#that are trying to combine a bunch of different characters who are popular with kids for maximum profits with minimum effort

[sonknuxadow]

im gonna be honest i think they could have done so much better with the sonic x dc designs i feel like most of them are just okay at best and they didnt really play around with the concept as much as they could have to come up with a fun design. but i dont know what to suggest that would make them better

[gamerdog1]

Chainsaw Man Season 1 Review

Its that time of year again: the time where the hardcore anime fans gear up for a new batch of seasonal shows. This winter, a bunch of popular anime, including Vinland Saga, Tokyo Revengers, and Bungou Stray Dogs are releasing new seasons, to the raucous applause of most of the anime fandom community.

I say 'most', of course, excluding myself. Where am I in this, you may ask? Always behind the curve, picking up the hits years after they've had their debut, like a reverse hipster. What's old is new again for folks like me, who are still trying to watch all the 'old' series, nevermind keep up with new releases. There's merit in this method, though: given enough time, the shiny glow of newness fades, and we can experience the series without rose-colored glasses.

In my never-ending quest to understand why popular media got popular, I stumbled upon Chainsaw Man, a rather recent hit that was practically unavoidable last year. In a sea of generic anime girl snore-fests, it grabbed my attention pretty quickly for its sheer ferocity and love for bloodshed. After being assigned it in a monthly show exchange, I figured it was about time I'd given it a chance. After 12 episodes, though, I feel like my time could've better been spent elsewhere.

Chainsaw Man (2022) is an adaptation of the manga by the same name, written by Tatsuki Fujimoto. The series follows Denji, a homeless teen who is saddled with a ridiculous debt to the yakuza after his father dies. After surviving an assassination attempt, he fuses with the Chainsaw Devil, and gains its powers of, well, chainsaws. Now, he must work together with an elite team of public service agents to hunt down other devils, to keep a newly found comfy life.

One would be foolish to assume this wasn't a shonen series. With a teen protagonist, superpowers, monsters, and an overarching storyline about growing up, Chainsaw Man seems like your standard action/fantasy show. What makes it different, though, is its copious amounts of gore. Most 'shonen' series are marketed towards kids and teens, and because of this, are limited in how far they can go with their violent content. Chainsaw Man, it seems, got a free pass from it's producers to show whatever it wants, and really runs with it.

Most of the series revolves around Denji and his team hunting devils, monsters which personify common fears, and gain power from the fear of them. From hulking furry masses like the Bat Devil, to thousand-eyed pushovers like the Tomato Devil, Denji and his team take them down in a brilliant display of blades, sharp teeth, and blood spray. Violence is the life blood of this series, the thing that keeps its main characters alive, and what keeps viewers like me paying attention.

Each confrontation is intense, as the human-looking heroes face off against monsters that dwarf them in comparison. The series establishes early on in every fight just what the opposing devil can do, and how that poses a threat to Denji and his team, making it feel like there's little hope in their survival. This, combined with the constant reminders from Denji's superiors of how many previous hunters have died on the job, gives each fight a sense of stakes to it. Characters can (and eventually do) die, so each fight, even those early on, are tense.

The music, as well, its pretty damn good. I'd already heard the opening track, KICK BACK this summer, and play it a lot while doing chores, but the opening animation that goes with it is really interesting. Look closely, and you'll see shot-for-shot references to famous films, like The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction. Each episode also has a unique ending theme, something unique to this series that made me sit and watch each episode all the way through. Most endings are abstract, mostly just the main characters standing around or posing, but all are experimental, including one that is mostly rotoscoped. They were all a joy to watch, a happy surprise at the end of each episode.

Unfortunately, nice music, dynamic fight scenes and a few gallons of blood tossed around can't distract from the many sins of this anime, ones that made it a very uncomfortable viewing experience. When I started this series, I was optimistic about it, and wanted to learn more about its world and characters. But by the second episode, it became difficult to ignore the less savory aspects of this series, which only worsened with each subsequent episode.

Denji, the show's protagonist, is a teenager who had his youth stolen from him by the Yakuza, when they forced him to take up his father's debt. Once he is freed from it, however, his true nature is revealed, one which makes it challenging for viewers like me to like him. This series, it seems, has broken new ground with its protagonist, since I doubt any self-respecting shonen would have a main character (who we are meant to like and care about) be as unabashedly horny as this one.

That's not to say that having a character who likes sex is a bad thing. People, fictional or not, are allowed to like whoever they want, however they want (with consent of course :)). Denji, though, takes the trope of 'sex obsessed teenager' to the extremes, proudly declaring that the only reason he hunts devils is to have sex with his boss. It gets to the point where one of his teammates accuses him of not taking the job seriously, and Denji has the audacity to claim he is. Meanwhile, Denji is lured into a trap by a female character, all because she offered to let him touch her breasts. These, as well as the countless other instances of Denji staring at women's chests instead of their eyes, or whining about how he wants to 'cop a feel', made him a character that was infuriating to watch get his way.

To make matters worse, it seems like nearly every woman in the series is infatuated with him enough to not only let him do these things to them, but outright encourage them. Halfway through the series, Denji and his teammates join up with another trio of devil hunters to investigate an apartment complex. Before entering, one of the female hunters declares that whoever kills the devil inside will get a kiss from her, and when Denji declines, she whispers that she'll do it "with tongue". Around the same point in the show, Denji's boss Makima explains to him about the Gun Devil, the most powerful and most feared devil ever. When he shows apprehension about taking on such a fearsome foe, Makima offers to do whatever he wants if he kills it, heavily implying that she'll sleep with him.

Never in my life have I watched a show where adult women proposition a teenager, something which I was proud to say until today. I wish I could say that it had its purpose in the overall story, but the show hardly has anything to say about it, almost as if it had no problems with it in general. Denji is sixteen, and the hunters that offer to kiss or sleep with him are easily in their 20's, maybe even early 30's, making every 'romantic' or 'sexy' moment in this show a fur-raising experience that took me a bit to recover from. If it was once, and to make a point about the transition to adulthood, or how its morally wrong, I'd understand, but this is absurd. Whoever thought that a scene where the main character's co-worker drunkenly kidnaps him, then coaxes him into have sex with her is okay, should be fired, and have their hard drives searched by the FBI.

I wanted to like this show. Really, I did, especially after all the hype it has, and all the lovely fanart of it I see on my social media feeds. But after having to sit through all 12 episodes of this, I think I'm tapping out. Sure, the fights are great, especially the final one between Denji and Katana Man, where they fight on a subway. The sharp teeth, blades, and constant blood spray were so thrilling, they almost made me forget about the sexual assault stuff. Keyword 'almost'.

Chainsaw Man isn't just a shonen series about the tumultuous journey from teenager to adult: its an action series with cool monster designs, a feral hero, and more blood than a used tampon. But also, its a series where the main character demands sexual favors, and is rewarded with them by adult women time and time again. This series was a mixed bag, one that had me either glued to the screen or wanting to shut it off, with hardly any in between. The main character should've been anyone else (honestly I'd prefer to be following Power, she's way more interesting), and as the series went on, I felt myself wishing for characters to just die already, so I wouldn't have to put up with them anymore. Here's hoping in season 2 that I get my wish.

[parafic]

Mostly it's that I've been reading and absorbing fandom personalities for them (Izuna dramatic and showy, Hikaku The Sane One) for... however many years, and I'm trying to do something a bit different with their personalities, but those standard ones are still ingrained.

So for Izuna, what caught my attention is that apparently he's described in the data book as something that gets translated as 'peace-loving' or 'harmonious' (and probably other things, but those are the ones I've seen). Which is kind of a contrast to the very little we see of him, in which he seems very eager to fight and distrusting of peace.

It could just be that he's in favor of peace generally, but distrusts the Senju specifically and we just don't see his opinion on peace otherwise. But I think, combined with how Madara and the Uchiha fell apart without him, it's also reasonable (and to me, more interesting) to interpret that as a reference to someone who values/is a source of interpersonal harmony. Izuna is the one who notices and redirects a conversation before an argument starts, soothes ruffled feathers, listens to peoples' concerns and persuades them to give Madara's latest strategy a try, finds an excuse to have a celebration when people need to be cheered up, notices if a clan member is being excluded and figures out what's up and how to fix it. He keeps morale up and everyone working together.

But the flip side of that is someone who's really conflict averse (emotionally speaking), and to do all that effectively for a whole clan, he's constantly putting on different personas. So like, that common characterization where he's dramatic and demanding might be how he acts around Madara, because Madara likes having a baby brother, but he doesn't do it around anyone else. And he'll have a bunch of other different ways of acting for when he's around younger shinobi, older shinobi, various groups of elders, kids, parents, etc, based on what they expect of him/like him to be. (Everyone does this to an extent, but I'm thinking Izuna does it a lot more than most.)

And at the same time, when things upset him, he's likely to let them go because he doesn't want to start an argument, people would be upset if he asked them to stop, etc, and if he just ignores it then nobody's upset so no harm done, right? So the end result is an Izuna who's barely (if at all) more aware of his own emotions than Tobirama is, he just has a very different mask.

So from a writing perspective, that is a complicated character to write anyway, and it overlaps enough with the popular characterization I see that sometimes I'm not entirely sure which I'm writing. Also this is a weird and extreme situation that Izuna has no preestablished way of acting for, so in-story he's struggling to figure out how to act to begin with. So it's a lot to balance, basically.

Hikaku is a little simpler! The way I'm characterizing Izuna overlaps some with Hikaku's usual only sane man/The One Who Gets Things Done role, so I want to give Hikaku some other traits so that he doesn't feel redundant. I also think he deserves to get to be Uchiha dramatic sometimes too, but I don't want to just give him a copy of Madara's/Izuna's/Sasuke's usual personality.

So I'm aiming for him being quieter than they are, but without just being calm, and more willing to argue and criticize (or just snark) than Izuna usually will be. But he's also starting out in an extreme situation that has him very off kilter emotionally, so he wouldn't be acting exactly like himself anyway, so I'm trying to figure out like, his baseline personality, and also how that's going to be affected by what's going on at the same time, so it's kind of doing two steps at once. (And is part of why I've been using his POV so much; it helps me work all that out when I can just write out all his thoughts as I go.)

Honestly the tunnel visioning is probably most of what ADHD Tobirama will mean for this fic; it's more that I just looked at how I usually characterize him and went 'yeah that sounds like ADHD'. Though Hikaku mentioning that Tobirama is "even rapidly bouncing his heel against the floor the way he seems to do when deep in concentration" is a bit more deliberate reference to Tobirama showing ADHD symptoms (since fidget toys are not exactly abundant in this setting, and he'd probably consider them too undignified to use himself anyway).

The sensing bloodline limit is all me! One of those headcanons that technically kind of contradicts canon a little but like. I prefer it. (Though @domoz is using a variant in the Hanahaki-adjacent AU!)

Basically the idea is that usually, a person's chakra system is like the circulatory system: it's more or less closed off from anything external, your body produces and uses it, but anything from outside is going through the stomach or lungs or something first.

But in the Senju, chakra is a little more permeable. It's a little more like, say, the water in a bay: it's distinct from the ocean but it's not cut off from the ocean by any means, and there's always some amount of flow back and forth.

So, because they're always having a little bit of chakra flow back and forth with the chakra around them (both natural and other Senjus' chakra), they get passive sensing. Which is not entirely as useful as it sounds; range is based largely on how much chakra a person has (though they can extend it or pull it back with conscious effort) but learning to distinguish chakra signatures and place their location is difficult and much rarer for someone to be good at. Hashirama for example technically has a bigger sensing range than Tobirama, but he can't distinguish signatures or estimate distance well, so it's not much use for him. (Though he will be able to tell that Tobirama is still alive while he's trapped on the island.)

All Senju (with this trait) do have the advantage of being able to feel when another chakra signature is present though, since basically no one else knows this is a sense to hide from. Senju can also read shifts in peoples' chakra the way that other people might read facial expressions, which again other people don't usually learn to control or hide, so the Senju get a nice edge there.

(In this headcanon the sensing jutsu, which Hikaku uses in this fic and is used in canon, was invented in the past to both give allies access to some of the same information the Senju had, and to cover up that what the Senju were doing was not a jutsu. Which is why both exist.)

Senju might also have a bit of an advantage at using elemental and/or sage jutsu, because their chakra is always a little bit bleeding back and forth with natural chakra, so it's more familiar to them. Not a huge advantage though.

The vulnerability is poison. Most poisons target the physical body and very few target chakra itself (with the exception of chakra suppressing poisons, which are more common). But when a Senju is hit by something that turns their chakra toxic, it will spread to every other Senju in their range, and then in all those Senjus' ranges, and....

So best case scenario an entire team gets wiped out. More likely it's several teams in the same area. Worst case scenario someone gets hit with something while Hashirama is alive, it spreads to his chakra, and from him it spreads to every other Senju with the same trait, and that's how the Senju clan disappears.

Tobirama escapes because he happened to be in his lab at the time, which is shielded against chakra going in or out, in case he accidentally invented something chakra toxic. And some Senju, presumably including Tsunade and Nawaki, just don't have the trait to begin with so they survive. But most of the clan falls over dead within about an hour, which Senju generations ago more or less saw coming, which is why they kept the bloodline so secret and tried to breed it out.

(Some non-Senju in allied clans that intermarried would probably also have had the trait and died along with the Senju too, but I have not planned anything detailed about that because that is the bad ending AU and I don't enjoy those.)

a lot more focused on the results of interaction than the often annoyingly intricate path to get there "correctly", except people put a lot of stock on the "correct" path of behavior and WILL react weirdly if you don't follow enough of it.

Yeah! Tobirama is very focused on efficiency and getting things done, and he thinks everyone else ought to be equally focused on practicalities, so he has no interest in wasting time on being indirect.

I do think he can be polite if he has to--he's a clan heir, he's going to get stuck doing politics and diplomacy to some extent, so he doesn't really get a choice about learning this, and he's the type to learn how to be excellent at it because it's important even if he hates it. (And he's aware of appearances, demonstrated by scolding Hashirama about dignity in public and such.) But getting him to use those skills when he's not in an explicitly diplomatic setting (or maybe in disguise) isn't likely.

(Which does again make him kind of the opposite of Izuna; Izuna is compulsively diplomatic, because he sees value in building rapport and connections with as many people as possible. Izuna is building a tightly-knit community while Tobirama runs a well-oiled machine.)

You're welcome, I'm glad you like the songbirds! If you haven't read it, you might like @denialcity's hanahaki AU, for adoration grow. Somewhere in there is a scene where Izuna sings for Tobirama and Tobirama discovers that music can make him Feel Things.

(I also have equivalent headcanons for the Senju and Uzumaki collective hobbies, but they're not musical.)

Sparring will lead to yet another culture clash, in which the Uchiha decide the Senju are insane and Tobirama is judgy (after he gets over being freaked out).

The Uchiha aren't having too difficult a time; Kagami isn't old enough to know most sharingan secrets, and Ruri is old enough to know what not to say. Plus there's a general politeness norm among shinobi of not asking about clan secrets when clans are interacting in a polite way, so all the kids generally know not to ask (and probably don't know too many secrets even if they were asked).

Tobirama is having a bit more difficult a time keeping Uzumaki seals hidden, because the Uchiha can copy any seal they see him make and that would be that. But again, the Uzumaki kids are mostly either too young to know seals or old enough to remember not to share them, so Tobirama mostly has to hide his own work. Which is a bit inconvenient, but he can just tell the Uchiha to leave so he can make a seal, and can sense whether anyone is close enough to watch him, so it's workable.

They also don't really care much about other clans' secrets. If a kid from one water country clan gives something away to a kid from another, that is not their problem and they have bigger things to worry about. Rescue your own kids next time if it bothers you. Aside from the Uzumaki the clans here are too distant to be allies to either the Senju or the Uchiha, so they have no obligation to care and are already doing these clans a huge favor by rescuing their kids, keeping them alive, and eventually returning them.

Thank you! The jutsu definition headcanon is mostly Domoz's, although I did adopt it immediately.

And there actually aren't really secrets to worry about in that case! The Uchiha know that if a Senju uses a jutsu, that Senju will probably also know several 'related' jutsu; that's not something the Senju could or have attempted to hide. It's basically a semantic difference; the Senju label something on jutsu and the Uchiha label it a cluster of related jutsu, but everyone's still aware that the options exist.

Izuna specifically has been expecting Tobirama to show up with a 'new' water dragon jutsu for some time, so his reaction is more along the lines of 'of COURSE you can do this now'. Though he WILL be annoyed at Tobirama insisting that they're all one jutsu. Izuna takes pride in how many jutsu Tobirama has invented to fight him with, stop trying to ruin his score!

(It will probably come up very late, though; the most likely prompt for this is Tobirama being introduced to the Uchiha jutsu library, and that is a post-relationship thing motivated maybe by Izuna and Hikaku innocently trying to give him a gift and possibly by hopes of interesting him in the sex jutsu section.)

Tobirama has at minimum collected some hints about Uchiha organization! He's trying to figure out exactly how hierarchy works between Izuna and Hikaku, and who Hikaku is that he seems to sometimes have equal authority to Izuna.

The Senju have basically one hierarchy: Hashirama at the top, Tobirama second, and everyone in charge of various things they've delegated answering to them. War and missions are all built into the same system, and shinobi are sent where their talents are needed, because the down side to having a wide variety of talents is that you often only have one or two people that can do any specific thing. So a Senju who's good at sneaking in and stealing things, for example, will be sent to steal the enemies' battle plans and that valuable vase some lord wants but can't buy.

The Uchiha basically all learn the same style of fighting, the same types of jutsu, etc; obviously there's some variety but nothing compared to the Senju. They also might just have more people in general. So they have basically two hierarchies; the war/battle shinobi (who are led by Madara and Izuna) and the mission shinobi (who Hikaku is in charge of). The two operate in parallel, and shinobi generally only are part of one, not both (other than kids/young shinobi still figuring out where they fit).

(This could also have gone the other way around, and had the clan head running missions primarily and someone else handling the war. But uh, Madara and Izuna are both very war-oriented. In other generations it's been different.)

As a result of that, since they're on a mission, Hikaku is actually officially in charge here. But Izuna is the clan heir (and functional co-clan head) in addition to co-head of the war, so Hikaku is used to deferring to him and Izuna is used to being in charge, and Tobirama's presence is another argument for Izuna to take the lead because Hikaku has no personal experience with Tobirama. So Hikaku and Izuna are kind of unclear on who's in charge here, which is fine because they trust and respect each other and agree on their goals.

So that's what was going on when they're trying to plan how to attack, and Izuna says he's outvoted and makes Hikaku do the negotiating instead; if Izuna was actually in charge of the mission he couldn't be outvoted. And Tobirama doesn't know exactly what's up there but he's sure something is, so he's Observing. (And also why he asked about whether Izuna would follow the plan he and Hikaku made; he expects Izuna to outrank Hikaku the same way Tobirama would outrank any teammates he had on a mission, and Tobirama wouldn’t necessarily be obligated to keep an agreement/follow a plan any other Senju made, so he thinks it’s weird and suspicious that Hikaku is making the plans instead of Izuna.)

He was also fishing for information during the "you deserve to suffer slightly less than bloodline thieves" exchange; he's trying to figure out Izuna's opinions on peace/alliance, since that's a thing Hashirama wants.

(But also yes, he feels very bad about giving away the healing jutsu thing and will try to apologize to Hashirama about it when he gets the chance.)

That works really well for the limits on Hiraishin! It did always seem odd to me that two unrelated people could use it but no one else. (Though for Typhoon Island it's just not invented yet, otherwise Tobirama could teleport off the island and we wouldn't have weeks of pining to inflict on them all.)

...are you trying to show off for the pretty guys, Tobira? >__>

XD Not quite yet! (I mean, he might have been trying with the first fish, but that was general pride + "see I am a Useful Ally, now how about we stop this whole 'war' thing".) With the second fish he's just very sneakily being a little shit, because he thinks them freaking out over An Ordinary Fish is funny. (And unimpressive. But he can judge them AND laugh at them just fine.)

(He won't admit it. But this is the Tobirama version of a prank.)

You're welcome, and thank you! I'm really enjoying getting to talk about all this.

