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boysplanetrecaps · 6 months

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Build Up Episode 6/7: Team 9th Place v Team First Place

Hello and welcome back to another recap in my Build Up recap series! In the previous one, we saw the judges straight up get it wrong. Straight facts. In this one, we finish episode 6 and break into episode 7, and along the way watch the 9th place team go up against the 1st place team. Will there be a rebellion? Only one way to find out.

Dahee calls the next two teams up on stage. Oooooh! It’s Jay’s team and it’s Woong’s team! The judges are excited for these combinations.

LTR: Hayoon, Jay, Wumuti

Wumuti is spokesman for his team-- I love how even now no one has mentioned the fact that he is actually from China and speaks Korean as a non-native speaker -- and he introduces the team as the Vitamins. He’s Vitamin T, Hayoon is Vitamin H, Jay is Vitamin J. All of those are NOT REAL VITAMINS and I am VERY ANGRY about this POOR NUTRITIONAL ADVICE

In the previous round, Wumuti and Kang Hayoon performed Falling and came in first place; new recruit Jay performed Dangerously with Bitsaeon, and lost. I don’t think you need much reminder as to who they are, do you?

LTR: Intae, Woong (s w e a t e r), and Minwook

Lee Minwook is his group’s spokesman, and he introduces his team as Woong-verse team, a reference to the fact that in the previous round, Jang Intae and Minwook performed Universe (though it wasn’t really shown) and came in 9th place; new recruit Jeon Woong performed Kick It with Seokhwa, and lost. Seokhwa was eliminated, unfortunately.

You probably remember that Woong is in a group called AB6IX; he’s one of the most famous people who went on the show. Minwook is from a nugu group called Newkidd. I really like his singing voice and wish the show gave him a little more love. Jang Intae is in a duo called 415, under the same label that promotes Stay-C, and while he doesn’t have my very favorite voice on the show, I still think the show is handing him the short end of the stick far too often. So yeah, all three of them are debuted idols.

Minwook says that his team is ranked 9th and taking on the 1st place team, and says it would be fun if the underdog won. Wumuti says “yes, it would be entertaining, but this isn’t an entertainment show, this is a contest!” Woong is like, “You’re right! No entertainment allowed! We’re here to SING!! We don’t do entertainment!” Minwook and Intae have to playfully hold him back as if he’s going to tackle Wumuti. It’s some of the most fun smack talk I’ve seen on the show, and Jaehwan leaps to his feet again to applaud.

VCG asks Woong how he feels about “almost being eliminated.” We’re reminded that Woong’s name was called last when the judges were picking their ten survivors. That doesn’t mean he was their last choice, to be fair; they may just have announced his name last for the entertainment of it.

Anyway, Woong is embarrassed by basically everything that’s happened to him so far on the show, including the way that many teams sort of fought over the right to go up against his team, like they thought his team was a pushover.

Well, lucky for Woong, he has main character energy! And Intae and Minwook are here to be the Trinity and Morpheus to his Neo.

They’re in a strange glowing green room with a few metal folding chairs, a tv tray, and a tablet. What more do you need besides a nice powder blue cable knit s w e a t e r?

Minwook speaks up first and says, “First of all, don’t worry, I spoke the building owner and arranged this rehearsal space so we don't have to worry about that.” He’s obviously kidding, and he makes the other two laugh. (It’s extra funny because they’re actually at Brand New Music, which is Woong’s agency, not Minwook’s). Then he reassures Woong that they recruited him thinking of him as a weapon, not a liability.

Minwook and Intae ask Woong what kind of song he might want to sing, and he says he wants to sing something more emotional and less rhythmic. In other words, a ballad, not a pop song.

He interviews that he’s made mistakes choosing songs in the past and he wants a chance to actually show his vocals. I agree! He says that he’s really outgoing and talkative, but wants to show that he can really sing.

Minwook and Intae have a song in mind: Enough by Hoppipolla. Hoppipolla was a project band that debuted after winning a survival show, and they were active from 2019 to 2021. I’d never heard of them, but I listened to Enough while I was curling my hair and I ended up listening to it a few times in a row because I liked it so much. Going on the playlist for sure.

It does seem to me that part of what makes Enough so engaging is the cello part, and I wonder whether having the song be primarily about singing will be enough to really make an impression on the judges. But it sure is a pretty song. In fact, I may have listened to it for two hours straight while working a bit today. That may have happened.

Sample lyrics:

The outside seems to have left me with a lot My heart now crumbles under the weight of memories My love doesn't expect much sincerity But this is just a handful of lies Don't say that you love me Don't lie to reassure me No effort required Just say you need me now That's enough That's enough

Woong says he loved the song the moment he heard it, and they decide to do it.

They begin rehearsing. There’s no way you can guess where they are! Definitely not at Brand New Music. Why would you think THAT?

Woong is from an idol group and isn’t used to singing ballads in tight harmony. So Minwook and Intae help him a lot. He really wants to get it right, and they seem patient and kind.

The performance begins.

Full version without reactions.

My thoughts:

This was really pretty, and it grows on you when you listen to it a few times, too. I don’t think this will beat the other team, but it sure is a nice performance of a pretty song.

Woong has been the underdog this whole time, but I think he’s the best singer of the three in terms of natural vocal color. As the “center” of the song, he begins and ends the performance on a good note, so to speak. Also, look at that fuzzy s w e a t e r! Good stuff.

For me, the biggest liability was Intae. He has an excellent sense of pitch and obviously is extremely powerful, and that’s good, but his vocal color is extremely nasal and to me kind of unpleasant. He also doesn’t have a great control over his dynamics, so he’s often a bit too loud and overpowering in the harmonies. I feel bad saying that when he’s obviously such a sweetheart.

Right after he and Woong sing in harmony for a few lines, with Intae encouraging him the whole time, Woong grins in triumph and Intae looks so proud. Aww!

Minwook has a really nice vocal color, but he lacks agility and he sounds a little uncomfortable on some the higher notes. (Agility is your ability to go from note to note as you sing, hitting each note squarely along the way.) He just gets a wee bit shrill here or there, too. I still really like his singing voice, though.

Some of the harmonies sounded nice, but a few of them were unbalanced, and others sounded, I don’t know, “off.” Like someone was hitting the wrong note. But I loved the staging and the way they smiled so much. And like I said, it improves on a second or third listen.

Let’s see what the judges say.

In the MNET edit, we get an instant replay of Woong’s first few lines, which do indeed sound lovely. People sit up and take notice, and also seem to enjoy the first section of harmony between Intae and Minwook.

Solar likes it. I think. I guess?

Mostly, it looks like the judges are liking it.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen Eunkwang just relax and enjoy a song like this.

When the guys are done, there’s a slight pause, and then the judges applaud hard. Backstage, the guys in the green room let out a collective “waaaaahhhhh!” in approval. Park Jeup says to his teammates, “That was the best performance of the day,” and Seunghun agrees.

The moment they’re really done, Woong runs toward Intae whooping, and then over to Minwook, just so happy and wanting to celebrate with his team.

Awww.

Dahee asks the judges what they thought of the performance. Jaehwan says that he thinks all three of them were influenced by each other, and all three of them showed sides of their voices he hadn’t heard before. They were really synced and the performance really moved him.

Wendy liked how they smiled at each other and looked happy -- it was beautiful, she says. She tells Woong that he can really pull of this kind of song.

Jaehwan mentions that Woong did the beginning and end, and that it was really… wahhh!

Guest Judge Guy says he wonders why didn’t Woong sing like this before? He thinks that the team worked well together.

As they start to walk off the stage together, with Woong making little happy chirping noises, Eunkwang calls after him, Woong! You’re good at ballad songs!

Well, there are three more minutes of the episode and Dahee calls up Jay, Wumuti, and Hayoon. It’s obvious that they’re not going to perform in this episode!

Dahee asks Hayoon what he thought of the first performance, and Hayoon says it was good and he enjoyed it….

Jang Intae has no time for your bullshit, Hayoon.

… but that like their colorful clothes, they can turn the mood around and win.

Backstage, Woong is like, “Are you saying that we were PLAIN?”

We get a little snippet of the song Jay’s team will be doing -- Fever -- and then that’s it for the episode.

Ok, on to episode seven! You guys, I’m almost caught up! Nothing like having the week off from having to travel for work. Oh, here's a link if you need it.

So, after a spoiler-iffic preview of what’s to come, we dive back into our battle.

The top tier trio takes the tage.

The judges seem impressed just by their existence. We’re reminded of their past successes, and Kang Yayoon interviews that they’re like the Avengers.

Flashback to their rehearsal period. They’re meeting in this purple room.

That one chair is bad so it has to face the wall.

Wumuti points out that they sort of won first and second and place in terms of points. Jay wants to show the judges something new, but Wumuti and Hayoon want to do “what they’re good at”, which is pop.

Jay does NOT like this.

Jay reminds them that VCG said he’s worried that Jay hasn’t sung any songs in Korean so far. Hayoon says “but this is a death match!” as if Jay doesn’t know that. Jay’s whole point is that he wants to listen to the judges to avoid losing.

Just the best screen shot I’ve ever taken. Jay and Hayoon staring daggers at each other with Wumuti in the middle looking right at the camera like he’s on Parks and Rec.

Wumuti tries to play peacemaker and find a song that does both things: show a new size, but also build on what works. He suggests something “jazzy and exciting.”

At first, Jay doesn’t like the idea of doing a song by JYP, but he ends up liking the song Fever, saying that it seems fun and like something he’d be good at.

So, JYP is the head of JYP entertainment, home to Twice, Stray Kids, Itzy, 2am, 2pm, and NMIXX (and former home to Got7, Miss A, and Wonder Girls). He writes a lot of songs for these groups, which is why at the beginning of the video he’s playing the opening chords to Feel Special by Twice. I respect his songwriting ability and the way that he lets his idols take time off for their mental health and whatnot. I also find him personally the most cringey person in all of Kpop. Sigh. (If you’re wondering who the actress is in the video, it’s Jo Yeo Jeong, who was in Parasite.)

The song is like, whatever. I mean, it sounds just like any other song of its genre. It sounds a lot like the Peggy Lee song of the same name, honestly. But fine, ok, I could see it being fun for this trio to cover.

Hayoon is worried about the dancing, so Wumuti helps him practice.

Hayoon is not a particularly apt student, bless him. But Wumuti is super patient.

They’re practicing in that same space that we saw Wumuti and Hayoon practice in before, with the rack of t-shirts in the background and the art of a bunny on a moon with roses in the background.

It’s performance night. How will they do? Everyone is excited.

The performance begins.

Full version without reactions.

My thoughts:

I don’t think I’d ever love this because I find the song oddly boring. But I can respect their really good performance.

You guys know by now that I haven’t always been the biggest Kang Hayoon fan, but I really enjoyed how he sounded here. Both singing and rapping sounded pretty great to me. I’m really surprised. He did something different with his voice, bringing the nasality under control without sacrificing his unique vocal color. Nice work, Hayoon.

Jay sounded great as always. He did slightly different styles of singing here and they all worked. His rapping…? I’ll say this: Jay is a spectacular singer.

Wumuti just keeps getting better. I don’t remember being blown away by him as a vocalist on Boys Planet but he seems to be really great on this show.

It’s hard to say more about either of them because they’re the same as ever: clean, with enough texture to keep it interesting, no nasality, no pitchiness, good breath control, good agility -- everything good, nothing bad. Staging wise, I liked their choice of background and outfits. Jay’s facial expressions always just touch the boundary between “fun” and “cringey” but the other two were fine with that. I liked the slide + point dance moves they worked out : just enough to make it fun without using the energy they needed to sing. Also, I like Wumuti’s glasses.

In the MNET edit, of course, the judges love it, but also can’t believe the rapping.

Wendy can’t believe Hayoon’s rapping.

Neither can Baekho.

Yep, it’s worth an instant reply. And at that point, Lee Minwook backstage says to his teammates, “well, it’s over.”

Jaehwan gets up and dances.

When Jay lets his jacket fall off his shoulder….

… Team Taco backstage is like, “Hey, that’s against the rules!”

During the dance break, looks like everyone is into it.

When they’re done, everyone applauds and looks shocked.

The judges say…

Jaehwan says it was “delicious” and made him dance. He wants to change his name to “Jay Hwan.” Then Jay makes a bit of a mistake with his Korean and they all laugh at him for a while.

Baekho also praises Jay.

Solar praises Wumuti, who she says was in control of the stage, and praises Hayoon’s rapping.

So, who will win? The judges put in their votes….

They say it’s really hard to choose. I think they’ve said that pretty much every time.

Commercial… And then the judges’ votes are revealed.

Red is Jay’s team and blue is Woong’s team. Baekho, Wendy, and Jaehwan voted for Woong’s team, while the other four voted for Jay’s team.

Jay’s team takes it, 4-3. I think they’re a little humbled that it was that close.

And I actually think that Woong’s team is proud of making it so close.

Hayoon makes polite noises into the mic, and Wumuti praises the other team sincerely.

Woong says “I wanted to win at least once! I’m sad that I couldn’t win, but I think I gained something even more important -- I made some really good friends.”

That leaves just one round to go -- Team Lastplace against Team Ballad.

Thanks as always for sticking with me, lovies! I’ll see you in the next one.

#build up #mnet #mnet build up #bpr recaps build up #build up mnet #jay chang #wumuti #ab6ix #ab6ix woong

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tv-sinner · 1 year

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4, 18, 26, 31 and 43!

4. A character you rarely talk about?

Hmmm.. I guess it would have to be some of my more brand new ocs (aka ones that aren’t even developed enough to have a tag on here yet!). A lot the ocs I had on my previous oc aesthetic blog are either in oc purgatory or in the process of getting revamped entirely. Some are so new that i have yet to draw them, much less talk about them. But for now, I’ll focus on one who I haven’t drawn yet from VITW verse: Adira, a butch dandelion rogue who has a love-hate/lovers AND enemies relationship with the strawberry monster huntress, St. Wickam.

Adira was disgraced knight who now wanders the wilderness as a thief and mercenary. She often finds herself crossing paths with the high-strung strawberry and she’s made it her personal mission to play with her and to steal her heart (literally or metaphorically? Whatever happens first). Wickam was initially charmed by her but she soon realized that Adira stole her money and they’ve been getting into homoerotic fights about it (and many other instances of them messing with each other) ever since. Their relationship is.. complicated. And neither are ready to admit to themselves or each other that they have romantic feelings for each other. And that’s all I have for now. 🫡

18. Any OC crackships?

Two words: Archdemon Polycule… Or more accurately, separate polycules that have overlap with some members but not all of them are involved with each other. Here’s a visual aid I drew for this weird ass poly ship:

All Roads Lead to Asmodeus. Would this polycule be an absolute disaster of a relationship? Yes. Do I think it would actually work out? No, I doubt it would last for very long, especially when infernal politics come into the mix… Not to mention that they tend to bicker with each other a lot. Would it at least be entertaining to watch this particular polycule crash and burn? Yes. This will never happen in canon but it would be funny if it did.

