids all absolutely did take this at face value as a statement of genocidal intent. the story itself is structured like a nesting doll such that each new revelation appears at a glance to be the whole story, but isn’t and in fact has large gaps and details that don’t add up which become glaringly obvious as soon as you reach the next layer and look back, but if you’re paying careful attention as you go it’s also quite possible to piece together the missing pieces.

delivering information this way trains the audience (…mostly) to expect that the information we’re given is incomplete and maybe not wholly accurate. the advantage here is that even if the vast majority of the audience is completely blindsided by a specific reveal, for most viewers that’s going to feel really exciting – this happened in v9 with the lore reveals about the brothers, massive overnight reversal in the mainstream fandom views of darkness with the general mood being that it was cool – as opposed to feeling tricked or lied to by a “retcon.”

and that builds up a certain kind of trust, that the story is a puzzle but it isn’t going to cheat. it’s also a bit of a challenge or an invitation for the audience to try to figure out what’s coming, like a mystery.

with salem, i’d bet that one line in the lost fable is supposed to seem weirder and weirder the more you think about it, because… why doesn’t it track with anything she says before that point in the lost fable? why does the story begin with salem waxing poetic about humanity’s virtues? why does the narrative make such a big deal out of nobody knowing what salem wants AFTER the main characters witnessed a seemingly open-and-shut declaration of her “true” intention?

at the same time, the amount of explanation required to argue for an alternate interpretation – even if it’s really not complex or a reach – compared to the ease of just taking the statement exactly at face value, in and of itself is both a misdirection (most of the audience will take the path of least resistance, and hopefully enjoy the journey the story takes them on while leading them to the eventual right answer) and sort of the thesis with respect to the storytelling themes. salem thinks coolsville sucks!

but i am also very willing to consider (because of my own intuitive reaction to the line) that the writers perhaps did not mean for it to seem quite as unambiguous as the general audience and most of the fandom ended up taking it, because if you’re spending a lot of time immersed in a specifically theological context regarding redemption (which the writers probably would’ve been, given the importance of the religious narrative in the lost fable and in relation to this line in particular) – and if you’re also in the habit of being very precise and careful about how you phrase things (which is true of how rwby is written in general) – and if you’re writing what might be the most critical episode in a complicated puzzle box story, whose fulcrum is a red herring that is also meant to provide a clue to anyone who thinks to look at it more closely and with an open mind — then yeah i can see a scenario where the writers may have felt that the specific wording of salem’s statement was more ambiguous than it actually is. in which case the echo in ‘the shallow sea’ might have been a bit of an effort to correct course by giving the subset of fans invested enough to read the fairytales (<- the cohort most likely to be keen to unravel the puzzle) an additional hint. who knows.

#thinking about it as a writer i think #salem quoting the myth is the most likely answer just because #that’s the simplest way to do the reveal – you just need a reason for some character #to retell the myth and that’s EASY #and then you can build from there #and it also recontextualizes not just the line itself but also The Relationship #from the face value biased narrative of ‘salem manipulated ozma for her own sinister ends’#to ‘salem fluently spoke his allusive legends-and-fairytales language and she really did love him’#and ‘ozma and salem understood what she meant perfectly well. because they’d been married for over a decade’

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lailoken · 1 year

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What are your favorite pieces of media that you think accurately represent magic and spirit work? Movies, books, even music..

This is an interesting question, but one that requires a lot of thought, as I have read and watched an inordinate amount of books and movies. Plus, even really good fiction with pagan themes that I've read/watched is generally inaccurate in most ways, with some realistic aspects of magic woven in here and there. Some of my very favorite media relating to the subject can't really be included, simply because of how inaccurate it is overall, but there are a few that have caught my notice.

I'm sure I'll end up missing ones, which bugs me, but I'll do my best to recount some examples that I can think of:

The Love Witch (2016) is a movie that I think presents a strikingly realistic portrayal of what magic can look like. It manages to show some of the ways one might use magic to great effect, without actually skewing into fantasy at all. Clearly, the magic shown isn't going to line up with every paradigm, and its not exactly a heady or spirit-based story, but I think it's a very real look at how ritual and magic is/can be approached by many folks in the modern day.

The Witch (2015) is, above all else, a great slow-burn horror film and an excellent period-piece. However, it also portrays quite an accurate conception of folkloric beliefs about Witchcraft in the 17th century, which inexorably inform the realities of modern Witchcraft traditions. It does just barely skew into fantasy horror, but the actual folkloric information being presented is quite sound.

A Dark Song (2016) is a film that portrays ceremonial magic realistically in many ways. Ultimately, it is still a supernatural horror film, but the bulk of the magic in the movie is based directly on the Abramelin Operation, which was interesting to see. A lot of the ways that the magic "takes shape" in the film feels real enough to me, too (though it certainly takes it to extremes at points, as horror movies are wont to do).

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is a horror novel I much enjoyed when I read it a coulple years ago, but I also remember that it happens to contain small, but meaningful, instances of sympathetic magic within the story that I appreciated as a practitioner looking in. This one has been made into a movie as well.

Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill is one of the more realistic looks at magic—including the uncanny side of it—that I've come across. It's still definitely a horror story, first and foremost, but there's an oomph to the ritual and magic described therein that a lot of other similar fiction lacks—even when the ritual act being described isn't necessarily accurate in terms of historicality or my personal experience of the Craft.

The White People by Arthur Machen is a Welsh short horror story from the turn of the century, which I think is worth including here. There are elements and aspects of the story that feel surprisingly real in terms of Gloaming initiation and the Gloaming Spirits—though, of course, it takes creative liberties informed by the paranormal beliefs and trends of the time (1890s).

The Craft (1996) is a movie that I'm sure a lot of pagans have of nostalgia for in one way or another, myself included. I struggled with whether this movie should be here or in the Honorable Mention section, but I included it here in the end because a lot of the ways magic and ritual are presented in the film are accurate enough. I also think it did a fairly good job of capturing how it can feel to discover, revel in, and then become overwhelmed by magic. However, since it is a supernatural horror film, a lot of magic shown is portrayed more fantastically than the real thing, and there are aspects of the magic (rituals, entities, etc.) made up entirely for the sake of the story.

As implied above, there are also some pieces that, while largely inaccurate or too far into the realm of fantasy, still manage to succesfully capture some essence of realistic feeling magic in them. I will list those here as Honorable Mentions:

Practical Magic (1998) is another movie that I'm sure a lot of Pagans have nostalgia for in some way or another. I won't claim that it's a genuinely "accurate" representation of magic—and it certainly strays into outright fantasy at times—but there are little things throughout the movie that managed to ring a bell for me, as someone who grew up with magic in my family. I know this was originally a book, but I actually haven't read that as of yet, so I can't speak to it.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is a movie is squarely in the fantasy-horror genre to me, but even still, I include it here as an honorable mention because a lot of the lore depicted is drawn from real lore, and the overall ambience it manged to evoke strongly reminds me of some of my own experiences with chthonic journeying.

The Good Witch franchise isn't one I have ever actually watched any part of before, but I include it here because, oddly enough, multiple practitioners have mentioned to me that they think the magic is surprisingly realistic for a Hallmark series. As I understand it, the main character is a sort of local Wise Woman who helps the folk in her little town using things like folk-knowledge, remarkable intuition, and an uncanny ability to seemingly sway people and circumstances. Since I haven't seen it myself, my take on it may be somewhat lacking, (which is why I listed it as an honorable mention), but based on the description, it actually sounds like it may be one of the more realistic interpretations of magic on this list.

I know this is a strange addition, as it's not exactly magic, per se, but much of how Stephen King writes about psychic abilities like clairvoyance and healing throughout his works manages to touch on something all too familiar for me. I think, sometimes, that he may have known someone with the Sight and/or the Touch in his real life, as it comes up a lot in one shape or another in his writing.

As I said, I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, but this at least a serviceable overview. I encourage others to share any other media that they think deserves a mention, too!

#witchcraft #magic #media #the love witch #the Witch #a dark song #we have always lived in the castle #cunning folk #adam nevill #the white people #the craft #practical magic #pan's labyrinth #the good witch #vistorille #ask

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nobodysdaydreams · 2 months

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🚀

Oh boy oh boy a Wolf359 fic snippet ask!

I do have to warn you anon, this next fic is gonna take a long time to write. The words keep on coming, and it might be months before I have the time to really write it out. But I do have the introduction. It's quite long, but I think you, and even some of my non-Wolf359 mutuals might enjoy it:

What would you do if you woke up with amnesia and were told that in a previous life, not so long ago, you were one of the worst people who’d ever lived? Not just criminal bad, but “evil dictator major unspeakable human rights violations” bad?