@starstuffduster You are SO right about needing distractions, unfortunately I am working overtime so it will be even later than usual before I can write

(Do send me lots of asks though! I'm off tomorrow so I can write plenty then)

In the meantime, have a couple of incomplete later scenes from Typhoon Island (which will probably get rewritten but they're fun for now)

Hikaku finds Tobirama sitting under the ledge, where the rain is blocked but some light still filters in.  His eyes are closed, and his face is perfectly blank as he traces ink blindly over his face and throat.  A seal, clearly, though what it’s meant to do, Hikaku can’t imagine.

Tobirama is too skilled not to have noticed him, even rapidly bouncing his heel against the floor the way he seems to do when deep in concentration.  How Tobirama managed to train his skills so that he is always aware of the people near him, but has missed sunrise, sunset, food placed beside him, and being rained on, all in the few weeks they’ve been here, Hikaku still hasn’t figured out.  But a surprised shinobi reacts violently, and Tobirama is no exception, as proven by the times a sudden movement has startled him.

So Hikaku knows Tobirama is ignoring him for several minutes.  As Tobirama is currently placing the most intricate seal Hikaku has ever seen on his own face, and doing it blindly, that’s more than reasonable.

Tobirama stops abruptly, his heel landing sharply on the stone.  Hikaku doesn’t glimpse the handseal that pulls rain into a bubble over Tobirama.  The bubble bursts and splashes over Tobirama’s face, blurring most of the seal and drawing the ink in distracting trails down his throat.

Hikaku sets that aside for later.  “Difficulties with the seal?” he asks.

“Obviously,” Tobirama says shortly.  He wipes some of the water off of his throat, smearing the sealwork there further.

Hikaku still doesn’t know whether Tobirama is aware of his own rudeness.  He has learned that ignoring it is usually enough to end it.  “Would a mirror help?”

Hikaku doesn’t have a mirror, and neither does Izuna.  But they could probably work out something adequately reflective, if the seal is important.

“Hmm.  Unlikely,” Tobirama decides.  He unfolds from the rock he was sitting on and starts back toward the main cavern, and he’s still somehow taller than Hikaku remembers.  “The seal is meant to be used in groups, applied to each other.  The difficulty is in applying it backwards.  Seeing it would likely be a distraction.”

Hikaku will never comprehend the Senju mind.  “What sort of seal is it?”

Tobirama hums.  It takes several seconds for him to answer, and they get close enough for Izuna’s voice to reach them, slightly distorted, singing a children’s training song.  Several of the children have joined in, with a much larger range in skill than Hikaku expected children so old to have.

Mostly in the direction of less skill.  Do other clans teach their children nothing except to fight?

“It is a snorkeling seal,” Tobirama says.  “By drawing on the user’s chakra, it draws air from the surface into their lungs, and allows them to remain under water indefinitely.”

An incredibly useful seal, then.  It would be a deeply concerning one as well, except that most of its uses are pointless in Fire Country.  Fire Country has many streams and creeks, but even the Nakano, which is the largest river in the country, is only rarely deep enough for a person to truly hide in its depths.  Mostly, a submerged shinobi would only look like a fool, trying to hide a few feet below the surface of clear water.

But in a place like Water Country, much less these Whirlpool islands… Hikaku is glad that the Uchiha so rarely venture outside of Fire Country.

Still, it gives him an idea.  “If it is not given chakra, does it do anything?”

“No.”

“So it’s safe?”

The question earns a quick flick of Tobirama’s eyes in his direction, before they return to the tunnel ahead.  “Children use it.”

“If you were to draw it on me, then,” Hikaku says, and even having concluded there would be no danger, his heart rate picks up, “Izuna could watch, and draw it on you.”

Tobirama pauses, a fractional delay in his steps as he glances in Hikaku’s direction again, this time longer, almost actually looking.  But he shakes his head.  “It is an Uzumaki seal.”

“I have not yet found a limit on the complexity of what the sharingan can copy,” Hikaku says.

“The Uzumaki are protective of their secrets.”

Ah.  A different issue than Hikaku assumed.  The Uzumaki are Senju allies, but it’s not a seal for war.  “Is it that valuable?  I can’t see it being used often in Fire Country.  I’ve never seen a river or lake large enough to hide in.”

“Fire Country doesn’t have lakes; we only have ponds,” Tobirama says, as if reciting the opinion.  “Every seal is valuable.  If not for its own effect, then for what it will teach about sealing.”

“I see.”

Izuna stops singing the moment they reach the cavern, and most of the children break off after him, uncoordinated.  Kagami continues alone, his voice clear until he finishes the verse.

“Izuna-san is teaching us Uchiha music!” [Uzukid] announces.  Izuna’s face goes strained.

“Is it very similar to Uzumaki music?” Tobirama asks, apparently interested, which sets all the kids off.  Uchiha music isn’t much like Uzumaki music at all; the [idk water bloodline] have some similar music but it’s not [waterkid]’s favorite; the Hyuuga have the same song, with only a few different words.  Tobirama listens with solemn interest.

As soon as every child has shared their comparisons, Tobirama focuses on [Uzutween].  “[Uzutween], are you familiar with the snorkeling seal?”

She nods, looking slightly confused by the question.

“Good,” Tobirama says.  “Come with me; I am going to use it to go fishing, and I am not able to apply it to myself.”

--

“Look!  Abalone!”

[Uzukid] is grinning when Hikaku glances over, holding up a palm-length, brown shell with six holes in a line and oddly triangular spots.  She, of course, is looking at Tobirama, who pauses in his demonstration of prying mussels off the rocks to seriously examine the shell she hands over.

“Very good,” Tobirama says, and hands the shell back to her.  “Your family works with abalone, don’t they?”

“Yeah!”

Tobirama nods again, and turns to include the other children in his explanation.  “We likely won’t find many abalone here, but they’re valuable and harmless, so collect any that you see.  [Uzukid], would you like to explain how to identify them?”

“Yeah!”

The rest of the kids cluster around and [Uzukid] holds up the shell, pointing out the shape, colors, and shiny interior.  The Uzumaki eat the snails, and make the shells into all kinds of jewelry and decoration.

Tobirama listens, but his eyes keep sliding away, scanning the pool and the area nearby.  Izuna glances over, sharingan flicking on to catch the image of the abalone’s shell, and then goes back to hunting through a pool closer to the water.  Hikaku listens while he keeps prying mussels off of stone and tossing them up the beach toward dry land.

The kids spread out again, now mostly ignoring the abundant mussels as they stick their faces in the water and peer under rocks in search of abalone.  [Uzukid] turns rocks over a little more strategically, and keeps chattering.  “An’ when you grind the shells up really good, you mix ‘em in with ink and make star seals!  That’s what my family does, for the whole village!”

“What are star seals, [Uzukid]?” Tobirama asks.

“You’ve seen them!  On the roofs!”

“I have, but not everyone here has,” Tobirama says.  “Kagami, do you know what star seals are?”

“Not yet!” Kagami chirps.

“They’re sparkly!  And bright!”  [Uzukid] gestures, hands flying out in a burst of implied light.  “We put ‘em on the edges of the roofs so the old shinobi don’t fall at night!”

[Uzukid]’s descriptions make it sound as if every day is a festival in Uzushio.  It’s a shame, Hikaku thinks, that he won’t get to see it.  But the Uzumaki have been the Senju’s allies almost as long as the Uchiha have been their enemies.  Hikaku will no more be allowed to see Uzushio than Tobirama’s bedroom.

“What if they’re too bright?” Kagami asks.

“They’re not!” [Uzukid] declares indignantly.  “They’re star seals, not… not sea-glare seals, or something!”

Kagami nods seriously.

“Seals that create a bright light as their primary effect are called flash seals,” Tobirama says.

“Yeah!  They’re not flash seals!”

“But flash seals are one of the primary types of seal which Uchiha encounter,” Tobirama says.  “So it’s reasonable for Kagami to think of them.”

“And fire seals,” Kagami adds.

“Explosive tags,” Tobirama corrects.

“Izuna-sama hates those,” Kagami shares.  “He says fire’s ours so it’s not fair Senju can fake it without learning real jutsu.”

Tobirama smirks, a flicker at the corner of his mouth that vanishes before he raises his voice enough to make it carry.  “Well, next time he says that, you may tell him that Senju use fire jutsu, too; he just hasn’t seen.  And he should know better than to make assumptions like that.”

Kagami grins and nods.  A few other children giggle.

Izuna looks thoroughly annoyed, but he turns away instead of saying anything.  He’ll have plenty to say later, Hikaku is sure, once Tobirama and the kids are out of hearing, but for now he tosses his hair back and peers deliberately into the water.

“Are there lots of kinds of seals, Senju-sensei?” Kagami asks.

“More than I can list at once,” Tobirama says.  “Seals are even more varied than jutsu, only less commonly used.  Now, how many mussels have you found?”

The Uchiha are collectors of jutsu.  Every jutsu that any Uchiha has seen since the beginning of the clan is recorded, both in written form and in memories passed down across the generations.  Many of those jutsu are useless—there are dozens of campfire-lighting jutsu, invented by different clans in different countries and different generations, and the Uchiha only need one.  But they are kept anyway, for any who want to study jutsu creation, or in case an Uchiha needs to disguise themselves as a member of another clan.

Among those jutsu are thousands that have no use at all in war.  Jutsu to make food more flavorful, to shape wood and metal and stone with greater precision than a handheld tool, to send messages, to embellish dance, to amplify music or sensation.  Most Uchiha learn a handful of them.  Jutsu for singing and sex are the most popular, and those that are useful with various crafts.  Hikaku has at least glanced through most sections of the library, looking for interesting options.  Each recorded jutsu also records the source, and every Senju jutsu Hikaku has ever seen is for war.  Hikaku used to be sure that meant the Senju simply didn’t know or use jutsu for anything other than battle, sabotage, and the like.

But once this season is over he’s going to have to go home and add an entire new section to the library for jutsu that heal.  Not merely by shaping a needle out of a broken blade or pulling gravel out of wounds, but actively.  It’s still technically for war, but it’s an entire category of jutsu that the Uchiha didn’t even know were possible, which the Senju seem to have been using for generations, the way Tobirama acted about it.

So maybe, being a Senju, Tobirama doesn’t know the full variety of uses jutsu can have.  Or maybe the Senju are very good at keeping secrets, and seals can do things Hikaku hasn’t even imagined.

It really is a shame that he’ll never see the Uzumaki compound.

Hikaku pries the last mussel worth eating off the rocks, tosses it into the pile with the rest, and straightens.  The children are enthusiastic, but very distracted by all the unfamiliar creatures in the pools, and Tobirama is similarly distracted by watching and teaching them all.

Hikaku and Izuna, then, will have to do most of the foraging.  Which isn’t worrying, really; Hikaku is no longer concerned about starving while they’re trapped on this island.  But he’d rather not eat every meal from the same single fish for a week again, nor would he like to see what bigger fish Tobirama could possibly find. 

[this is followed by Hikaku picking up a blue ringed octopus, and Tobirama being Totally Rational And Calm And Not Panicking in response. As he always is, of course]

[laylainalaska]

Okay, I want to talk about how much fantastically concise character detail is packed into that opening scene at the SSR I just reblogged, the “words beginning with A” scene (combined with what came before it but isn’t shown in the gifset, Daniel white-knighting and Peggy asking him not to).

The establishing scene or scenes with any new character or character relationship always have to do a tremendous amount of work, because they're setting up how you think and feel about these characters, and trying to get across an initial impression that is accurate, that gets across as much information as concisely as possible, but also lays the groundwork for how that relationship is going to develop later on.

And this scene, plus the parts immediate before and after, just packs in a terrific amount of detail about these characters, who they are, and the way they relate to each other at this point in the show.

Peggy is defiant, stubborn, and angry, but not to the point of actually rejecting the role that’s been thrust on her. She clearly hates having to deal with her coworkers treating her as a glorified secretary, but she also goes ahead and does as she’s asked. Peggy has a backbone of steel, but she also wants to fit in and be a team player. So later on, when she has to go rogue to solve a case, we already know that it’s not something which is easy for her. And we also know that she has a sense of humor even in the face of people being awful to her - she’s just been humiliated in front of the whole office, and now Jack is dumping paperwork on her, but her response is actually kind of playful (if angry).

Daniel listened to what she said a minute ago about defending her and immediately shows that he (unlike the others) respects and pays attention to her by not intervening this time. Then he offers her a little bit of bonding friendliness between the two of them vs. the office popular kid with the "personality shot off in Iwo Jima" joke at the end, which is a pretty common joke (got his [something] shot off in the war) that also a) lets us know Jack served in the Pacific theater during the war, and b) is also a 100% accurate summary of what his actual problem is, they just don't know it yet. And we also get a demonstration of the two of them bonding as the office underdogs vs. the rest of the office.

Jack is established here as a glib, arrogant jerk who treats Peggy as a secretary and expects her to do his paperwork for him (he also dismisses Daniel with a glance), but at the same time he's weirdly friendly about it. They banter easily with each other, even though she doesn't like him; he isn’t set up as fundamentally awful in the same way as Krzeminski is, but instead he responds to Peggy basically calling him an asshole not by being nasty to her, but instead with teasing, if condescending, humor. This scene sets up not only his worst qualities but also lays the groundwork for the way that he and Peggy are able to relate to each other in a friendlier way later on, once he’s managed to get past his sexist view of her and accepted her as an equal.

It’s just a really wonderful example of setting up a bunch of different character and relationship traits with just a few lines of dialogue and a little bit of interaction.

[iaintyourbro]

The New Red Herrings: Biggs and Zack and How Avalanche Tells Us the LTD is Dead

Biggs and Zack are seemingly alive at the end of FFVII Remake Part 1 - so what does that mean? Will they live throughout the story? Maybe they’ll be like Wedge and escape death initially, only to be forced to face it shortly after?

There’s also interesting similarities on the death scenes of Biggs and Zack, A while ago I took screenshots of the “death” scene of Biggs and thought it was interesting how they had Biggs touch Cloud’s head and also made him promise something. 

And how are all these things connected to the LTD? 

Now, clearly, neither Biggs or Jessie had as dramatic of a death as Zack or Aerith. We actually see the initial injury or incident that causes each of them to die. Cloud comes upon Biggs while he’s already sitting down injured. Cloud and Tifa come to Jessie after she’s under the rubble and try to save her. 

We know Cloud pretty much loses it when Zack dies. He collapses mentally. He’s already been through enough shit to fill a lifetime, and now his only friend, his best friend, and the guy who saved his life, dies trying to get them back to Midgar. 

Why Zack is Important to Cloud

Relationship wise, Cloud obviously had a much deeper connection to Zack. At the point that Biggs dies, he doesn’t know any of that, but I think his death definitely triggers something in him. Biggs saw through Cloud’s front. We know Biggs dealt with the kids at the Leaf House, and most likely acted like a volunteer in the Big Brother program. He tells Cloud he’s got a lot in common with the kids at the Leaf House.

Zack had Cloud take on the responsibility to be his living legacy. Of course we all know he shuts down about five minutes later. Biggs had Cloud promise that this wouldn’t all be for nothing. In both cases, it doesn’t work out. He forgets what Zack told him and the Sector 7 plate still falls. 

Zack’s death has a major impact on Cloud - it’s ultimately what breaks him. It also gives us these really sad moments of somebody who’s already been through so much and is breaking now. 

Cloud is upset about Biggs. He was becoming his friend. The three Avalanche members really did accept Cloud and tried to be his friend. He was included with them - in most cases. Of course there’s the Avalanche party that he’s kicked out of (mind you - he does this to himself by acting like an ass to Barret and them) and then during Chapter 4, he’s separated to go steal Jessie’s dad’s ID. 

Ultimately, though, we know that Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie all like Cloud. They seem to see through the hard exterior pretty easily. So Cloud loses another person in his life.

The ending of FFVII Remake takes an interesting turn. Anybody who played OG or CC knows what is supposed to happen to Biggs and Zack.

But, Remake’s ending seems to imply that they survive the event that was supposed to take them out. 

Did Zack survive the last stand? Is this a case of the Last Stand in CC being combined with OG where as they walk away, Zack ends up getting shot anyway? 

So we also see Biggs.... wait, wrong picture.

That’s the right one. We get a shot of Charlie Sheen Biggs waking up in a bed in what looks like some type of either infirmary or large room. In OG, we know that all three of the Avalanche members die during the Sector 7 plate fall. In Remake, the only one we get confirmation on is Jessie, and that’s only in the Chapter description. 

Wedge we know survives until the Shinra building, where the Whispers ultimately take him out since he defied fate. 

So, what will happen to Biggs?

The biggest thing talked about seems to be the ending. Zack surviving created a lot of buzz. Is there a second timeline? Is he going to just simply walk another 10 feet and get shot in the back? Did her survive in the first place? Why does Stamp look different on that bootleg chip bag?

Will we have a beautiful Zerith reunion? 

In the OG, the Love Triangle illusion was the red herring. This was mostly to trick and distract the player to focus on something, so later they can destroy you with major twists. It also was used to get the player to like Aerith so her death would be more impactful. In addition, it makes the whole Northern Crater confession from Cloud about Tifa’s opinion being the only one that matters a slam in your face of holy shit what is going on?!

At this point, everybody and their mother knows Aerith dies. It’s not something that was kept a secret. It’s referenced in various materials. The one thing not openly referenced is what’s going on with Cloud. They never reference the Lifestream, the fake persona, or anything outside of the OG and Ultimanias. I think this is a shame since it’s such an important part of his character arc, but I get that they want to try and leave the element of surprise in play.

I think everybody would agree that the moment you find out Cloud was just a grunt that was WITH Zack during the Nibelheim incident is super powerful. I still get chills all these years later. Letting this be a well known thing would take away the element of surprise from new fans. Of course, people can go online and read blogs like this one and know all of this, but for somebody - especially future generations - who may just be looking for a new game to play, you’d want this element of surprise to stay in tact. 

We can’t use Aerith as the only red herring anymore, and we can’t use the love triangle. For many reasons. Everybody knows about it and the love triangle was a poor choice for something like this because some people missed the point completely.

Now, FFVII Twitter is always on fire. 

Also, even though the Lifestream and Cloud’s true identity are pretty well kept secrets in terms of printed media, most of the people who played FFVII Remake played the original game, they know what happens. People who were new and played Remake first most likely went and bought OG and played it. So now they know what happens. 

They knew this, or they probably wouldn’t have shown Cloud in this state, but even for those who don’t, the alternate timeline theory is born. Biggs enhances this theory because he’s alive too. How can Cloud walk past them AND be carried by Zack in some catatonic state?

It keeps us distracted. They want us to think that fate can be changed. In the case of Zack, they’re even saying that the past can be changed. 

Ultimately, whatever they do, it’ll be shocking to most players. I do trust that the devs aren’t being deceitful when they say they are going to keep the major plot points the same and FFVII will be FFVII going forward. Part 1 keeps major plot points but adds substance to a lot of things. They took out unnecessary parts and enhanced others. They also removed a lot of the love triangle stuff. 

Another striking thing with all of this is the Jessie factor. The Chapter screen tells us she died - it only says Biggs was seriously injured. That hasn’t stopped speculation.

The ending shows gloves on the table next to Biggs’ bed and a lot people said oh it’s Jessie’s left glove! And it does appear that it is. There’s only one glove. To me, this seems like they recovered her body and were able to pull of some personal affects of hers to leave with Biggs. Both articles look damaged or faded. 

Faded could mean they’ve been sitting in the sun for a while. The incident happened a few days ago, though we don’t have a definitive time on when we’re shown Biggs. This could be a future look.

They also could simply be damaged and full of dust from the plate collapse. 

It is implied in Chapter 4 if you listen to the conversation between Jessie’s mom and the gang that Biggs and Jessie have a different relationship than Wedge and Jessie. 

I have some thoughts on what this may mean:

Biggs is Jessie’s BFF and her mom likes him.

Jessie and Biggs dated at one point and decided to not tell her mom that they no longer are or that its casual.

Jessie’s mom was hounding Jessie about finding a man so she picked Biggs to be her pretend boyfriend and he agreed.

Biggs and Jessie are secretly dating and only her mom knows.

Which one do I think it is? Well, knowing Jessie, I can definitely see her doing #3. I can absolutely see her acting like Biggs is her boyfriend to get her mom off her back. I think #1 and #2 are also huge possibilities. #4 is far fetched, but they could cover it up by having Jessie flirt relentlessly with Cloud and appear to be single. 