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will?

Not exactly? The only thing that kinda made me change things about my ocs against my Will was probably the existence of H*zbin H*tel/H*lluva B*ss. For a while, I stepped away from my Hell/Heaven story partly because of its popularity/fandom and me wanting to distance myself from it, which included my own story about Hell. I would elaborate further, but there’s a time and place for being a hater and it isn’t here lol. The other, more major reason was that I had a crisis of faith in my artistic and writing ability was also having at the same time I was vocally beefing with these series on tumblr.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)

I can think of a few ocs who would actually have a tumblr blog.. I think the most interesting of which would be Archdemon Belphegor’s tumblr blog(s). I’d imagine she’d have several blogs: her main (memes, occasionally posts about her inventive work, plushies, science posts), a blog dedicated to programming and maybe game dev, an aesthetic blog based on 90s computers and video games, and a separate NSFW blog not connected to her main. I’d imagine she’d take the time to make her own custom layout and across the board, they’d all have old computer desktop/old video game vibes. She posts pretty frequently and she sometimes slacks off on her work to check her socials, including tumblr.

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confess

Oh definitely. For one, I typically give my ocs curly/wavy hair, usually dark hair (brown or black). I rarely give them blonde or ginger hair. And even my ocs who have gray hair now were brunettes in their youth. I tend to give my ocs non-straight hair because I find drawing hair with a lot of volume/defined shapes to be more fun than just straight hair.

Aside from that, I tend to make my ocs fat, mostly because I’m fat myself! And a vast majority of my ocs end up with long lashes since I tend to just. Give them obvious lashes, regardless of gender. What can I say? Lashes look great.

#filth posts #answered #adira #st. wickam #mammon #lucifer #leviathan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #abaddon

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shatteredfears-arch · 2 years

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aLSO all DC muses being added/are already here, which i’m posting bc i don’t have bios posted for all of them so this is a quick rundown. as generally known, the main plotline of this blog is one big universe, but ofc, there are basis for these characters personality traits. And the main verse that is this blog’s verse has a mix of S/nyder and R/eeves, we don’t accept hate to either here. Also technically J/oker 2019. minor comic and other influences but i take what fits into the main world as my wild colorful brain views it (and yes, as an autistic, I view things differently than the non auts who call me names or choose to insult me-- too bad so sad for u tho i’m friends w the block button)

(obvious content warnings considering the fandom, a lot of these ppl are murderers, one of them considers consent 'optional' canonically, even in her 'good person' phase. some of these people are serial killers. gordon's chill but he's also a cop so that defaultly makes him not great when, like me, you're not white. he's not white either tho, and is trying to fix the issue from the inside, but it's still not a great career. if anyone knows anything abt pamela's backstory, i'm not mentioning it here, but that girl's been through it okay.)

B/rucey Wayne, obvs E/d Nashton, unfortunately, tho he’s technically an NPC/by request H/arvey D/ent, with a different take primarily based on T/elltale, where yknow, he becomes evil whether he’s mutilated or not. stop being gross DC if T/elltale a company owned by gross ppl can do it so can you. H/arley Q/uinn, who’s been here, she’s not an original take she’s based off her og solo run but ppl think ‘oh she’s mean’ means original take when thats LITERALLY WHO SHE WAS BEFORE THEY WATERED HER DOWN TO HEROFY HER I dont accept that arc here. but i'm also not including all the canonical times she's forced consent on others, aka pushing J/oker into sex, breaking into floyd's house and laying naked in his bed and bullying him until he agrees to have sex, pushing ivy into physical contact until ivy agrees no matter how many times they say no. yeah. none of that happens here. but i do recognize it happens in canon, even if the fandom refuses to. al/exis k/aye, aka p/unchline, also a mostly original storyline not entirely following the comics, but idk i think she’s neat du/ella d/ent, aka h/arvey’s bio daughter who he was so disappointed wasn’t twins he chose to ignore entirely, bc even tho i love harv/ey he is a terrible dad. case in point, his daughter’s obsession w villains and calling herself their daughters (she’s been j/okers daughter, ri/ddler’s daughter, etc, her coping mechanism is a piece of work). pre her taking that route tho, but she is presently obsessed with E/dward post TB2022. floyd la/wton, aka d/eadshot, based on older comics, with hints of ss2016 but not a lot, deffo inspo from jltas and games tho. i will never write fl/oyd x h/arley please never ask me, she literally wouldn’t leave him alone and broke into his house and sat naked in his bed until he’d have sex w her in canon. we’re not doing that here. keep that away from me. s/ofia f/alcone, carmine’s legitimate daughter and therefore selina’s half sister. inheritor of carmine’s entire criminal bs, but because she wasn’t a player at the time, now has to become a player in the war for head of gotham crime. jane mo/riarty, technically started as an original interpretation of a moriarty sibling from s/herlock h/olmes, but i plotted and developed a DC plot relating to her in the TB2022 universe, so she’s here now. university professor by day, weaving the web of gotham’s underground criminal schemes by night. J/ames G/ordon, currently a detective in go/tham, not yet commissioner, trusts batsy entirely but doesn’t let the team know about his affiliation with him. uncle to and eventually adopted father of his niece, b/arbara g/ordon, when his brother and sister in law die in a car crash.

P/amela I/sley, who is mostly based between older comics (including her runs in the SS) and A/rkhamverse, NOT watering her down the way the comics and shows did to just turn her into ‘har/ley’s girlfriend’ nor will i pretend the canonical interpretation of their ship is somehow healthy when they’ve beaten the shit out of and mentally abused each other to no end. in general if you want a healthy ship, don’t look towards h/arley, and i/vy deserves better, but all in all I am not watering them down for the sake of romance. they’re villains. we can write them as healthily as we can plot if you want, but pamela deserves better than what the comics and that show have done for her. and the fandom as a whole tbh, which is why i love the interpretations i follow over canon 99% of the time. and if you wanna plot/write w any of them lmk and hit me up w a plot if u have one, or if you wanna try and get to a comic point or game point or anything, it can be discussed, but i will not jump into ships w pamela, alexis, or ivy. everyone else is a case by case basis.

anyways here's the new carrd. almost none of the characters mentioned have bios btw that's why i'm posting this here lol.

#bc everytime i post smthn w pam i get fake accts messaging me abt wanting to write canon scenes that are majorly abusive and getting mad at #everytime i say no lol #'it's a different canon to--' funny how that's only ever said #to excuse hypocrisy #don't think i don't notice i'm autistic i notice almost everything #the slightest hint that you're being weird to me i fucking notice #removing me from your list bc you found sb else who you like writing w more???? yeah i noticed that too lol #i just didn't say anything but i notICED #thx #anyways #abuse cw #sa cw #out.#i love hq don't get me wrong #90% of the fandom including those that recognize that all her ships are abusive not just jhq but h/ivy is too lol #even the ppl that DO recognize that #claim her forcing consent is okay bc 'it's played off as a joke!!!' and no #forcing consent isn't a joke #showing up in a man's bed completely naked when he's already told you no MULTIPLE times isn't okay either #and i'm tired of ppl pretending she's only a victim like she's been a victim yes #but she victimizes others s o much she's a horrible person #and the worst kind of manipulator #she's bubbly and lovably too don't get me wrong she isn't aware she's doing it #but that doesn't make it okay #alexis is so cool tho this bitch LITERALLY manipualted the entire world via social media #to get clear cut off of being held legally responsible for anything #and make the batfam look bad #she's an evil genius it's just a shame that #her current personality is so similar to harley's original personality #ran out of tags BUT if anyone wants me to do this for each fandom things are coming in/out of lmk bc i may

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sorcerornobody · 2 months

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Saw a friend do this, decided to do it on Tumblr where I can type a lot more (and edit it) rather than making a super long Twitter thread.

I'll just put a "-" for any question that I don't have any characterisation developed in order to give much of an answer to. I've never set out to build a character for my WoL, most of the details just... happened. I might come back to edit this with more details in future.

Also, some spoilers if you're not up to date on Dawntrail MSQ and some side content from earlier expansions.

Name: Sumire Medeis, Sumi for short.

Race and main job: Raen Au Ra, Red Mage. Though she has a main job for each role, so also Gunbreaker, Sage, Viper, and Bard.

Striking feature: The most striking would probably be her freckles? Which, although not visible on her character model, she has all over her body. Something decidedly not striking, on the other hand, is her heterochromia, because it's relatively subtle.

Age: I changed my mind on this at one point, but the settled answer now is that she was 23 at the start of ARR. How old she is now depends on whether we count irl years passed since I started playing, or how much time we think has passed in-universe.

Personality: Most of the basic WoL traits: determined, friendly, etc. Something of a gremlin streak, often goes for the funny dialogue options. That said, while the playing dumb options in Dawntrail could also qualify as funny, I didn't pick those – she's intelligent, and self-assured (but not smug) about it. She's very patient (up to a point) in general, but has zero patience for bullshit. Her default response when irritated is snarkiness.

Clothing: As a general rule, anything that doesn't show a lot of skin but does show her scales will be very favoured – she's proud of her scales. She tends to go for relative simplicity, though some details are nice. But anything too elaborate tends to be right out. For colours, purple. Lots of purple. Some blue. Occasional red accents. A constant across nearly all of her outfits is a set of light purple flower accessories: a cherry blossom corsage in her hair, a tritelia earring, and a Byregotia choker (though several of her higher collar glamours cover that one up). You can check out this follow-up post for pictures of most of her main glamours.

Childhood: No gritty backstory or drama here, just a normal childhood in a loving family. Not boring, but unremarkable.

Goals: -

Making a living: No one thing, really. She gets gil wherever she gets it and likes to avoid spending it (especially for crafting, she's very self-sufficient and will gather most materials herself).

Favourite food: -

Worst fear: Losing the people she cares about. Cliché but true.

Hobbies: -

Favoured party role: DPS for the most part, but an all-rounder. Prefers to off-tank in two-tank content, usually, but willing to step up. Experiences all combat but especially tanking and healing on a stress curve where having an easy time is fine, having a tough time is stressful, and having an absolutely balls to the wall frantic time is very stressful but absolutely exhilarating. Of course, one could argue that's technically my gameplay style rather than Sumi herself, and from a character-canonical point of view, she's a true all-rounder who is always more than happy to main-tank when needed and kick the absolute shit out of enemies (in a "what needs to be done" way, not a bloodthirsty way).

Talents: Omnicrafter and gatherer. Could probably also be an academic if she ever laid down the adventuring life, since she's well-versed in so many disciplines (and started as an Arcanist).

Hometown: Undetermined as yet – it's probably never going to be anywhere we actually visit, because it would feel weird to go to her homeland and have no acknowledgement of it. That said, I've come to the conclusion that she hails from somewhere in the East, likely around Dalmasca. She has Thavnairian heritage somewhere in her family tree, and while her immediate family is all Auri, one of her great-grandfathers was a Veena Viera.

Parents: Just two normal Raen Au Ra, good solid parents who raised her well, no real ideas on them beyond that.

Siblings: She's the "oldest" of four quadruplet sisters (Kasumi, Makoto, and Chihaya), and has two younger twin brothers (Keiho and Kansui). Yes, their mother is exhausted. Yes, this is entirely because I was too lazy to differentiate the character designs of my alts beyond giving them different hairstyles and variations on Sumi's heterochromia. And yes, the three sisters are a reference to Persona 5 since, after naming Sumi (not specifically named after P5R), it amused me that there were three other P5 character names in the female Au Ra naming pool. Quick personality rundown: Kasumi (WHM) is shy and bookish; Makoto (BLM) is very caring but puts on an edgy front; Chihaya (MNK) is very energetic and bubbly; Keiho (WAR) is basically male Sumi; Kansui (DRG) is an incredibly socially anxious bean. Again, you can look at the follow-up post if you want to see what her siblings look like.

Other family: Obviously, the found family of the Scions. When Fourchenault disowned the twins, Sumi was fully prepared to immediately draw up adoption papers if necessary. Also under found family are the characters of my two best in-game friends.

Thoughts on love: She loves love. She has plenty for other people, though I wouldn't describe her as especially romantic. Although if G'raha Tia ever got the courage to ask, she'd consider marrying him – she finds him extremely endearing.

Thoughts on sex: An enthusiastic and very bi(pan?)sexual yes.

Thoughts about gil: As mentioned above, she hoards it, but in a frugal way rather than a greedy way. Which she does mostly to avoid having to worry about ever running low.

Faith: Not really, even before she encountered every mythical being under the sun. She's still happy to consider Thaliak her patron just for symbolic reasons though.

Enemies: Anyone who threatens the world at large, obviously. And, no surprise, if you threaten her loved ones in particular, she's liable to end you with extreme prejudice.

Role models: Mmm, nah. People she respects and admires, sure, but not to an extent that I'd call them role models.

Fondest memory: -

Biggest flaw: -

Beliefs: Pretty big on forgiveness, unless someone does, like, multiple heinous things. Hello Zoraal Ja. But the thing that matters to her is whether people try to make amends and be better, which is why she's willing to work with Gaius, and why she (mostly) forgives Bakool Ja Ja. Mostly. He still needs to do a little more work as of the end of 7.0 because releasing Valigarmanda was REALLY bad, but he's firmly on the road to full forgiveness.

Thoughts on allied societies: Mostly ranging from a good deal of respect to a great deal of respect for them. The main exceptions are kinda just tolerating Namazu, and absolutely fuck moogles.

Greatest regret: -

Any secrets: Not really. But then, I'd also say that if she had any.

#Final Fantasy XIV

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countlessrealities · 1 year

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Weirdly specific but helpful character building questions || Accepting !

@bossblitzy sent: 28 for main verse Rick (hiii!)

{ 28. What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want? }

The question brings up thoughts and memories on which Rick tries his best not to indulge too much on, these days. There's so much pain behind them, a never healed abyss of loss. There's guilt and shame and self-loathing. There's the awareness that he has failed over and over and over, for forty long years, to get what he really wants.

Now, the lines are blurred, because the time he has spent with his new family and, especially, with Morty has planted new wishes and desires. He can feel them grow, supportively wrapping around his exhausted bones, warming up his worn-out soul.