You’d say sorry, of course. What else is there to say but sorry? You don’t remember what led you to that and you can’t exactly argue with the people around you or object that what they say is untrue, because after all, you don’t remember anything, it’s not like you can prove them wrong when faced with the evidence. Tapes and recordings of a person who sounds like you, looks like you, and you know must be you, but who is also the most awful, heartless, horrifying individual your imagination could ever picture.

What do you do when faced with something like that, but with no way to deny it, no way to know why you were like this, and no knowledge or idea of what to do next?

You do what so many people with cognitive difficulties, memory loss, and impaired abilities do when they find themselves unable to live without the assistance of others. You acquiesce. You do whatever others they tell you to do, and you agree and accept whatever information they give you, like a dependent child who still has no idea how the world works and relies on adults to explain things to them. Obedience, submission, and compliance, for as dangerous as they are, can be a surprisingly effective survival strategy, especially when you have limited abilities and information. It’s actually a fairly common survival strategy that most humans use, to some extent, every day, whether they wish to acknowledge it or not. You trust that experts give you the correct information on subjects you are unfamiliar with, you trust translators to give you an accurate translation of words in languages you don’t understand, and you trust that those you depend on would not lead you astray. After all, the lure of complete control and independence, as tempting as it is, fails when one is forced to consider their own limitations and the fact that they can accomplish much more when through mutual reliance on others than they can by themselves, despite the risk of being used.

But in this particular thought experiment, the people you acquiesce to are not family, friends, or even trusted coworkers or qualified professionals. They are your self-declared enemies, who readily admit to having hated you for what you did to them, who have set up a situation in which you find yourself completely dependent on them due to your complete lack of memory, and also entirely in their debt for their forgiveness of who you were. Trusting what they tell you seems foolish. Why would they be so forgiving if you’d really hurt them and those they loved as much as they claim you did? Surely something must be awry. But your compliance is still what you need to survive, and so you do comply, and it works, or at least, it gets you to a certain point. A point of survival, acceptance, comfort, and as the years go on, perhaps even little moments of joy and friendship, or at least, as much friendship and goodwill as can be expected under the circumstances. But in the back of your mind, you always question their intentions. Whether you can really trust the self-proclaimed benevolent strangers who have taken charge of you, a heartless monster, and given you new life or rather, from your perspective, your only life.

#I am no where near even being close to finishing even the first chapter of this #So please don't get too excited #But I am excited about this one because I promise it is building up to something spectacular #And I hope you enjoy it!#Bods Answers #Wolf359 #wolf 359 #w359 #Miranda pryce #Dr pryce #wolf 359 podcast #wolf 359 fic

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aedesluminis · 17 days

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Are there any movies, books in which Prieur is in it?

Not many as far as I know. The only two legit examples that come to mind are the documentary Un mètre pour mesurer le monde by the studio Arte and the play I Giacobini (= "The Jacobins") by Federico Zardi.

Left: an unknown guy playing Prieur in the documentary (source).

Right: the actor Luigi Pistilli starring as Prieur in the theatrical representation of Zardi's play of April 13 1957 (source1, source2).

Are these two faithful representations?

As far as the documentary is concerned, aside from the appearance, which could fit the real Prieur, absolutely not.

It's incredible how during his whole lifetime and beyond, Prieur was surprisingly spared from the slanderous propaganda (thermidorian/anglo etc) that his colleagues at the CSP endured, only to be painted as an envious, spoiled child who enjoyed playing dictator in a 2012 documentary on the history of the metric system. He was basically reserved the same treatment of Saint-Just in La Révolution Française (1989).

I will talk at length about Arte's doc in a separate post; for now just know that whatever was said about him is either not true or interpreted in the worst, most negative way possible.

Talking about Zardi's portrayal, it's a bit difficult to judge, because in the play Prieur is a secondary character: he doesn't have much lines. He's presented as military man, friend of Carnot; Robespierre and Couthon are very fond of him, praising his ardent personality, making me wonder if Zardi hadn't merged him with the other Prieur, considering also that he's listed has a Jacobin (Claude-Antoine Prieur never joined the club) and as being 37 years old, the age of Prieur de la Marne in Year II. In spite of that, I was personally very glad to see him being included and described positively.

I was also told by a friend that Prieur de la Côte-d'Or is a character in a play written and staged in 2009 in Paris. I avoid to mention its name, because the whole thing is simply atrocious. Most likely the writers and directors read a few wikipedia pages (in English, because such nonsense can only be found there) on the CSP and thought themselves ready to stage a play about them. Spoiler: they weren't. Moreover there's no script or recording of the play online: it seems to have luckily fallen into oblivion and I don't want to change that.

Last but not least, I wish to mention a fictional character whose personality and background are astonishingly similar to those of Prieur de la Côte-d'Or. I'm talking about Viktor from the show Arcane (season 1):

Both are thin, reserved, introvert, awkward and uncomfortable in public, but incredibly sweet and caring in private. Both had no parents (*) and their mentor/father figure was a chemist, both worked as assistant in a laboratory; both have a limp leg. Both are brilliant scientists, strongly devoted to their work, striving to make the world a better place, but they'll end up using their knowledge to build weapons to defend their country. Viktor's best friend and close collaborator, who he clings to, is another brilliant scientist, who is terribly naive and dramatic, doesn't understand a thing about politics and thus lets himself being played and exploited by politicians without scruples. Both do much of the manual work, but it's always said best friend (hi, Carnot) that gets credit and attention for it, but they don't complain.

It's not a 1:1 perfect comparison: Arcane is a fantasy show after all and Prieur would have never abandoned his mentor because he questioned the ways he was conducting research as Viktor did for instance; still, it's a portrayal that gives an overall fairly accurate idea of his personality.

(*) Prieur had a father, but the latter abandoned him as an infant and the two never really formed a bond, when his father tried to get in touch with him.

#srsly when i started reading about prieur i thought “this dude is basically irl viktor” lol #claude antoine prieur #frev #french revolution #prieur de la cote d'or #prieur duvernois #claude antoine prieur duvernois #ask

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tallysgreatestfan-art · 2 months

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Disabled4Disabled ships spotlight for Disability Pride Month: Princess Entrapta of Dryl and Lord Hordak (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

The first time I not just saw someone like me, a bisexual mentally ill autistic woman, but also a relationship like mine, was when I was 22 years old, in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Entrapta and Hordak are both side characters, but their stories touched me the most.

Entrapta starts of as a recluse, building robots and weapons and other technology in her castle. She gets recruited by the good guys, but she never quite fits in with them, and they treat her fairly bad, being constantly annoyed at her autistic traits, infantilizing and dehumanizing her, best shown by one of them actually leashing her, which the series treats as an hilarious joke.

Other than that however, she is portrayed amazingly accurate. She is chaotic and sometimes focuses on things others might find strange in the situation, mostly technology, but she also is very competent in her field of expertise, and she is very empathic and caring – just not in the way the good guys expect her to.

She has peculiar habits about how she eats her food – all in tiny pieces – and she is even seen stimming multiple times, the classical hand flapping, but also turning rapidly in a chair, or using her prehensile hair.

Later she ends up defecting to the bad guys, who treat her slightly better, though still mostly use her for her skills. That ends when her brazenness and disregard for rules make her end up in the lab of the reclusive bad guys leader, Hordak. He tries to enforce his usual intimidation and power dynamic, but Entrapta is not having it, and in the end, he is impressed by her and her technological prowess, and they start working together.

Hordak seems like your typical generic evil overlord villain type, however, he starts to become fascinating as it is shown to be a facade to hide his insecurities and trauma.

Hordak has some form of muscular atrophy along with cardiovascular problems that make him prone to fainting. This made the leader of the interstellar cult he was created for cast him out, stranding him on the planet the show takes place, and now he desperately tries to prove he is capable enough to be worth something.

He built his own mobility aids in the form of a sci-fi power armor, which does not reflect the experience of real life people with muscular atrophy, but works well as a metaphor for how many disabled people have to hide their disabilities in order to find work or be respected. I really saw myself in that, however I must add that I am, while autistic and bipolar, able-bodied.

It could come across as the disability makes you evil trope, but I think it works because the narrative is firm in saying that what happened to both Hordak and Entrapta was unjust, and they are right to rage against the system that abused them like that – just their methods are too extreme.

The most touching part of their arcs is their surprisingly tender romance. First they bond over being mad scientists, then they bond over being disabled and outcasts for that and hating themselves, and finally even help each other to overcome that hate. I never saw this thing I experienced so often with my disabled too lovers portrayed anywhere, and I felt so seen by their romance.

(Another nice touch is how Entrapta is clearly the more dominant of the two, which is a wonderful gender role subversion).

Fate divides them, and they have to fight to get back together, but in the end, both of them survive and have time to heal.