Some people think that Jessie will end up at the Gold Saucer singing. Personally, I really hope not. If they keep a bunch of people alive (even if it’s for a short amount of time), it really takes away one of the major themes of FFVII which is death and moving on. In addition, I think it’s too many people they’d need to kill off later. Jessie is a very popular character, so I hope they don’t take that as an incentive to change that aspect of the story. 

Aerith’s funeral and Jessie’s death are similar as well, so I think it is foreshadowing some things. 

We get a princess style carry here. Aerith and Jessie both get these in Remake. Jessie’s second one ends in her death. Will Aerith get a second princess carry by Cloud? Will it be to take her to her final resting place?

Maybe she won’t even go to the lake - maybe to the sky?

We know Tifa was super upset in OG, and they really don’t touch on it much. We only see her run away crying after this moment. You learn in Case of Tifa that she’s really upset about, but a lot of people don’t read Case of Tifa, so they only know this scene. 

We know that she gets very upset over Jessie’s death.

I think Aerith’s death will be much worse. 

It seems Jessie’s death is a reference to how Aerith’s death was handled in the OG.

Will it be handled the same? Maybe. I think they’re going to make it seem like she’s going to be okay, and then boom.

So the ending gives us hope that we have two friends that are alive. It makes us think that we can save Aerith. I do think Wedge’s death towards the end and comments that Red XIII made in Chapter 17 may also be hinting towards the fact that you cannot change the past and you cannot change fate. 

Over on Discord, @anesuna​ brought up a good point about Wedge’s cats. Biggums survives the plate collapse along with Wedge. The other two cats - Reggie and Smalls - sadly perish (::cries a lot::). This could also be a reference that Biggs survived while Jessie and Wedge do not. 

So what about the LTD?

I think this is a heavy reference to the old OG love triangle. Don’t fall for it! They’re warning players now instead of wanting them to fall for it. 

Why do I say this? Aerith seemed to think the love triangle was fun. Thing is, Cloud wasn’t all there at this point, so it was just an illusion. Since players didn’t seem to get that the first time, they’re going to make it clear now. There were a lot of aspects they seemed to take from Aerith and give to Jessie. Overly flirty (with Jessie they added thirsty) and being overly childish at times. Aerith in remake is still somewhat childish, but not completely.

Oblivious Cloud is Oblivious. Yeah, he was oblivious in OG that Aerith and Tifa had feelings for him. He has no idea what Wedge is talking about now. Earlier in this same conversation he thinks that Wedge is telling him not to come around because people will gossip about Jessie being in Avalanche, but the player knows really what he’s referring to...

I think this is probably a reference to the Gold Saucer date because of the stage part. I take things at face value and don’t really dig too deep, but I think this exchange with Wedge is supposed to tell the player not to fall for these false loves early in the game.

It’s brought up again during Aerith’s resolution scene.

Earlier Wedge said not to fall for Jessie’s trick, because it was a game to her. It wasn’t real love. Aerith is now telling her that if Cloud thinks he falls in love with her, it’s not real. 

We have two separate instances in the game where they’re telling you to beware of the false love. It’s two times the word love is used. 

After all of this, the ending presents us with two guys who should be dead that appear to be alive. One of them is directly connected to Aerith.

This was their way of trying to shut down the LTD and replace it with different red herrings. Will it work as well as the LTD? Well, it seems that the majority of FFVII Remake fans have talked about the ending.

Yes, a lot of people talk about the LTD, but I think the majority of players are more interested overall in what happens next and what’s up with Zack. I think the majority of the fandom is also ready for the LTD to officially be dead so we can actually focus on everything else and stop the madness. 

It’ll never fully stop, but at least it’ll be clear for anybody who plays the game and alleviate the bulk of the chaos. 

Say hello to your new red herrings: Biggs and Zack. 

Say bye to the LTD.

[bosspigeon]

maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Pairing: Gen, with Tina Poname & Male Detective Friendship Word Count: 2187 Summary: Tina Poname’s the new kid in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, and is learning the hard way that making new friends in a place like Wayhaven is easier said than done. Luckily, she’s got a can-do attitude and a forceful personality to help her befriend even the surliest of loners.

I just think Tina’s such a good character, and I loved trying to write from her point of view, and I love thinking about her friendship with the Detective. Especially with my boy, Arlo. I also read a bunch of articles trying to put together his infodump on the Satanic Panic fhdasjhgjskahg. Title, of course, taken from “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. (I like to think I’m Funny)

Tina takes her lunch in the courtyard.

It’s overcast outside, looking like it might rain later, but the courtyard is nice enough, landscaped with flowering plants and rustic stone pathways, though it is kind of small. She’d rather sit inside, just in case it does start pouring, but every table in the cafeteria was full, and the ones that weren’t very quickly became full when she walked past with her lunch bag. She’s learned quickly that small towns like Wayhaven tend to be pretty… insular.

She’s trying not to let it get her down. She’s the new kid, and with time other students will warm up to her, but for now she feels like she’s the ugly duckling set adrift in a little pond, and all the other ducklings think she has the plague or something. The metaphor gets away from her a bit, but her head’s been a bit of a jumble since the last move. But that’s leading towards things she’d rather not think about, so she doesn’t. Simple as that.

Instead she looks around her, taking in the very pretty little courtyard, even if it’s washed in the moody tones of the grey sky overhead, made more moody still by the shade of a tall, gnarled old ash tree in the center. There are a few wooden picnic tables scattered about, all of them empty.

All of them but one.

Tina almost doesn’t see him at first. He’s hunched over at a table directly under the ash tree, his back to her. His long black hair hangs almost to the bottom of his shoulder blades in loose waves, and all she can think is that he’s never seen a boy with hair so pretty before. Every time she sees a boy with long hair, it’s always a frizzy mess, and whenever she brings up that they really shouldn’t use all-in-one shampoo, they get all annoyed with her.

She makes the decision to flounce right over, rounds the table, and wiggles into the bench across from him. “Your hair’s so pretty!” she chirps by way of greeting, unzipping her lunch bag and beaming at him. He looks up at her, and she’s a bit stricken when she sees his face properly. His dark brows are bold slashes scrunching over pale grey eyes lined in smeary black makeup that streaks down his freckled cheeks. He’s got a square jaw and a strong nose, but he still leans more into pretty territory than handsome, and she’s beginning to figure out that the uniform guidelines in the student handbook are taken as more suggestions than law, given that his lip, nose, and ears are pierced.

He doesn’t respond, squinting at her, his mouth twisting into a frown.

“I’m Tina!” she offers cheerily. “I like your makeup!”

He frowns harder, almost snarling, with a bit of teeth showing, like he’s hoping to scare her away. Well, Tina Poname isn’t so easy to scare, and she’s determined not to spend lunch alone. She just smiles right back and starts rooting through her lunch bag, pulling out the neatly packed containers of healthy fruit and veggies and hard boiled eggs to find the yogurt-covered pretzels hidden at the bottom. She crunches on one while she eyes her new tablemate, who seems to have resigned himself to her delightful company and has turned his attention back to a notebook he’s doodling in while absently eating something she thinks is a kind of pretty little spring roll. It looks really good, and she’s a bit jealous.

He staunchly ignores her eyes on him, shifting a bit and tossing the hair hanging in his face over one shoulder, so she can properly see the black enamel inverted cross dangling from his ear. Without thinking, she leans across the table and flicks it.

He flinches away from her and glowers with such ire she’s surprised her clothes aren’t smouldering. She smiles sheepishly, but brushes off the surprise and barrels on. “I can’t imagine you’re too popular wearing those in a quiet little town like this,” she chimes in a teasing sing-song. “Wonder how many old die-hard religious types burst into flames at the sight of you?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes so hard it gives Tina a headache. But she’s also more than a little pleased she’s gotten a reaction out of him.

She leans into it, figuring she’s found her in. “So, are you a Satanist or what? It’s cool if you are! Just think it must be hell in this place.” She can’t help but cackle at her own joke, slapping the tabletop and wheezing. When she recovers enough to notice, she catches him eyeballing her like he can’t quite figure out exactly what’s wrong with her. It’s a look she knows pretty well at this point.

“I’m not an anything,” he sighs, tapping his fingers on the wooden tabletop. His nails are painted black, but they’re chipping at the tips, and he’s wearing a few really cool rings, a couple of which looks like they might be antiques. “Besides that, the whole inverted cross being a symbol of Satanism is bullshit.” His voice is pretty deep, but not nearly as deep as she expected it to be, and softer besides, with a light, lilting burr to it. Regardless, Tina’s delighted to have gotten anything more than grunts and glares from him at all. She leans forward, crunching another pretzel. “Wait, really? What’s it mean, then?”

“It’s the cross of Saint Peter,” he almost bursts out, and then pinches his lips shut, like even he’s surprised he said anything. He looks at her warily, but she just waves at him to go on. He hesitates for another moment, before he continues haltingly, “When Peter the Apostle was supposedly executed under Nero, he’s said to have requested he be crucified upside-down, because he felt he wasn’t worthy to die the way Jesus did.” His broad, tight shoulders are loosening bit by bit the more he talks. “It’s a symbol of humility. It’s even used in the design for the papal cross, because the Pope is supposed to be the successor of Peter. And because of its mistaken associations with Satanism, now people like to claim the Pope is the antichrist.”

He rolls his eyes again and picks up another spring roll, gesturing at her with it before taking a bite and continuing while he chews. “I’m not sure exactly when people decided turning the cross upside-down suddenly makes it evil, but it can probably be traced back to the whole Satanic Panic debacle that kicked up in the 70s through the 90s. Anton LaVey—fuck that guy, by the way—published The Satanic Bible in ‘69, but most of it was pretty much plagiarized from a lot of other authors who philosophized about self-actualization and whatnot, including Ayn Rand—fuck her too—and then The Exorcist movie came out, and those things combined with the whole Manson cult thing earlier in the 60s and kicked off this sort of pop culture fascination with the occult and macabre. A lot of metal bands and other counter-culture music artists started using them in album art along with other bastardized religious imagery, and it turned into a whole thing with religious pearl-clutchers.”

Tina is astounded. Not just by the subject of the conversation (which is really cool, in kind of a weird way?) but with the way the boy  turns into a completely different person in the blink of an eye. Just a few minutes ago, he was all dour and moody and mean, looking as if he was a second away from biting her head off, and in the space of a few seconds, he’s morphed into someone totally different. His eyes are brighter and more expressive, he’s talking with his hands, and even the kind of monotone voice she’d heard from him before has changed. “Wow,” she says with no small amount of awe.

He seems to regain himself when she speaks, as if he’d forgotten he was talking to another person entirely. She watches him shrink, hunching his shoulders and looking down at the table, scooping up his pen and viciously scribbling a little spiral into the top corner of his notebook.

“No, seriously!” she blurts, standing up and bracing both hands on the table so she can lean into his space. “That’s really cool! How do you know all that?”

He gives her that same wary, hunted look from earlier, and she can’t help but pout. She wants to see what she saw just a second ago, when he looked like he was excited to talk about something. “Just stuff I picked up a while ago, and thought it was cool, I guess.” He shrugs and looks away, tugging at the spiked chain around his neck partially hidden under the crooked collar of his uniform shirt. “There’s this bookstore a couple towns over that kind of specializes in this stuff.” He lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers, mouth cocking in a wry almost-smile. “Plus, there’s always the magic of the internet.”

She laughs brightly, and it takes every ounce of her meager self-restraint not to reach out and try to physically drag that other boy out of him. “Oh, that sounds fun! We should go together sometime!”

He blinks at her, like she’s hit him over the head with her lunch bag. “Wh… what?”

She leans forward harder, until she’s essentially standing on her tip-toes and bouncing. “We should hang out! I’m sure if I ask really nice, my stepmom will drive us out there. It’ll be great!”

He keeps staring at her. She bounces a bit faster, hoping he doesn’t notice the pimple she couldn’t quite cover with foundation before she had to leave this morning. And if he does, she hopes he doesn’t say anything about it, because she doesn’t think trying to fight him will ingratiate her to him overmuch.

“I’ll buy lunch and everything,” she wheedles.

“I…” He looks away, eyebrows all scrunched again, but she can see him wavering. She wants to punch the air. Never doubt Tina Poname! “I guess? But why?”

Her smile falls a little at the genuine confusion in his voice, the way he’s not looking at her anymore, even to glare, the way he’s twisting one of his rings around his finger and almost hiding behind his thick, dark hair. She tilts her head and blinks at him. “Because I think you’re cool? Besides that, this town is kinda weird about new people? And you’re the only person who didn’t put a bag or book on every available seat when I walked by.”

“Mostly because I didn’t see you coming,” he mutters under his breath, and she barks out a laugh.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ambushed potential friends,” she giggles. “Hasn’t failed me yet. Except when it has, but I don’t count those.”

He finally looks at her again, still kind of hidden behind a curtain of hair, but she thinks he’s actually smiling at her. He starts to open his mouth to say something, but flinches instead when the shrill ring of the bell indicating the end of lunch interrupts him. He swears under his breath and starts to gather up his things, and Tina starts shoveling pretzels into her mouth while pushing her untouched plastic containers back into her bag. She’s going to regret eating nothing but pretzels later, but at least they’re more filling than melon or carrot sticks.

“Hey wait!” she exclaims through a mouthful of pretzels as he begins to stand, almost tripping over the bench to block him in before he can leave. She’s staggered, suddenly, when he rises up to his full height and she’s looking very up at him. She’s been taller than most boys all her life, so this is a bit bizarre. He looks down at her with his brows raised, tucking his notebook into a satchel covered in patches and pins. “Wow, you’re tall,” she says astutely, swallowing her pretzels.

“Uh… yeah, I am,” he responds.

She shakes off her shock and backs up enough to let him out of his side of the table, but she blocks his path to the door still. Though she’s not sure she could stop him from going anywhere if he really wanted to get past her, with those long legs of his. “I forgot to ask! What’s your name?”

He hesitates again before he quietly says, “Arlo.”

She shoves a hand out at him, “Tina Poname, at your service!”

He grants her a shake with his big, ring-laden hand, obviously bemused, but he’s doing that maybe-smile again, so she thinks she’s done pretty well here. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.” He turns and walks a few long steps away, then pauses and turns back towards her, waiting for her scamper to his side.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she says a little breathlessly, swinging her bag and turning to him with a sly little smile “since you’re the local here, what teachers will let me get away with eating in class?”

[corpsentry]

allahrakhii (dot) tumblr (dot) com/post/148596180152/honestly-the-depths-of-ignorance-of-white-people

this is a really good post for those who want to learn more about the harmful portrayal of brown women in the legend of zelda series. theres a bunch of helpful links that direct to articles throughout the post as well. if you scroll through a bit youll find the section that covers why the gerudo outfit is racist.

i would appreciate if you post this and not simply brush it aside! this message isnt intended to be hostile or offensive, but rather it is an opportunity for learning and discussion. thank you.

i find the insinuation that i might brush this aside rather ominous anon! first of all, thank you for sharing this post. as someone vaguely from southeast asia i uncovered another facet of the fuckcluster of internalized racism in my system while reading it and will be thinking about it for a while to come. the post is well-written and thoughtfully phrased, plus op provides links to several other resources that i’ll be checking out in my free time too so i’d recommend anyone passing by here give it a read. i also want to apologize for responding to the earlier ask (now deleted) where op was like ‘how is the gerudo outfit racist’ and i was like ‘fuck all if i know’. i was talking out of my ass and failed to consider alternate perspectives. i retract that statement and replace it with this much longer and much more eloquent one.

now everything from here on is frankly quite unrelated to this ask so to the person who sent it please feel free to stop reading right here right now from high school musical as i want to talk about the previous anon message i received and some general stuff regarding fandom and none of that has anything to do with you (you are lovely and the rest of the world is a shithole).

i don’t know if the original anon who sent the ‘i like your art but the gerudo outfit racist :(’ is gonna see this but let’s take a moment to unpack it. i’m not quite sure what anon was going for with this ask. what did they want from me? did they want me to apologize for drawing and posting it? did they want me to delete the post? did they expect me to say oh thank you so much!!! sorry about the racism xd or did they want me to call up shigeru miyamoto and be like ‘hey dude your shit’s racist’ and then take down the entire nintendo corporation in one fell swoop like i was somehow implicated in either the development process or the game by pure merit of drawing fanart of it(????). this was the shit running through my head when i woke up at 6 am this morning because jetlag and opened tumblr and there was this Person sitting there trying to :( me. what’s up with the :(. why are you :(. what do you want from me.

this is where the second anon above comes in. relative to this ask, if the first anon had so much as dropped one (1) link to one (1) post explaining how the outfit might be racist (and taken out the :(, which is lame) then instead of being like ‘which reaction image should i use for this’ i would’ve been like ‘oh here’s something i didn’t know about the world and here’s how i can learn more’. ‘your art great but this racist u___u’ reads like someone trying to guilt-trip someone for shits and giggles. a B grade on a paper is useless unless your prof tells you where you went wrong and before anyone Calls Me Out i’m going to acknowledge that there is a broader issue with marginalized groups having to bear the burden of ‘explaining themselves’ to privileged people who aren’t willing to go and seek information on their own, but let’s just look at this ask for a moment.

what the fuck is this??? what am i even supposed to do with a statement that not only tells me nothing but also seems to have no clear purpose? i am sitting here drawing video game fanart in a college dorm in pennsylvania and i know like 3 things about western media because i don’t like live-action film. if you want to have a conversation please give me something to work with instead of trying to sound sad in my askbox. i can’t turn your :( into a :) because i have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about because i am not god (yet) (although i am trying to).

but let’s talk bigger. racist stereotypes are a huge fucking problem in everything the ideological west gets its hands on. i promise you i know this because i grew up in singapore where the racism was directed towards everyone including ourselves because sir dickbag raffles stuck a flag in the ground and then ruined everything. i can see how nintendo has replicated those racist stereotypes, especially given that east asian countries generally have a long history of racism towards black and brown people. singapore fucks with it too because we’re majority chinese-singaporean and majority lighter-skinned (relatively speaking). op makes a lot of excellent points. perpetuating stereotypes in popular media serves to reinforce racist ideas and further entrench discriminatory beliefs. it’s a chicken egg chicken egg thing. people are socialized into racist beliefs. they create media with racist depictions. young people consume said media and are socialized into racist beliefs. and so on. egg chicken egg chicken.

so, question: where does fanwork figure into all of this? is that 5k ganlink (is this the ship name lol idk if it’s wrong feel free to take me out with a bazooka) e-rated smutfic the egg or the chicken? who is it socializing? who’s writing it? what kind of audience is it reaching? and, more broadly speaking, what is fandom here for, and what does fandom want to achieve?

here we’re going to take a huge detour into another very popular disco horse (at least on twitter i have fuckall clue what’s going on on tumblr at all times) of the present times: the wmulti level wmarketing (wlw) discussion. it is statistically true that there are far less f/f fics on ao3 than m/m fics and f/m fics. this clearly reflects something about fandom’s habits, but the floor is divided. in fact, the floor is on fucking fire all the time. several arguments have been made over the years, of which 1) media creates less-nuanced female characters which makes them harder to connect to (mass media’s fault) and 2) everyone is a gay fetishizer (the individual’s fault) are, arguably, the most popular.

as a head ass philosophy student i’m going to pick the option no one likes and say that i think it’s a combination of all of these factors. and i’m going to step out further and say that people are so inseparable from our communities and societies that it’s impossible to tell where external influence ends and personal preference begins. what this means, more simply, is i think that both individual arguments are insufficient. media is fucking complicated and so are people so imagine when you put all of this shit together on one webpage and then you light a match. tell me, bethany, can you truly say that you like twinkies because You Like Twinkies or was it that advertisement you saw at the bus stop every day for eight years that finally got to you? are you trying to rebel against society’s fear of fatness? are you depressed? do you just like sweet things, and anyway, can anyone “just like” something?

now let’s transplant this issue of societal/self influence (a fandom friendly version of the nature/nurture argument, if you will) onto fandom. so okay, there aren’t a lot of f/f fics. what do?

some popular options i’ve seen are: 1) make angry posts/tweets about how everyone sleeps on f/f relationships in fandom and we’re all secretly lesbophobic 2) call everyone a gay fetishizer 3) write f/f fic

and so here is the other (other? i don’t remember how many problems i’ve listed lol i’m trying here guys) problem: fandom doesn’t have a single cohesive goal. like people don’t come to fandom and then sign a 5 page contract at the end of which is the company vision. everyone comes here to do their own shit. some people use fandom as a means of escape. some people are trying to spread a message (like the evangelists) or educate the youth. some people fuck around and find out.