But of course there's no way in hell that he would voice any of that and, even less, that he would ever confess what he truly hopes for.

"W-What kind of shitty question is that?" He huffs out, with an unimpressed eyeroll. "H-Have you run out of the smart kind of stupidity? D-Damn, you really hit the fuckin' bottom."

With a derisive scoff, Rick crosses his arms over his chest, his gaze heavily judgemental.

"B-But fine, I'll answer. W-What I want an-and what I tell people I want is the same fuckin' thing." Liar, liar, liar. "An-And that's doing whatever the fuck I want, w-when I want and h-how I want. S-So yeah, I'm basically already living m-my dream life or shit. G-Great for me. N-Now fuck off."

[[ That's what Rick tells people, or well, one of the many things he tells in place of the truth. He can just as easily say that he wants some peace and quiet, or more booze, or to get laid, or a world where people don't ask idiotic questions.

[[ As for what he really wants...It's not just one thing at this point. He has spent 40 years chasing after the guy who killed his family, being consumed by the thirst for revenge. Yet, at the same time, travelling around the multiverse and meeting new people has also, slowly and subtly, started to give him other reasons to keep going.

[[ He has never truly acknowledged that fact, not until he has fully settled down with Morty and their replacement family. At that point he has found himself wanting to move on, to live for himself and not chasing after the shadow that has destroyed his life once already. He wants to be around this adult version of his daughter, having fun at Jerry's expenses, partying with Summer, going on adventures with Morty and re-discovering the universe all over again with him.

[[ Of course these two desires can't be pursued at the same time, because one denies the other, so Rick is being pulled in two opposite directions. He also feels like he doesn't deserve to move on and he feels guilty even just thinking about doing so without having avenged his wife and daughter first. It's the reason why he eventually chooses to replace himself with a robot, so he can descend back in the abyss of obsession without dragging his new loved ones down with him.

[[ Good thing that Morty isn't just going to stand there and let him do that. Not alone, at least. That way, Rick ends up getting to keep a piece of his new life while he tries to tie up the strings of his old one. And he gets forced to shower, because damn if he didn't need to. ]]

#[ ic :: c137 Rick ]#[ headcanons :: c137 Rick ]#[ v. Forever a hundred years ; main verse :: c137 Rick ]#[ ooc :: mun scotty on comm ]#bossblitzy #[[ hiiiii !! ]]#[[ thanks a lot for sending this in! ]]#[[ also don't mind me being extra and replying to these questions both IC and OOC xD ]]#[ ooc :: mun's headcanons ]

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campusjust · 2 years

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Pinyin helper

PINYIN HELPER SOFTWARE

PINYIN HELPER FREE

to send charcoal in snowy weather (idiom) fig. I live in Montreal and a book of that nature is impossible to find. to support with the hand to help sb up to support oneself by holding onto something to help. Additionally, it has exceptionally good audio to listen to each word and thus understand and learn the pronunciation, not only the meaning. The app will easily translate any phrase or sentence you desire to be translated. The problem is that she doesn’t know of any, or where to get them. Pinyin Helper captivates instantly with its sleek design, speed and intuitiveness. Something equivalent to reading a regular Chinese book so that I can get practice pronouncing both simple and complicated words. She suggested that I buy a book, any book (as long as it’s not filled with technical terms or something), that is written completely in pinyin so that I can practice reading it for pronunciation purposes. To use it, simply copy passages from the web into the text box, and they will be annotated with hàny pnyn or zhùyn pronunciation symbols. I’ve just started to learn Mandarin (I’ve completed my first 3 hrs of lessons!) and was lucky enough to find a Native speaking Chinese tutor to help me learn the language. This is a simple tool designed to help students of Mandarin Chinese learn the thousands of characters (hànzì) of the Chinese writing system. The pronunciation comes in the form of hanyu pinyin. Native speakers of English will decode pinyin spellings to fairly close approximations of Mandarin except in the case of certain speech sounds that are not ordinarily produced by most native speakers of English: j / t /, q /t/, x / /, z / ts /, c /ts/, zh / /, ch //, h / x / and r / / exhibit the greatest discrepancies.

PINYIN HELPER SOFTWARE

With respect to Python development, P圜harm definitely stands out with features like remote debugging, code quality checks, and integrations with third-party software like Docker and Kubernetes. It makes any sentence come alive, allowing you to listen again and again so that you can catch both the real flow and pronunciation at once What’s new in version 1.3.7 Updated on Version 1.3. This is the text of the e-mail I received: How can the app help you You search the pronunciation by character, and vice versa. P圜harm has tons of advantages when compared to text editors in terms of supported functionality. Pinyin Helper, with its clean layout and clear speech function, can help you learn Chinese. I haven’t been a beginner for several years now, so I don’t know much about this kind of thing. Summarized the main knowledge points in Pinyin learning, carried out inspections to fill in the vacancies, and strengthened the mastery, A good helper for elementary school students to learn Chinese pinyin Remove the complexity and keep it simple, grasp the key points, and improve the efficiency of Pinyin learning. If more than nine Chinese characters are represented by the same pinyin string, use PageDown and PageUp to scroll through the list. Read more About Us, Use BST on your site, and view our Online Bible Sitemap.I recently received an e-mail asking me to make a textbook recommendation. Type each pinyin syllable or word (without tone numbers) then select the wanted Chinese character from the displayed list of suggestions by typing the digit shown by that character. Pinyin Helper captivates instantly with its sleek design, speed and intuitiveness. Search over 200 topical verses to meet your need, or sign up for our daily bible to receive a verse by email to start your day. Our most popular content, Bible verses by topic, provides Biblical encouragement and wisdom for all of lives situations and events. Our library of resources also includes Bible reading plans, Parallel Bible, and many other additional Christian resources including dictionaries and encyclopedias.įor a more in-depth study of Scripture, our website offers Greek and Hebrew Interlinear for the New and Old Testament, lexicons for original Greek and Hebrew reading of Scripture, as well as popular Church history books. Our rich online library includes well known and trusted commentaries including the popular Matthew Henry Commentary, concordances like Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and Naves Topical Concordance, Bible dictionaries, Biblical encyclopedias and historical Christian and church books including Fox's Book of Martyrs. Search verses using the translation and version you like with over 29 to choose from including King James (KJV), New International (NIV), New American Standard (NASB), The Message, New Living (NLT), Holman Christian Standard (HCSB), English Standard (ESV), and many more versions of the Holy Bible.

PINYIN HELPER FREE

is the largest free online Bible website for verse search and in-depth studies.

#Pinyin helper

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daily-rubbersoul-redux · 4 years

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here they are, the new boys and girl-

i..... have no clue what im doing for most of em as far as stands go atm, so im just gonna list some general character info stuff-

-Taiana is pretty much just a goofy and outgoing girl who is completely invested in becoming a knight one day, even though they aren’t really a thing anymore. She is incredibly skilled with a sword.

-Saino is very shy, but not exactly timid and pretty much shares a braincell with Taiana. He is incredibly skilled at growing plants.

-Theo is the only Dracheilig with multiple braincells, and is an inventor in his spare time. He’s very self conscious about his appearance however, fearing people will think he is a monster.

-Jacian is quite similar to Taiana in personality, though he acts more so as if he is royalty. Technically speaking, he actually is a knight to some degree, and his intentions are largely unknown.

-Anthony, or Anton, is Jacian’s right hand man and closest friend. He’s pretty ordinary besides that, but his dedication to helping and supporting those he cares for is unrivalled.

-Gabbrielli is actually rumored to be royalty of some sorts, though if that is actually true or not is unknown. However, these rumors, in tangent with his bright demeanor and... well, being a pretty anime boy, has lead to him being considered a bit of a heartthrob.

some other stuff:

-Taiana and Saino are twins (with Taiana being like a minute older), and Theo is their older brother.

-All of the characters, with the exception of Theo, are Seniors in high school (though their ages still vary between 17 and 18)

-Taiana and Jacian are rivals, and have gained a reputation for having duels in the front of the school on a regular basis. These usually attract a crowd, though they always end in a draw.

-Anton is not the only person who looks up to Jacian; He actually is quite popular, and most of his friends or even just close acquaintances would do near anything for him.

-Taiana’s ‘Visor’ (the black shadow over her eyes) is just a mask of sorts that Theo made for her because she thought it would be cool. It is.

-Theo’s appearance is caused in large part due to his stand’s power; It is irreversible, and the only part of it he can control is his wings, which he can manifest and retract at will.

-Yes Theo is part dragon, and so are his siblings. No I will not elaborate, this is JoJo’s I’m like 90% sure weirder shit has happened.

-Saino aids Taiana on most, if not all, of her Knightly Escapades (TM). They’re pretty much an inseparable duo most of the time.

-Jacian is just extra. Like, minor Fire Emblem villain level of extra. This man will eat a McDonalds burger with a fork and a knife using the finest china in his whole goddamn house.

-Gabbrielli is just a good boy who wishes people would stop hitting on him. He’s good friends with Saino and Taiana, and will occasionally be the voice of reason, but more often then not will just get dragged into whatever shenanigans they're doing at the moment.

#[not an ask?] mod post #[knightly rose] taiana #[bashful blooms] saino #[half-human scholar] theo #[pinnacle of chivalry] jacian #[undying loyalty] anthony #[beautiful blue] gabbrielli #i am happy with all of these designs hhhhh #yall thought i loved the ocs i had here already?#jokes on you these are my real pride and joy....#well a fraction of my pride and joy anyways #there are so many other characters in their main verse h #but im only bringing over these 6 for now lol #maybe 1 more for plot purposes but #these guys mainly #lord knows i woulda loved to bring over kazuichi lmao #he has jojos energy #but ah well xD

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thekrows-nest · 2 years

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General Info + F.A.Q

General Info

This is is a blog for all things about Krow.

This is an 18+ blog so minors DO NOT INTERACT Any blogs that do not have their age listed in their bio or haven’t DMed me their age proving they're 18+ WILL be blocked! I'm serious, please PLEASE have your age in your bio OR DM me it.

I’ll be posting art, musings and the like. Share fan creations from others, answer asks and questions. May or may not do some sort of project with this nasty gremlin, in which case I’ll use this space to document the journey.

Be sure to check down below and read the FAQ too! Your question could be answered there already!

If you enjoy my work here on the blog, and wanna support me, you can donate at my Ko-Fi! Please DON’T feel pressured to do so. It’s completely optional!

TO NOTE: Update (as of 1/26/2023) So I’ve had Krow for a few months now. Not nearly as long as my other OC’s but decent length of time for me to have figured out some things. However, even so, this blog is mainly for fun, just a means of me writing and drawing for this goofy boy, so some answers may just be silly. Don’t take EVERYTHING I say as the end all be all canon of Krow. I may change my mind on things (and I have before, a number of times).

Below is my old To Note but I’ll keep it up anyway ndfgbl.szf

Krow is a very new character for me, which is to say; until/unless I say otherwise, do NOT take everything said here for absolute canon, lore and fact. You’re basically seeing and experiencing the messy process that is... creating a character, and in many ways, helping me develop him further. Things can and will change with him. Design, lore, bits of personality and so on. Just so you’re aware. (:

(Anon asks are OFF because I am simply not comfortable with having them on. Apologies.)

Krow’s Ref(s): Main Ref Krow’s Eyes and Teeth Krow’s Back Tattoo Krow Ship Chart (Blank) Mer!Krow Untraumatized Krow

Gabby Ref(s): Doodle

Eliyah Ref(s): Doodle

Luke Ref(s): Doodle

Mary Ref(s): Doodle

Naila Ref(s): Doodle

Tag List (will probably update as more tags become relevant):

#about krow #krow art #krow asked and answered #krow in character #the krow’s nest #naughty krow #krow fluff #krow angst #krow stories #dove aviary #winndy talks #krow fanart #krow’s murder flock #silly krow #bird call #about gabby #gabby asked and answered #LT asked and answered #LT in character #the krow’s nest verse #about eliyah #eliyah asked and answered #eliyah in character #eliyah art #luke asked and answered #about luke #luke in character #luke art #about mary #mary art #mary asked and answered #mary in character #about naila #naila asked and answered #naila in character #naila art

F.A.Q.

(Probably put more here later)

Does Krow have a VN? When is he getting one? I’ve gotten a number of asks and questions about this from numerous people since I first started this blog and the answer is still the same: I don’t know. I created Krow mainly as just a way to entertain myself and because games like 14DWY and RH inspired me to. Krow happened to strike a chord with the community, I was asked by a few friends to make a blog so they could send in goofy asks. Now Krow has a decent following (which I am grateful for!) and so I’ve been getting asked this more and more. If I were to seriously consider a VN though, I would have to do a LOT of work. When I made Krow, I created him “in a vacuum” as I like to put it, by which I mean... he doesn’t HAVE a story. There aren’t other defined characters, a setting or such besides him and Dove. So if I were to make a VN, I would need to think of other characters, the setting and so on. While I am not settled on the idea of a VN yet, I HAVE been muddling on expanding the “Krow Verse” as it were. I hope to introduce some other characters to you all soon!

How old is Krow? So *I* personally headcanon Krow at 25, HOWEVER, generally speaking, he can be whatever you headcanon him at as long as he’s 18+. My other headcanon is that he is always a year older than you/Dove. How tall is Krow? Similar to his age, you can headcanon him at various heights. However, his MAX height (and what I headcanon him as) is 5′1″, but he is always at least one inch shorter than you. Krow is absolutely fine with Dove being much taller than him.

What ethnicity is Krow? Krow is Indian + Bengali, though he was born in America! And this will ALWAYS be canon.

What’s Krow’s job? He works as a crime scene/forensics cleaner! He works for a very small (as in about five people including him) licensed company to go around and clean up the scenes of murders, not so wellness checks and the like. He also does some black market organ selling as a side hustle, which come from his own murders. He is also sometimes commissioned to do art! (In particular his other yandere friends go to him for art pieces.)

So Krow’s an artist, what kind of art does he do? The answer is... a bit of everything lmao. Mostly draws and paints, since that’s the easiest and most portable. But he also sculpts (as in using clay but he also buys blocks of marble or such to literally carve into when he can afford it), wood carving and widdling, has done metal working, sometimes writes poetry, customizes and even builds dolls. Pretty much any (traditional) visual art medium there is, Krow has done/does.

Does Krow have a speech impediment? He does! He’s had his stutter for many years, but has never gotten any kind of correctional therapy for... spoilery reasons.