There are definitely downsides to them as rep, both of them being villains, Entraptas abuse at the hands of the good guys being treated as funny rather than awful and her being blamed for it in the end, and the last, fairly bad season making it ambivalent if Hordak is still disabled at all and refusing to engage with this aspect of him any further, and then there is the in scarily large parts extremely ableist fandom and even ableist members of the crew. But they still mean so much to me.

#Spop #She-Ra #Entrapta #Hordak #Entrapdak #Entrapta/Hordak #Entrapta x Hordak #disability pride month #disabled representation #autistic representation #actually autistic

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toa-archive · 1 year

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Troll Dads Design Path - Part 1

This thread is long overdue and has hit further problems in being posted delaying it further, apologises for that. Anyway we're here now and finally it's time to look at some troll dads.

This has been pieced together from what has been found online and acknowledges that there is further content in the artbook or somewhere online that has yet to be found. The timeline will also be as accurate as can be guessed

Might as well start with the original Trollhunters book where a much wiggly Blinky of the Lizzgump clan and the fetching lady Johannah Mmmm ARRRGH!!! looked very different to their tv designs. E. M. Gist produced the below artwork that was to be the cover though was replaced by Sean Murray's Amulet artwork fairly last minute. It often blows around the internet in bad quality and never credit so it's a pleasure to finally be able to do that.

Source

Sean Murray has two illustrations with his own take on the duo! If Blinky was more visible you'd see a skirt made out of medals he's wearing. These were part of a set of interior illustrations.

Source includes other illustrations he made for the novel

Understandably for the original Trollhunters film their designs had to be changed to be both more animation and child friendly. Rodrigo Blaas produced this version in 2010 showing Jack Sturges, Handsome Blinky and AAARRRGGHH carrying a hunk of Gunmar around, something that sticks around in the artwork for a long while.

Handsome Blinky can kindly stay away.

Source

On his website John Bell has this artwork from 2012, clearly still in the film phase, of his take on the duo. You can certainly see some themes still sticking around from the earlier days.

Source

Blinky went all sorts of directions as can be seen in this artwork by Francisco Ruiz Velasco. His four arms didn't seem to show up until he took on a more familiar shape and surprisingly he had a tail at one point!

Source

Headless Studios were also trying out different Blinky designs including a tall variant until his more rectangle shape we're more used to started to crop up more and more. There are even more of these in the artbook.

Source

As they deserve a special place being so unique these fuzzy Blinky's are by Francisco Ruiz Velasco and show a rather familiar outfit starting to appear. He still has a little tail though his feet are more feathered than solid but it only adds to his adorable charm.

Source

This one wasn't posted in the original thread, figured it'd be a nice treat for the long wait. Simon Rogers did concept art for the original film and if you look at the bottom middle and left a bit there is a squat Blinky, A tall standing but short legged AAARRRGGHH with a chunk of Gunmar and likely Jim in Trollmarket.

This seemed a good transition piece between the dads too.

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AAARRRGGHH seemed to hit his stride much sooner than Blinky did with most changes focusing on how much fluff, facial shape and his tattoos. These images are by Francisco Ruiz Velasco and include shorts prior to that loincloth number he'll be sporting soon. With his build heading the right direction too he's already looks like a good boy.

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Meanwhile at Headless Studios, AAARRRGGHH design started to cement into something more familiar to us by keeping that scruff n fluff and extending it. This is the first appearance of his arm stripes which will stick around for quite a while along with leg wraps. His tail is pure fuzz when it appears.

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Shown in the artbook along with an art version by Headless Studios (A version of is below too), this small statue was used in the original pitch and was created by Chris Ryniak! Poor Toby.

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Blinky in the meanwhile was still being fairly fast and funky though now his shape seemed to stick and it was more the specifics that were in flux. His number of eyes kept changing, glasses, fabulous eyeliner and even a camp counselor look going on.

Bar minor adjustments though he too would hit his stride. All the below are by Headless Studios.

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The colours remained in flux for a while though and a number plate temporarily appears on his shoulder. He does look rather fetching in pink though? The chunk of Gunmar is back and AAARRRGGHH remains stable for the time being other than being red. Both are Headless Studios again.

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Sergio Casas did a colour pass making the trolls makeup game the best it'll be. AAARRGGHH's arm stripes are starting to dwindle though the earring is sticking as it will until the final. This is also the last appearance of Blinky's number plate.

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More Headless Studios! His arm warmers make their last stand here and the more obvious loin cloth putting an appearance. The bottom middle one is likely what Betsy Bauer based the phone artwork in Wizards on. Look at that smile.

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Two more by Francisco Ruiz Velasco, while the top image does have vague hints of fuzzy Blinky AAARRRGGHH lacks his arm warmers for clear rune marks instead. The second image showing "Gunmar" at Killahead Bridge comes much later and AAARRGGHH having a sharper design than the softer rounded one he did previously.

Source 1 / Source 2

Jonatan Catalan Navarrete portfolio includes a poster for when it was still very much the film version and a slightly terrifying Blinky model (A textureless version is in the artbook) and the final appearance of the hunk of Gunmar.

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There is actually two versions of the below image by Alfonso Blaas though this is the lesser known one with gorgeous lighting, the other being an earlier blue concept used to announce the Trollhunters tv project. AAARRGGHH has his loincloth still but very much looking like who we know and love now.

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Due to hitting the image cap the thread has been split into two! You can find the second part here.

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Vis Dev: E. M. Gist #Vis Dev: Sean Murray #Vis Dev: Rodrigo Blaas #Vis Dev: John Bell #Vis Dev: Francisco Ruiz Velasco #Vis Dev: Simon Rogers #Vis Dev: Headless Studios #Vis Dev: Chris Ryniak #Vis Dev: Sergio Casas #Vis Dev: Jonatan Catalan Navarrete #Vis Dev: Alfonso Blaas

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canmom · 1 year

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Animation Night 151: Modest and Immodest Short Films

Ahoy my friends! The hour is late, but not so late that we can’t watch a few films...

So. Lackadaisy huh.

I feel like you need to be in a somewhat specific age bracket of internet old to feel like that’s immensely significant. You need to be a webcomics bitch, basically. But from quite a specific era: the decade or so window between when webcomics looked like newspaper comics, and before the present era of webtoons. The Webcomics Review narrativises it as people who went to art school arriving on the scene in the mid-2000s, and that seems accurate enough. And of that crop, Lackadaisy Cats was certainly one of the biggest!

The concept is pretty straightforward. It’s a Prohibition-era crime drama set at a speakeasy that’s seen better days... and also everyone is an anthropomorphic cat. It was the beginning of the furry boom (Digger was a contemporary). But mostly... Tracy J. Butler could really fucking draw. You could say things like: clean, expressive designs with a lot of texture and depth and strong composition. (Not surprisingly, she’d worked in animation before drawing the comic.)

And compared to other comics whose selling point was the art such as The Meek and Dresden Codak, it also updated (if I’m remembering right) fairly consistently. It had archetypal characters, a very clearly defined aesthetic, and, compared to many webcomics of its era, a clear, accessible story. In short it read like a pro comic.

So it was natural for it to pick up steam.

Now, at some point I kind of stopped keeping up with most of the webcomics I read back then. Sure, some of them stopped updating, but others kept on going, sustained on merch and later, Patreon type sites. In that time, the standard of art in the scene went way up, the number of comics became so huge that there was no longer really a ‘shared context’ of webcomic readers, and manga scans and webtoons arrived in force. It is now almost impossible to build a new following with a webcomic, but you can do pretty well for yourself if you got in at the start.

Well, in the last few years a new phenomenon has developed out of that whole webcomic scene: the crowdfunded independent animated film. I wrote about this a bit back on Animation Night 117, with the biggest example being Vivziepop‘s works like Hazbin Hotel. In 2000, Lackadaisy joined in, running a kickstarter for an art book and maybe a short film if it did well. You can guess the rest of that story.

These films sit at an odd scale between ‘independent’ and ‘studio’. If you look at the credits of Lackadaisy, you’ll see a small army of animators and cleanup artists to exceed most TV productions (apparently the staff number in the 170s in total). The calls they put out for animators were demanding. And the lavish effort certainly shows! The makers of Lackadaisy set their sights on full animation, on-model, cleaned up and with an ambitious drawing count. Every scene is full of movement and acting. (There’s actually an interesting stylistic choice where construction lines are left in the final composite on many scenes.)

But in many other ways it was very unlike a studio production. One of the animators who worked on the short, Manu Mercurial, has put out a little making-of retrospective, which is pretty light on detail, but still gives some info. Since the production took place during the pandemic, it was completely organised over Discord, with animators posting WIPs and receiving feedback in full view of everyone else, and a director receptive to animators adding their own spins to shots. This apparently led to an atmosphere of friendly competition that was beneficial to the film as a whole.