concept: if the goal of fandom was social activism, then the argument could be made that We Should Write More f/f fics. that make sense to you? because there’s something we’re all striving towards, we can agree that we have an obligation to our community to do something. but the goal of fandom isn’t social activism, is it? maybe it is for you. but it isn’t for everyone here including the 14 year old kid in chinese orchestra and the 56 year old who just wants to read some good werewolf smut. and because we’re all different people who do different things and fandom is not and cannot be your entire life, we can’t make these prescriptive statements. we can’t tell people what to do. ‘people should write more f/f fics because there are very few right now’ that is a valid statement and observation. now will you write those fics? because you’re the only person whose fandom life you can control. because the point of fandom is we’re away from the rules and regulations of Society. because when people are told they can do what they want they will do what they want and if you tell them to do something else, it’s hard to fault them for not taking kindly to it. i’ve written 5k character studies. it’s work. not everyone wants to do that work. that’s why i do it.

detour end and now we return to the chicken egg problem. in my opinion, the shit we create in fandom isn’t the chicken or the egg. it’s the onsen egg that’s been placed on top of your ramen. it’s a product of several complex societal processes, but now it’s here you and maybe the dude sitting across from you are the only ones, by and large, that it’s going to affect. this onsen egg isn’t for the children of the world (broadcast via disney+). this onsen egg isn’t for the politicians who’ll decide on the policy of your country for the next hundred years. they’re not even going to see it because it’s a fucking onsen egg now and no one has taste anymore these days except for yourself, which is why this onsen egg is just for you. put in clearer terms, i agree with op that people in fandom often replicate societal bias in their work (people are copy machines, bethany), but i don’t think most fanfiction has the power to influence society the way that popular media can (see: marvel movies, i dunno, fucking, like, austin powers?), and to critique it with the same mindset we use to critique tony stark is to say that we earnestly think every 15k smutfic is going to be read by millions of people of all ages from across the world. which is not the case. ao3 has a thing you have to click if you’re not logged in you know where you have to agree that you’re 18 or older o read adult stuff. if you lie about that that’s your own goddamn problem. they asked.

and now, part 2, we come around to several interesting points made in the post. op mentioned that ganon is often portrayed as hypersexual (which is fascinating to me i don’t read e rated fic I See What Zelda Fandom Is Doing) or just fucks a lot in general. since i don’t go here i will take op’s word and roll with it, but i have my own word to add: so ganon fucks- what do we do? do we tell people to stop writing fics where ganon fucks? do we force them? do we tell people to write more gen rated character studies (please join me i sit here alone and i (pensive homo stare))?

we could. but we can’t make them. and we also can’t tell them where their ideas are coming from. i don’t, like, read a lot of smutfic but i sure know that shit exists because half my friends are horny as shit and can we all agree that fandom as a whole is just super fucking horny. like yes if ganon as a whole is portrayed more often in sexual situations than the other characters in the franchise, it’s a good and fair observation that Something’s Up Here. but can we really point to individual authors? the premises mentioned in the post by op are premises i’ve seen for haikyuu fanfiction. multiple times. tens of hundreds of times. what if someone’s just really fucking horny? what if they’re replicating racist ideas taught to them by mass media? can we tell? can THEY tell?

the answer is no because humans are black boxes that can’t be opened up even if we drop into the pacific ocean and instead screech helplessly at walls all our lives. the answer is these are complex issues and i don’t think prescriptive ‘Never Write Sexy Ganon’ statements or pointing fingers at random 30 year old smutfic authors will improve the situation. the answer, or at least my answer, is that we should consume media with a critical eye and be aware of potential biases perpetuated by the authors/creators, but striving towards ideological purity is impossible on principle (i promise you everyone on this planet is problematic in some way or another because this purity thing from christianity is fucking lame and also completely fake) and so we should all give that up. my personal answer is i’ve learned a lot about stereotypes about middle eastern and south asian people and i’ll take all this info with me moving forward, but i honestly and earnestly do not think me drawing link and zelda in dumbass princess jasmine outfits is going to directly correlate with an increase in racism as observed in the island city-state of singapore. i am aware now. that’s a good thing. but just like how the h*rry potter fandom has completely detached itself from its horrible creator and now fucks around in its own space doing its own thing, i think it’s fully possible to engage with flawed media because, surprise surprise, all the media in the world is flawed.

[technofantasia]

A little thing I really appreciate about Rise of the TMNT is just how subtle the writing can be at worldbuilding and characterization!

Like... a very common problem in all kinds of fiction, let alone kids' shows which tend to think their audience is too stupid to put 1 and 1 together, is telling over showing. How do you let your audience know how your world works, what characters' names are, how they know each other, all that kind of stuff? Usually, the answer is to find some way to shove in exposition. Have the characters introduce themselves to someone new so the audience can be introduced to them, or have the information come up in (hopefully) natural conversation, or find some other way to tell the audience exactly what they need to know. While writers can get creative in how they deliver that exposition so it isn't outright immersion breaking, depending on how much they need the audience to know, a little bit of immersion breakage can seem like kind of a necessary evil. Exposition is still exposition, no matter how you dress it up; it's always going to be the writer telling the audience what they need to know through the characters' mouths instead of showing it gradually through their actions.

...If you notice, despite being ostensibly a kids' show, Rise doesn't really have any exposition!

The first episode drops you right into the turtles’ life, without any foreknowledge or expectations or anything really, and proceeds to not really try to explain anything. You can clearly see they are not human, and can assume that they are turtles by the title of the show and the shells on their backs; at no point is it actually explicitly said they are turtles (at least, at no point is the audience told they are turtles. it comes up sometimes, but more as flavor than exposition). The same way, at no point in the first episode do they really say the characters’ names; it comes up in conversation sometimes, as names often do, but there’s no “these are the character’s names!” part of the conversation where they all consecutively say each others’ names or anything like usually happens in first episodes. You just have to pay, like, minimal attention to figure it out, which the entire audience can easily do.

Actually, a thing I REALLY like is that, throughout the series, they almost never say their full names? Which makes sense, because why would they ever say their full names, they’re long and unwieldy. It makes them seem a lot more realistic. But that’s particularly noteworthy because the audience is never explicitly clued into the fact that they even have full names at all! If you legitimately knew nothing about TMNT going into the show, you’d need to figure out through context clues that “Mikey, Donnie, Raph, and Leo” are nicknames at all, let alone what they’re nicknames for. Then again, it’s not exactly impossible to find out through context because they have multiple nicknames for each other (which is a thing you’d only do if someone has a particularly long, nicknamable name)! Just in the first episode, Leo is called both Leo and Leon, which clues you in that Leo is probably short for something. Combined with later episodes where Donnie calls him “Nardo”, it then would become pretty clear that his full name is Leonardo even without having to hear it spoken out loud! The same thing holds true with the other characters; sometimes their full names come up, but when they do, it always feels completely natural and like it only so happens to be revealing information to the viewer. It trusts the viewer to understand and put together the subtle context clues it lays down so it can just tell a story without stopping to explain everything, which feels just fantastic!

And that’s only one example of the writers doing this. They do it for everything. Like, just going back to the first episode again, first scene. What happens? The turtles zipline over some shady crime stuff to canonball into a pool which April got them access to, They come across Mayhem, they fight some jogger guys who turn into magic horsemen or whatever, they lose and the bad guys get away with Mayhem and April. Cool. Now, what does this scene let the viewer know about without ever explicitly saying anything?

They’re ninjas (they’re in the shadows, doing cool flips and stuff)

They’re not very good at being ninjas, presumably because they’re teenagers and not fully fledged heroes (They ignored the shady deal going on on the roof, they completely failed the fight and showed very little skill, they act like teenagers who care about things like jumping in pools)

They’ve known April for a long time (dialogue shows them being very close, close enough that she doesn’t really need to ask anything or say anything in order to be understood)

The basic personalities of all the characters, just through dialogue

Donnie has some kind of high tech stick that has lots of cool features, but they aren’t very well implemented, presumably because he was hasty in adding them (nice little nugget of characterization there, showing he’s more of a scatterbrained scientist type than an exhaustively-pedantic one)

Donnie also has some kind of a backpack thing that can let him fly!

Mikey can pop into his shell, but none of the others do that, leading to the conclusion that he might be the only one who can (which is kind of up in the air anyway, but at least for the most part hes the only one who DOES)

...plus a bunch more. But all that is expressed more through stuff just happening and you getting to see it than any kind of easy to digest exposition. If you really aren’t paying attention, you could miss all of that! It’s surprisingly subtle.

Then there’s stuff like how none of the turtles’ weapons are ever really explicitly named in series (again, as anything more than an aside), Donnie’s battleshell is never officially named OR introduced, the fact that Donnie has multiple battleshells with different functions is never really explicitly brought up, what exactly it is that any of his inventions do AND how they work AND that they’re controlled by his wrist doohickey are all left up to the audience to notice, a good number of important side characters (Hueso, Hugninn and Muninn, the foot guys, FOOT RECRUIT,,,,) are never really explicitly introduced, like, with names and everything, the fact that Raph is the oldest and Mikey is the youngest and Leo + Donnie are the middle children only comes up in passing... so much of the show’s details and lore is never brought up in exposition form, and as a result needs to be just. Noticed, and put together.

It even does this with major plot stuff! Like, you learn that the Battle Nexus is 1) controlled by Big Mama, 2) in the Hidden City, 3) incredibly popular and basically a cornerstone of the city, and 4) Big Mama as a result basically controls the city, all through context clues without ever needing to be told. Or, most of Splinter’s backstory, the biggest continuing mystery of the show, is NEVER actually talked about at any point! It’s only shown to you, never told except in the most sideways fashion (like in Goyles, where, despite being ostensibly an origin episode, Splinter and the turtles aren’t even the focus!)

Heck, thinking about it, most of the show’s mysteries are only mysteries because the writers decided to put some context clues in that hint to there being more to the situation, even if not everyone would realize that! The viewers are TRAINED to take every bit of information given by the text and try to work it into their internal sense of the world and characters, because that’s just how the show works. The writing is consistently INCREDIBLY subtle like that.

And in a way, it makes sense that it would be written like that, even if TMNT isn’t usually known for its subtlety, This is a show all about teens being teens and doing stuff that teens would do, if they were ninjas and also had magic and enemies and stuff. Despite being a very wacky premise, the show relies on a certain amount of realism and groundedness in the characters in order to ground all of the crazy circumstances they get into. Even if they’re being forced into eternal 80s makeover montages by a magician hippo, the characters still act like people, and more importantly, like relatable, semi-realistic people, with realistic reactions and realistic interests and realistic insecurities. The characters are supposed to feel, in a sense, like real people.

How much do you know about any real people other than yourself?

The writers just dropping you into these characters’ lives and not explaining them to you is a way to make them feel more real, I think. It forces you to try to understand them and what they’re all about like you’re meeting them for the first time, getting to know them through their actions more than anything else. It makes the show and especially the characters feel a LOT more personal and, in a sense, real, which is a feeling the show absolutely benefits from and uses to its full extent.

But anyway, this has gotten really long, soooo... Rise is a show that always treats its audience with respect, and it’s just so nice to realize that respect even extends to trusting us to figure out lore as basic as the characters’ names. That kind of subtle writing really makes the show stand out!

[masterhandss]

Hamefura♪ Idol AU! (part 3)

Thank you so much to the people who have voiced their interest for this AU! I honestly wouldn’t have planned on writing any of this and just planned to keep it all in my head if no one asked :’’DD Special thanks to @ineedglassesalways​​ for the song reqs for this one! please check her out she has amazing art!

Please bare in mind that my thoughts are an absolute mess and that what i’m talking about switches between Fortune Lover and Hamefura at the snap of a finger. Most info is the same, so just try to understand which i’m talking about while reading fjhgsdjhfg

(Also i’m gonna start calling this “My Next Life as an Idol?! All Routes lead to Doom!!!” or HameFura♪ now hgfjsdgf)

Directory: Hamefura♪ Part 1 - Fortune Lover ||  Hamefura♪ Part 2 - hamefura

Edit: I added a cut bc i’m starting to sympathize with the people who has to scroll passed all this gjshgf

Random Plot and World-building stuff

Sorcier Entertainment is the biggest entertainment business for the past 2 decades, bringing out and producing the best quality of idols, actors, models, composers, musicians, DJs etc. It is a parent company to a lot of branches and agencies. 

Sorcier Pro. is the main sub-branch of SorEn, being the most popular agency for producing the current hit in the market, which are idols. There a few other agencies within SorEn, but they wont be important until later. Geoffrey Stuart is the president of Sorcier Entertainment, and is the overseer of the main idol branch (no one knows why though, probably bc his lil bros are there). Entertainment is such an important and prevalent part of Society that the combination of the Stuarts holding power of the the entertainment industry, as well as Mr. Stuart being the prime minister, they are truly considered to be the most influential family in the country, which is added by the fact that every member of the family is an outstanding and well-respect individual. 

Sorcier Pro. has a variety of high quality facilities for their idols, and even had a dormitory where they can stay in. This was done for the sake of maximizing the idol’s work hours while giving them a comfortable and accessible place of rest. Not all idols are living in the dormitories, and is usually just housing the popular ones at the time. 

All of the main characters (except Sirius, and Villainess!Katarina) are living in the dormitory during the events of the “game”. Nicol and Sophia has rooms there, but they usually return to their home because they are more comfortable there. Katarina and Keith also regularly visit their parents whenever they are free, so their stay is a 50/50. Maria doesn’t visit her mother often (as her house is too far from her private school and work) so she’s always at the dorms. 

A lot of the well known powerful, political and celebrity families (that are the equivalent to “nobles” in this world) are collaborators and sponsors of the company, one of the main sponsors being the Claes Family.

I thought of just making the setting an “Idol Academy” like in Aikatsu! and EnStars!, but I though nah, that’s just too easy. Industry idols are much more interesting to me, and that plot works better for a “idol rhythm game/producer simulator”, specifically for what M.C. gets to do in the game (plus I was listening to IM@S when writing the first part so hgfsdjhfdgsj)

Most prestigious families has their kids be home-schooled, especially ones that are involved in the entertainment industry. This is so that they can focus on their career while they are still young. The exception to this was Maria, until she became an idol and had to take a hiatus from school as Sorcier Pro. expects her to focus on expanding her career. She takes supplementary classes on the weekends.

Katarina’s solo unit name in Fortune Lover is Nobelia (a combination of “nobilis or noble” and “lobelia”, the blue flower of malevolence or evil). She sometimes gets temporary teammates to join for tournaments and projects, but she is a solo idol. 

So the units are Fortuna (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol), Amour (Maria, Sophia, and Mary), Nobelia (Katarina solo), Picotee (Sophia solo), Marigold (Mary solo), Alcea (Maria solo), Regalis (Gerald and Alan), Edel Herz (Keith and Nicol). 

The name’s origins being: Fortuna as the greek of ‘Fortune’, Amour as the french of ‘Love’, Picotee as the dual colored flower (that can be white and red), Marigold (bc obviously) as the flower of passion, Alcea from alcea rosea (the pink hollyhock, which almost means strength and healing), Regalis as a root word/synonym to royal/royalty, Edel Herz being just a google translate of “noble heart” in german teehee (pls appreciate all the googling I had to do dhfgsjhfdg yes it’s mostly flower names bc I have no originality)

yes i changed the names form my original post, don’t call me out asdfgh

Idols don’t really need a stage name if they are a solo idol, but most popular idols are associated with one so it just became a trend to have both stage names and unit names. 

In the original game, Maria’s default stage name is “Cinderella”, which you can then change into the username or player name. This is so that Maria can keep her name while still giving the players a custom name. 

Maria’s original stage name is a nod to a lot of things: the “Cindrella syndrome” that her character is based on, The name of Fortuna’s fans/fanbase (as most players really are a fan of the boys), and is also a reference to how you are the main love interest for the boys (as you are their true Cinderella)

Katarina doesn’t retain the same stage name “Nobelia” as Villainess!Katarina does, in fear that it might her more similar to her, leading her to a doom end. She doesn’t have a stage name, unlike her friends. Her fans would call her “Bakarina” online though, but she never finds out about it jhagjsfg

Fortuna is an all-around male idol unit, one that can take on different images and genres with ease. The image of the unit changes depending on which boy is the center/lead of the song:

With Gerald, the music focuses on the instrumentals or the orchestra, giving a royal or heavenly vibe. The songs have an emphasis on righteousness, the beauty of life and a prosperous future. The songs for the fans usually has a theme of “reminiscent love” or “looking forward to a future with their partner”. A good example of a unit center song for his is Genuine Revelation from EnStars, and Flower as a solo song from his VA

With Keith, the music becomes more mature. The songs have more seductive lyrics, and has an emphasis on “forbidden love” or “having a secret relationship” with the fans. The lyrics are usually innocent in nature, until you read in-between the lines. Sometimes, his center songs throw a curveball and becomes about a “pure and innocent love” or “longing to be loved”. A good example for his solo song is Gekkoujou no Aria from A3 (please listen to it, it’s by Keith’s VA and the lyrics screams “Keith”)

With Alan, the guitar, violin and piano take the center stage.The music usually has more instrumentals than lyrics. The songs are primarily about being one’s true self, loving who you are and looking back at the past. Friendship and Identity are common themes in his songs. Sometimes, his center songs would throw a curve ball and be about something like “not acknowledging one’s feelings until it is too late”. A good song that represents his usually themes is Bokura no Kizuna from A3

With Nicol, the music is more slow and deep. The songs are usually about self-conflict, self-development and change. His songs sometimes have a theme of having an extreme adoration for the fans, a love so strong that time nor age can make it falter. “Being the only one for him” is the theme of his more popular songs. A good example for his solo song is Sword and Soul from his very own VA!

Yeah, basically the image of the center idol is reflected in the performance.

I don’t have a full list of idol song recommendations yet, but my friend who i mentioned above already recommended a bunch of good duo songs for the boys!: (feel free to suggest stuff if you guys have any :DD)

Gerald/Keith - Es No Yutsu from A3

Keith/Nicol- Plastic Poker from A3

Alan/Nicol - Don't Cry from A3

In the original game, all four boys we’re scouted while the girls all auditioned to become idols. Now, since they are all close friends, Gerald was able to market the talents of his friends and was able to get them all scouted into Sorcier Production. 

Fortuna has a producer before Maria, but by the beginning of the game, he had to leave due to health reasons, leading to the sudden application for a new producer. While many producers offered to take care of the boys alongside their other idols, Fortuna insisted that they want a new producer who would focus solely on them. 

Mary and Sophia also have their own producers, but they are barely present because they are busy handing other idols (and eventually, will let go of Mary and Sophia once they decide that they want Maria to produce them)

While Fortuna, Mary and Sophia’s careers were able to skyrocket quickly do to their appeals and talents, Katarina’s career grew slowly compared to her friends. This is because, despite to protests of her Producer Anne, she usually takes smaller gigs in far away towns, malls and small live houses. This is because Katarina wanted to perform in front of people who can’t easily access or attend live performances outside of the internet, just like her own small town in her previous life. She knew how happy she’d feel if there was an idol performance near her area, so she wanted to share that joy to other people. 

Katarina doesn’t join her friends in doing acting and modeling jobs until much later, when Maria joins their group. 

Anne Shelley acts as Katarina’s fitness instructor, personal health manager, and producer. She was brought into Katarina’s life even before she regained her memories, only exclusively as a health manager recommended to the Claes Family. She ended up taking on more jobs that involves watching over Katarina as the years pass by, as the young girl started gaining more and more interests and hobbies. Katarina wonders how Anne is able to be qualified for so many jobs, but she just sums it up as Anne being amazing! (Katarina: I guess she’s kind of like a maid!... or a babysitter...) Anne was (somehow) able to become a producer in Sorcier Productions and was easily recommended for Katarina due to their history. Anne cares a lot about Katarina in her happiness, and will do anything to support her (both version of her, in fact), so much that she is willing to juggle so many careers in order to stay by her side. 