How did Dove meet Krow? There isn’t really a “canon” way (as of now) that Dove meets Krow, just that it was purely coincidental. So you can headcanon pretty much almost anything of how Dove and Krow meet. Examples I’ve listed before have been at the park, out just walking in public, the grocery store, maybe even your work. To Dove, it may have just been some run of the mill encounter. For Krow however, it was life changing.

FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY WHERE IS THE NSFW ABC’S??!!! I finally got you bae’s. It is right here

Okay what about his SFW ABC's? They are right here!

#general info #the krow's nest #about krow #krow asked and answered #krow in character #naughty krow #krow fluff #krow angst #krow stories #dove aviary #winndy talks #krow fanart #krow's murder flock #silly krow #bird call

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the-uss-wossname · 2 years

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So I recently saw a post about discovery being the queerest star trek and I said I wasn’t going to write a speech about why it’s actually ds9, but i did it anyway.

So! Below the cut I’ve listed most of the queer moments and queercoding that I remember from my two watches of ds9. There are a lot of them! So even if you don’t read the whole thing I still urge you to watch ds9 if you’re a fan of trek and want to see queer trek!

Note: this post contains spoilers for ds9

In explicit canon:

-Jadzia Dax was the first canonically pansexual and transgender main character in Star Trek. No one ever makes a big deal of this. She is shown correcting people on her name and pronouns on screen and people just rolling with it!

-Rejoined: jadzia falls in love with a woman on screen, the entire cast supports her. They tell a queer story by including an in-universe taboo on reassociation, and beautifully pull off a queer story where women loving each other is seen as natural and normal, but also reflects on the taboos of gay relationships in present society!

-mirrorverse ezri and Kira’s lesbian kiss!!!! (the entirety of the mirror verse is so queer, actually)

-we hear about a man giving birth in casual conversation and this is treated as normal. He gets paternity leave! “You mean he’s pregnant?” “Yes!” “Oh I should send him something”

-a cross dressing ferengi woman is better at finances than quark and gives him gay panic when she starts hitting on him as a guy- by the end of the episode it’s implied that he did actually reciprocate. This was an Interesting one.

-that time quark had to dress up as a woman to further the woman’s rights movement : granted this was mostly played for laughs but the implication of quark getting mtf surgery in like an hour no questions asked sure is something, and most of the humor comes from the fact that it’s Quark.

-O’Brien saying he wishes his wife could be more like a man sometimes (this man is bisexual)

-Changelings don’t have gender. Odo doesn’t have a gender. He is literally gender fluid. I believe it was one of the comics where he pointed this out as an excuse to help Kira do a mother-daughter thing. But yeah he’s very explicitly chosen his human form and gender, which is pretty neat!

-so much sex positivity! They have so much sex on this show! We see odo lose his human and goo virginity! The amount of times quark gets oomox on screen! Sisko and kassidy waking up together! Worf and Dax! Quark and his Klingon wife! Bashir and leeta! Kira and her various lovers! Dax is talking about it constantly! Quarks mom fucked the Nagus and brunt was in his closet! Sex is treated both as a serious thing and as just a thing you do and the topic is explored in so many interesting ways!

-great takes on masculinity and parenting as well! Sisko is such a good dad! Rom’s entire arc touched on this as well! Miles who is just such a wife guy! All these men who love their children, aren’t afraid to be emotional and caring and kind, especially with the contrast of misogynistic, overbearing, “manly” characters like quark and dukat being shown as undesirable!

And of course, there are plenty of storylines that hit on queer themes like found family, coming out as “different”, the intersection of gender and cultural norms,

So much queercoding:

-garashir is so intentional that Andrew Robinson (garaks actor) has, on multiple occasions, expressed that it should have been canon, discusses how he set out to flirt, their entire first interaction is about the gayest thing I’ve seen, they have regular lunch dates, get very anxious when the other one is gone. The way they look at each other like they’re gonna eat each other. It’s more canon than some of the canon relationships to me and is the closest two trek actors have gotten to spirk since spirk

-garaks storyline and character on its own is very gay. Props to Andrew Robinson for making the “ziyal likes garak” storyline so uncomfortable and for acting garak so gay we love him for it. He has said before that garaks sexuality is inclusive and you can read more about that in the book he wrote if you want!

-Kira nerys is a lesbian. (“The stones are straight, it’s me who’s-”) She dresses and acts like a lesbian. She eats every woman she sees with her eyes. Every one of her relationships with men is with a man who has power (eg the lesbian “he must therefore be attractive, right?) and ends with them dying or leaving. (“The prophets said we weren’t right for each other” lmao ok). Her last relationship was with odo, the literal gender fluid. That man is goo, that man is the last man you date before you finally admit you’re a lesbian “just to see”. PLUS her lesbian kiss in the mirrorverse I rest my case.

-odo was played as asexual for the first few seasons and Rene has said at events that he has always thought of him that way. Do I wish they continued with this? Yes.

-quark and Odo’s weird little thing. They hate each other. They love each other. They’re obsessed with each other. It’s great. Its definitely unhealthy and also pretty queer. One time they kissed for comedic effect on screen and it was a little bit too convincing.

-the O’Brien polycule. This series of episodes was great because it showed surrogacy as a valid thing to happen, and also because of that whole thing between Kira miles and keiko. What happened there? Who’s to say

-Kira and Dax, especially in the early seasons. Kira was truly following her with her eyes in every scene together it was great. I personally don’t see it but many many people do

-ezri my beloved she is a lesbian as well. Look at her. I personally have always been of the opinion that she’s non-binary. But also look at her, short hair, tense relationship with her family, drive towards found family and a queer community, mirrorverse lesbian kiss, yk

-also Julian bashir is trans coded. I don’t know enough about this to tell you but my transmasc friend said so so it must be true. They changed a lot with the genetic engineering who’s to say. Also the name change is right there

Quite frankly, the only character that isn’t presented as some sort of queer at one point or another is captain sisko! You could make an argument for every single other cast member for some or another type of queercoding which is wonderful!

So, yes, in many cases they weren’t allowed to say it outright, and they of course weren’t advertising queerness as a positive in the 90’s- but ds9 is full of both canon and implied queerness and touches on so much about gender and sexuality which was really boldly going back then! That’s why it is and will always be one of my favorite shows and my favorite trek!

#star trek #ds9 #kira nerys #jadzia dax #ezri dax #julian bashir #miles o'brien #elim garak #quark #odo #truly it is the gayest trek #and it’s so great #trans representation #queer representation #eris tag

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shoechoe · 3 years

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diavolo and in the court of the crimson king

(this was asked about by @fullmusicbard a little while back and i thought it sounded fun to write about, so thanks a bunch for the suggestion)

So, it’s a pretty well known fact by now that JoJo characters are often based off of or inspired by the music that they or their stand are named after. Pucci and “Made in Heaven”, Kira and “Killer Queen”, Trish and “Wannabe”, among many other examples, connect to or are influenced by their songs’ lyrics and meanings. However, the one that personally interests me the most is Diavolo and King Crimson, his stand and the progressive rock band that it shares a name with. In particular, I think what he largely took inspiration from is In the Court of the Crimson King, their debut album released in 1969. I’ve thought about this a lot already, so I thought it would be a fun idea to go through the five songs on that album and compare it to his character.

(This is largely going to just be a bunch of interpretation on my part with no real knowledge on what went through Araki’s mind while writing, but I hope this still makes sense lol. Also, this turned out to be, uh... very long, but I broke up all of the songs and tangents into sections so you don’t have to read all of it. I basically just dissect Diavolo’s character and his prog rock-inspiration for several pages.)

The 21st Century Schizoid Man

Being the very first song on the album, the 21st Century Schizoid Man is the most chaotic and energetic song out of every track on the record. It features dissonant tones and heavily distorted vocals, as well as mixed-genre elements of heavy metal, jazz and progressive rock.

It’s also what the cover art of the album is based off of, with the screaming face representing the “21st Century Schizoid Man” himself.

(This is probably the reason why King Crimson as a stand makes such weird facial expressions.)

This song was originally a criticism of the Vietnam War and the politicians who kept it going, being told through the perspective of the “Schizoid Man” that the song’s title references. While I don’t think the Vietnam aspect of the song is necessarily relevant to Diavolo, I do think that the lyrics inspire his character in other ways, both with his actions and overall personality. I’ll start off with the first verse of the song:

“Cat's foot, iron claw

Neuro-surgeons scream for more

At paranoia's poison door

Twenty-first century schizoid man”

The first line, “Cat’s foot, iron claw” is supposed to show a contrast in strength. With a cat’s foot being relatively small and harmless on its own, the iron claw is the brutal, crushing force that comes attached to it. The most obvious connection I can think of with Vento Aureo is the nature of Doppio and Diavolo, with Doppio being the weaker and less harmful “cat’s foot” under the influence of the Boss, and Diavolo being the more powerful and controlling “iron claw” that comes with him. I also think it could be a potential reference to how King Crimson and Epitaph work together; Epitaph has the ability to see ten seconds into the future, which works in conjunction with King Crimson’s ability to erase or skip events in time. In this way, Epitaph is sort of the “cat’s foot”- fine on its own, and usable for simple defense (as we can see with Doppio), but deadly with the rest of King Crimson; and King Crimson being the “iron claw”, needing Epitaph to function properly but being the main source of the stand’s brute strength.

The second and third line, “Neuro-surgeons scream for more/At paranoia’s poison door” are references to the mental illness and paranoia caused by death and destruction (specifically Vietnam, in the song’s original context). It relates to both the physical damage that soldiers took, requiring extensive surgery on a mass scale, and the extreme paranoia of U.S. leaders to lead to causing such destruction.

Paranoia is an extremely major facet of Diavolo’s character. He goes to the absolute extreme to make sure his power and secrecy is never threatened, killing anyone he even views as a slight threat, even attempting to murder his own daughter in cold blood to cut off all ties from him and the rest of the world. Paranoia is his ‘poison’, ruining the lives of everyone who’s ever known or is related to him, causing evil and pointless violence to be unleashed onto his family and Italy as a whole.

“Blood rack, barbed wire

Politicians' funeral pyre

Innocents raped with napalm fire

Twenty-first century schizoid man”

This verse is intended to be a more explicit description of war, with destructive and gory imagery at play- blood, barbed wire, and napalm fire. The “funeral pyre” is the deaths of innocents resulting from the Vietnam War, being set up and caused by the politicians running it.

A pyre is a structure made of wood used for burning a body as a part of a funeral ritual or method of cremation.

The mention of a ritual like this is used to set up an image of dignity and respect, only to amalgamate this with the proceeding imagery of innocents being burned alive with napalm fire- technically similar to how pyres dispose of bodies, but instead of being a respectful way of disposing of a corpse, it has instead transformed into a horrifying method of murder on a mass scale.

I think this is referenced by an event in Diavolo’s past, where it’s revealed that his hometown burned down due to a fire we are left to believe he started, killing a confirmed seven people and potentially more:

Diavolo wanted to erase his history, so he massacred the place where he was known. Innocents were killed with literal fire, creating Diavolo’s “funeral pyre”.

Then we have the third and final verse:

“Death seed, blind man's greed”

The line “Death seed, blind man’s greed” is intentionally oxymoronic (seeds being the beginning of life, but death being the end), with the “death seed” being planted due to the greed and paranoia of the people in power, essentially blinding them from the seed “growing” into the hundreds of thousands of deaths, like a sort of “death tree”. This is about Diavolo and his own paranoia and greed leading to the deaths of dozens, potentially hundreds, of innocent people, and his seeming blindness or indifference to it.

“Poets' starving, children bleed”

The “poets’ starving, children bleed” is supposed to represent society no longer valuing arts, as well as children and young men being harmed. As for Diavolo, his crimes, especially the ones that the story focuses on, very particularly target and involve children. The first negative effect we can see of his reign on Italy is that he allows drugs to be sold to minors, the youngest we see being only thirteen. He also tries to murder his fifteen-year-old daughter, and many of the members of Passione are children themselves- the main character himself, Giorno, getting involved with the mafia at only fifteen, as well as some of the supporting characters; Fugo being around sixteen and Narancia being seventeen. (Though, to be fair, you could probably just blame that part on Shonen logic and less on Diavolo...

But at the same time, it’s pointed out more than once just how young Giorno is by the other characters.)

“Nothing he's got he really needs

Twenty-first century schizoid man”

These last two lines are the most interesting to me, so I’m going to go the most in-depth with them. First, I want to compare Diavolo to the other part five characters and what he is supposed to represent when seen with the rest of the story as a whole. In part five, the most major theme and center of the story focuses on friendship and forming connections with other people; character dynamics get very strong and intimate, with most major character motivation and drive for goodness being defined by their relationships and bonds with the other characters.

One of the best examples of this is with the main character, Giorno. Unlike the protagonists in other parts, his strength doesn’t really come from raw power or toughness. Instead, he often acts more like a support character and healer for the other characters on the team, ending up with him taking a backseat in favor of the others pretty often. Really, there are very few fights in Vento Aureo that Giorno deals with completely on his own; he mostly uses his stand to heal and aid his team rather than using it directly as a weapon, unlike with Jotaro, for example. You really get the impression throughout the whole thing that one of his biggest assets are his allies and ability to guide and create group morale, not necessarily his individual power. He essentially represents the part’s name “golden wind”, stirring motivation in the others and becoming a leader and friend to them.

You can also see this by taking a look at Bucciarati’s group. Bruno, being a kind and empathetic character, found the others when they were struggling with their lives and individually invited them to his gang in order to give them a purpose again. Due to this, we can see that they’re all deeply loyal to him, and to an extent, each other. In the end, they agree to join Bruno and become a traitor to the Boss because they value their alliance with him over the gang, even if it meant putting their lives in even more danger. If it weren’t for their friendship and loyalty towards him, they wouldn’t have agreed to do this.

Then we have the secondary antagonists, La Squadra. As bad of people as they are, being hitmen, they continue this theme of friendship as well- when Sorbet and Gelato, two members of La Squadra that had been with them for a very long time, are murdered by another person that the Boss hired, and the rest of the group care to the point where they attend their funerals and begin a plot to betray the Boss and uncover his identity, you realize that these guys do genuinely care about and value each other as friends and allies. This is a stark change from most of the past villains in the series (with most just either never interacting or only being ‘united’ under having a common goal and never showing real care for one another).

Most of the other minor antagonists share this theme, too, with them tending to come in pairs and working together with abilities that compliment each other. Tiziano and Squalo, Cioccolata and Secco, and even arguably characters like Sale and Zucchero are all partners that have been together for a long time, to the point where they like and care about each other and, particularly in Tiziano and Squalo’s case, are even willing to die for each other. In all of these cases, the focus is always on their relationships with each other and how they work side by side.