Mercurial is full of praise for the film’s director Fable Siegel, who seems to have been the major organising force behind making this be an impressive, finished short film instead of just a bunch of artists hanging out in Discord. At least going off IMDB credits, Siegel seems to have come to The Industry by way of participating in ‘Reanimated’ collabs on Youtube, before getting jobs on Hazbin and also Pendleton Ward’s experimental post-Adventure Time series The Midnight Gospel. (Right now their Twitter is a huge wall of Lackadaisy process shots if you’re curious.) Here’s an interview (by Toon Boom, so one of the questions is blatantly slanted to sell Toon Boom, but the rest is pretty interesting.)

The short film is presented as a pilot, and that is indeed how it plays out: a tour of all the major characters and dynamics of the comic/show, with a car chase, a set piece battle in a quarry, and a final wind down scene in the speakeasy itself which sets up the broader plot. It’s unquestionably very well executed. I’m certain it’s going to get a good few million views in the next few days alone, and maybe it will lead to a series. (Will it surpass Hazbin?). It’s got electro-swing, of course. SungWon Cho (ProzD) is in it, of course.

All the same... I wish it was weirder. Like something about Lackadaisy always feels like it’s playing it safe. It’s fun, it’s goofy, it’s charming... and that’s where it stops! For all that the creators like to talk about how we’re on the cusp of adult animation really taking off in America, the moonshine, and strangely ineffective guns, don’t really change the tone from the more mainstream animation. Bah humbug, etc.

Still, it’s unquestionably an extremely impressive work of animation and a sign of the way things are changing. I expect with all the animation studios laying off staff left right and centre, we’ll start to see a lot more like this.

That’s our first act! For our second...

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Ian Hubert returns! I wrote briefly about him back on Animation Night 78. Hubert’s thing is compositing human actors into elaborate cyberpunk environments using Blender; his channel is full of ingenious tricks for creating impressive looking shots and effects with minimal geometry. What makes it work is Hubert’s eye for lighting and composition, knowing just where to place detail to sell a shot and what’s unnecessary for the camera.

The first episode of Dynamo Dream - which we’ll rewatch! - introduced us to a plant selling girl in some sorta cyberpunk megacity. After inadvertently saving out the weird cyborg landlord that runs her apartment, she gets a favour, which she calls on to contact her faraway boyfriend using a kind of missile launched phone terminal I guess? He invites her to come out and join him, but weird shit starts happening on the train. I haven’t watched this yet but I’m sure it’s going to deliver some fascinating visuals.

And then...

Modest Heroes is a collection of three short films by Studio Ponoc, a studio which spun out of Studio Ghibli. In the mid 2000s, the period that Ghibli could enjoy an exceptional state of employing lot of full-time salaried staff (instead of per project freelancers) was coming to an end. In 2014 it seemed they were on the verge of shutting down altogether. Yoshiaki Nishimura, lead producer of many of Ghibli’s films in the 2000s era (Howl - When Marnie Was There), left the studio in 2015, bringing in a bunch of ex-Ghibli animators under a new studio called Ponoc.

Their first film, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, apparently found it hard to define an identity beyond the shadow of Miyazaki (I haven’t seen it!), but things got a lot more exciting with their second. Modest Heroes is a collection of three short films, showing off a variety of ingenious approaches to animation. (It was originally planned to be four, but then Isao Takahata went and died while planning the segment on the theme of ‘death’... oof.) The writers of Animation Obsessive are big fans, and they’ve written two detailed, enthusiastic articles on two of the shorts in the collection.

Invisible, directed Akihiko Yamashita, is a take on the invisible man concept. Since the invisible man is, well, you know..., his entire existence must be communicated through interactions with objects and clothes. Yamashita hoped to communicate feelings and interior life. His invisibility is a metaphor for social invisibility, and thus it comes combined with other metaphors, such as weightlessness.

The idea came from Nishimura, who thought it was a worthy subject for an ‘animation genius’ such as Yamashita. Nishimura wanted the film to bring a kind of inventiveness that he felt was missing from the overly conservative contemporary anime. Yamashita, after leaving Ghibli, attempted to get by in the regular anime industry and found it unbearably strained. He returned to the fold to work on Boro the Caterpillar with Miyazaki, and this convinced him to follow Yamashita over to Ponoc.

The result is something gorgeous, with its emotional drama playing out against grimy desaturated backgrounds that are perhaps closer to something like Tekkonkinkreet than the Ghibli nature scene. Yamashita named quite a specific palate of inspirations...

As reference, Yamashita drew from Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and Gravity, the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu and the manga of Junji Ito, among others. They contributed to the dark, unusual vibe and look of Invisible.

I’ve been wanting to watch this film for ages, here’s our chance!

Alongside that comes Yoshiyuki Momose’s film Samurai Egg (here’s the aniobsessive link again). Momose, the ‘right-hand man’ of Takahata, was one of the guys he leaned on to actually draw the storyboards of films like Grave of the Fireflies.

In contrast to the elaborate visual metaphor of Invisible, Samurai Egg is a very grounded film about a kid with a severe egg allergy. Takahata is famed as a realist, although a different sort than people like Okiura and Inoue who bring incredibly meticulous detail and well-observed acting to sci-fi scenarios. Certainly, Takahata would make films about ghosts and mythology, but he’d also make films like Only Yesterday that are much quieter, everyday dramas.

Despite sharing the everyday focus of, this film veers away from it into more expressionistic techniques, bringing in softer pencil effects to the anime cels, as well as techniques like 3DCG-rotoscoping. There’s a dance scene where Shinji Hashimoto gets to go nuts with shapes a la Ryan Woodward.

Momose took some pains to avoid being too sentimental with it; AniObsessive quote Nishimura in Animation Magazine:

When you make a film about a parent and a child, it’s easy to fall into the trap of showing a “heartwarming” relationship, and creating a cheap-feeling structure. We wanted to avoid that.

The film is pre-recorded - like Grave of the Fireflies, actually. (It’s the norm in the West, but rare in anime.) There’s some interesting linguistic nuance there:

It was necessary because Oko’s role called for something special. In a detail that’s lost on foreigners, Shun’s mom uses the Kishiwada dialect, which “sounds harsh, but you can feel the love behind it,” Momose said. It’s a cruder, shorter form of Japanese. They used it partly to fit more information into Samurai Egg’s 16-minute runtime, and partly to reveal the relationship she has with Shun. He’s a Tokyo kid — he speaks differently.

As for the third film...

Kanini & Kanino takes us underwater for a pair of kids who live on a coral reef. Alas, I don’t have a detailed article on the making-of and influences on this one, but I can tell you that the director Hiromasa Yonebayishi, aka Maro, is behind it - best known as the director of The Secret World of Arriety, When Marnie Was There, and Ponoc’s first film Mary and the Witch’s Flower. Notably the dialogue for this short is all in ‘crab language’ - are these kids anthro crabs? In fact, yes, it would appear they are anthropomorphic crabs. Sick. Whether they will attend a rave I can’t say, but the internet reliably informs me that is the primary activity of crabs, so probably.

I think that’s enough to be going with! Apologies it’s so late - I had to spend most of today reinventing Canabalt. But I succeeded, so I think I’ve gotten a lot better at this whole game dev thing. Let’s go enjoy some short films!

Animation Night will be going live now at twitch.tv/canmom, films to begin in maybe 15 minutes.

#animation night #animation

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reversemoon255 · 2 months

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Digimon Xros Figures Cyberdramon

I know this is not a very liked redesign, especially since Ryo's Cyberdramon is so beloved, but this figure actually made me really appreciate what they were trying to do. Mine has been heavily repainted, but the original version where all the purple was still silver made me realize the transparent parts with tech greeble underneath are in the same locations. They're actually surprisingly similar on a closer inspection. If the heads were closer, I think more people would have given the new one a chance. It probably also would have helped if they were more heavily featured in the show, since Cyberdramon had significantly less air time than every other character featured in the Xros Figure line. I think Cyber Launcher only appeared in the anime once...

The Good: This is a fairly posable figure, with joints all down the torso, legs, and tail, balls in the arms, and a bit of movement in the wings and head. And Cyber Launcher is actually a bit more versatile than the other combinations, able to free stand on its own, so it can be used by any Digimon, or other toy you might have lying around.

The Bad: While Cyberdramon has a lot of joints, the lack of specifically a neck joint (due to transformation) makes it hard for it to look particularly dynamic while posing. The tail, also, can only move up-and-down. While it tried, it doesn't reach the same level of individuality that Beelzebemon manages.