Katarina has a small farm that she tends to in her free time (since she doesn’t get a lot of job offers in the first place) that is located in the garden grounds near the main office of Sorcier Pro. Her visitors/helpers differ each day, depending on who is available (and who intentionally made themselves available to make sure they can spend as much time as they can with Katarina)

While her friends constantly get fan mail, the delivery man is always wondering why Katarina always specifically gets a small light box. In reality, it’s packages sent by Tom the gardener, from the Claes Mansion, showing her all his new prototypes for the snake toy. While Katarina first started out as making them out of paper before deciding on buying them online, she knew her family would be suspicious and question why she’s making such a purchase, so she was surprised when Tom started joining her in making fake snakes, until the snakes started to look even more realistic than the plastic ones online!

Maria Campbell: A Girl Chosen by Destiny

Since “Maria” is an involved protagonist, she gets to keep her name in the game, with her idol alias being the “username”of the player

Just like in HameFura, the game doesn’t give much on Maria’s actual history. 

The game does have an implied personality for her, being a kind and hardworking girl who puts all her focus on the task at hand. The game implies that she is also a bit introverted, with her personality becoming more open and outgoing as the game progresses (implied through the slight changes in dialogue choices).

She’s a bit of a country bumpkin who moved into the big city in order to experience the world outside her town. She was able to gain a scholarship to a school in the city, and moved alone to stay with her aunt from her father’s side.

Due to her father leaving the family when she was young to due to rumors that she might be the daughter of a different man, Maria’s relationship with her mother is still very strayed. Thanks to these rumors, her father left her and her mother when she was young, and her town heavily criticized the two for the adultery that her mother apparently committed. These rumors stemmed form the fact that even as a child, Maria was beautiful (with clear blue eyes and bright blonde hair, that are in contrast to her mother’s dull eyes and dull hair). While her mother was fare-faced, the appearance that Maria had was usually associated with celebrities or artists, making people believe that Maria didn’t come from her father. Despite Maria’s mother claiming that none of it was true, the rumors got so out of hand that Maria’s father became ashamed of his family, leading him to leave without a word.

In the beginning of the game, she stayed with an Aunt from her father’s side, on the condition that she somehow pays the bills by herself, leading her to want to get a job. 

Maria saw the announcement of Sorcier Production being in need of new staff, so she applied quickly in order to start saving money. Thanks to a set of misunderstandings, she accidentally got the role as a producer, despite her lack of credentials (not knowing that she was the beginning of a big project of SorEn)

Maria is an extremely hardworking person, believing that if she worked hard enough, she will be one day rewarded with the love that she’s always dreamed of receiving.  Fortune Lover makes you think that Maria is naturally able to produce 7 idols, but in reality, it’s at the expense of Maria overworking herself to the bone, with almost no time for herself at all. Sometimes she sleeps in her small desk office instead of the household that she’s paying the bills of, in order to maximize her work hours. She dedicates every second that she has on the four boys, so when they shower her with love and attention, she was able to easily fall in love with them as well (and sadly becomes dependent on their validation as a personal reward for her efforts). 

A month before one of Fortuna’s biggest live performance (or a little bit after Maria joins them as their producer), Maria oversaw the training of another idol who came to her and ask for help (not knowing that she was just trying to get close to Maria to get close with the Fortuna boys). Maria helped her train her dancing and singing, and even memorized her choreography in order to critique her steps. She became too dedicated in helping that idol improve, thinking that the girl wanted to be friends with her. When the event happened, the female idol was hit with bad karma and injured her leg just as the live started, leaving her unable to perform. This causes an uproar among the staff, as the set list was too complicated to change in such short notice. Gerald, who is aware that Maria has been helping their colleague, encourages Maria to take her place since she knew the lyrics and the dance. Thanks to the encouragement of the boys, Maria debuts in front of a huge crowd, gaining instant popularity as the cinderella idol that saved the live event. 

Most of Maria’s job as a producer in arranging the schedules of the boys, staying in contact with their costume designer, staying in contact with their personal composers and lyricists, sorting through job offers, keeping watch of their health, watching them while they practice and accompanying them in their jobs. When she isn’t there to accompany any of them, another producer temporarily takes her place. 

As Maria’s popularity increases, she is given job offers that prevents her from focusing on being a producer. Since the boys are very fond of Maria, they are very encouraging of her desire to become an idol too, and offers to help support her and themselves moving forward. 

The game itself doesn’t make the changes in Maria’s occupation obvious, since Maria’s idol life is only prevalent in the Idol Rhythm Game Mode, but in reality the increase in workload is slowly eating her up (not that she’d let anyone know that)

Maria, as an idol, gets constantly harassed by her peers (especially Katarina) for being a nobody idol who took the spotlight away from them, as well as for being a close ally to Fortuna. A lot of scenes in the story mode is the boys saving her from the harassment (leading to a lot of good CG art that are sold as posters :P)

Depending on whose romance route you are on, Mary and Sophia start out as very hostile towards Maria, as her existence takes away the attention that their loved ones were supposed to give to them. Sophia warms up the fastest, as Maria’s lack of hostility towards her makes both her and Nicol easily attached. Even after the three starts as unit as Amour, Mary’s relationship with maria is mostly professional, before she slowly warms up to her somewhere near the end of the Alan Romance Route. The three can be considered friends, but they still seemed more like colleagues in the eyes of other people. 

When Katarina meets Maria, she was very surprised to know that the Maria she played as in the game was a more humane person than the game shows up (somehow who isn’t perfect in every way, and works hard and long to be able to provide for both herself and the four boys)

Their meeting and friendship bloomed in the same way as the Otome Game version (because i’m too lazy to jot down every minor difference hgfjsdgf), surprising Katarina that baking hobby that was just mentioned in text or used as a plot device is actually real and flourishing, and is something she actively supported Maria. 

Due to Katarina’s slow popularity gain, and Maria being a novice idol, they usually took and accepted jobs together since they both needed a boost. Instead of the quick burst of popularity that Maria has in the game, this time she wants to take each step slowly with Katarina, with the desire for them to grow at the same time.

Since Katarina is now aware of the hardships that Maria must be facing as both a producer and an idol, this time Katarina and Anne often help Maria with her paperwork and organization. Whenever Maria isn’t there to follow Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol, Anne now takes over if she’s available or she’d recommend a colleague that she knows would assist the boys like a pro. 

Katarina insists that Maria doesn’t have to shoulder all her burden alone, and that she has all their friends around to help her and support her as they do with each other. Katarina tells her that it’s okay to ask for help and even offers her hand constantly (wow, Katarina can easily carry all these boxes of documents? My hero~) and Maria takes this lesson to heart.

Even though Maria felt nervous about joining Katarina’s friend group so suddenly, which even includes the very idols that she’s meant to watch over, Katarina was very insistent that Maria’s wonderful and warming presence would let her blend in so easily (Katarina isn’t aware of how the relationships of the characters were like in the original game since she never finished). Maria is eventually able to become friends with everyone, and is easily able to hold conversations with Mary and Sophia without Katarina around. Maria is there to act as a straight man to Mary’s exaggerated attempts at hindering the boy’s time with Katarina, and Maria often acts as an ear to Mary’s gossips about other idols. Maria, while not an avid fan of novels as Sophia and Katarina, can still join conversations about books by asking details, recommendations and insights on books she’s already read. Maria can easily get along with the boys as well, since they are in each other’s presence most of the time due to her role. They don’t hesitate to help Maria whenever they can (despite her resistance), and she’s usually the one who stops the arguments between Gerald and Keith whenever they are in the middle of a job. 

Since Katarina ended p being so attached to Maria, the boys sometimes takes advantage of Maria’s role as a producer to have her work instead of attending to the woman of their affections (of course they feel somewhat bad about it, but it’s better than watching them look so love-struck with each other!) but it ends up backfiring when Katarina lets go of all her activities in favor of assisting Maria with her job as a producer.

Whenever Maria is free, she insists on borrowing the small kitchen in the Office in order to use the small over to bake some pastries and treats for her friends. Katarina constantly endorses the amazingness of Maria’s sweets, and they are both happy whenever their friends compliments the results of Maria’s hard work.

Compared to her work schedule in the game, Maria can now work comfortably as both an idol and a producer, thanks to the support and help of her friends. 

Sirius Dieke: The 5th Love Interest

Sirius Dieke is a non-payable character in Fortune Lover, who usually appears in Gerald and Nicol’s stories and side story events to explain things about the world and the past relationship of the characters.

He is another idol in Sorcier Pro, and is an old friend to Nicol.

In reality, he’s actually a hidden character within the game that can only be playable if you get a Friendship Ending in the first playthrough. Getting a neural ending is already super hard, so Sirius being playable wasn’t revealed until two months after the game initial release. The game is so good at hiding this fact that not even the dataminers were able to find evidence of his existence outside of being an NPC. 

Getting a Sirius Route is only possible in the New Game+ Mode, with story events and side story events dedicated to him alone. He only comes with only one new song though, so people in forums usually don’t recommend going to the Sirius Route in the second playthrough (unless you’re a completionist dgjfd)

There’s also the fact that Sirius’ Route has a completely different tone than the rest of the game. The developers of the game planned on removing his route in their game update, but due to the outcry of his fans, they kept it in, and even included a payed DLC where you can instantly unlock his route on your first playthrough. 

In Sirius’ Route, it’s revealed that he was the son of a former celebrity and one of his maids, and that his real name is Raphael Wolt. His mother quited her job just before he was born. They were ultimately hunted down by Mrs. Dieke, who refused to believe that her husband had a mistress.

Raphael and his mother were kidnapped by people payed by Mrs. Dieke, and as his mother begged for her to spare their lives, Mrs. Dieke’s plans were revealed: Her own son is ill and was slowly dying from an illness, and in her jealousy of Raphael’s strong physique and health, she has decided to take Raphael as her own son, as both him and her original son both looked like their fathers more than their mothers. 

In front of his eyes, Raphael’s mother was murdered in cold blood and Raphael was left to suffer from various degrees of shock therapy and blunt forces to the head in order to forcefully induce amnesia without killing him. He wakes up in the hospital bed with no memories of who he is, and Mrs. Dieke graciously plays the part of a concerned mother who is visiting her own son in order to sell the idea that Raphael is her own. 

In the background, a news headline states that a mother and son was found dead in an abandoned warehouse.

The doctor tells Mrs. Dieke that her son “Sirius” might not recover his memories, and despite the glee in her voice, Mrs. Dieke acts and pretends to be devastated by the news. Unbeknownst to both of them, Sirius did eventually regain his lost memories over time and realizes that the woman claiming to be his mother is in fact the very person who had killed his only family. 

Sirius learns that the reason Mrs. Dieke is so insistent on having a son was to be able to nurture and create a new star that would dazzle the entertainment world, with hopes of being able to live vicariously through her son’s career and success. Feeling disgust and hatred towards the woman that he is now forced to call “mother”, he plans to enact his revenge by destroying the entertainment world from the inside, exposing its ugliness to the world.

Sirius ends up becoming an idol because of the encouragement of his “mother”, leading him to be affiliated with Nicol and Gerald. He had already met them when they were all young, and he even planned to have them as allies in his quest to destroy the entertainment industry, only to find them as disappointingly bright eyed teens when they reunited.  

When Sirius finds out that it was the effect of Maria Campbell, their new producer, he decided to wage war against her for acting as a thorn to his perfect plans. It’s revealed that a lot of the bullying scenarios in the story mode was orchestrated by Sirius himself, in an attempt to get maria to lose her reputation and her job. 

Maria was able to trace back all the incidents to him, and confront him alone in the Office at night, before he left to go home. Sirius laughed and admitted to all of his past and crimes, and mocked Maria for having no proof against him. Instead of condemning him, Maria hugs him while telling him to change his ways. Despite the violent ways that he tries to get Maria off him, she doesn’t let go, trying to convince him that his way of acting in correspondence to his grief is wrong. Sirius cries as Maria spoke sense into him and dissected the flaws in his grand plan, until only the sound of his crying is left in the cold and empty office that day. 

In Hamefura, When Sirius finds out that this was the effect of the “saint” Katarina Claes, he had orchestrated various events that could lead Katarina to being condemned by the public through her supposed “bullying” of the public darling Maria. This plans fails, so he plans on using Maria as a form of blackmail to get Katarina to leave the entertainment world in exchange for her friend’s safety. Maria disappears for a few days, causing her friends to be very worried for her, especially Katarina who is somewhat aware of the events that were occurring. During the search, she was able to find Sirius and tried to engage in some small talk, until she remembered a detail that her old friend Acchan said about a dark and secret love interest. Without any thought, Katarina questioned Sirius about Maria’s disappearance, surprising him with her sudden awareness.

Sirius admits to his crimes, and before Katarina can escape, Sirius hit her on the head so she can lose consciousness, but not before screaming about how he hates her ignorant enthusiasm, how she changed his pawns and made them better people, and how he wont let her take his heart and change him as well before he could enact his revenge, with tears in his eyes. This act leads to Katarina going unconscious for a few days. In this come state, Katarina was able to gain information from her old friend Acchan that she can use to save Sirius and Maria. 

In the abandoned warehouse where “he” and his mother supposedly died, Sirius has Maria locked up, with no plans of letting her escape until he can guarantee that Katarina is out of the picture. He is shocked to find out that Katarina and her friends were able to find both of them; he goes on a rampage about how he wants to destroy the Dieke family and everyone associated with them and the cruel world they have created, before the feeling of despair and fear for his future leads him to almost taking his own life as a final escape. 

Katarina stops him, and tells him that both of them has no future, as a secret love interest and as a villainess, and how she can’t save him the way Maria can. But that if anything else, she can a least stay by his side and take some of the weight off his shoulders, like what her friends have been doing for her since the beginning. Katarina calls him by his real name, Raphael Wolt, leading him to unlocking the final memory that he had lost from his temporary amnesia:

A memory of his mother, in her final moments, telling Raphael that she will always be by his side, and that she wishes for him to have a happy future, even if it wouldn’t have her in it. Katarina’s words made him realize that this wasn’t what his mother would wanted for him, leading him to see the error of his ways. 

In both versions, it ends with Sirius turning himself in and confessing to the crimes of both him and Mrs. Dieke, leading to both of their arrest and the return/resurface of the Wolt Family murder case investigation. Sirius’ contract with Sorcier Entertainment gets terminated, and heavy manipulation of the media was used in order to prevent the story from coming into light. 

Since Raphael lacked any crimes that would have him arrested, he was set free and left the Dieke family as it slowly fell apart from the controversy. He announced that he wants to spend his freedom as himself, but will one day come back to all of them as a better person. 

Without Katarina realizing it, Raphael confesses that his rampage was caused by his fear of his desires for her and her company, and that he was scared that if she continued to open her arms to him in such an easy-going and warm fashion, he would lose all his will to have his revenge on the entertainment industry. Much to the annoyance of Katarina and Raphael’s friends, he takes her hand and promises to come back, to stay by her side, like she had promised to him. 

In the Raphael Ending, Maria and Raphael meets again years later as both were on the way to work. Maria has already left the entertainment business and had no plans of returning, while Raphael became a changed man with a good heart and a steady job. Eventually, Maria was able to fall in love with the good man that Raphael was always meant to be/has become, and Raphael was able to rekindle the love and affection that he felt for Maria when they were still idols together.

Raphael had declared that he will back, better than ever! As an idol? who knows :3c But where will he go from here...?

Fortune Lover 2/Fortune Lover Re:Dive

Spoilers for Volume 3 of Hamefura and beyond, since this is about FL2

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I’d like for Fortune Lover 2, but I’m not really sure if I want to put it out there because it seems too fanfiction-y in a way?

I feel like my ideas are straying far away from the original version, which disappoints me in a way, but then again, My Idol Game version of Fortune Lover is nothing like the Otome Game counterpart, so I’ll still write about it. 

If you like the premise for an Idol Game style Fortune Lover, then feel free to just absorb the content above because for (my version of) Fortune Lover 2 to happen, Katarina will still get her bad end: Public Humiliation and Self-Banishment. I’ll save how it happens in part 4 

In Fortune Lover 2, there would be 3 new produce-able idols, but in My Next Life as an Idol, there will be 5 new idols:

this is what i meant when I said the plot is gonna feel like a fanfiction :DD

Fortune Lover 2 isn’t really a sequel, as it is like a bulkier and softly rewritten version of FL, like how Persona 3/4/5 remakes are to their original games.

FL2 introduces a new Idol Agency that is affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment: Mahouka Production (also known as MahoPro), a recently established talent agency created by a mysterious Director. Despite being new, they were able to quickly gain a following through the eccentric idols in their line-up.

With a longer story, halfway through the game you start being introduced to three new male idols: Sora Smith, Cyrus Lanchester and Dewey Percy. They are idols that are under MahoPro, who dislikes the idols of SorPro and claims to be their rivals.

They start out as rival characters in the game, taunting you (Maria) and the idols of Fortuna constantly for a few chapters. Some time after your initial introduction, you slowly get to know the boys, until you’re finally able to gain their trust. You can then start to secretly “produce” them without their Director knowing (just like Shika from IM@S Stella Stage), which leads to gaining events, scenes, idol clothes, songs and CGs of the three new boys.

As the new character gets introduced later into the story mode, they are more of an optional route, as the game still prioritizes the original 4 boys over the new cast. You can still “romance” the 3 new characters, but since they are introduced late, it can only be done at the expense of focusing on them almost exclusively during story events and side stories so that you can quickly gain Relationship Points for them.

So basically, halfway through the game, you have the option to produce 11 idols: Yourself (Maria), Gerald, Alan, Keith, Nicol, Mary, Sophia, Raphael, Sora, Dewey and Cyrus. The first 5 being obligatory, while the last 6 are optional

Rufus Smith (or “Sora”, as he reveals to you his real name during the story) is new idol in MahoPro who was able to quickly gain a female following due to his attractive figure and maxed-out sex appeal. Many compare him to Nicol Ascart due to the fact that he is slowly taking a lot of his jobs (or works alongside him at times) due to his handsome face. While both of them are handsome models, the public is aware that there is no point in pining the two against each other since their beauty works in different ways.

In the story (and as hinted in a few side story events), he was a slum rat who didn’t have much for himself. One day, he met a man who had join him and his fellow slum dwellers into their territory, a man by the name of David. The man was able to give Sora a new perspective on life, his new name, as well as how to sing. After David died, he wandered around the country, doing dirty jobs for shady adults for money. A few years later, we was caught singing in the streets by a man who offered to take care of him and cultivate him as an idol at the age of 13, complimenting him for his beauty and his singing. While Sora rejected the offer, the man’s words never left his mind. He started out by singing in the street for change, then getting singing jobs at cafes/live houses/restaurants for money, until he suddenly got a small following as an underground idol. The Director of MahoPro offers a place for Sora, alongside with giving him jobs as a full-fledged idol that can help him provide for himself, leading him to be affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment. 

Sora starts out having a rather sarcastic relationship with Maria, thinking that she is one of the many women who throws themselves at him to get his attention. He always gives her back handed compliments as always has a vicious tone when speaking. As the story progresses, Sora realizes that Maria isn’t disgusted by his history, and realized that Maria is truly a good and kind person. Sora starts to unconsciously seek her out, trying to reverse the bad impression that he must have left on her and to be with someone who doesn’t look at him lowly, like the other adults and idols of SorEn who dislikes people that aren’t of celebrity-upbringing.

Dewey Percy is a young idol that auditioned for Sorcier Pro. and won, but was rejected at the last minute in favor of a less talented wannabe-idol who was related to a famous actor. The Director of MahoPro came to Dewey with an offer as an idol, acknowledging his talents in music and dancing that he evidently have been polishing for years. In his town, Dewey was known as a Music Prodigy, as he was talented in singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments, though that’s not to say that those weren’t the effects of his own hard work. Because his family wasn’t the absolute best financially, he decided to audition as an idol in order to get jobs despite being young.

Dewey is revealed to be somewhat of a childhood friend to Maria, as he lived in the same town as her. Despite this, he is very wary of her due to the bad impressions left on his by Sorcier Pro. after he almost lost his chance at becoming an idol. Dewey absolutely hated asking for help, even when it was draining him down. He is very desperate to keep his title as a music prodigy, even though he knows it’ll be drowned once he’s in a battlefield of idols. (Also he tries very desperately to be seen as a mature and hot idol, despite his youth and appearance giving him a cute one instead lol) 

Maria realizes how hard Dewey is pushing himself, and convinces him over multiple instances that he doesn’t need to be hard on himself and suffer alone. Maria offers herself as a shoulder to lean on, making Dewey embarrassed but happy at the idea that he can finally have someone to rely on, and that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. They were also able to bond about their similar upbringing, making Dewey feel at home in the arms of Maria despite being miles away from their town. 