I could go on with every detail and line of dialogue that shows this, but the point is that all of these characters care about one another, protect each other and give off the impression that working as a team with a good goal makes you stronger than you would ever be by yourself. It’s a major part of the overall moral of the story, with the protagonists banding together in the end to remove the source of Italy’s lingering problems.

The defining trait that makes Diavolo stand out from everyone else is that... Well, he really has nobody. He doesn’t have any allies to fall back to, partners to rely on, or anybody that he genuinely considers a friend or family except maybe Doppio (but even then, their relationship is put under false pretenses with Diavolo actively lying to Doppio and keeping him in the dark about his true identity.) Instead of viewing love and having relationships as a strength, he views it as a weakness leaving him open to betrayal and vulnerability- in fact, if anything, he seems to be terrified of relationships, actively avoiding other people or getting attached to others in any capacity.

You really see how warped his perspective is when you get glimpses into the way he lives. In his very first appearance, he is curled up in a dark corner of a room wearing a cloak to hide his face, so any potential passerby wouldn’t see what he looks like. It is revealed he doesn’t go out in public himself, instead going from hotel to hotel to keep moving around the country, never having a real place to stay. He’s a recluse to the most extreme degree, not even letting anybody know that he exists, let alone revealing anything about his status. He is unable to normally interact with the rest of the world or allow himself to relax about any potential threats in any moment of his life, whether that be a necessity due to being a mafia boss, simply the end result of years of sheer paranoia, or both.

All of this built-up fear leads to the horrifying but inevitable result of him discovering the existence of his daughter, Trish, the consequence of an old relationship he’d long abandoned. Through the first half of Vento Aureo, he gave Bucciarati’s group orders to protect Trish while they delivered her to him, intentionally giving them the impression that he was intending on keeping her safe. However, when she was finally brought to him, he instead attempted to murder her, betraying the group and revealing what his true intentions were all along. Trish, being his own daughter, is someone that he should care about and want to protect... but instead, he only wanted to dispose of her in order to sever the very last tie from him and the rest of society.

As evil of a character as he is, I would argue that Diavolo, at his core, is really supposed to represent the harm of self-isolation and the fear of connecting with other people. With it, he essentially functions as the antithesis to all of Vento Aureo’s themes; while everyone else has somebody to fall back on, Diavolo is alone. In this way, the line “nothing he’s got he really needs” fits with Diavolo in that all of his power as a mafia boss came at a sacrifice of his humanity, lacking all of the things that make the other characters ‘good’. He has gotten rid of all of the things that he needs for what he has, destroying his own life and his relationships in the process.

Now, the real interesting thing about this song is the title, “The 21st Century Schizoid Man”. This is significant because it is referencing a condition called Schizoid Personality Disorder, which is a mental illness where someone actively tries to avoid social activities and interaction with other people. They may be seen as cold and emotionally detached, and they don’t desire or enjoy having personal relationships or bonds with others. The symptoms for the condition typically begin to show up in early adulthood, and known risk factors for the disorder include things like birth complications and childhood neglect.

Before I get into this, keep in mind that Diavolo is an exaggerated fictional character, and he doesn’t accurately represent any real person with this disorder. Do not use him as any standard for people with Schizoid Personality Disorder or assume people with SPD would act like him. (Honestly though, if you’re using jojo characters as a reference for how people act in real life, you’re kind of already doing something wrong). However, with that in mind, I do think that Diavolo was written with the intention of having the disorder, considering his connection to the song and what he is supposed to represent as a character; the “Schizoid Man” that the song is talking about seems to be him.

The symptoms of Schizoid Personality Disorder match up with Diavolo’s character in multiple ways. The avoidance of social interaction and personal relationships, emotional detachment to other people, and the desire for independence are all things that Diavolo strongly exhibits in his personality and actions. (Also notice how Vento Aureo takes place in 2001, the first part to take place in the twenty-first century?)

Really, the only thing I can see against this is the fact that Doppio doesn’t seem to portray any symptoms of the same disorder. Considering that Doppio is around the physical age of a teenager, though, he might just be too young to have developed it.

The fact that the disorder’s symptoms begin to show up in early adulthood and can form from childhood neglect would also line up with the implications from Diavolo’s past. Not only is trauma heavily implied due to both Diavolo’s strong hatred of and desire to erase his past and his canonical mental illness being caused by early childhood trauma, but we also see that he didn’t portray the same behavior back when he was a teenager. He was comfortable enough around other people to be a well-known person in his small town and even have a girlfriend, contrasting with the destructive recluse that we know he is in part five. This pieces together a narrative that shows he used to be a relatively normal person, but a combination of his potential trauma and lust for power drove him into a paranoid obsession with avoiding everyone and keeping his identity a secret- eventually developing into what we saw in Vento Aureo, with him refusing to even go out in public or having his name or face seen by anybody. To me, this does seem to suggest that he is written to have Schizoid Personality Disorder, which, in his case, ended up becoming exacerbated to an extreme point.

With the rest of the song lyrics being easily connected in a way to describe him alongside many of his actions, I think it’s fairly clear that Diavolo is the 21st Century Schizoid Man, with the track directly describing him. I see this as the main song that inspires Diavolo and sets up a lot of the aspects of his narrative and way of thinking when compared to the other characters, and how he essentially works as the inverse to Vento Aureo’s themes.

I Talk to the Wind

(Before I get into this next part: Here, I am going to talk about Doppio and Diavolo and their relationship. You’ll probably notice that I’m going to be using a lot of different terminologies than Vento Aureo uses to describe them. This is because, as this part was written back in the nineties, it uses a lot of outdated words and phrases for their disorder. For example, “Multiple Personality Disorder” is no longer the proper name for Dissociative Identity Disorder (or DID, for short). I will also be using the word “alter” instead of “personality” because, to my knowledge, the latter phrase is an overall inaccurate and outdated term to describe a DID system. Finally, keep in mind that Diavolo and Doppio are not accurate depictions of DID, and I only have an extremely surface-level understanding of the disorder, so nothing that I say here applies to real life in any way whatsoever.

While I will use the proper terminology because I wouldn’t feel good about intentionally using the outdated and incorrect ones, I think it is a bad idea to introduce real-life DID symptoms for these two considering I don’t think there was any real effort put into making them ‘accurate’ in the first place. My interpretation of them and their mental illness will only use canonically stated or shown information about the disorder. If there is an aspect to them that contradicts, heavily exaggerates, or otherwise ignores the way DID typically works in real life, I will favor the unrealistic interpretation. I hope that makes sense.)

So, around a few episodes after Diavolo is first established as a character, it’s revealed that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder. The other alter in the system is Doppio, the younger underboss of Passione. Diavolo uses Doppio to travel around undetected and as his most trusted right-hand man, carrying information and completing tasks for him. He is the only shown connection that Diavolo has to the outside world, with Doppio being the only one who fronts in public. Despite how much Diavolo desperately avoids social interaction and other people in general, Doppio is a character that he is quite literally incapable of getting rid of- so, we get to see how he treats him more than with anybody else.

I think that I Talk to the Wind most inspires Doppio, his relationship with Diavolo, and his eventual death. However, before that, I want to get something out of the way quickly to avoid some potential confusion: I know that it’s a very common talking point in the fanbase that Doppio and Diavolo are “the same person”, so their relationship often simply gets ignored. However, I think the reality of this might be a little more complicated than that.

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I’ll try to keep this brief since I’ve explained this before, but the thing with Doppio and Diavolo is that they have two souls, separate and individual from each other. This is both directly stated by Polnareff and demonstrated by the two of them being separated and swapped individually of each other in the Silver Chariot Requiem arc, and with Trish’s inability to sense Doppio’s soul despite being able to sense Diavolo.

They are not just something that their brain is creating, but are literally two separate entities.

The proceeding explanation of this, though, seems to be a case where the anime adaptation differs from the manga. In the original manga, it is stated that they are the “same” person, just “with different souls”:

The anime adaptation appears to change this line to “they share a body, but their minds are separate”. It then proceeds to refer to them as two people.

(Keep in mind that these are both translations and not the original wording, but this seems like a pretty significant line change regardless.)

There are also some implications made that could potentially lead to this not even being a case of DID at all. Namely, there are some potential suggestions that Diavolo might not be entirely human or of human origin, and instead may be the result of some kind of inhuman soul inhabiting a human body. (Remember how their birth made no sense, and the nature of their father and how their mother got pregnant seemed unnatural and how it happened remains a mystery? Diavolo's strange and unnatural eyes unique to any other character in the series? How when Bruno took over Diavolo’s body, the eyes in his body changed back to normal, unlike with any other swap? And the fact that his name translates to “Devil”?) It’s not a conclusion I typically like to resort to, but it’s definitely not impossible based on the implications here. I imagine this would complicate things even further since we’d know that Doppio and Diavolo would have to be separate beings in this scenario.

Altogether, with the actual logic of how they work and the explanations that change from version to version, I don’t think you can come to a definite answer on if Doppio and Diavolo are really the “same person” or not. Pick which one you like more, I guess. (Personally, I think that them being two different people would be more logical just given how we know souls work in Jojo- while it is more accurate to real DID to say that people with DID are not literally multiple people in one body but rather parts of one whole, I fail to see how the manga’s “they’re the same person with different souls!” makes... any sense. I can’t really argue with a canonical explanation, though.) And in spite of all of this, I think you have to acknowledge that even if Doppio and Diavolo aren’t separate people, they are narratively two different characters- Doppio has his own motivations, thoughts and feelings separate from Diavolo, and the two of them have a clear relationship with each other. In the end, I think it’s still fair to acknowledge and talk about their dynamic, which is why I will do so here.

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“I Talk to the Wind” is the second track in the album and a pretty stark contrast to the first. While The 21st Century Schizoid Man is a loud cacophony, with a lot of jazzy elements and ending in a chaotic crashing and screaming of instruments, this song is quiet and gentle with far more simple components to its tune, being led by a flute instead of a saxophone and guitar. You could describe it as dreamy and serene, and a sort of relaxation from the chaos that was the previous song. The lyrics begin by describing a conversation between two people.

“Said the straight man to the late man

"Where have you been?"

I've been here and I've been there

And I've been in between”

I think that this could refer to their fractured identity. As they have been broken into two different souls, you see their appearance and mind change as one or the other gains control of the body. “Here” could mean one of them being in control, with “there” being the other, as well as “in between” being the shifting states where both might partially be there (for example, when Diavolo is conscious when he is talking to Doppio or the Risotto fight where he was actively trying to take full control of the body).

Then, the chorus:

“I talk to the wind

My words are all carried away

I talk to the wind

The wind does not hear, the wind cannot hear”

I think that the phrase “I talk to the wind” could mean a couple of things here. It could mean “talking to nobody/myself”, or, alternatively, it could mean “talking to somebody that doesn’t listen” (I feel like the latter is further suggested by the lyric “The wind does not hear, the wind cannot hear”- if we’re personifying the “wind” as a consciousness, this would imply the person talking is not being listened to, or their words are not being heard).

I can see both of these meanings applying to Diavolo and Doppio. If we are going with the assumption that Diavolo and Doppio are one individual, the “talking to myself” interpretation would fit for... obvious reasons. Otherwise, the “talking to somebody who doesn’t listen” also fits in regards to Doppio and Diavolo’s relationship, I think, which I’ll explain alongside the other verses.

“I'm on the outside looking inside

What do I see?

Much confusion, disillusion

All around me”

For most of the part, Doppio and Diavolo’s screen time takes place away from the rest of the cast. Doppio doesn’t get to interact with Team Bucciarati at all except for the one time he disguised himself as Trish, and the only person who sticks around long enough to really interact with him other than Diavolo is Risotto, who dies very quickly. Diavolo, immediately murdering Bruno when he first encounters him and only interacting with Giorno in the very final fight, also does not get much time with them. Instead, most of our information about Doppio and Diavolo is provided by watching them on their own while the other characters are busy trying to find out their identity. In this way, the “outsider looking inside” represents the audience; we know a lot more about Doppio and Diavolo than the protagonists do, however, what we’re shown opens up several more questions than answers that we just never get the answer to, nor enough evidence to come to a solid conclusion ourselves. Like, for example:

What’s going on with Diavolo’s eyes? Are they important? Were they always like that? Do they signify something?

How was their birth possible? Why was their mother pregnant with them for over two years? Who was their father?

How did their mother stay alive under the floorboards for years? Did Diavolo keep her there? Why?

Who is Donatella, and how did she manage to have a relationship with Diavolo? What was it like? Did he ever care about her? Is Diavolo even entirely human? Is Doppio human? What are they?

All of these questions are raised, but they never get acknowledged or resolved. And, since it’s purely the audience who sees these things about them, the protagonists don’t know about nor try to find out the answers, leaving us in the dark. It also makes Diavolo’s inherently secretive and paranoid nature make even more sense in retrospect. We have no idea how many secrets he holds that we don’t even know about (and it might be the case that not even he’s aware of what’s going on with him). So, what we see with the two of them lines up with the lyrics- confusion (and the other characters’ confusion) about his identity and past, and disillusion with the fact that our questions are never answered.

Like I said before, Diavolo sees human connection as a weakness to avoid, instead of any sort of strength. Doppio, however, noticeably doesn’t seem to share this view.

Like his boss, Doppio isn’t shown to have any friends or relationships with other people at all. However, as we can see, it’s not really something he enjoys or desires for himself; in contrast, he actually seems to share a lot more in common with the protagonists in regards to his feelings on connection and friendship. You get the feeling that unlike Diavolo, isolation is not his choice, but is something he was more or less pushed into by playing the role of Diavolo’s vessel. Being under the command of and sharing a body with the most paranoid and isolated character in the series, as well as being forced to stay secretive while constantly moving around the country does not leave much room for him to talk to people or make any real friends. This all results in Doppio being a pretty lonely and unhappy character, unable to maintain any connections with the world and being forgotten about by most people. It leaves him with only one person to talk to and be comforted by, which ends up being... Well, Diavolo.

This brings me to the two’s actual relationship. Diavolo, while around other people, acts nothing but arrogant, cold and hostile, only thinking about himself and showing no care for the people he harms. With Doppio, though, he acts noticeably differently. While he is unsympathetic and aloof towards anybody else, he seems to treat Doppio with a lot of respect and even kindness, an attitude that we do not see him share with any other character. He compliments his abilities, gives him information that no other character knows about himself (as well as directly talking to him instead of sending encrypted messages like with the other Passione members), and, most uniquely, refers to him affectionately as “my Doppio” or “my dearest Doppio”.