Also, combining into MetalGreymon + Cyber Launcher doesn't feel great. In order to plug its neck vent into the chest and have MetalGreymon bite the spear, you're almost forced to flex the spear. If you're careful it's not bad, but I could definitely see kids bending that thing permanently or not having the patience to get it right.

The Details: Cyberdramon required to heaviest amount of work to get it screen accurate of any of the figures I've handled so far. Knowing that toy production takes several months, it makes me wonder how down to the wire the changes to its designs were before the show started? We know some Digimon, like ZekeGreymon, went through last minute changes as well.

Anyway, from top to bottem, I repainted the silver areas on Cyberdramon purple, and dotted them with pink to match the jelly-like texture of the official art. On the face and parts of the tail, I also added a red lining, as those are present throughout Cyberdramon's design, but too difficult to implement everywhere. I also color matched and repainted its cheeks and knees the same blue as the rest of the figure.

I painted the wings red to brighten them up, and added red to the inside of the palms. A lot of elements to the stomach and pelvis were incorrect, so I adjusted those with silver. I painted the tail's teeth, interior cannon, backs of the legs, and heels silver, and dotted their cannons with black. And finally, though I did this first (and can be seen on the unpainted Cyberdramon), I panel lined the deeper details to bring them out more.

Overall, while this isn't the greatest figure, it does serve its purpose, and I had a lot of fun improving its screen accuracy. I've actually managed to snag all but one of the Xros Figures at this point, and I'm pretty sure you can guess who I'm missing...

#Digimon #Digimon Xros Wars #Digimon Fusion #Cyberdramon #Greymon #MailBirdramon #MetalGreymon #Shoutmon #Review

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dnangelic · 21 days

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UNCHANGING IDEAL DRAMA CD POST

AWRIIIIIGHT so here's the big ole translation post of what i got from the brand new drama cd. there are 3 tracks, two longer (each around 20 min) and one short, (around 10, more or less a dramatized version of this particular 4 page manga chapter short,) making up three tracks, which i won't be uploading in their entirety to this blog or anything because this came out like literal just months ago. disclaimer that a lot of this is me going by ear with my fairly basic jp knowledge and being largely hand-held by machine translations, if anyone wants to type up a more accurate translation please feel free.

on that same note and while i'm talking about it, a real quick initial translation note that i consider important/useful before anything starts: the jp term for 'admiring,' 'aspiring,' and 'longing/yearning' (憧れるよ) can all be the same and are used interchangeably throughout the tracks, (compared to english which has very different inherent connotations,) so keep that in mind for understanding's sake!

also final disclaimer that this cd uses the anime cast, whereas my portrayals use the voices from the wink series, not the ones you'll find in here. i can't stand okiayu dark i'm an onosaka dark first n foremost awoijakfjlkgj okay enough about that let's go!!!!

TRACK 1.

< starts off with a generic heist(tm) for intro flare (25 years and canon dark is still homophobic awpoiadklj 😭) then skips to a schoolday. the track takes place during daisuke's bday, one year after his very first transformation, which would in fact make him 15 compared to 14 like he was at the veeery start of the series (and also where i'm writing him). out of the whole cast riku was the only one who didn't know it was his bday because daisuke never talked about it much, and it's also considered a special anniversary day because it's also the day of dark's reappearance.

< emiko has set out a warning card, to daisuke's chagrin and dark's own obliviousness. cue this funny little exchange:

daisuke: ahh, how did this happen?! hiwatari: you always seem so busy. dark: (whose fault is it always making me busier?) daisuke: hiwatari-kun's not...! (lit: 日渡くんじゃない) hiwatari: as long as somebody doesn't do anything, i won't have to get busy.

hiwatari continues to say that tonight's target isn't a hikari, but the product of 'those who yearn and obsess' over it. daisuke goes huhwhat to which hiwatari continues saying: 'when the emotion of longing is too strong, it can sometimes become a powerful curse and eat away at people's hearts.' he also tells dai that he wants dai to be careful 🥺

daisuke's a little late for the meet-up, (and dark takes the blow) but he and riku have a talk over things like their opinions over each other and wanting to get to know each other some more little by little. riku expresses how kind and gentle daisuke is that he'd even be nice to a 'bad person' like dark, and also brings up how daisuke always seemed tired and spaced out in the mornings (thanks to having to escape his mother's traps,) but riku would've never guessed that he was actually so strong and surprisingly a little cool. daisuke gets so happy that he starts to suddenly haul ass after thanking her and riku complains that he's always leaving right in the middle of important conversations.

with daisuke now lamenting that he almost transformed right in front of her, dark laughs and wonders what riku would think if he had. daisuke says that he'd definitely, definitely be hated, and risa shows up. daisuke gets scared wondering if she saw him transform, but dark says that it doesn't seem like she had, so things should be fine. he's still in daisuke's school clothes though, and risa comments on the fact--- daisuke sobs 'i knew it, we're out, dark!' before dark asks why she thinks he's dressed like this, then goes on and plays along with her guess of it being preparations for the heist - the museum for tonight's close to the school.

risa says that today's a special day for her too since it's the first day she fell in love with dark, to which he says that he thinks every day he meets with her is special. risa goes for a kiss and daisuke freaks out, forcing dark to say just kidding and see ya before she stops him one last time - she asks about dark's birthday, says nevermind, then says that she was happy to at least be able to convey her feelings on a day that was special to her. men with secrets are more attractive to her, and she's sorry for stopping him, but she promises to come see him and wishes him the best. daisuke transforms back, to which dark tells them to get moving so they can ask why emiko was interested in idea - the target artwork for the night.

TRACK 2.

dark asks if daisuke's ready - it's already been a year since they've been together, to which daisuke says that he feels weirdly self conscious when it's brought up. a year ago, he was told that if he stole the saint tears, his transformations would be cured, but in reality, he had to somehow make his first love come true.

dark laughs, saying daisuke's surprise was a masterpiece and that he misses it, to which daisuke comments again --- dark misses a year ago, even though his life's extremely long. dark says that even if a year was like the blink of an eye and someone's been around for a long time, they don't always stay in the public eye, and from the time a niwa turned 14 to the time their love bore fruit, he'd use his time. 'for the past 40 years, from grandpa to me, dark's been sleeping, huh? ' dark says that thanks to all the things happening with daisuke, the year's felt strangely long and he's starting to get nostalgic.

dark: (besides, you're by far the clumsiest of all the niwa in history.) daisuke: what's with that?!

the two laugh together; daisuke thinks it's a little weird to be talking about the past, and he was a little happy that even risa told him it was a special day. dark tells him to shut up and hurry up and get moving so they won't be late--- daisuke rushes off.

he apologizes to riku and everyone else for being kept waiting, and takeshi chides him calling him a dumbass, (leaving dark teasing him as one too,) but it couldn't be helped and was dark's fault anyways; he was busy preparing for his encounter with inspector saehara. takeshi's been staking out the place since school ended. riku does an amazing impression of risa fawning over dark, to which she snaps that of course she'd be lovesick, today was a special day! daisuke asks about hiwatari, who pops out saying he's right here--- causing everyone to jump and scream at the top of their lungs.

inside of daisuke, dark suggests hurrying up and running away early, but daisuke doesn't want to because it'd be suspicious. dark insists it'd be suspicious anyways, and it'd be trouble if hiwatari stayed here anyways. daisuke finally relents, and takeshi asks him what's up- he's even more absent-minded than usual, so daisuke says he's a little nervous and going to the bathroom. takeshi asks if he's got diarrhea (lmao) and risa calls him gross, while hiwatari only lets out a sigh. daisuke hides in some bushes and leaves his cover to wiz, who transforms into him while he transforms into dark. dark tells wiz to come back to him as soon as hiwatari leaves the group, and the heist is officially on.

inside the museum, hiwatari has appeared in front of idea as expected, and shouts for dark not to run. krad soon appears and begins to attack and pursue dark, saying that dark must want to settle things with him today- to which dark says that he had no interest in doing so and hadn't been the one to invite him out in the first place. daisuke and him start to fret; if krad's appeared, then hiwatari must be in a desperate situation today. krad, meanwhile, has been calling the artwork a fake and says he has no interest in it or its obsession. to him, the artwork is a piece of junk that has no value and should be destroyed.

dark dares him to try something if he can, and krad starts to destroy it, promising to destroy as many 'fakes' as they liked, until hiwatari starts holding him down from within --- the artwork's dangerous, and once broken, begins emitting a strange and magical light. daisuke tells dark to let go of it, and hiwatari curses that it's too late to fix it properly now. in the end daisuke ends up pulled away from dark and gets absorbed into the artwork alongside satoshi, who asks what the hell krad must have done, but not even krad had done anything. krad disses idea some more as an ugly artwork, but the fact there are no more interruptions makes everything juuuuust right- he attacks dark, who begs for daisuke to hurry up and exit the artwork already.