Cyrus Lanchester is an idol from a different agency, who was transferred to MahoPro by the time the events of the game began. He has a very strict personality, and is an overall perfectionist as an idol. He was let go from his original Agency because his strictness and tendency to scold his fellow idols caused his peers (who are a bunch of lazy and stuck up children of celebrities) to take him out because they didn’t vibe with his attitude. Before his original producer was able to tell him that he was done as an idol, the Director of MahoPro offered a place for him in their new agency. 

While being grateful to the Director for taking him in, he does not hold back in letting everyone know about his distaste for their odd Director. While is he very talented as an idol, he is just using it as a chance to learn more about the industry and gain connections that he can use to be a part of it in the near future. 

While he doesn’t start as wary of Maria as his fellow male idols, he insist on keeping distance with her due to the fact that they are of different agencies, as well as the fact that he is not good at dealing with women.

Notes

(I’ll have to rewrite Cyrus and Dewey’s descriptions after Volume 7 comes out, since I don’t have much to work with. I’ll add the Sora, Cyrus and Dewey endings in the edit as well.)

I know some part of Maria and Sirius’ backstory doesn’t make any sense but just use your imagination lol hgjgfjsfgd

More about Katarina, the silhouettes, the Director, and how it affects the story on the next part :DD my fingers really hurt from all this typing hgjsdgfjs

If ever i’m dissatisfied with what I have here and end up changing things, don’t be surprised jhfjshdgfs

Next Part is gonna be plot points that I want for this AU and a bit of FL2, so sorry if the next one might not be that exciting fsjhgfjsd

feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated! Thank you to the few people who are interested in this AU :DD

[sillybub]

ok so i’m trying to write a cats fanfic for the first time (fanfic for the first time i’ve never written one) and i’m mostly just hyper fixated on a few characters so i have no idea how to write anyone else, do u think u could drop some personality hcs about the younger cats who don’t have songs (provincial, ecetra... ect. lol) i would appreciate it greatly!!!!

!!!!!! HELL YEAH SURE I CAN

Pouncival

He's the character I think about the least, tbh, so I'll start with him.

He's very much an annoying little brother figure who tries to act cooler and tougher than he really is. He's super impressionable because he wants to fit in, so he kind of just goes along with what everyone else is doing. Generally just a little shit who likes getting on people's nerves.

Tumblebrutus

Parkour junkie. I saw him described as a juvenile delinquent once, and that really stuck with me. He likes to get into trouble and thinks himself a rebel, but don't let that fool you. He's very respectful to his elders, and is a model Well Behaved Lad that his parents love to brag about. He very much as the energy of the oldest kid who was left in charge of the other kids. He does enjoy stunts and showing off a lot, of course. He's actually fairly reasonable and smart; he absolutely knows what he's doing is stupid, but it's fun so he does it anyways.

Etcetera

SHE'S SO EXCITED!! Her emotions are always at 100% and she has no small feelings. She has so much energy and she is constantly chattering or moving around somehow. Because she's a big chatterbox, she's also the worst secret keeper ever. If she knows something, it's not long before everyone knows.

She has an incredible sense of humor and loves to poke fun at her friends. She's perpetually here to have a good time, and that combined with her lack of self-control, make her very accident prone. If you dare her to do anything, she will do it on the spot. Prank call, public, embarrassment--as long as it will make her friends laugh she's SO down.

She loves her friends SO much, and would do anything for them. She'll throw hands at the drop of the hat, DON'T try her. She's not actually very tough, but that won't stop her from trying. She takes no shit at all and stands up for her buddies.

Electra

Electra has a few layers to her. She's a guarded and reserved person, so she's the quietest of the bunch. She's definitely an introvert, and prefers hanging out in small groups. On the surface, she's polite and demure.

She's prideful of her independence and it can be hard to get close to her, but once she warms up to you, her personality becomes a LOT more animated. She loves stupid little jokes and stories, and she has a pretty creative mind for coming up with them. She's really clever and observant, so she can be a BLAST to hang out with.

She sort of has a perfectionist complex. She was on her own for most of her childhood, and the Jellicles are the best thing to ever happen to her. She wants to be a good friend in return, so she tends to keep all of her own problems bottled up because she doesn't want to be a burden. She's FINE, of course she doesn't have any trouble with her personal sense of belonging and abandonment issues!! Inferior complex?? Ahahaha get outta here!!

Jemima

She's the baby of the group 💕 She's super friendly and cheerful, and her positive vibes are super infectious. It's hard to be in a bad mood around her; her innocence and genuine kindness have a way of worming into your heart and making you want to protect her at all costs.

She's a lot more perceptive and observational than most people expect. She easily picks up on people's feelings, so she's a very empathic and kind person. She has this uncanny way of being able to get an exact read on people after having one conversation, and as a result, she's incredibly easy to talk to. Her understanding and kind gaze set people at ease, and they tell her all kinds of secrets. Thank God she chooses to use her powers for good.

She's a REALLY good listener as well, so she's the friend that you go to when you need to vent. She's the youngest kitten, but it's easy to forget that when she's spouting wisdom to you.

She's also not afraid to tell you what you need to hear over what you want to hear. She can be a little brutal if you're full of shit, and there's nothing more painful than seeing her disappointed in you.

BONUS: Victoria and Plato! I don't quite see either of them as kittens, so much as Baby Adults

Victoria

She's very poised and graceful, and that combined with her confidence can sometimes make her come off as a little condescending.

She does have high expectations for herself, and is definitely a perfectionist. She works hard to be the best that she can be, which earns her a lot of admiration. Her cool composure and elegance make her super attractive, and she's QUITE popular.

She's pretty well-adjusted, actually. She doesn't have much that troubles her, but she's prone to over-exerting herself to meet her personal goals and standards.

Plato

He's the only cat that I would confidently call a himbo. He's dumb as a brick, very strong, and chugs Respect Women Juice for breakfast.

He's everybody's best friend; he calls everyone "pal" and "buddy" because it takes him a while to remember new people's names. By the time their actual names are drilled into him, calling them by a nickname is already a habit.

He actually gets lost in thought a lot. He'll stare at a flower for a long time, completely stuck on "Hnnn,,, pretty flower,,,, wonder if any bees have visited it today,,,, do flowers get lonely when the bees aren't around? Do flowers have feelings? Sunflowers seem like they'd be happy a lot" and then he'll be sitting there drooling for hours as his thoughts go off on ten different tangents

And then he'll ask what the Spanish word for torilla is or something.

He's a REALLY nice guy who you can depend on to help you carry heavy things. He likes holding things because he's never sure what to do with his hands; his favorite thing ever is giving people piggyback rides or just holding them in his arms like a baby. His hugs are just the absolute BEST.

Best of luck with your fic!!! I'd love to read it when you're done!!

[endobiologist]

Furry Species Stereotypes #1 - By Me

Note;

These are only my personal views of the furry fandom's species I know from my personal experiences with them,

and if not that, then general common assumptions or stereotypes.

Thus, this is not gospel truth for everyone!

If you disagree, please tell me why!

I'd love you guys' take.

I also tried to name as many species I could think about off the top of my head without looking them up, which took FOREEEEVER.

You can reply to this or anon ask me, or DM me with ones I've missed, even your personal own created species (even if no one knows them yet), I'll do them too in a reply to this!

Real existing species stereotypes down below, here!;

WOLVES ; Due to this being the most common persona, you are most likely someone who follows the crowd and likes things that are popular. You however are still a pretty solitary being, preferring a dark corner over a party's dance floor. You love honesty and loyalty and have those traits to a fault, never ever abandoning a friend or ally, in need or not. You may also like things like squishy toys and squeaky toys, fidget spinners, and any manner of play item. Also, basically, to sum it up; YA' BASIC. Sorry. 😆

FOXES ; Somewhat similar to ferrets, raccoons, & sometimes rats, you both scurry around quickly simultaneously physically, and in conversation, and you may "borrow" items from places seemingly like a kleptomaniac, but for sentimental items. Basically if you are friends with a fox fursona, your jacket and/or gloves, pins, pizza (LOL) and many other miscellaneous items may go missing "mysteriously" due to them collecting it as a habit. They almost never mean true harm, they just like keeping your stuff because it reminds them of you, which can be seen as creepy by some people. But it is also very endearing, if done with pure intentions. But you may want to tell the fox to stop taking your things and ask you first! LOL. You always seem to have a ridiculous amount of energy and for some reason, an insane amount of optimistic viewpoints, and positive happy personality. You also like your books, preferring to spend a night reading then playing video games. (Although you do enjoy those too.) You are pretty academic, but yet you can also do well in physical sports, if you're into that sort of thing. There are a few points in the wolf & dog category I would assign here too, most likely due to all three being canines, like liking the squeaky and squishy toys and other stem items, and being verrrry loyal if a bit solitary in nature.

CATS (BIG) ; ...Y'all are usually assholes! There! I said it! I'm sorry to say, but nine times out of 10, you guys seem to be huge dicks, and I'm... not sure why, exactly?? What attracts the enormous dickwad to the big cat's umbrella of wild cat species? Maybe, perhaps, it is the superior, regal, and majestic appearance of big cats,--perhaps relating to their usual narcissism in normal life? Okay, so, I'm exaggerating a little, I have met some big cats that are great and very good friends. But a lot of them I've seen have been downright rude, callous, cold, and distant, at best! And downright asswads at worse!! However it seems like as bad as they go when they're bad, they go really good when they're actually good. When they are cool people, they're actually surprisingly chill, especially when comparing to the other type of big cat. They tend to usually be D.J.s, dancers, comedians, performers or some sort of person in the entertainment field, in some way. Those type're usually hella nice to get along with, however their super friendly exterior disguises a very weird, eccentric and esoteric mind beneath. They also seem to ooze confidence outwardly, even if they aren't confident feeling on the inside. They are royal and regal, and usually relatively unfazed by anything that would hurt normal people pretty badly. These are usually the type of people who don't get into emotions very often, or if they do, they always still have a wall up between them and the other person. They're strong, but that's because they force themselves to be strong, and it makes for a very bad night if the big cat snaps and takes out their very strong, tiger-like roar of anger on others! Thus if you are a big cat, I suggest finding ways to manage your anger, and finding ways to relieve your stress, as I noticed people who are big cats in their fursona tend to be very stressed in real life for some reason. Again, I'm not sure why people who are, are attracted to that species specifically.

CATS (SMALL) ; You kitties are solitary like the big cats and wolves, however much more docile. There's two main types of cats that are house cats in fursona; There's the serious brooding figure that seems to be always alone yet peaking curiosity in everyone's eyes--the type that is stealthy, sneaky, and very cat-like--as in, realistic cat-like. You may sit strangely or have odd habits in voice or body, something that makes you stand out as different. There's also the second type of cat, which is basically an UWU XOXO anime girl that is ridiculously feminine, high pitched, and almost always is a neko type furry character instead of a full furry anthropomorphic character. Not that there's anything wrong with nekos, they're awesome too, it just seems to be a trend that any neko is usually a cat. You may like to actually smoke catnip! (Okay that was a joke LOL, but yes, it is possible, and yes it does get humans somewhat high, but most would not recommend it due to it being short & tasting bad! LMAO 😆) You also really like batting things around, or batting things off tables or counters--when you have a cup of tea beside you, the urge to knock your mug off the table is irresistible, even though your rational mind denies the notion from actually happening. You tend to like yarn snd thread, whether that means just playing with it or knitting or sewing etc. and making creations with it! You usually like fish a lot, mostly sushi is your favorite, and usually, you tend to be more based in Japanese culture.

DOGS ; See wolves, but add loyalty hella and way more people-oriented. you're somehow more basic than wolves 🤣

RABBITS ; As someone who has a rabbit as one of my main 3 fursonas, I have to admit I love rabbits. We are usually very social, unlike the animal we're based on, preferring to conversate and meet people. Although, like the rabbit, we may be shy to actually begin the conversation, or initiate plans on our own. We also scare easily, and most of us for some reason tend to have anxiety or panic disorders, not always, but quite often, and that can usually be why we relate to the characters of rabbits which go still & shake or attack fiercely with their hind legs if scared. There are some people with rabbit fursonas that are definitely fully shy, but a lot of them are actually quite more outgoing than you would think they are. And no, rabbits usually don't love carrots. (Including real rabbits, they eat mostly hay and carrots should only be a treat!) But for some reason one thing I noticed is that almost everybody's fursona in existence is. Just. Super sexual and flirty and just out there in every way. They can come across as perverted and strange to a lot of people due to this, once they reveal their true colours rather than their cutesy entrance, to those they know well.

DEER ; You guys are the innocent bunch, the kids that seemed to never know what was going on when it came to violence or sexual content in any media or situation. This innocence continues throughout your life. You're usually a 'deer in the headlights' and can get very confused easily and a lot, and also you can become quite shy and reclusive if you don't have friends to pull you out of it to shove you into social situations by force. You may not be 'the brightest bulb in the bunch', but you are definitely the friendliest, kindest, and most understanding one in it. Most people love being your friend because your support gives strength that can't be found elsewhere, due to the power and stability of your connection to people. You also may really like salad.

BEARS ; You guys are a bunch of big gentle giants. For some reason, most every person who plays a bear fursona seem to be gigantic in real life, either super tall, or super fat, or super muscular, or a combination or all of the above! Whatever it is, they're always big intimidating figures. Yet, despite this, they seem to be very sweet, mild-mannered and very loyal. They also seem to have a lazy streak, preferring to lay down and eat honey rather than do anything productive on time. Don't get me wrong, they'll do the task, but it'll just take until they feel like doing it. However when they have ambition, they have it and have it well, being able to rise to Big manager positions very easily. They tend to be very shy both in romantic situations and just in general. Despite their large presence, they're just a bunch of softies.

OPOSSUMS ; An opossum is one of my main fursonas, based on me. Plus I can tell you from experience that opossums are little shits. They will pester the shit out of you, text you non-stop, and talk your ears off if you let them. They're not trying to be annoying or clingy, but they're just that type of person that really clings to people and likes talking to people as long as possible when they like them. Like raccoons, rats, and other things on this list, they like hoarding treasure and they tend to be sneaky mischievous little beings, loving to pull pranks or make a joke to make someone laugh hard. The opossums are kind of the clowns of the furry species, always being the comedian of the group. We love soft blankets and we tend to sleep with our head under the covers completely like we were in our mother's pouch. Also a lot of us do what I call the 'human sofa', where we curl around someone's back as they sit, and become their backrest, to snuggle them.

WEASELS & FERRETS ; Same as opossum, but make them scary and super suspicious all the time. I mean seriously, these guys are "sus". Who knows what they're up to? But they tend to be great comedians, and can always crack a joke that's sly and sarcastic to make someone burst out laughing, even if it's just one person who does due to their obscure references to their many fandoms.

RACCOONS ; Same as opossums, weasels, and ferrets--except add that you love trash. Whether this means collecting empty boxes, like shoe boxes and electronic boxes, or collecting old newspapers, or straws, or broken glass, (who knows?!) or making new pretty things out of old withered things, all of it you adore! You enjoy the feeling of making the most out of nothing, and pulling something out of your ass to survive no matter what the situation. This tendency can lead to intense resourcefulness in every area of life.

SKUNKS ; They all tend to be really chill, mostly... because all of you are fucking weed smokers! I guess it comes with the territory since skunks have a skunky smell, but damn does your skunky smell smell skunkier than a skunk! 😆🤣 Okay, okay, now besides the usual stoner stereotypes, you skunks are pretty chill beings, usually preferring a night on the couch. Although when they do catch you adventuring, they'd catch you frolicking in nature, and catching tadpoles, or doing something odd in a river. You love forests, and also love the sounds of city, traffic, and cars passing by. Rain is one of your favourite times.

BADGERS ; Y'all are some bad motherfuckers, the type of person who could kick anyone's ass, any amount of people, and come out without a scratch. People like you are nearly indestructible, and also tend to be somewhat snappy and harsh to others, although usually unintentionally. You tend to love honey, and/or any kinds of sweet things, which tends to contrast with your spicy personality. You have a pain tolerance out of this world, and you also have mental pain tolerance as well, seeming to never get hurt or let down by others' actions. This is due to you never fully trusting, and always preparing somewhat for a let down.

TANUKIS (JAPANESE RACCOON DOGS) ; This is my main fursona, and like opossums, Japanese Raccoon Dogs / Tanukis are ridiculously loyal and strange, almost clown-like beings, and also like raccoons, they love finding old things and transforming them into new. They also tend to be very artistic and really like colours, usually having some form of synesthesia if not multiple, usually having to do with colour association. Also you usually have a very strong connection to Japan and it's culture, either being Japanese or just loving the culture itself, and tend to base a lot of your life around Japanese things. You may even be planning to move to Tokyo someday! Tanukis are notoriously mischievous, but in a friendly, jokey way, and they tend to never want to make people mad. Due to this, they are always very friendly and positive, as much as they can, even if they feel the opposite inside. These are also the types of people to be very esoteric, weird, and downright uncanny, which fits their Japanese theme as Japan does some weird shit too LOL. Also usually stoners. Also pretty flirty, but not overly.

COYOTES & OTHER MISC. CANINES ; As a less common version of dogs, you have some manner of uniqueness about you! You tend to be active, especially physically, and in sports, usually very likely to do hiking as well. You tend to be pretty chipper, although you can come across as sarcastic or biting when you're in a bad mood. When you're in a good mood, everyone can feel it, and your smile brightens up the space around you! People tend to be attracted to your demeanor, even if you don't mean to attract them, they still come, and this quality can lead you to some of your lifelong friends (and perhaps, enemies.).

SHARKS & OTHER AQUATICS ; You aquatic creatures tend to be the jocks of the group, however despite your jockiness, you actually have quite a brain on you; being able to figure out complex things like math problems that are way ahead of where you are, or learning to read very soon in your life, and maybe even being in spelling bees or talent shows later on! You tend to have a scientific mind, and definitely have at least one or two fish tanks, if not a whole room full. You can be a bit perverted, and even a little bit dominating in conversation, but for people who can get past that--you make a loyal, fun, and active friend.

SNAKES & OTHER REPTILES ; You all tend to seem shady no matter how stand-up you are, and the fact that you never go in the spotlight, always preferring to stay by the sidelines and observe and watch others closely. Occasionally, you may leave a small remark, and due to you barely talking, those things you do say echo only louder for those who hear. You tend to be reclusive and secluded, loving the silence of rainy days with no one bugging you, and your beautiful reptiles. You tend to be quite confident, and even heroic at your best, being kind and also empathetic and caring, and intelligent. At your worst, you can come off as cold, manipulative or even cruel at times. Snakes and reptiles are usually seen with dislike and/or fear by others, which can lead to a hardened heart in you that makes you trust less easily, fearing judgement in who you are.

AXOLOTLS & OTHER AMPHIBIANS ; You guys kiiinda tend to be the 'uwu i'm special!!1!' bunch, but rather than in an insensitive annoying way, in the way that you're genuinely childish and innocent and naive, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Like the aquatic axolotl, you stay young forever, (kind of like Peter Pan!) and you seemingly never lose your sense of humour, your playfulness, or your absolute randomness at times. You are someone who would fight to the death for a friend you just met, even though you are usually pacifistic. You have great traits when it comes to caring for others, and fully taking care of others--skills that would bode well for you becoming a nurse, doctor, psychiatrist or therapist. You tend to love water, and will go swimming the whole summer while it's warm enough! You also don't mind, even if it's cold, you'll jump in anyway.

MICE & OTHER RODENTS ; You guys tend to be even more cutesy and little than rabbits! A lot of you guys seem to be age aggressors due to mental illness, and thus choose a very small, innocent animal as their fursona. These people can also just be generally childlike, innocent and playful, albeit very shy. The other type of rodents are the creepy ass ones who give off a high & mighty vibe, being very confident, swaggering, and even mysterious at times. They're the cool kids you see in school, pretending to be some mysterious goth kid, but really they just learned the goth look a week ago.

GENERAL INSECTS/BUGS ; You tend to be very odd, weirding out the general public more than you do connect with them. You've always felt a strange disconnect between yourself and the world, feeling like you're not really there or like you could be more. You might have transformed from being a totally different person in your past, to being a radically different person now. You tend to rule change and dreams and mystic things, perhaps even being some sort of psychic. You tend to have an extremely open mind and a very welcoming, understanding personality, due to you even seeing the beauty in bugs, which so many find repulsive. This quality will follow you into life, which you must be careful of--don't start trusting everyone you meet. Due to you always seeing the best in everyone, you can get taken advantage of easily.