(I wonder if Trish would be jealous.)

Considering the intense paranoia that Diavolo exhibits towards anyone and anything else, him putting this amount of trust into someone with at least a separate conscience than his is... really intriguing. It makes sense why Doppio would put so much faith in him, and have a much more positive opinion of him than any other character seems to (remember, 99% of the characters in Vento Aureo either hate and want to kill Diavolo or just want to take over the mafia for themselves. The only thing stopping them was just how powerful Diavolo and his stand ability is, as well as him concealing his identity so thoroughly; Doppio is the only one who really shows any true loyalty.)

Is this affection that Diavolo gives genuine, or is it really a front to appeal to Doppio’s loneliness? It’s hard to say. It could always be that he just sees Doppio as an object to manipulate instead of someone that he genuinely trusts and respects. It’s possible that the only reason Diavolo “trusted” Doppio was because he could watch him at all times and take control of the situation any time he felt like it. The “affection” that he shares might just be him trying to shift Doppio to his side, making him see Diavolo as the only one who treats him with any sort of respect. At the same time, though, there’s no solid evidence that the affection he gives isn’t genuine, at least to an extent. Maybe he sees Doppio as a sort of extension of himself, so some of his egocentric attitude seeps into his opinion of Doppio. Maybe they’ve been with each other long enough that Diavolo has built up some sincere trust towards him. Or, maybe he just genuinely likes him and sees him as a trustworthy comrade. It’s never made perfectly clear one way or another.

No matter what Diavolo’s genuine feelings are, though, Doppio is harmed by his influence regardless. There seems to be nothing inherently “wrong” with Doppio himself that makes people not like him- in fact, he acts just like a nice, ordinary civilian when he’s not threatened or under the Boss’ orders. The only real reason why Doppio is unable to make any friends, causing his loneliness, is rooted in his alliance with Diavolo in the first place. Remember, his boss is the one ordering him to stay constantly moving around the country, keeping secrets and killing anyone who gets in his way. His boss is the one guiding his actions, using him as a vessel to get what he wants. If it weren’t for that, he’d be... a pretty normal kid, if a bit clumsy and eccentric. Ironically, the one person that Doppio saw as a friend and guardian figure was simultaneously the one keeping him from living a normal life, and it takes a toll on him whether he knows it or not.

And with this, we have verse three:

“You don't possess me, don't impress me

Just upset my mind

Can't instruct me or conduct me

Just use up my time”

This is showing the narrator’s frustration with the “wind” that they’re talking to, relating to the harm that Doppio’s relationship with the Boss causes him. “Possess” is an interesting word here, because it could mean two different things: one, to own, or two, to take control of. While the latter meaning would be the generally obvious one to go for considering that Doppio and Diavolo share a body, I think that the former interpretation could actually make sense here as well. Diavolo refers to Doppio with the possessive adjective “my”, as if Doppio ‘belongs’ to him; and for all intents and purposes, he does control and use him throughout the part. Doppio doesn’t really get to do much on his own desires, only being used to help Diavolo achieve his goals, showing just how much control Diavolo has over him.

This could alternatively connect to Doppio’s occasional anger at or refusal of Diavolo’s commands- both in the fight with Risotto, when he didn’t stay put and still fought back even after Diavolo told him not to, or in this panel, when a frustrated Doppio screams at Diavolo for calling him at a bad time:

The second line, “Just upset my mind”, is also interesting in this context. Diavolo does “upset” Doppio’s mind, in a couple of ways- not just physically, by being shown to give him headaches and disorientation (and also by making him hallucinate, with the fake phones), but also emotionally, by being the one causing his loneliness and sadness in the first place. While Doppio isn’t actively aware of the harm that Diavolo causes him, unlike the narrator in the song, the lyrics still describe a relationship that could apply to the two of them.

While this whole dynamic is built up throughout the two’s screen time, it’s finally brought to our attention during the semi-final fight, after Doppio had been shot in Bruno’s dying corpse.

Bleeding to death, he spends his last moments deliriously begging Diavolo to call him again. He doesn’t realize that his boss isn’t there to hear him, nor does he have any means to “call” him anymore. They're in two separate bodies now, but Doppio doesn’t know that. Diavolo never fully informed him of who he really was, even such major information as the fact that they shared a body. And due to that, in the very end, he’s talking to nobody- Diavolo does not and cannot hear him anymore. He’s just talking to the wind.

This also speaks to Diavolo’s character as well as Doppio’s. While I would argue there was really no choice that Diavolo had in this situation (they would’ve both died if he didn’t leave the body and attempt to kill Bucciarati’s group himself, and there was no way he could’ve predicted nor prevented Doppio getting shot; not to mention, Diavolo impales Narancia right after it happens, alerting the group to his presence despite him trying to remain hidden, suggesting that it might’ve been a revenge kill or impulsive response), it says something about him that the only other character he’s shown to “care” about, not to mention been with for every other scene, dies alone without him there. Diavolo isn’t there to comfort or talk to him, nor even see his death at all. We get no shown reaction from him or even any mention of Doppio after this scene, either. This showcases Diavolo’s refusal to willingly reveal any vulnerability towards other people- even if it comes at the detriment of the person who’s been with him for years, if not essentially his whole life.

As stupid as some of Doppio’s scenes get, I actually find the basis of his character to be sort of depressing at his core. He spent most (if not all) of his life being manipulated by someone he was unable to get rid of, only to die alone and forgotten, never even getting a passing mention by anyone afterwards. And, with that, I think “I Talk to the Wind” fits really well. Not only does Doppio’s character match up with the melancholy lyrics and tone, but it also corresponds with his and Diavolo’s dynamic very closely. Because of that, I think this is the song that Araki took some inspiration from when making Doppio, and based a lot of his character on.

Epitaph

Epitaph is the third track on the album (and my personal favorite out of the five.) Like the 21st Century Schizoid Man, this song’s lyrics are also (albeit more subtly) about the Cold War. It describes a dystopian reality where “right” and “wrong” are twisted beyond meaning, and the constant threat of nuclear destruction has become the norm. The most notable thing about the song Epitaph and its connection to Vento Aureo is the fact that instead of just influencing a character’s behavior and actions, it is directly referenced in the story. You’ve probably already noticed this yourself, but “Epitaph” is the name of Diavolo’s substand, or the tiny second face on King Crimson’s head.

Epitaph’s ability matches with the meaning of the song pretty directly, as well as tying into Diavolo as a character, so I think it would be a good idea to explain the stand(s) alongside the song here.

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Here, I want to actually talk about King Crimson (the stand) and how it works with Epitaph, as well as how it connects to Diavolo and his beliefs. King Crimson has the ability to erase time- or, a better word for it would be that it skips through time. It essentially erases the “cause” of something, and keeps the “effect” of said thing happening. A good example is with Narancia when he was about to eat a box of chocolate. When King Crimson activated its ability, time seems to ‘skip’ to the point where he’s already eaten the chocolate. It suddenly appeared in his mouth, half-chewed, and he had no memory of the actual act of eating it. He went straight from being just about to eat the chocolate to having it already in his mouth with the connecting action completely deleted.

Time is not perceived or remembered by anybody while it is being “skipped” except for Diavolo, who enters a state where he is unable to interact with anything under the influence of his timeskip, with objects going right through his body, but can also move freely and watch his opponent’s “erased” actions being carried out.

Epitaph, with its ability to predict the future up to ten seconds later, works in conjunction with the rest of King Crimson’s ability to erase time. Before Diavolo timeskips, he uses Epitaph to view what happens in the future. If he likes what he sees, he can use King Crimson to skip to the desired event. If he doesn’t, he can use King Crimson to get rid of the event entirely, essentially ‘erasing’ his own fate.

This is what makes King Crimson such a powerful ability- Diavolo can just predict all of his opponent’s actions, dodge them, then sneak up on them while they’re in a state of confusion and kill them in one hit. If he sees an event unfavorable to him, he can just erase it. This is what made him seem so terrifying and unbeatable to the protagonists. How would they be able to beat a fate-changing stand that can make the owner practically bend reality to his will?

However, there are a few weaknesses to King Crimson. While he does erase events for everybody, Diavolo is only able to actually change fate for himself. Everyone else still has to abide by the future that ‘fate’ provided for them, carrying out their actions regardless. This is how, for example, Narancia was still impaled on the fence even when Diavolo would’ve logically been unable to interact with him; he was fated to die, and so he did. King Crimson is also a very short-ranged stand, only able to move about two meters away from Diavolo at maximum, and can only predict and erase time for up to ten seconds. This means that while Diavolo is almost impossible to defeat alone, he cannot face large groups at once, instead resorting to picking off his enemies one-by-one while they are by themselves.

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King Crimson’s ability ties into Diavolo’s philosophy on morality and how he justifies his actions to himself. In his eyes, as long as he gets what he wants, the actions done to achieve it don’t matter to him. (It’s essentially an extreme version of “the end justifies the means”.) The actions taken are meaningless, as long as he gets the results; and this shows itself in King Crimson’s ability to remove the action and only leave the results.

This is how he justifies to himself the destruction he’s caused on his family, as well as countless children and other civilians. As long as he remains in power, none of the atrocities he commits, and nothing that happens to anybody else matters. (He also specifically expresses disgust at individuals who torture and kill for pleasure and no other reason, like with Cioccolata and Secco.)

I also think that Diavolo’s weakness of being unable to face large groups is another part of the major theme of relationships in part five and how teaming up with other people makes you stronger. While Giorno and the rest of the group were practically powerless against Diavolo in the beginning, three of them being killed by Diavolo while they were separated, they eventually group together for the very final fight and manage to defeat him collectively.

Now, what about Epitaph? I’ve heard people claim that Epitaph belongs to Doppio and not Diavolo, but I do not think this is the case. Remember, when Doppio dies, Epitaph does not disappear. If Epitaph was a projection of Doppio’s soul and not Diavolo’s, shouldn’t it have gone alongside him? Diavolo also frequently refers to Epitaph as “his” stand, even when Doppio is using it, and it is stated that Epitaph is just a part of King Crimson that Diavolo is allowing him to use; if Epitaph really belonged to Doppio, I don’t see why Diavolo wouldn’t just tell him that he has his own stand ability. (And even then, would King Crimson’s arms specifically belong to Doppio, too?) There’s just nothing that I see within canon that would suggest this fanon opinion, nor would it even really make sense. Though, I do think the fact that there are two faces on King Crimson’s body is referencing Diavolo’s DID, or the fact that his body contains two souls; just like how King Crimson and Epitaph are technically two stands/abilities attached to each other.

I also think that Epitaph’s general look and aesthetic might be inspired by the cover art for In the Court of the Crimson King.

It has a similar color, shape and overall weird appearance, just smaller and less detailed.

Then, we have the actual song itself. I believe that this is about Diavolo’s goals and how he connects to Vento Aureo’s theme of fate, as well as King Crimson’s ability. Let’s get into the actual song lyrics and dissect what they mean.

“The wall on which the prophets wrote

Is cracking at the seams”

This is, I believe, referring to King Crimson. The “wall” is reality, and the “prophets” are fate; King Crimson, however, changes fate by erasing time itself, causing the “wall” of reality to crack at the seams. This is helped by the fact that when King Crimson is activated, it is usually personified by showing the world literally breaking apart around Diavolo:

“Upon the instruments of death

The sunlight brightly gleams”

I think that these lines could have a couple of meanings in Vento Aureo’s context. The first time Epitaph is brought to our attention with Doppio, the sunlight is literally brightly gleaming onto it.

If we viewed Epitaph and King Crimson as the “instruments of death”, this would fit in with the lyrics.

I also believe that the “instruments of death” could be about the Requiem arrow. The arrow, something used to “upgrade” stands to extremely powerful forms, is something that both Diavolo and the protagonists desperately sought.

The “sunlight” could either represent how it is desired by everyone, or the fact that when it pierces a stand, light projects out of it, showing its power.

“When every man is torn apart

With nightmares and with dreams”

Mankind is simultaneously haunted by nightmares, the horror of the world, and plagued with endless dreams, aspirations and goals. To Diavolo, maintaining his power and absolute secrecy is his “dream” and ambition. However, Diavolo’s “dream” ends up as a nightmare for everybody else; the attempted murder of his own daughter, allowing drugs to be sold to children, and the resulting torture and murder of innocent people are just a few symptoms of Diavolo trying to get what he wants. The protagonist’s conflicting aspirations to stop the source of corruption in Italy is their dream, too, and it drives them to find out the Boss’ identity and hunt him down (not to mention that Giorno’s catchphrase is literally “I, Giorno Giovanna, have a dream”).

“Will no one lay the laurel wreath

When silence drowns the screams?”

A laurel wreath is headwear, seen as a symbol of triumph, and is worn around the head as an emblem of victory. The question “Will no one lay the laurel wreath when silence drowns the screams?” is rhetorical; no one will be crowned with any symbol of “triumph” if everyone is dead. As for Diavolo, no one will be there to congratulate or reward him for his accomplishments because nobody knows him or anything about him in the first place. He wants to rule in secret, with his identity hidden from everyone; essentially, he wants to rule quietly and in isolation. In order to maintain this, he murders anyone and everyone who attempts to seek him out, represented by the “screams”- but in the end, everything becomes silent, as everyone who knows of his existence is dead.

“Confusion will be my epitaph

As I crawl a cracked and broken path”

An “epitaph” is a phrase typically written on a tombstone in memory of a person who has died. It can also represent anything by which a person is remembered; essentially, it’s a commemoration of a person’s life and accomplishments. When the narrator is saying that confusion will be their “epitaph”, this means that at the end of their life, “confusion” is what they will be remembered by.

For Diavolo, once again, confusion is a major aspect of his character. Confusion about who he is, his whereabouts, his motivations, his past, even how he came to exist in the first place- pretty much everything about him is built to be misdirecting and hard to understand, if not entirely unknowable. The protagonists spend the majority of the part trying to find out who the Boss is, being just as confused as the audience is. Just like the lyrics, Diavolo’s epitaph, how he will be remembered, will also be confusion. While the protagonists did manage to find him, much about him and his identity were still left completely unexplained, and we are left to believe that we will never get a real answer to any of it.

“Between the iron gates of fate

The seeds of time were sown

And watered by the deeds of those

Who know and who are known”

This is about the “fate” system. In Jojo, all actions are predetermined and impossible to change (unless you’re Diavolo, that is). The “seeds of time” are all of the events that were destined to inevitably happen, locked behind the certainty of fate and made into reality by people’s actions.