inside of idea, daisuke wakes up with hiwatari. he asks where he is, saying his surroundings feel like the inside of a kaleidoscope - hiwatari deduces that due to the mysterious light of idea, they were probably inside of it by now. the two of them were in fact separated and absorbed. hiwatari remarks on how calm daisuke is to which daisuke brightly replies that there's a good thing - (hiwatari:what is there good about this situation?!) since he isn't alone and hiwatari's with him, there's still something good about their circumstances. (hiwatari: you're being awfully optimistic.)

daisuke changes the topic to recall that hiwatari had told him something about this artwork in school, and asks if hiwatari knows anything about it. hiwatari explains that it's also a 'kind of seed of light',(hikari) and brings up a woman's eyes - 'this piece, named idea, was created with a longing for light.'(hikari) daisuke recalls hiwatari's earlier description: an admiration so strong it became a curse.

hiwatari concurs and elaborates: its creator longed for the hikari (light) and idea was the only one of those works that had survived, the closest to the original. the others were destroyed by the hikari, and hiwatari wonders if it wasn't krad who had actually done that. daisuke asks why only idea was spared, but hiwatari himself doesn't know why; even if it was approved of, it still would have been such a 'distorted' work. daisuke asks if that's how hiwatari himself feels, to which hiwatari asks what daisuke means. idea doesn't feel so bad to him: admiring someone and thinking they're amazing, isn't that a positive thing? he wants to believe that the inside of idea is something similar. hiwatari acknowledges that must be how daisuke feels, but for himself, it's too dazzling for him to look at.

hiwatari: please don't make that face. it's just a difference in perception. krad: that's right. it's a despicable thing for imperfections to be forgiven, hikari. and satoshi-sama, are you also cursed by the blood of light that makes you attracted to imperfect beings?

hiwatari immediately recognizes krad's appearance as a hallucination caused by idea, but the daisuke from before must have been real.

idea: where's niwa? is it real? is it fake? who decides what is what?

having been so suddenly separated from hiwatari, daisuke calls out for him- because hiwatari had disappeared so suddenly, he can only hope that hiwatari's okay. immediately after, daisuke's confronted by dark saying: ' i don't care about him, anything's fine, isn't it?!' daisuke's relief at dark's appearance is immediate, and he says that it's an emergency, but before he can continue, dark cuts him off and says he's going to get out of here and go home. daisuke insists that they find hiwatari before they do that, and dark asks why --- he's the enemy! wouldn't it be better to keep him locked up here? daisuke says he can't be the only one to get out; hiwatari had to still be somewhere around somewhere. if dark was getting out, then he'd have to go with daisuke.

dark: what the hell do we care about that hikari brat? daisuke: hiwatari's a very important friend to me! you know that! dark: he's a dear friend to you, but maybe he doesn't think so.

cut to hiwatari and krad .

krad: satoshi-sama, you want niwa daisuke, but is that the truth? satoshi: what? krad: isn't that boy too dazzling for you? admiration is something that is so dazzling that it's painful to look at. aren't those words the real truth? satoshi: you talk a lot for a fake.

cut to dark and daisuke.

dark: you've never heard hiwatari's real feelings before. so, he might be a fake friend. daisuke: it ... can't be like that. dark: how can you say that? daisuke: because i know. dark: what's that supposed to mean? you don't know anything about the hikari. how beautiful and fascinating the hikari artworks are, attracting people to the point of being violent and demonic. daisuke: ...yeah. i don't really understand anything about the hikari. dark: see? then-- daisuke: but! i know hiwatari-kun! and --- i know dark, too. dark: what do you mean? daisuke: you ... aren't dark. dark: --- ?! daisuke: it's true that dark dislikes hiwatari-kun, but he sees him as an individual, not as part of the hikari clan... at least in front of me. to be obsessed with the hikari's art, you must be... idea, right?

the fake dark transforms into idea, who calls daisuke quick to have noticed things and pretty smart despite only being a 'human niwa.' daisuke asks why he and hiwatari were absorbed into this place, but idea vents at him for only continuing to steal hikari artworks while his only goal was the hikari clan.

idea: shut up! you have the answer! i keep reaching out, but even if i do, i can't reach it! but even so, i still feel a burning desire to reach out, so i reach out again, but i still can't reach it! daisuke: ... idea: i admire the hikari's works and want to reach that height. do you understand the pain of being possessed by a desire and losing everything?!

switch to krad!

krad: that's right. you don't know anything. you are a special being, a member of the hikari family. you... hiwatari: yeah, i don't want to understand the lamentations of those who have given up and gave up trying. krad: correct. that nobility is what makes you so attractive, but at the same time, it makes you lonely. hiwatari: shut up! krad: that's why you don't try to understand others. at the same time... you are not understood by others. here... it's lonely. hiwatari: ngh... krad: that should have been fine for you before. not attached, not possessed, your heart never ached for others... hiwatari: ... krad: even though i've done so much for you, you just look away. hiwatari: you don't see me! krad: satoshi-sama's feelings are mistaken. hiwatari: shut up! what do you know? you don't know anything either! krad: you can't understand others, and you're not understood. you are, for eternity, lonely. hiwatari: i'm ... not lonely... !!

switch to daisuke.

daisuke: it's true that i don't understand you... how much you've yearned for the hikari and how much you've despaired, but... is yearning really just such a bad feeling? idea: what? daisuke: after i spent a year with dark, i started thinking, 'i wish i could be like dark...!' i don't know what i was thinking. idea: that's what i long for. a longing that can never be fulfilled and disappears into black despair! in the end, the shape of the work is like a crack. daisuke: --- but you know, i don't want to drown in admiration. the desire to become something and to know more about it, gives me the courage to take a step forward.

cue a flashback to riku saying that she was getting to know daisuke little by little.

daisuke: this is also about moving forward. if i move forward, the person i admire is waiting for me. that's what i believe.

cue another flashback of riku remembering seeing 'daisuke as dark for a moment.'

daisuke: i want to catch up with him someday. that's what i aspire for.

switch to krad.

krad: that feeling is usually comical and not beautiful, even though i and satoshi-sama are connected by a bond of fate. hiwatari: you ... krad: you are the giver. what else can you be? hiwatari: ... krad: he is in this idea, a tether that confines him forever. and you too will continue to watch here, forever suffering the pain of what you cannot obtain. you can only look at the artworks of the hikari. daisuke: don't be fooled, hiwatari-kun! hiwatari: niwa---?! krad: impossible! from where---?! daisuke: that isn't krad! you knew that, right?!

hiwatari agrees - although the tone is just like krad's, there's a crucial difference: he'd never give up on the kokuyoku.

hiwatari: show me you would never even think of locking me up to die in a piece of art like this... idea!

glass shattering sound fx, whatever was separating daisuke from hiwatari crumbles and daisuke says he's glad hiwatari isn't hurt. idea fumes, hiwatari begins to speak.

hiwatari: it's true that there's a dazzling admiration inside of me, but not everyone is crushed by it. the answer is not to become the same as your idol. you can just hold it close to your heart and use it as a guidepost, like a brother. daisuke: hiwatari-kun... hiwatari: first of all, i can't become a niwa. he's too soft-hearted. daisuke: ...eh? i-i don't know if i'm that good-natured ... hiwatari: yes. in fact, he wants to save this artwork without destroying it. am i wrong? daisuke: mhm... you're not wrong! idea: you're just rambling on and on! daisuke: hey, idea... why don't you let me steal you? idea: wh... what? hiwatari: it's not a bad suggestion. idea: what are you on about?! hiwatari: the reason the hikari ancestors didn't destroy idea was because there was a secret in its name. 'the maiden's eyes, idea.' that means the viewer. daisuke: the viewer... always following what they admire with their gaze. hiwatari: the hikari didn't tolerate imitators, but they did forgive the gaze that was fixed on them. idea: the light that had destroyed their brothers so much... that's how it should be, i'm sure, but ---! daisuke: the creator of you gave you that name with a wish in mind. hiwatari: "i want to continue watching these light-hearted works and admire them even after i die." idea: that... i didn't understand the meaning of my birth... daisuke: then... take a look with me! hiwatari-kun's feelings... the hikari's feelings! idea: why you steal... isn't that like a hikari's work? daisuke: yeah, that's right! hiwatari: what you said didn't sound bad. daisuke: but... is it okay? you'll be helping me steal it. hiwatari: as long as it isn't a hikari artwork, then there's no problem if i step back. idea: (laughs) it can't be... being stolen by a niwa! how do you like that?

daisuke: well then, looks like the deal's done! let's go back, hiwatari-kun. hiwatari: yeah. even so... your bottomless kindness--- daisuke: hm? hiwatari (whispering): i admire it.