And now fictional/mythical/extinct/hybrids down here;

DUTCH ANGEL DRAGONS ; Y'all give off a very confident vibe to me, although it's hidden under an exterior of pretend anxiety or hesitancy, which you really don't feel. You're one of those preppy kids who tends to dress girly regardless of gender, can't handle coffee but loves their jasmine tea, likes their succulents planted in their house in cute little DIY decorated plant vases, and wears pastels of colour. You tend to be a bright, vibrant person who sees the best in things, and you can be a little naive due to your extreme and blind happiness that radiates purely from you.

GENERAL DRAGONS ; You tend to intimidate others easily, but this is not something you mean to do whatsoever. In fact, you usually try your best to make friends although you usually scare them off, whether due to being unintentionally too clingy, or just being too awkward in conversation. You tend to have anxiety or different worries about things, but you try and overtake these things with a massive upbeat attitude. Although sometimes, this attitude does falter, and you can become somewhat pessimistic without reminder. Also, like raccoons, ferrets and other similar animals, you love to hoard treasure and things you love, everything from gemstones, to rocks, to bottle caps, to pieces of broken glass--it doesn't matter what it is, if it's collectible, you will collect it.

PROTOGENS/PRIMAGENS ; You guys tend to lean heavily into the Japanese aesthetic, or at least into the vapourwave aesthetic. Perhaps even steampunk! Whatever it is, you follow it heavily. You also tend to be a tech nerd. You can help anyone with any computer problem almost effortlessly, and you even have knowledge of technologies in the recent past such as devices like record players, VHS tapes, etc. that most younger people wouldn't know about (if you are young, or if you're old, you know from experience.). You could even be a hacker of some sort if you wanted to, considering your huge skill with computers. Personality-wise you tend to be very cutesy, excitable and both very very innocent, and yet somehow perverted, at the same time. You most likely speak more than one language. I'm not sure why, but it seems like every protogen or primagen I've met speaks multiple languages, two at least, if not more.

SERGALS ; Very similar to sharks, with some qualities of reptiles. You guys also have the Leo zodiac-like personality type of loving to be loved; being in the spotlight is your favourite thing, no matter what it's for! Due to this, some Sergals will tire of reaching for difficult positive attention, and will start to even accept negative attention as attention they want, then will try and act like a troll on purpose to fuck with people, only to get a reaction. Other times they're just chill and generally relaxed people, although if you threaten their family they become very hostile and very unstable emotionally, quickly.

CRUX ; Due to the history of the species being about being experimented on, and abused, and combined, etc. etc., people who play cruxes tend to be pretty edgy "look at how dark I am!!" people. However not always--sometimes, weirdly, very girly, upbeat & happy people will roleplay cruxes. So it's kind of unsure what you'll get when you interact with one. It's pretty much a 50/50 chance on whether they're upbeat & happy, or dark & brooding. Whatever the case, they tend to be usually neurodivergent, since cruxes are mentally ill if you think about it basically, a lot of people have latched on to them as their comfort species for being mentally ill. Like dogs, you love squeaky toys and also you love piercings, and tattoos, and any body modification you can achieve!

PHOENIXES ; Similar 'emo' type to cruxes--people generally choose phoenixes due to their history of being unbreakable when it comes to physical harm. Due to this, a lot of emo people latched on to them. However there are also regular people who play phoenixes, and they tend to be very regal--if a bit intimidating, and are very ambitious & strong-minded people. They have a fieryness that blazes through to show their phoenix-y nature bubbling underneath the surface.

GRYPHONS ; For some reason, you tend to be very aggressive and domineering individuals--think Bakugo Katsuki from My Hero Academia, the anime. Sometimes you can come off as a huge asshole, but you're really well meaning on the inside, and you try to do your best by everyone--you just seem intimidating and aggressive due to resting bitch face and voice, LOL.

DINOSAURS ; You are an excitable individual, whether that means being angry easily, or hyper easily. You tend to be younger in age, or at least younger in mind, having an innocent heart and somewhat ferocious ambitions. You are strong and untamable when it comes to authority figures bossing you around. Most of the time there's no changing your mind if it's set, and you can be very stubborn, pushy, and audacious at your worst, and at your best; proud, confident, encouraging and passionate!

SKULLDOGS & OTHER SKULLIES ; Similar to phoenixes and cruxes, they tend to attract emo, goth, punk, or scene people, however rarely a bubbly girly person will roleplay one, and usually do it with pastel colours instead of dark. They tend to be somewhat reclusive, but yet enjoy people's company when forced to interact. They are people who don't really give a shit much in most circumstances, but when something gets them stirred up, it gets them up and going quickly. They can be somewhat cold and harsh to those who don't know them well, who know that it's all a façade of intimidation, to drive you away from getting closer to them.

FOLVES & OTHER HYBRIDS ; Similar to foxes, you're an excitable hyper furball that will jump around the room, and meet as many friends, and talk to as many people as you can! You guys seem to have none of the reclusive types of personality traits that foxes usually have, and instead seem to be very pack-bonded people! You love finding lucky things, like a clock or license plate that has triple numbers, or picking up a lucky penny off the street. The little things in life make you very happy.

So what do you think?

Did I get your species correct?

If so, or if not, tell me why in the replies! I will read 'em all.

[kogo-dogo]

i like your skyrim stuff and i wanna know more about the funky little dudes you posted in those “sentences” lol. instead of asking for more snips

You have made a mistake. Prepare for an essay.

But, joking aside, they’re Morrowind characters. I do like Skyrim, but Morrowind is my favorite game of all time and the entire reason I got into the TES fandom years ago. I don’t talk about it much on here because everyone is here for Half-Life and HRV, but... you know what? I’mma take this opportunity. To yell.

About The Guys(tm).

So, basically, in my Personal Canon, I don’t just have a Nerevarine (i.e. Protagonist) character. I have an entire crew of people who help him get through things because it just seems... more realistic for my Extremely Flawed and Terrible Nerevarine. Also, I just had a lot of characters conjured up as a teenager and it was fun to evolve it over time so they’re all friends.

They are, as follows:

- Jo’Karsa (a.k.a. “Karsaga”). Battlemage born under the Atronach. Afflicted with Wombburn. Also the Nerevarine. He’s an abnormally large Cathay-raht who has had an unusual upbringing. He was originally an orphan plucked off the streets in Corinthe and trafficked to Morrowind where he was sold as a slave. As fate would have it, a houseman under his owner took a shine to him and stole him away when they fled to Cyrodiil to avoid political assassination. Karsaga has been raised Telvanni in Imperial territory so, despite being a mighty brute of a Khajiit, he has an extreme affinity for magic and an equally extreme disconnect from his Khajiiti roots.

He speaks like a Dunmer, carries himself like a Dunmer, and has very Telvanni sensibilities. He also has an extensive criminal record from his time spent as a bandit outside of Cheydinhal, and that is eventually how he ends up on the prison boat that sends him to Morrowind. He has a bunch of aliases and an unhealthy penchant for drink and smoke. Not a fan of skooma, though. As gruff and sarcastic as he is, he has a very silver tongue and a way of winning people over and talking himself out of trouble.

Also, “youth born under a certain sign?” Nah, this bitch is 34. And smells like a wet dog.

- Dasrazel. Altmer Nightblade and Quarra vampire. He contracted his vampiric curse while trying to save his lover from the clutches of an undead menace during the Second Era, after a life working various quasilegal oddjobs that brought shame on his noble family. In life, he was a likeable but lowkey individual, and in undeath he’s still very lowkey... but perhaps not as likeable. He has to take a low dose of a calming potion to keep the inherent, violent bloodlust of his Quarra curse at bay, and it does a lot to deaden his emotions. Combine that with hundreds of years to learn how to not give a fuck, and you have a very blunt, stoic, matter-of-fact creature who only very occasionally makes quips and usually just wants to be left alone.

He is Karsaga’s closest ally, right hand man, and platonic soulmate. They met after Karsaga robbed him blind at a bar (thinking him to just be some weird, frail elf), and Dasrazel took pity on him after Karsaga ran him through with an iron saber and panicked when it... did nothing. Their bond is one of a mutual distaste for most people and Dasrazel’s desire to have companionship again.

They’re very much bros, even if Dasrazel spends most of his time not understanding why Karsaga is the way he is.

-  Neira Brenur. Dunmer Witchhunter and low-ranking member of House Redoran. She’s the daughter of a Camonna Tong member and an Ashlander woman, though her mother is dead and she spends a lot of time trying to distance herself from her racist father. She joined Redoran in hopes of atoning for the crime of just being born into a bad family, but has a really difficult time fitting in. She’s very meek and empathetic and does better in controlled duels than actual combat. The idea of actually hurting an opponent makes her sick to her stomach.

She kind of just happened to Karsaga one day, courtesy of him running afoul of her not-so-popular friend, Vandrith (we’ll get to that trainwreck later). She mainly acts as a translator for Vandrith and tries to play mediator when Karsaga starts getting too aggressive with others. She’s in good with some odd folks in Redoran and a very aggressive supporter of the Tribunal Temple, which makes it hard for her to wrap her mind around Karsaga’s existence as the Nerevarine.

Also, the fact she’s an absolute pushover means she just accepts the less-than-savory people Karsaga pals around with. She’s got a big heart and feels actual pity for his blasphemous, undead, and criminal friends. They’re good people on the inside (probably).

- Vandrith Valen. Dunmer Ordinator and conglomeration of a lot of factors coming together in the worst way possible. He is naturally “blessed by Azura” and has some degree of prophetic power, though he’s choked it down after a life of being raised Indoril. He also came to the unfortunate realization after being stationed on Vvardenfell, that he is also a descendant of House Dagoth and is haunted by the Poison Song, a “song” sent out by Dagoth Ur that warps the minds of those who are of his blood and turns them into Sleepers and Dreamers.

These two traits do not mesh well and make Vandrith more than a little unstable.

Vandrith is... prone to erratic behavior and violent outbursts and is largely under the care of his paternal uncle, Tuls Valen, the head priest of the Ald’ruhn Temple. Vandrith is also a clever and tricky bastard who has been trying to figure out how to discern Dagoth Ur’s plans from the Poison Song in order to prevent bad things from happening. Usually, he can keep things under control, but extremely bad visions, close proximity to items/places corrupted by House Dagoth, and stress can cause him to be difficult.

Beyond this, though, he’s not what you’d expect from an Ordinator. He’s very witty with a somewhat bawdy sense of humor, a very devil-may-care attitude, and he’s a huge fan of causing mischief. He forced his way into Karsaga’s social circle due to his absolute certainty that Karsaga could bring down Dagoth Ur, and Neira is his closest (and for a long time only) friend, who has figured out what all of his weird ramblings mean.

- Bashinga. Sorceress and Aundae vampire. She is an old acquaintance of Dasrazel’s who has ties to Telvanni, the Mage’s Guild, and several circles of warlocks and witches. She’s very much a self-serving sort, more interested in the acquisition of power than the wellbeing of Morrowind, but she is fiercely protective of the people she deems worthy (and she has a soft spot for Neira she can’t really explain).

Once upon a time, she was a dancer and performer with a traveling circus, and her fall into undeath and wizardry was a happy accident after being taken as cattle by rogue Aundae. She’s got a good set of vocal cords and can move with grace and ease, but she speaks very bitterly a lot of the time and is difficult to get along with.

She’s one of those people who Karsaga immediately took a shine to because they both like to sit around and bitch about people. Dasrazel and Bashinga mostly get along by the time-honored tradition of “two very gay individuals being catty at each other as a sign of affection, though outsiders would think they hate one another.”

- Jai Swift-Fly. Cathay assassin and member of the Morag Tong. She was born and raised in Elsweyr in a more tribal environment, and is an old friend of Vandrith’s (odd, considering they met because she took a grey writ to knock him off and, instead, he knocked her out). She mostly comes into the fold because Karsaga needed somebody to break into the Ministry of Truth to free Mehra Milo, and she came highly recommended (by Vandrith; Vandrith recommended her). 

She’s a married mother of two, is big and strong and very proud of being big and strong, and a crack shot with a bow. She’s also deaf as hell and communicates through a series of homebrew gestures. Her decision to stick around and help Karsaga after completing the job she was hired to do stems primarily from her extreme curiosity. She has no stake in the Nerevarine Prophecy or this group of losers, but by god does she want to see what it looks like when a god dies.

Fun fact: Jai is dead by the events of Skyrim, but two of her descendants remain. Shevah and J’Rakka. They’re a brother-and-sister duo. Shevah is as much of a curious, troublemaking adventurer as her so-many-greats grandmother. J’Rakka is a werewolf who mostly hunts bounties to make a living.

- Dravyn Telvayn (no picture of him, sorry D:). Dunmer assassin and member of the Morag Tong. Former highwayman and current Berne vampire. Husband of Jai and perpetually confused, mainly over the fact he has kids with Jai and... well, every book he’s read has indicated that that should be impossible for a variety of reasons. He lives in the sewers of the Arena canton in Vivec City and is allowed work in the Morag Tong due to his efficacy at eliminating very high risk targets, though he’s basically “on his own” if he ever gets caught. They’re sure as fuck not giving him writs of execution to present to guards when the Tong could end up fucked over if their relationship with a vampire gets out.

He’s mostly in the background and tags along due to his extreme dedication to Jai. He doesn’t get along with hardly anyone but her, though he is the one who coined the term “Council of Accidents” in relation to him, Dasrazel, and Bashinga. He feels a loose kinship with them in that they’re all members of different vampire clans, but all members whose sires want nothing to do with them, rendering them outcasts. Even after the events of Morrowind, he keeps in infrequent contact with the others. 

After Jai’s death, he acts as a weird “ancestral guardian” to his own descendants. As of the time of Skyrim, he spends most of his time trying to keep Shevah from getting killed. He is very tired. She is a lot.

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Not that anyone asked (but seriously I’d LOVE for someone to talk to me about PokeSpe (just no spoilers past vol 13)) but since I made an offhand remark about my Top 5 favorite characters, it occurred to me that I actually DO have approximately 5 top favorite characters, and I’m procrastinating on work, so I’m gonna ramble

**just in case, note that a lot of this will revolve around my childhood experience with gender in a “I’m AFAB (and present-day me still identifies as a cis girl) but I don’t fit in with what media is telling me girls are like” way, a brief childhood feeling of homophobia, and probably general TMI about my opinions and emotions throughout my life, haha

1. Yellow

Okay, so, I was a little kid when Pokemon Adventures started coming out in English, back when manga was released as single-issue monthly comic books instead of complete volumes.  So I was rereading the same chapters over and over while anxiously awaiting the rest of the story (and wound up missing a bunch of issues anyway)

I enjoyed the RGB arc, I thought it was fun, but I didn’t LOVE the series until Yellow showed up.  At that age my ideal crush was “a cute boy my age who would be nice to me” and Yellow was presented to the reader as a cute boy my age who was sweet and kind and gentle, but also good in a fight, as all shounen protags must be.  Extra bonus points because they had just a few physically weak Pokémon and tried to fight battles in a way that minimized damage to their own and the opponent’s Pokémon, which meant they fought in a particularly smart and clever way.  And I was considered “smart” for being good at school, so being a SMART cute “boy” my age who would be nice to me, Yellow was PERFECT.  I mean, I loved the arc in general because of the clever battles, and the mystery of what had happened to Red, why these people were after Pikachu, why Yellow was so secretive about themself and their mission, etc was really engaging.  But also I adored Yellow as a character and partly in a “I wonder if ‘he’ would like me??” kind of way X’D  So to my tiny child self who didn’t even know it was possible to like-like someone of the same gender (because I hadn’t read Cardcaptor Sakura yet XD ), the reveal that Yellow was a “girl” was devastating—I had to cross out floating hearts on at least one drawing of us holding hands (scandalous!) and, while kind of stunned and shaken for a while, decided that what I’d felt all along was a deep, intense desire to be friends X’D (which probably wasn’t too far from the truth since I was pre-puberty and later turned out to be asexual)

(Also note that I never got the RGB issue that had the chapter where Red helps a little ‘girl’ capture a Rattata—later proven to be Yellow’s backstory—so the gender reveal really came out of nowhere for me.)

But anyways, I still love Yellow as a character for all the above reasons, without the crush aspects because I’m way older than them now.

Also when I reread the series ten years ago, I finally realized “wait, aside from surprising the reader, there’s no real plot reason for Yellow to pretend to be a ‘boy’ except that Green told ‘her’ to—so why did ‘she’ do it?”...and because at that time I didn’t even know that nonbinary genders existed, I decided it was cus they had low self-esteem and pretending to be a different person gave them courage (the same reading I had for Mulan at the time).  These days I’m more inclined to “yeah, I think Yellow’s nonbinary,” but that other interpretation was deeply relatable to me and only made me love Yellow even more.

2. Bill

Bill’s definitely a character I’ve grown to love more as an adult, since I’ve gone from seeing myself as “a protagonist doing cool things” to “a side character just living their life who hopefully gets to do something once in a while.”  But as a kid and now, I like him mostly for the slapstick and goofy expressions and the (early chapters Viz translations) outrageous accent  X’D  My brain desperately craves endorphins and the best way to get em is through a good laugh.

But also, I liked that he was introduced as a goofy character-of-the-week who got into ridiculous trouble and had to be rescued, but then kept being brought back, was slowly built up to be the “smart sidekick who explains things,” and eventually got to the point where he was participating in big battles (the Yellow finale on Cerise Island).  I rambled about this in the tags of another post, but I liked that he was a character who was “weak” without being “useless.”  As a kid who was good at school, I was obsessed with being good at things and had developed a black-and-white view of the world where either you were “strong/smart” or “weak/stupid” to the point that failing or just being not-so-good at anything was devastating (it still kind of is), because that meant I was actually “weak/stupid” when I was supposed to be “strong/smart.”  So it was kind of awesome that this guy who kept getting into trouble and having to be rescued—and didn’t even want to BE part of the final battle—managed to hold his own and get through it and help out instead of being a burden that dragged everyone down.  Seriously, he used a MAGIKARP effectively—the Pokémon everyone makes fun of for being “useless” and he used its one attack to save his life!

(Bonus points for all this happening in contrast to my devastating childhood experience of stanning The One Girl Character in every popular shounen series, waiting desperately for her to get to do something in battle, and then her one spotlight episode revolved around her struggling because she was so weak...not only was that actually happening to a boy for once, it was actually happening in a more satisfying/empowering way :’D )

3. Gold

I have extremely specific tastes when it comes to “the dumb shounen/action movie protag,” because as a kid I hated it when the main character was “dumb” because I was “smart” (re: good at school) and people who were “dumb” shouldn’t deserve to be the main character and have all the cool powers and save the world and stuff.  As an adult, I hate it when male characters are dumb and/or jerks but it’s treated as fine or even sexy(??) and the other characters fawn over them, and I generally still kind of hate it when characters who are dumb and/or jerks get the big important role when there’s a female character RIGHT THERE who’s more competent (and OF COURSE she has to wind up falling in love with him)

But anyway, I have extremely specific tastes, and Gold is it  X’D  He’s the perfect combination of “unshakably confident in his own stupid/egotistic views” and “treated as annoying and/or comic relief by the rest of the cast” with a bonus dash of actually being really clever in battle (so my inner child goes “Ah yes, technically, he is ’smart,’ and therefore...worthwhile“)  Making me laugh while also impressing me is like the key to my heart.

4. Crystal

I’m too lazy to look it up, but when Viz was publishing Pokemon Adventures as monthly comics, they must have switched to publishing it as trade paperbacks only and/or had a huge gap between the end of Yellow and the start of GSC, because for YEARS I’d thought Yellow was the end of the series and was shocked the first time I saw later volumes.  (My dad was buying us the monthly issues at the local comic store, and either they wouldn’t have ordered the trade paperbacks or he wouldn’t have thought to check those shelves.)