“Knowledge is a deadly friend

If no one sets the rules

The fate of all mankind I see

Is in the hands of fools”

Thanks to King Crimson being so heavily connected to fate, Diavolo has a strong understanding of how it works. This knowledge is dangerous to the protagonists, as he is able to not only predict fate with Epitaph, but he is also able to warp and even erase fate entirely due to his ability to erase time. He is aware of and actively chooses to “break” fate’s rules. Ironically, despite how much Diavolo boasts that fate has “chosen” him to be in power, we constantly see him defy and erase it to reach his goals- instead of getting his way there legitimately, he forces his way to the top by cheating his way out of any obstacle he comes across, even ones set in stone by the universe itself. This ends up becoming his downfall at the end when Giorno uses his Gold Experience Requiem to also cheat fate, but this time, against Diavolo.

“If we make it we can all sit back and laugh

But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying

Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying

Crying...

Crying...”

This is about Diavolo’s fear of his identity being discovered by the protagonists. If he manages to defeat them all, he can remain in power and laugh at their failed attempt to usurp him, just like La Squadra and every other attempt to overtake him before. It would just be another one of his victories as the self-declared “King”. If he’s defeated, on the other hand... well, he’s screwed.

Despite just how powerful his stand is, he’s still so intensely paranoid of betrayal that he goes to extra lengths to make sure he is completely unreachable and never under threat. This fear ultimately ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy when his attempt to defeat Giorno backfires by causing the creation of Gold Experience Requiem, the thing that finally defeats him.

Gold Experience Requiem’s ability is, in a way, the polar opposite of King Crimson’s ability. While King Crimson takes away the “action” of something, and keeps the “result”, GER’s ability essentially keeps the “action” of something, but takes away the “result”.

You can try to use your stand, but the result of your ability will not happen, as we can see with King Crimson’s deleted time being reversed when GER’s ability activates.

It also has the effect of setting a person’s “death” to zero, causing them to go through the experience of dying, but without the result of them becoming dead; so, they die an infinite number of times, never reaching an actual ending to their pain.

This is the moral that Diavolo’s character is teaching. When you only desire the result and don’t care about your methods of achieving said result, you lose sight of what was even important in the first place. This is something that even happens to be foreshadowed far earlier, during Abbacchio’s death scene.

The lyric “I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying” refers to Diavolo’s defeat and eternal punishment (and most likely the thing that he will be inevitably doing in the death loop). Diavolo receiving the punishment of infinite death is a sort of counter and form of irony to not only his stand ability itself, but also to the way he sees morality. He only seeks the ‘results’ to the point where he’s completely blind-sighted to the effects of his actions, so... what’s more fitting of a punishment than for him to never reach a result?

I’d also like to draw a visual parallel between the cover art for In the Court of the Crimson King and Diavolo after he was affected by GER:

If this were intentional, it would be pretty cool (and further drive home that Diavolo himself is the “Schizoid Man” from the opening song).

Overall, Epitaph ties into a lot of major themes in Vento Aureo. Not only do its lyrics match with Epitaph as a stand, but also with how fate in Jojo is utilized by Diavolo. It also connects to a lot of his motivations, morals (or the lack of them), beliefs, and a lot of the plot points relating to his goals and his fate at the very end.

Moonchild

“Moonchild” is the fourth song on the album. This track is mostly instrumental and improvisational, with the lyrics being generally abstract and taking only two minutes to get through, so I do not think there’s much to talk about in regards to the individual lyrics here. I still see parallels between this song and Diavolo, though.

While vague, the lyrics are essentially a personification of the moon, describing the appearance and activities of the night and how the moonlight glows on the landscape. It also describes the moon as “waiting for the sun”, or the night waiting for the sun to rise so daytime can start.

“Call her moonchild

Dancing in the shallows of a river

Lonely moonchild

Dreaming in the shadows of a willow

Talking to the trees of the cobweb strange

Sleeping on the steps of a fountain

Waving silver wands to the night-bird's song

Waiting for the sun on the mountain

She's a moonchild

Gathering the flowers in a garden

Lovely moonchild

Drifting in the echoes of the hours

Sailing on the wind in a milk white gown

Dropping circle stones on a sun dial

Playing hide and seek with the ghosts of dawn

Waiting for a smile from a sun child”

What this brought to mind for me is the way that light is used as symbolism in Vento Aureo. Giorno, whose name translates to the word ‘day’ in Italian, is often symbolized by brightness and sunlight, being accompanied by warm, golden colors.

This symbolizes the goodness in his character, as well as fitting with the part’s title meaning “Golden Wind”- Giorno is the daylight and the golden wind, with his ambition to seek out the truth being what eviscerates the darkness and holds everyone together.

By contrast, with the exception of the final fight, Diavolo’s scenes take place in dimly lit rooms, night, or total darkness. In Diavolo’s very first appearance, we see him hiding in a dark room, covered in a cloak to conceal himself. In his encounter with Bruno, it is equally dark, so Bruno wasn’t able to make out his face. King Crimson’s “erased time” zone is portrayed as a black, starry cosmos. When Diavolo is first revealed in full, it is during the middle of the night, so he remains shrouded in darkness to everyone except for his target, Polnareff.

The final fight to race for the stand arrow, and Diavolo’s defeat, takes place in very bright daylight, with GER forcibly pulling Diavolo out of his erased time “zone” and showering the scenery in gold sunshine.

In this way, if Giorno is the “sun” or the “light”, Diavolo is the moon. Italy is in a period of darkness due to Diavolo, blocking out the light, and it’s waiting on a chance to return said light- or a “sun child”, as the lyrics say.

I do not see much else to say here beyond this (like I said, this song is mostly improv). The next song gets much more interesting from a Vento Aureo perspective, in my opinion, and it ties the entire narrative together.

The Court of the Crimson King

The Court of the Crimson King is the final and titular song on the record, the main subject being the “Crimson King” that the album and band itself is named after. You’ll notice here that the lyrics are in the setting of a medieval kingdom- a “tournament”, “piper” and a “choir”, as well as (obviously) the crimson king’s “court” are all imagery that is brought to mind. While Passione is a mafia, which is obviously not a monarchy, I do think there are a lot of parallels you can draw between this song and how Passione is written.

“The rusted chains of prison moons

Are shattered by the sun

I walk a road, horizons change

The tournament's begun”

The first four lines of this song are actually changed around in radio sessions, making it so there are technically two versions of this song. I will bring these up as well, because they seem to have more of a clear connection to part five.

“The earth is captive to the moon

Some seek the rising sun

I walk the road on wings of change

The game has just begun”

“The earth is captive to the moon” seems to reference the last song, Moonchild. Bringing this back to the moon/sun metaphor with Diavolo and Giorno, the earth being “captive” to the moon would fit as Diavolo’s control over Italy, with the “rising sun” and “wings of change” being Giorno and his drive to change things for the better. Vento Aureo’s plot is the “game” that has begun, with the protagonist’s race to discover the Boss’ identity.

“The purple piper plays his tune

The choir softly sing

Three lullabies in an ancient tongue

For the court of the crimson king, aah

Aah, aah”

This song uses a lot of color in its lyrics, the first being the “purple piper” mentioned in this verse. This is a color that Diavolo and Doppio are very often portrayed as in Araki’s artwork, as well as a color scheme they often flip to in the anime adaptation.

In this case, I think the “piper” could represent Doppio, being Diavolo’s most loyal subordinate and ally.

The term “crimson king” itself is the main thing that I want to talk about here. It’s an interesting phrase because it has two different meanings, both of which I think are significant to Diavolo. The first meaning is used to refer to a king or ruler whose reign was marked by ruthlessness and bloodshed alongside creating societal upheaval and change. This description would fit Diavolo very accurately- he’s absolutely ruthless in everything he does, to the point where he’s probably caused the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people (both directly, through torturing/murdering people to make sure his identity is never discovered, and indirectly, through the violence caused by the mafia he founded and damages from drug trafficking). The creation of societal upheaval is also accurate, with his ‘reign’ creating backlash from his followers and ending with him being violently overthrown by Giorno.

This comparison becomes even more overt when you take into consideration much of Diavolo’s dialogue, referring to himself as a monarch with words like “King” and “Emperor” instead of as a Boss:

“Crimson king” is also often seen as an alias for the Devil himself (more specifically Beelzebub, but it is seen as demonic in general, so I’ll generalize it to that). This is often what this lyric, and the band’s name, is interpreted as meaning, with the crimson king’s “court” being seen as Hell. Robert Fripp, the most prominent member and co-founder of King Crimson, was even quoted as saying this:

“The name King Crimson is a synonym for Beelzebub, which is an anglicized form of the Arabic phrase “B'il Sabab”. This means literally “the man with an aim”, and is the recognizable quality of King Crimson.”

Diavolo, as you probably already know, undeniably has lots of demonic implications and satanic imagery incorporated into his character. Might I mention again that his name is literally the Italian word for “Devil”? From the mysterious circumstances of his birth to the betrayal of his religious upbringing and his first known murder being a priest, to being constantly shrouded in darkness and a ruthless, anonymous leader with several different aliases, it’s very blatant what Araki was trying to get at here. His hair even spikes at the top to appear like horns on his head in his full reveal- it’s a small detail, but it’s there.

While we are not certain that he is truly inhuman (although potential implications for that do exist), this demonic subtext is clearly present, especially when contrasted with Giorno and his father, DIO. Considering the fact that DIO’s name means “God” in Italian and Giorno is his son, that would then make him the son of “God”, or Jesus. It’s fitting, then, that the person he ends up fighting and defeating is the symbolic equivalent of the Devil.

He also doubles as a parallel to DIO himself- something especially noticeable during the correlating ‘stair’ scenes in parts three and five, with Diavolo and DIO both revealing themselves on opposite ends of the staircase:

The symbolism is fairly obvious here. Polnareff is looking up at the “God”, but looking down at the “Devil”. (I could also draw lots of connections to DIO and Diavolo in terms of their actual personalities and the way the story is structured around them, but if I went into all of the little details I would be here all day.)

Even more interestingly, there is a nod to an implied alternate-universe version of Diavolo in Steel Ball Run. In this version, he is a literal monarch, ruling over the fictional Kingdom of Naples, fitting even more overtly with this song’s setting. There is also a specific mention of Lucifer and the country turning its back on its Christian origin, similar to how Diavolo betrayed what we can only assume to be the religion he was raised by in his past.

This manages to hit both definitions of “crimson king” in and of itself- a ruthless leader and the Devil.

The stand King Crimson is a perfect fit for Diavolo in name alone, with him matching every meaning of the term. In reference to this song, then, his “court” would have to be Passione, with his “kingdom” being Italy.

“The keeper of the city keys

Put shutters on the dreams

I wait outside the pilgrim's door

With insufficient schemes

The black queen chants the funeral march

The cracked brass bells will ring

To summon back the fire witch

To the court of the crimson king, aah

Aah, aah”

“The keeper of the city keys” is the one in power, crushing the desires of the people they control (putting “shutters” on their dreams). The “black queen” is a metaphor for death, chanting the “funeral march” as people die. This is much like what Diavolo set out to do to everyone who attempts to betray him (killing potentially dozens of people in the process), as well as him being the obstacle to Giorno’s dreams and goal of having a country uncorrupted by the drug trade. I could also see “fire witch” calling back to Diavolo’s past, with him burning down his hometown.

“The gardener plants an evergreen

Whilst trampling on a flower

I chase the wind of a prism ship

To taste the sweet and sour

The pattern juggler lifts his hand

The orchestra begin

As slowly turns the grinding wheel”

The “gardener”, in this metaphor, is a person who chases great long-term future plans and ideas (‘planting an evergreen’) to such an extent that they ignore or trample over the present and world around them (killing the ‘flower’). This would be about Diavolo’s major flaw of only desiring future results and not caring about present actions, blindsighting him to the things that he’s doing and what’s really important in the present, much like in Epitaph.

“On soft gray mornings widows cry

The wise men share a joke”

Here in the final verse, the lyrics begin to directly show something sinister going on behind the scenes of the public. While widows cry for the deaths of their spouses, presumably caused by the actions of the Crimson King, the “wise men'' (which is most likely a sarcastic or ironic description) are unaffected to the point where they are in a joking mood. This could be about all of the casualties caused by Passione, with multiple people being targeted and assassinated, leaving their families in shambles. However, the members of Passione themselves are indifferent to this, much like the “wise men” in the lyrics.

“I run to grasp divining signs

To satisfy the hoax

The yellow jester does not play

But gently pulls the strings

And smiles as the puppets dance

In the court of the crimson king, aah

Aah, aah

Aah, aah”

Due to the Crimson King’s influence, the ones in power are manipulating and coercing the public (or “puppets”) into doing their bidding. Using lies and deception (the “divining signs” that are assumedly a hoax), they are tricked and exploited by the “crimson king” and his court.

Diavolo is an equally deceptive and manipulative character, either withholding information or misdirecting the members of Passione into trusting him. He is rarely open about his intentions with the other characters. First, he tricks Bucciarati’s group into thinking that he was going to protect his daughter, only to have it revealed that he was only planning on murdering her. Next, we see he has an alter, Doppio, that he has been keeping in the dark for years about the true nature of their relationship. Then, even during the final fight, he refuses to fully reveal himself until he is forced, hiding in Mista’s body to incite confusion and mistrust among their group. He hides his identity and erases all traces of himself from public knowledge, with much of the information we do know being confusing and misdirecting in and of itself.

This connects to not only the final verse of the Court of the Crimson King, but also with the demonic symbolism already so heavily present in his character. Just like the ‘yellow jester’ and the Devil himself, Diavolo is manipulative to the people around him, seeing them less as other people and more as things to be avoided, or “puppets” that he can use to do his bidding. He is just as distrusting of others as they are to him, not even allowing the slightest detail about himself to be known by the public.

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And in the end, all of this self-isolation and paranoia with Diavolo scrubbing his identity from history so thoroughly ends up becoming his biggest downfall. All of his power and significance came from his status as the leader of Passione, and when that status is taken away from him... he is left with nothing. There is nobody to remember him, no one to care about his defeat, and no one he can go to for help. Even as he panics and screams his identity out loud, it is completely insignificant.

His character concludes as simply an unknown, unimportant man, doomed for what we assume to be eternal torture with no one alive to care in the slightest. This shows the most fatal flaw in Diavolo’s tactic of self-isolation, and caps off Vento Aureo’s major theme of friendship- it is vital to form bonds with other people in order to be remembered and have your memory be cherished. Because Diavolo drove everyone away to the point where he had no one to love or care about, he was forgotten.