^ ooooh that delivery was CRAZY thank you akira ishida HOLY MOLY!!! ZOOWEE!!!

TRACK 3.

cut back to krad and dark. the real ones this time! krad tells dark they're finally going to become one. dark says he doesn't give a shit about that and some glittery magic sound fx cue daisuke and satoshi's return to their respective angels within them --- dark says he was getting tired of waiting and daisuke begs dark to steal idea. dark says he doesn't know what happened while daisuke was inside the artwork, but that (idea) is the Great His (ore-sama's...) thing.

krad also welcomes satoshi back with an extremely formal greeting, (one reserved for partners) to which satoshi says it's dangerous for him to keep his eyes off of things. krad calmly calls it a conundrum, only, too bad for sato, "it's his time."

krad starts blasting, dark flies off towards the water while saying if the whole museum's destroyed there won't even be anything for him to steal, but he also tells daisuke to leave things to dark-sama when daisuke asks where they're trying to go. inside of krad, satoshi holds krad back to give dark an opportunity to attack- dark goes all phsew!!! and krad lets out dark's name at five thousand reverbeating decibels; maiden's eyes (idea) get. krad runs out of power, but dark's completely beat too- daisuke starts falling and lands in some water, while hiwatari says he was cushioned by some trees and soil. daisuke thanks him, and hiwatari says he was only paying back what he owed. daisuke looks for idea, but hiwatari says he doesn't have it anymore and that he dropped it somewhere.

risa and riku appear, with risa guiding everyone towards the crash and riku wondering what in the world they'd do if dark was really there. the two end up surprised to see daisuke and hiwatari together. while daisuke fumbles for an excuse, hiwatari speaks up to tell them that they both came all this way after chasing dark, but he had escaped at the very last moment.

risa: awww, it's such a shame! hiwatari: that's right, such a real shame. i'll catch him next time. daisuke: i-is that so?

riku gives daisuke a loooong stare then lets everything go - it's fine as long as daisuke's safe. plus, it's his birthay so she can give him a special pardon. since dark ran off, there was nothing left for everyone but to go home, only risa wants to keep searching just in case dark turns up. riku says no, it's getting late and cold, and hiwatari asks if they aren't forgetting someone? cut to takeshi sneezing all alone - everyone's left him, but he's still hoping to stake out the scoop, so hurry up, dark, no, dark-sama, and show up to give him the chance to take a picture! pl-ea-se!!!!!

cut to daisuke flopping into his bed. dark says their birthday flew by, but daisuke suddenly asks for the time, then sits right back up and starts doing something despite dark's concerns over his sleep --- daisuke ends ups finishing a picture of dark as a present from him, because it's their anniversary, as risa called it.

dark: daisuke... daisuke: how... is it? dark: pfft. no good! daisuke: ehhh?! ⤴⤴⤴ ngh, i don't know if it's because maybe it's not all that good, but --- dark: no, that's not it.

dark explains that he just doesn't want to receive any presents from men and daisuke asks what the heck that's supposed to be. dark'd be happy to get anything from a girl, but he won't be happy in the slightest if he gets something from a guy. daisuke pouts: he thought he'd celebrate dark's birthday, but that's enough! dark instead announces he's going to steal it, and daisuke asks what happened to not accepting presents from guys? dark says as a legendary phantom thief, treasures weren't given as presents, they were stolen --- daisuke says dark's not really being honest.

dark asks what the title of portrait is, and daisuke says that there isn't one, to which dark retorts that receiving an artwork with that kind of noise is a real turn off. he tells daisuke to call it something, to which daisuke thinks to call it his aspiration: dark hesitates, and daisuke asks if it's no good. dark calls him a huuuuuge softy for giving his picture a title like that and starts to laugh, to which daisuke says he's had enough--- he hates dark and he's going to bed! he falls asleep in a solid three seconds leaving dark to himself. he starts using daisuke's body while he's asleep, telling wiz to hush so that daisuke doesn't wake in the middle of anything. before daisuke, dark had never received a gift from the niwa before- this was the first time.

dark: "my aspiration," huh? (*clocktower ringing*) dark: the date's changed. i forgot to say it, but happy birthday, daisuke. a birthday is a day that tells us that time is definitely moving forward, and you're moving forward with aspirations in your heart. just like you admire me, i've often thought i wanted to have you. so maybe we're becoming the same. hey, daisuke... ... is it alright if i can be you?

#reference.#fav #AUGH #OKAY #I DID IT!#s/o to keikotwins/lys for giving me the mp3s in the first place #im giving back to society....#I like idea’s true art name and the whole eyes seeking light/being blind by aspirations bit. clever!!

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frostfall-matches · 1 month

Text

[ matchmaking... ]

@lady-of-endless : [ match report ready ]

your match is…

✦ Aizawa Shota

-> [ You’ll definitely have a slow burn type of relationship with him. ] Aizawa is quite prickly, though your patience and kindness help with getting to know him. It still takes time, though - he isn’t very interested in making friends or getting into relationships, especially when he has other things to worry about such as teaching and his work as a pro hero. He’s distant and doesn’t contribute much to conversations with strangers. But you’re persistent, and you’re not easily daunted by colder types. Eventually, your efforts will pay off, and you’ll be rewarded with a man who is surprisingly thoughtful and sweet, despite his stoic exterior.

-> [ He really respects that you’re no-nonsense when you need to be. ] In his eyes, it’s always good to have a backbone, especially when you’re otherwise the warm, affectionate, and empathetic type. There are too many dirtbags who try to take advantage of the kind, helpful types - but he’s relieved that you have no qualms standing up for yourself when needed, and you’re able to comfortably handle conflict whenever it might come up. It’s an important skill, and as much as he is willing to protect and support you he is also reassured that you can handle yourself if he isn’t around.

-> [ You might initially think your flirting doesn’t really work on him… But it does. ] His outward reactions are very subtle, but he’s malfunctioning on the inside. The clearing of his throat and the way he can’t quite meet your eyes or respond with anything substantial is what tips you off that he definitely knows you’re flirting and that it’s affecting him in some way or another. If you continue to flirt with him after you two get together, he’s lovingly exasperated by it. He calls you cheesy and sappy, but he’ll occasionally say something so sweet and romantic in return that it ends up leaving you a bit flustered.

-> [ Given your interest and current employment in the medical field, perhaps you either work in the UA medical office, or at least help out from time to time when they’re short-handed. ] Either way, Aizawa definitely makes it a point to stop by your office at least once a day to check in on you and chat a bit, or invite you to have lunch with him. He does try to be somewhat subtle about your relationship - not that he’s ashamed of you or being with you, but he does not wanna deal with the shock and the questions and teasing from his students or fellow staff members. (His students do, eventually, figure out that the two of you are together though - it’s inevitable).

-> [ He really doesn’t know the first thing about the science and intricacies behind perfumes. ] However, he’s willing to listen to you talk about them and explain all the details about your favorite fragrances, and ends up learning quite a bit. Amusingly, Aizawa has a fairly accurate sense of smell and when you start talking about different top, middle, and base notes of a particular fragrance he’s actually able to pick them out during a sniff test. You also have him wrapped around your little finger - if you wanted to see how different fragrances smell on you versus him, he’ll let you dab the perfume wherever you need and sit patiently as you compare.

-> [ Aizawa finds your fashion preferences to be both cute and classy. ] Honestly, the timelessness of button downs and classic dresses means that you look good and put-together no matter what, and he always makes sure to give you a compliment whenever he sees you all dressed up and ready for the day. He doesn’t get too fancy with what he wears himself, heavily prioritizing comfort and practicality over style. But, well… at least you know that your outfits will match in terms of colors, with both of you dressing in dark colors all the time. Also, he really likes seeing you wear your glasses when you’re at home, especially if you’re dressed in comfy loungewear.

-> [ He has a similar preference as you for more relaxed dates, often later in the evenings. ] Aizawa is simply not the type to get out and do super active, high-energy activities in his free time. Cozy at-home cooking dates are really nice, since you two are able to divide and conquer when it comes to food prep and cleaning up. It feels less like a chore, and he thinks that the food just tastes so much better when you both contributed. Especially if you two are able to share a nice bottle of wine! Stargazing is nice, too, but he very well might doze off as you two lie back on the ground staring at the sky.

-> [ Won’t push you to open up about your troubles, but makes sure to remind you that he’s there if you need to vent. ] Aizawa understands that hesitation you have around being vulnerable, even with those that you’re close to. It’s something that he needs to work on himself, frankly. He does tend to be solution-oriented, but he’s honestly really good about giving you as much time and space as you need to work through your emotions and get things off your chest. Being vulnerable might make your skin crawl, but you never have to worry about him judging you.