Anyway, that’s a long lead-in to the statement of “Crystal would automatically be my #1 or #2 if I’d read her arc as a kid.”  She’s a girl, she wears pants, she’s EXTREMELY smart (genius-level “book-smarts” about every Pokémon’s behaviors and weaknesses PLUS being clever in a battle), was tough as nails (she KICKED her Pokéballs!!), had no interest in romance or her appearance, AND had a short arc about losing her confidence and training herself back up to full power.  I would have KILLED for a character like that when I was a little girl being told that “girls don’t like action shows like Dragon Ball Z” (but I was a girl and I did???) and that girls were supposed to be pretty and obsessed with fashion and dating, and that girls were never the main character of action series, just side characters who either did nothing or got one chance to do something and were pathetically weak (see above, and/or Sakura’s fight against Ino (Naruto), those couple filler eps where Téa/Anzu played Duel Monsters (Yu-Gi-Oh), Videl getting pummeled by Spopovich (DBZ), etc).

So anyway, she’s awesome, she’s exactly the type of character I would’ve loved as a kid.  The only reason she’s behind Gold here is because at my age, “makes me laugh” > “the kind of main character I used to wish I could be”

5. Green (the girl trainer...I’m just too loyal to the Viz version to call her “Blue”...)

I’m trying not to rehash the same “I’m a girl but none of the girls in my shows/comics are like me!” childhood woes over and over, haha, but as much as I always enjoyed Green for being extremely clever and outsmarting the boys and being funny when she did so, she always lost points with me for being “pretty” and flirting to get her way, because that put her in the box of “girls are supposed to be pretty and desired by boys and obsessed with their appearance and romance” that was so foreign and disheartening to me as a kid.

But her staredown with Ho-oh at the end of the GSC arc TOTALLY got me.  As a sad adult with anxiety, watching characters who are absolutely terrified overcome their fear, watching characters who are completely beaten down struggle back to their feet and keep fighting, is like my ultimate power fantasy.  That sequence genuinely had me in tears.

Also her bond with Silver is super precious, especially since that’s like the first time in the series we’ve seen her be genuinely emotional and vulnerable with someone instead of teasing or manipulating them.

Honorable mention: Sapphire

I haven’t gotten up to R/S in my reread yet, and I only read that arc once over like a weekend ten years ago, but I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be a Top Fave cus again there’s that “I'm not like other girls!” childhood feel  (last time I’m saying it, I promise)

It’s a story arc where one protag wants to fight the gyms and the other protag wants to win the beauty contests, but the one who wants to fight the gyms is the girl!!  And she’s the typical “dumb but extremely good at fighting” shounen protag but she’s the girl!!  She’s feral and illiterate and a total tomboy and wins all her fights and she’s a GIRL!!!!

--

Anyway, those are my kids and my dude and my probably way-too-personal reasons why.  If you wanna reblog, reply, or send an ask about your own faves...please

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 53: Identity

Becoming The Mask

Barbara was at work when her phone buzzed. She didn't have time to check it – she was busy with a toddler who had swallowed a paperclip.

If it had gone into the kid's stomach, things might have been okay. There was some risk of the sharp point doing damage, or the wire catching and tangling in the intestines, but the rounded ends of the paperclip meant there was also a chance it would simply be passed through.

Unfortunately, instead of ingesting the paperclip, the child had aspirated it, so it needed to be removed from her right lung.

Immediately after Barbara got out of surgery, she had to work up the x-rays of a teenager who'd crashed his Vespa into a tree. Nothing was obviously broken and he didn't have a concussion, but there was a risk of hairline fractures.

And then, (because why not,) there were three successive cases of people who had stuck odd things up their butts and gotten those things stuck.

By the time she was able to sit down for two minutes and gulp some coffee, she had forgotten about her buzzing phone.

She didn't even look at her phone until she was leaving for the night. Barbara got it out to turn the ringer off, since she wasn't supposed to be on call that night, which never stopped anyone when they were short-staffed, which was often, and she was tired enough it would probably be dangerous for her to be treating patients again until she'd had some sleep.

(Also, she was probably tired enough that she shouldn't be driving, but Barbara never let herself think about that.)

After finding out she'd missed something as big as her kid sneaking around to fight a secret magical war, Barbara was trying to reassert some boundaries between her time at work and the rest of her life.

Her phone announced that she'd missed a notification.

It was just an exclamation point. What had that been supposed to mean?

Barbara turned her phone off and drove home.

"I'm back, kiddo!"

"We're in the kitchen!"

'We' meant Jim and Toby. Jim was pulling a shepherd's pie out of the oven. Toby and Barbara both inhaled appreciatively.

"You said it's lean ground beef, right?" asked Toby. Jim smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Tobes. You know if you cut all the fat out of your diet you'd get protein poisoning, right? Mom, back me up."

Barbara took a moment to remember this. She wasn't a nutritionist – she'd encountered this concept in a novel a few years ago and looked it up to see if it was true.

"He's right," she said. "It's the rarest kind of food poisoning. Not much risk of it happening here and now." Not in a city in the United States, haven of processed and instant foods.

Jim portioned out the steaming vegetables and meat and mashed potatoes. Barbara added some sour cream to hers.

"Is Nana out tonight?" she asked Toby.

"Yeah, she and some of her chess buddies are doing a tournament. Informal, I think, but maybe a prize? Like, a gift certificate or something."

"We should see if we can get her and Mr Strickler to play a match sometime," said Jim. "I think I heard once that he's a grandmaster, but I don't know how often he plays anymore."

That combination, Nancy and Walt, made Barbara's brain click and remember the significance of that exclamation point she'd sent herself.

"So … it's been a month. Have you made any progress on telling your friends' families about trolls?"

Both boys froze.

"We gave Vendel a bunch of family stories," said Toby. "Once he's done reading it, we'll find out if we have permission or we're going behind everybody's backs."

"Guess I should warn him the clock's ticking again," said Jim.

"We could maybe tell people now and say we're LARPing, and tell the whole truth later?" Toby suggested. "That's what my therapist thinks is going on."

"You told your therapist?" asked Barbara and Jim together, in very different tones.

Jim's eyes were huge. He had a white-knuckled grip on his silverware. "Tell me you didn't use the word 'Trollhunter' in front of her."

"… No?" said Toby in confusion. "I just said your character was a magic knight on a quest to fight an evil troll."

Jim sighed. "Okay, that's generic enough it's probably safe. Don't use any specific names or terms, though."

"Dude, you seriously think someone is spying on a random high schooler's therapy appointments?"

"Someone is spying on a random high school's entire history class," Jim pointed out.

The rest of the meal was tense. After they were done eating and cleaning up, Toby went back home, and Jim went upstairs to do homework.

Jim's yearbook from the previous year was on one of the shelves in the living room. Barbara brought it over to the couch.

She could use this to get an idea of who Jim and Toby's classmates were, at least.

Jim didn't have many signatures in the book. There was Toby's, of course. The rest all had generic messages – "Have a great summer" from Eli Pepperjack, "Have fun this summer!" from Shannon Longhannon, "See you in September" and a doodled smiley face from Claire Nuñez, and "Enjoy summer break" from Seamus Johnson.

People Jim knew? Or random classmates he approached so he wouldn't look 'weird' for not caring about yearbook autographs?

Barbara made note of all the names. She felt like Jim had let slip that the other children who knew about trolls were girls, early on, but she couldn't quite remember for sure and didn't want to rule anyone out. She flipped to the class photos to match names to faces, so she could keep watch for the signatories hanging around her house or across the street.

+=+

Enrique carefully printed the English alphabet. It hadn't been that hard to mimic from a reference image, but this was his first time writing it independently. He haltingly hummed the song to keep track of his place.

"Pretty good," said Claire, reading over his shoulder. He fought the urge to turn and strike. He was (supposed to be) safe. Claire wasn't purposefully lurking in his blind spot to attack him. "Definitely way better than my first scribbles. I guess next you should learn to write your name."

On another piece of paper, she printed it for him to copy.

The first letter was N. Sensible enough. Except wasn't that one pronounced 'nuh' instead of 'en' when it was in a word and not the alphabet? He shrugged. Claire knew this writing system better than he did – if she said Enrique started with N, he'd go with it until he had some evidence otherwise.

The second letter was O. He frowned. That … didn't feel right. Shouldn't it be an R?

The third letter was T. He stopped.

"Read it," he said to Claire, trying not to growl.

"Not Enrique," she said, without shame. "You only copied the 'Not' part so far."

Angrily, Enrique scribbled out the letters he'd written so far and the bit he'd copied from. In fast, shaky letters he copied out the rest of it and underlined it.

"No," said Claire, getting angry in turn, "you don't get to use that name. That's my brother's name, not yours."

"The kid can share. It's mine now."

"Oh, come on," Claire scoffed. "You're, like, hundreds of years old. I get that Jim's used to being called 'Jim' after sixteen years in deep cover or whatever, but you can't possibly have gotten that attached to 'Enrique' in just a few months."

… Did she really not know?

"It's the only name I've got."

"Bullshit. Other trolls had to call you something when you were in the Darklands."

Now he growled for real. "That wasn't a name."

"What, some kind of codename system? Then I'd think you'd welcome the chance to start using your real name again."

"I don't know what it used to be!" he snapped. "No one exactly kept track of who they were grabbing. And if we lived, it was 'Changeling' this and 'Impure' that if it wasn't just 'hey you'! Enrique's the first name I can remember having and you don't get to take it away from me!"

He stood there breathing hard for maybe a full minute. He'd cracked the pen. There was gloppy ink on his clenched fist. He licked it off before ink could drip on the floor, and popped the plastic into his mouth.

Claire's voice, when she spoke again, was a lot softer.

"How did anyone tell the Changelings apart, if … if you didn't have names?"

Enrique snorted. "You think they bothered? One Changeling's as good or as bad as any other. S'probably part of why Jim and the big Boss Man were so quick to change sides when they had the chance."

"Even the other Changelings?"

"The rule about not getting attached starts early."

Claire looked like she was about to cry. That … that wasn't fair, she didn't get to make him feel bad for her when they were in the middle of a fight …

"We give each other nicknames, sometimes," he admitted. Imp had been a popular one, if nothing else about a Changeling stood out. "Us or the goblins. But then when we get up top, it's like a rite of passage, you know? We get a name then. Using the old nickname's … like an insult. Saying you weren't worth making a surface agent."

Claire blinked rapidly a few times, then hugged him. He almost clawed her before realizing it wasn't an attack.

"Oi, easy!"

"You can't have my brother's name," she said stubbornly. "But we'll figure something else out."

"Not exactly your call to make," Enrique retorted.

"Don't ruin the moment."

"What moment–?!"

+=+

Previous Chapter (Troll Dads become official!)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Angor Rot’s debut!)

Not featured in the above chapter: Jim's internal panic, as he frantically tries to figure out how much Toby has already told Dr Archenn and how to warn Toby off telling her anything else, without exposing yet another Changeling's identity to humans.

Featured in the above chapter: my headcanon that Otto addressing Not Enrique as 'Imp' in early Season 2 was a deliberate insult. I've actually got a different nickname in mind for Not Enrique, it just didn't feel natural to bring it up in this scene. Imp, short for Impure, is basically a 'starter nickname' that all Changelings have in the Darklands, until and unless something about them stands out enough that the other Changelings start calling them something else.

[sammydem0n64]

Heyyyy, sooooooo, hahaaaa, uhhh, would you be willing to ramble about your Human Pokemon AU?? I've always been curious about it and like, whats going on and what the general idea for it is, like, about the characters and other things in general. So yeahhh, honestly you can ramble about whatever you want I'm just REALLY curious about it skjaksjsksjkjs

[DOES TEN LINES OF THOSE POWDER THINGS IN PKMN]

OKOKOKO HENSHSJSNS POGGERS LETS SEE HERE

So my human pokemon AU is like. Basically a combination of several stories all into one? Like there’s twenty things going on at once, some over lap, but most are self contained things!

Probably my favorite Characters of the bunch are the ghosts, especially the Ghost family Story-

For that, Haunter, a wild performer who died via a large stage light, is a ghost who wanders around. He used to have a job at a very popular club owned by Gengar, but got fired cause Oop. Eitherway, he makes friends with the wrong crowds, mostly because he craved attention and love (some good examples are Sableye and Mawile, but that was when he was alive), and some of these pals take him to this “abanonded” Log cabin in the woods to trash for funsies! However, rather quickly in he enters a room and discovers a lone Mimikyu trying to hide.

Naturally of course, hey, rhis is a child! And this place is occupied! So he does a responsible thing and stays with this kiddie Incase any one of his crew tries to burst in, all up until he’s like “Ok brb I’m gonna call this thing off now it should’ve ended like twenty minutes ago-“ but before he can get a word out THE DOOR SWINGS OPEN AND OUT COMES THIS GUY WITH A LATERN WALKS IN AND HES PISSED naturally he uses a shadow ball to get these fuckers out, minus Haunter since he wants to explain himself, but still gets threatened

Until Mimikyu shows up and is like “HEY HEYHEY DAD HES MY FRIEND HE PROTECTED ME FROM ALL THOSE GHOSTS!!!” And then he gets introduced to this dilf: Banette (tho he spells it like Bannet cause he’s difficult and I can’t spell)

Bannet’s whole thing is that when he was really young his parents abandoned him in the woods, and since he was born a ghost (there are two different types of ghost Pokémon in my AU; those who died to become a ghost and those who had ghost parents and thus were born a ghost) he couldn’t starve to death so he was. Forced to wander the woods alone for a long time, only until he was found by Mismagius and taken in as her nephew. Ever since he’s had horrible trust and abandonment issues, and tends to wander the forest in search of any other children who’re lost/abandoned... which is how he found Mimikyu!

So naturally he’s not gonna trust this guy who admits to coming along with the blokes who trashed his place... but Mimikyu likes him, so he gets to visit here and there. Of course this leads to a slow burn where they help each other heal from previous wounds. We also meet other ghosts like Gastly; Gengar’s kid and Gourgeist; Haunter’s Ex coworker

There are others too like Giratina, Yveltal and Hoopa... Giratina’s whole thing is that Arceus suffers from horrible parent disease and had all of their kids raised by the lake guardians, Gira is the youngest, and was the most neglected by their parent... Dialga was the favorite child, and they grew to resent them. All cumulating in an attempt on their life, which got Gira banished!

Yveltal is a similar case, envy took over them, they and Xerneas are technically twins... as this tree spawned thousands of years ago with a cocoon attached, birthing both of these fools at the same time, in which they were both swiftly taken in by Zygarde who acted as an older sibling to them. Yveltal always got the short end of the stick due to being the God of death, everything around them, except the fellow gods, died upon touch, and they were shunned by... everyone, it seemed. Even after Xerneas and Zy’s attempts to help Yveltal... they still turned their back and wound up joining Gira (and then they and Gira kiss)

Hoopa feels personally targeted by Arceus bc they were the ones who took away most of their powers, the one thing they left them being their rings they use to travel across the land. Somehow Arceus didn’t see a mega oversight to this cause Hoopa ended up in the Distortion world because of the rings and basically got adopted by Satan and Vulture!!!

There’s also Mewtwo traveling around trying to find their parent, Mew, alongside Genesect and Melodetta. And a plot of Suicine and Tentacruel being homies... and the legendary birds and legendary beasts having hella beef cause they come from enemy empires, but the gag is... their parents (Ho-Oh and Lugia respectively) are having a secret romance

YEAH tons of shits goin on

[ifyouknowme-stayaway]

A body swap Assassination Classroom fic would be chaotic between two people, but have you considered all of E class getting swapped withe each other?

For reasons unknown, they all get swapped with each other, and while Koro-sensej, Karasuma, and Irina know, they can't tell their parents and family because how do you even explain that kind if stuff.

Thankfully, it only lasts for three days.

Unfortunately, it lasts for three days.

Like, we all know the kind of normal stuff from those kinds of fics, the whole trying not to act out of character and stuff. But have you thought of the skills they should/shouldn't have as that person?

Like, even though Maehara knows Isogai better and can therefore stay in character more easily, it's a good thing Isogai and Hara were the ones who were switched with each other. They're both good with kids, and are awesome at cooking, so their families are... less suspicious of them. Hara isn't as creative with money as Isogai, but she is crazy good with her hands and improvising. Isogai gets to have a good three days in Hara's life. He does, on the other hand, discover the way some people treat Hara because of how she looks. It sucks, and he promises himself that he'll make sure not to let things like that slide if he can help it. Being told those kind of things hurt, and are also annoying.

Maehara gets switched with Mimura, and while Mimura is at first ecstatic to have gotten switched with one of the most popular guys in class, man did he underestimate Maehara. Seriously, the guy may act all smooth but he really does blush easily, not ignoring the fact that there's just so much attention on him! Maehara also isn't used to living like Mimura, because really, how do people live without the validation of being liked by girls and guys alike? How does he live without people to respond to his pickup lines and do cute couple things? How do you function without the sound of two disasters (aka older sisters) and excessively teasing each other?

Fuwa and Takebayashi switch, and just. Fuwa absolutely hates the high expectations and radio silence Takebayashi's family gives her. Takebayashi doesn't get how to be as open and enthusiastic as Fuwa, like doesn't she get tired of being that openly passionate? They end up having a long conversation where Fuwa admits that being that open and happy is a little tiring, and Takebayashi admits that he does want to be praised and appreciated sometimes.

I do want to try brainstorming for Nagisa and Karma switching, but they're both really different and there are a lot of ideas out there already. I don't think I can think of any that haven't already been thought up by someone else. So, I'll do Karma and Nakamura getting switched (yes, this has also probably already been done a lot, but I just want to do this)

At first it seems like a simple thing, they're both pranksters and troublemakers, they joke around a lot, should be easy to impersonate each other. Except it isn't that easy to get used to what the other goes through, is it?

Karma doesn't know how he's supposed to interact with Nakamura's family, since he rarely talks to his own parents, and has no idea how to deal with her older brother. He's used to lonely silence, covered up by video game music and his own voice (he sometimes talks to himself, it's just a small habit). An entire family with high/low expectations for him? He's not sure how to respond with them never expecting a joker like him to do well and their disappointment that he doesn't do as well as they want him to.

Nakamura should have an easier time, since she doesn't need to fool Karma's family and friends (his parents are travelling, and he doesn't actually have any friends outside of E class), but it's still hard for her! Because Karma's picked fights with like, everyone in half the alleys at some point. And don't get her wrong, Nakamura's good at fighting, she can take down a fair few of her classmates without too much trouble, but a bunch of thugs who are older than her? That's a bit of a challenge! She's lucky that switching then came with all the fighting instincts Karma's been building up for years.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it would be. On to the next two, we have Sugino and Nagisa. They both take about an hour to get used to their new bodies ("Nagisa, how do you function with being so small" "Why are your arms so strong" "Your hair is so long, Kayano, come here and please teach me how to tie it better" "Sugino help me your baseball instincts make me want to catch or hit basically everything").

Then, there is the angst. Nagisa is surprised by Sugino's family, which are pretty outdoorsy and, ignoring the fact that his mom really wants him to tell her basically everything, is pretty much perfect. Except his little brother, who definitely can't be trusted as much as Sugino can be when it comes to secrets. Sugino definitely needs a more than a moment to figure out Nagisa's sorry excuse of a mother, because yeah, his wants him to tell her everything even when he'd rather keep it quiet, but Nagisa's mother is so much worse. He wishes he could give Nagisa a hug and also a new family, and maybe tell Karma to give Nagisa's mom a small dose of fear, but he doesn't. He wants to get mad or talk back at her, but he doesn't. This is Nagisa's body, Nagisa's life, and all he can do is his best to keep damage at a minimum. He plays along with what she wants, says what he thinks is the right thing to say at the right times, and tries to stay out of trouble, for Nagisa's sake. Maybe get her in a good mood and put them on better terms for when Nagisa has to deal with her again, so he won't get hurt as much. He still hates her, though.

Hmm, Kanzaki and Hazama. Kanzaki is used to high expectations and strict parents, but not Hazama's kind of strict. Her father was the kind of person who went quiet when he was angry, so being screamed at by Hazama's mother was honestly terrifying for Kanzaki. Really, she was scared out her mind by her screeching. Hazama is smart and can handle almost anything that gets thrown at her, but acting all sweet and kind like Kanzaki? Nope, she tries her best but it's pretty unconvincing, seeing Hazama's used to acting dark and scary as opposed to Kanzaki's much sweeter nature. Let's just say that she was lucky Kanzaki's older brother noticed she needed help and covered for her without asking questions. He also doesn't want her to get in trouble, even if he says it's just because he doesn't want their parents to get mad and go out of his way to stay out of trouble.

There are still a bunch of other combinations and stuff, but I think I'm done with this for today. Please say what you think of this, and add on with your own ideas if you'd like!