-> [ Cheers you on when you hit up the gym - but doesn’t go very often himself. ] He has to stay fit, of course, because he’d be pretty useless out on the field if he couldn’t fight and chase down villains. Still… he does love lazing around when he gets the chance… But if you wanted to work out with him, it won’t actually take that much effort to convince him to accompany you. And if you prefer working out on your own anyways? Great! Make sure you stay safe, don’t push yourself too terribly hard, and he’ll see you back at home once you’re done.

-> [ Aizawa is absolutely not one for PDA, but he’s surprisingly physically affectionate in private. ] He’s definitely the type to show his love in actions rather than words; oftentimes, he defaults to acts of service (which you appreciate, because the man is busy and tired enough as it is but he’s still going out of his way to do things for you). But if you want to snuggle up to him on the couch or in bed, lean your head on his shoulder as you two read or watch TV, surprise him with hugs when he comes in the door? Go for it! He honestly ends up melting into your touch.

runner-ups…

Sako Atsuhiro / Mr. Compress -> Very entertaining to be around, but also quite responsible. Mr. Compress is someone you can really let loose around, all while knowing he’s got your back when it really matters. He’d really like that “I can be your angel or your devil” vibe you have going on - you’re multi-faceted, and he has to put in effort to see all your sides. Hopefully he’d be fascinating enough for you to pick apart.

Todoroki Shoto -> He would do well with someone as understanding and sweet as you. Shoto struggles with opening up and processing his emotions at times - and he might initially hesitate when it comes to being vulnerable around you, but you quickly become a very comforting presence for him. That said, he might not be the best at being comforting, but he makes sure you know that he’s always got your back and is happy to let you vent whenever you need.

Kaminari Denki -> It would perhaps be an unrequited crush on his end, but he’s just so smitten with you. He thinks that you’re super sweet but also so cool. You won’t entertain any bullshit from others, but at the same time you make a strong effort to be kindhearted to everyone. Definitely the type to wear whatever fragrance you recommend for him.

#user matchup #exchange #bnha #aaa hope you enjoy!! thank you so much for doing an exchange with me!

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ventisettestars · 1 year

Text

Fae Lord Phantom

Read on AO3

Summary:

The King and Queen Fenton are convinced that they're the final line of defense as people no longer fear the Fae of the Other Realm. Their subjects mostly tolerate them for it.

Their Son however holds a secret that would change everything. Good thing the rumor of Fae being unable to lie was, in fact, a lie. They'd never even suspected a thing after the accident with one of their magical artifacts.

Notes: This is a beefed up edit of the Fantasy AU I did for Danny May 2023. Chapter 1 is the least heavily edited from the 1st version but I've added quite a bit more to it. So far the fic is looking like it'll be fairly different in the order that I'll have the chapters play out since not following the prompt lists.

Chapter 1: No such thing as Fae. Nope not at all.

“Did you hear-” The maid chittered to her two coworkers.

...ny

“I did. The King and Queen Fenton are announcing another curfew-” Another cackled.

....anny

“The Great Fae Lord Phantom shall be leading the Hunt post haste!” One made a rather accurate impression of the king. Danny was impressed. His dad was surprisingly hard to mimic.

......Danny.

“The winter air’s perfect to guide the menace to warm prey. So says the cards.” This time it was the queen impersonated. Not as well done as the first lady who mimicked his dad though. She got the accent wrong.

“Prince Daniel!”

That got his attention away from the maids. Got the maid’s attention as well and they paled at the sight of their prince. With a quick bow, they skittered off.

“Hey Sam, Tuck.”

"Too caught up in the castle gossip again?" Sam grinned.

"...No. Well yes. Rumors of the curfew spread already and they haven't even announced it yet." Danny moved to fall in with his friends as they walked.

"Sucks man." Tucker adjusted his new red hat, clearly showing off. He'd just earned it for mastering his 50th spell. No more grey for him. Danny smiled at how the red suited him better.

"I’m just tired of them always blaming the Fae. It's a waste of the kingdom's resources. When I’m king, it’s going to be a mess to clean up.” With a mumble under his breath, just enough for his friends to hear, “The Hunt they fear would be doing us a favor to just take them."

"Buuut it’s not real." Sam rolled her eyes.

"Nope.” Danny ran his hand down his face, clearly exhausted. “Sorry guys, I’m not in the mood to hang tonight. I’m going to retire early to keep my parents from trying to drag me out to see their claimed proof."

Both Sam and Tucker laughed. "Like the time they claimed the ferns were abnormally lush?"

“Or when the sugar was too sweet?” Sam’s laugh died at the pure waste of that venture.

“Oh Oh, and when they tried to make that Fae-ton Detector that only pointed at you.”

Danny laughed. “My nurse maid was not happy to find out about all the tests they ran to make sure I wasn’t a changeling as a baby. I think my dad might still be working on the Detector in his free time.”

“Never did figure out why it pointed to you.”

"Who knows. He probably messed something up in the spell work." Danny reached his hall and parted from them with a wave, turning toward his quarters.

-------

Phantom exhaled and shed his human glamour. The first breath was always the best, the moment he reconnected to nature and his senses buzzed. He fluttered his feathers to get them settled after a long day in the human realm.

"Lord Phantom, I've readied the wolves to ride."

"Thank you, Fright Knight. I'm afraid my parents placed a curfew so it might be an uneventful night to hunt."

"Then let's not tell the hounds and give them more freedom in their pursuit." There was a fond teasing to his voice. The wolves barely cared more than to run about. It was the two of them, and the few other Fae that joined in the Hunt that would become antsy if there were too many nights like this in a row.

A nod was all the signal needed for the Hunt to begin. The pack rode into the night, wolves howling, hounds barking. Various other Fae beasts that bowed to Phantom snarled. The few Fae that joined in sang and played haunting tunes from their mounts.

Phantom hated the hunt. But it was necessary. He couldn't resist the call even if he wanted to. He'd tried. By the Ancients, had he tried.

So he did what he could while his human side was dominant. Manipulated the cards with what little of his magic he had access to without giving himself away. Helped schedule gaps in the guard rotations to keep them from his path. Laid out false clues for his parents to focus on. If the nights the hunt led nearest to the dungeon’s back entrance, some criminals mysteriously were able to break out and were never heard from again, well, his parents were more interested in Fae, and with them placing the blame on the Fae. No one’d suspect the Prince to be releasing them using a key he’d copied.

The wolves caught a scent. Human from the perk in their ears. Foolish humans wondering in the night. They were still his foolish humans. He‘d hate to see their fates end to the teeth of his subjects, but even he couldn’t resist the call. Phantom’s blood sang. He rode with them. Led them. His wolf leaping in bounds through the brush.

Should the humans survive the encounter, he’d care for them in the Realms he decided. In his corner of the Fae Wilds they’d be safe. Cured from whatever wounds they might gain, given comforts the human realm kept from most. Phantom always tried to care for the humans once his bones settled. Such was the advantage of when the hunt anchored in his kingdom during the winter.

Following to see the humans, his blood silenced. Sam and Tucker. Why’re they out? "Heel." He commanded the Hunt. "These humans are mine."

The Hunt held back as Phantom materialized in front of his closest friends. His Fae nature masking any familiarity they might find in him.

"You were warned of the Hunt, were you not?…did you want to join my court so eagerly?"

"You're real." Was all Sam said as she took in the Sluagh Sidhe Lord before her. His hair that looked like fresh fallen snow, eyes filled with black of night save for the glowing ring in the color of spring buds. Skin a pale blue. She almost looked entranced by his features.

"I am." Phantom nodded. It took everything in him to not scream at them to run, get to safety. But he also longed for them to run so he could give chase, take them to his quarters and keep them. “A word of advice, Do Not Run.” It wasn’t often his natures clashed so drastically while rooted in the same words.

“Why?” Tucker held his staff tightly. A spell at the ready.

“Because then I will chase. Do not give me a reason to as I’m only considering it at the moment.” Maybe that will scare them enough to- Maybe if his flared his wings? But that was such a childish way to display threats-

“I want to visit your realm.” Sam blurted. “Our friend, his parents are obsessed with your kind. But they are confused. I want to bring them proof that you aren’t evil by returning with something. Prove you’re not the threat that they think. That we can work together.”

Phantom bit his lip, a fang almost piercing right through. His dumb, wonderful friends. He tugged on his bond with Fright Knight.

“My Lord.” The spector appeared from the shadows.

“Bring me two horses, preferably ones with enough flesh for their comfort. They’ll be coming to court as guests. Humans aren’t skilled enough to go by wolf.”

Sam and Tucker shuttered. They were in way over their heads now.

------

Notes: Doodles of what Fae Lord Danny looks like (I’ve posted them before so figured just toss it here to save from digging.)

#danny phantom #my fic #fantasy au #dp

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