This entire album is about several things, with each song being something different, but I believe that In the Court of the Crimson King’s most major theme and idea surrounds the concept of loneliness. Most if not all of its songs focus on this idea in some way- the 21st Century Schizoid Man is about Schizoid Personality Disorder and the harm that the Cold War will do on relationships and future generations, I Talk to the Wind is about talking to nobody with no one around to hear you, Epitaph describes a post-apocalyptic future with humanity in despair, Moonchild describes the loneliness of the night, and the Court of the Crimson King describes the one in power, pulling the strings behind it all. In that way, then, it’s fitting that Diavolo, who is meant to be the antithesis of Vento Aureo’s theme of love and friendship, would be based on an album ultimately about despair and isolation.

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This finally closes off the record. As you can see, Diavolo’s character is very strongly intertwined with this album in more ways than one, and I think it’s clear that this is something that influenced him and Vento Aureo very much. I have no doubt that Araki took some inspiration from this album when making his character, alongside the part itself. Even if I potentially missed some stuff, I hope this was fairly interesting to go through (at least, I hope I captured some of the fascination I have with Diavolo and why I like him so much. I like talking about him a whole lot.)

Also go listen to King Crimson they’re really good.

#shoe talks a lot #this took too long to finish im sry lmfao #i started working on this back in november #i wrote out the whole thing and then i realized it was over 13000 words and i was like. oops #so then i had to go back and shorten it. it is still way too long for an average tumblr post but oh well you'll have to deal with it #will anyone read this in full? ehh i doubt it. but it was fun to write at least #honestly this turned into more 'general diavolo analysis' than 'diavolo and king crimson songs' in the end #i really just wanted an excuse to infodump on diavolo lol ive been waiting to do that for a long time #now if you'll excuse me im going to go hit myself on the head with a rock until i forget this man #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo #character analysis #diavolo jjba #golden wind #jojo #king crimson

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mattzerella-sticks · 3 years

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How I’d Fix Titans on HBO Max

So this is just a little post to release some pent-up steam about the Titans show because this is the third season, and this is the third time I’ve let myself be bamboozled into thinking I’d enjoy the major storyline. And I’ve got a lot of thoughts since the first season about things I’d’ve done differently if I were given creative control of the show.

DISCLAIMER: I’ll only be plotting out the season story beats, as this is what I believe is the worst crime of the show. I think the casting is fine, even if a few wouldn’t be my first choice (*cough* Iain Glen as Bruce Wayne *cough*). My only note for set design is BETTER LIGHTING. I’m not the most well-versed in cinematography; I do think they’ve improved over the seasons, but pinpointing all the little details will take too much time and that’s not what this is focused on.

Starting with SEASON 1:

Trigon should not have been our s1 big bad. The audience for Titans will mostly be made up of people who probably were introduced to comics and these characters from shows like Justice League and Teen Titans, the latter of which already handled the Trigon storyline very well with most of the heroes Titans decided to use. Besides that, the SFX for Trigon alone would - despite the massive budget HBO Max allowed for projects like this - ultimately disappoint (and we were... at least I was). It’s not like animation or comics where the depiction of the battle between a massive demon and a team of superheroes would be better resolved. Exploring Raven’s powers and origins, however, was the right choice for season 1 since - in George Perez’s Titans - Raven was the one who assembled them together. Yes, this was to battle Trigon in the end... but it doesn’t have to be that way.

The season 1 threat should have been Sebastian Blood and his cult. It seemed like they were the B-villains, but the followers of Trigon felt kind of generic and, like Trigon, disappointing. There’d be a lot more freedom to handle this because Brother Blood wasn’t as well explored in Titans media, the only incarnation being from the Teen Titans cartoon but stripped of his cult-and-demon origins. Infusing these elements back into the character would make it original and, if done correctly, timely. Like, a good representation of who Sebastian Blood could have been is a portrayal similar to James Wolk as Joe Keene, Jr. on Watchmen the series; someone who is viewed favorably with good press but ultimately runs a secret cabal with many followers a goal of world domination under the banner of ‘The Four-Eyed Demon’. And to do this, they need the Demon’s daughter.

Which brings us to Rachel. Having her be pursued still works as a great set-up, however instead of followers of Trigon they’re followers of Sebastian Blood. She needs help. Especially if we keep the scene of her foster mother being murdered. Instead of Dick, though, she runs into Starfire.

And our entry point into Starfire would be different, too. We find her on an alien spaceship, in its jail, but then she sees visions as the ship passes over Earth and invigorated by the machine’s malfunctioning (due to Raven’s spirit, as we’d find out), Starfire manages to escape and finds her way to Rachel. Saving Rachel ( “I believe we can help each other”). In this way the Starfire and Raven relationship replacing the Dick and Raven relationship as the crux of season 1.

I’d still include Dick, albeit in a different capacity and with a lot changed. When he finds Rachel and Starfire, it’s because he was investigating activity in the area (he’d been tracking the cult for a while). He’s working undercover but also as the Robin persona. He still believes in the mission while, at this point in the story, Batman has given up and retired. This is because Jason Todd had died a year ago, and because of this and thinking it’s his fault - Bruce gave up and abandoned Gotham for parts unknown to deal with his grief. Dick helps Starfire and Rachel, and together the trio leave for elsewhere - Dick aware of how the cult needs Rachel and haunted that he couldn’t look after Jason, he sees how he can protect Rachel and clings to tha, Rachel curious about why a cult would want her and what her origins are, and Starfire, free of her imprisonment and indebted to Rachel but also homesick as she didn’t leave of her own choice. Over the course of the series they’d grow closer as a family, especially when Gar joins them (I would keep the Doom Patrol episode because that episode served its purpose well, of being a backdoor pilot - maybe change a few things but those details are so minute it’s not worth mentioning).

A big change - no Hawk and Dove. I think Minka Kelly and Alan Ritchson were great choices and acted well with what was given to them, plus I enjoyed Hank’s backstory and think, if they wanted to, a Hawk and Dove miniseries would have been fantastic to explore that better (and allow for a better paced introduction between Dawn and Hank). That being said, my main reason for cutting out Hawk & Dove is two-fold. First, how they killed Dawn’s mom and Don Hall. That was so dirty and so badly conceived. Second, the weird love triangle between Dick, Dawn, and Hank. It just made no sense.

Instead of Hawk and Dove, I think a better choice to introduce into live action would be Karen Beecher and Mal Duncan - Bumblebee and Herald. Especially after reading their issue of ‘Secret History of the DC Universe’. Have Mal want to be a hero, then meeting Karen, and not wanting him to go it alone she joins him with her tech. They are approached to join the Titans and do, only being superheroes begins to put a stressor on their relationship. And one night Karen and Dick, a little drunk, a little sad from events that will be explained in s2 hook up. Once this is found out Karen and Herald leave and this marks the end of the Titans. This will also tie into Dick’s feelings about how he felt he keeps losing his family, and the Titans breaking up was viewed as his fault, so instead of being against personal relationships he is the one trying to make this new team - Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy - his third chance). Instead of Dawn being knocked into a coma, I say it should be Mal (because then we can get Karen trying to save him and giving him robotic vocal chords which will allow him to do more, like sonic screams or whatever a la Vox, his post-Infinite Crisis identity). This will also further shine a light on their issues, because while Mal gave up heroics altogether, Karen would suit up time to time and Mal feels like Karen used his coma as an opportunity to give him powers because she wants him to be someone he’s not.

Their adaptation of the Nuclear Family was iconic™ so that’d definitely stay in (especially because Nuclear Family - one of the values they in the group believe in lol). The convent episode, too, although instead of flashbacks to Dick’s past we should have Starfire and how she grew up being the prisoner of warlords and experimented on; which is why she’s uneasy leaving Rachel with the sisters and then explodes when she sees Rachel strapped down because it triggers her. We will also have some of these hallucinations in the asylum scene. The episode with Dick and Jason would be replaced by the aliens who captured Kory coming back to take her to their planet, the team coming together to rescue her.

The biggest diversion, I think, would be after the asylum episode. The group escapes, except there’s no Arella, and it’s believed that Rachel sacrificed herself to tear the organization down and without her the group goes their separate ways. Dick goes to Donna Troy because he wants to know why, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t keep anyone around. Starfire is stuck on Earth and unsure about what to do next after finding out, in the replaced Jason Todd episode, that her sister sold her to the enemy. Gar doesn’t believe Rachel is dead. The three of them (plus Karen and Mal) receive visions from Rachel and realize that she’s still in danger and go to help.

Rachel is being held by the Cult of Blood and are working on setting up the ritual. By the time the group arrives to where she is, she is a happy member, and she tells them that they should join and be saved. They’re confused by the dreams they have - it’s Raven’s soul self fighting against her chains.

This season would culminate with the Cult of Blood capturing the group after Dick, not knowing when to leave well enough alone, rushes in and gets ‘baptized’ into the Cult and is brainwashed like Raven (although not like in that dumb dream episode that was ridiculous). He, like the others, are in attendance for the wedding between Sebastian Blood and Raven (which would be creepy because he’s 32 she’s 14), but at the pleading of Starfire Dick is freed from his mind control and releases them and they fight to free Rachel. It’s too late, however, as the ritual is completed and the ‘kiss’ is Sebastian drinking Rachel’s blood. Doing this opens up a portal which sucks up Sebastian and his followers, and is only closed after Starfire breaks through to Rachel and she gets control and closes the portal herself. The group leaves, stronger than ever, and assured that being Titans means more than being a team.

We’d get after credits scenes of the cult learning of Sebastian’s demise and their next plans, saying that “Junior” will have to be prepared earlier tha expected. Then, the other after credits scene - because Raven’s portal caused disasters across the world (”Raven ‘cleansing’ the world for Trigon’s arrival) - is Superboy breaking free.

Also, goes without saying, RAVEN WOULD HAVE HAD A BETTER WIG!

SEASON 2:

Goes without saying that season 2 would explore themes from the 1st season. Dick Grayson defining himself by who he is surrounded by, a season long search for an identity that is his and not what’s given to him (by Batman) and settling into the role as a leader as Nightwing (also, by retiring Robin, he won’t let the past haunt him). Starfire settling on Earth, her choice, and making friendships and relationships that last and help her realize this is her home. Raven is struggling to control the darker aspects of her powers after them being awakened during the ritual while also allowing herself to be a teenage girl. Beast Boy trying to fit in with this group while also wanting to prove that he can do more than just ‘turn into a green tiger’. Karen and Mal’s relationship would definitely hit rough patches (especially when Mal leaves the team and Karen because he only stayed with the team because of Karen). Donna recovering from the trauma of the original incarnation of Teen Titans, which is brought to the forefront once we introduce Deathstroke as having returned.

The second season, however, would start out not with any of these characters but with the continuation of the second after credits scene that introduced Superboy. That was one of my biggest gripes with the second season, how DELAYED the introduction of Conner was. You don’t have that scene and then keep us waiting for five episodes. Second season we enter on Superboy from the JUMP. Do the entire ‘Conner’ episode but only changing the ending, where instead of him saving Jason (because remember, Jason’s ‘dead’ at this point). Instead of that, he and Krypto are stumbling around a non-descript city, lost, unsure of what to do with their power, until they see a broadcast of the Titans saving people and realize that’s where they should head. On the other side of this, Mercy - having failed in recapturing Superboy - hire Deathstroke to go and find him. He accepts, and begins on his trail. This will help tie the antagonists’ storylines together so it’s not as disjointed as it felt in season 2 (instead of competing for the narrative they share it).

Then, we have the Titans doing their thing - Robin, Bumblebee, Vox, and Wonder Girl back in their costumes while Gar, Raven, and Starfire are training and learning while also helping take down villains in the San Francisco base. There are memories there, sure, but the others are doing their best to make it look like it’s not bothering them, Donna especially. We can have Arthur Light break out and go on a warpath for the Titans, and this can be our lead-in to the backstory episode of how the Titans became the Titans (because ‘Aqualad’ was one of the worst episodes of anything I’ve ever seen, badly written, poorly edited, and so misplaced). We see Robin, Wonder Girl, Aqualad and Speedy - Mia Dearden - coming together to chase down Dr. Light after an alert came in to the League that went unanswered because the League was busy dealing with something else. While fighting him, they receive help from Mal (in his Guardian identity) and Karen, and together they decide being a team is great and it’s nice having peers instead of mentors working iwth, so they form the Titans.

While in the midst of the big climactic battle with Dr. Light, where he’s firing on innocent civilians, he hits Superboy and nothing happens and Superboy helps them defeat Dr. Light. As they welcome Conner and he explains why he’s there, he’s struck in the back by a kryptonite bullet and we see Deathstroke watching from above telling Mercy it’s done. “So you’ll be bringing the subject back?” “Actually... there’s some business here I’ll need to settle first.” We’ll have another scene where, in an apartment, a young girl with white hair is watching footage from when Superboy was shot and recognizes a blur on the rooftop. She tells her brother, who tells her to leave it alone and if they lay low maybe Deathstroke will leave without realizing they’re here. She tells him that, despite what he or their mom thinks, she’s going to take care of him once and for all. This is Rose and Jericho.

Superboy is in a coma, the team trying to save him as the bullet didn’t fully kill him. Donna is shaken because it reminds her of what happened in the past, the last blow that spelled the end for the first generation of Titans. We get some more flashbacks. Showing Dick and Karen getting closer while Mal sort of stews silently, Aqualad getting into fights with everyone because he’s been trying their patience a lot (kind of like the friend you only hang out with because your dad is friends with his dad), and awkwardness between Donna and Mia since we learn they were interested in each other but never acted on it (because Donna is a lesbian and her and Aqualad were compulsory heterosexuality PLUS they could only mention Roy Harper but not actually show him). Soon we find out that Donna is being called back to Themyscria to finish her training, and the team throws a goodbye party. This is where Mal and Karen have a fight and she gets a bit too drunk, so does Dick because Donna is his best friend and he’s going to miss her, and they both have been feeling stress, so they hook up. Also, Mia leaves to tell Donna that she’s in love with her at the airport, and asks if it’s okay if she comes with (”It is an island full of women after all. I’m sure... this, us... would be more accepted than here.”) Before Donna can say yes Mia is shot dead by Deathstroke before her eyes. This, coupled with Mal finding Dick and Karen in bed together, leads to the Titans’ disolvement. We’ll see Kory comforting her while Dick searches for who shot the bullet with Karen and Mal, fearing that Donna might be right - and angry when she is.

They save Conner and he joins the Titans just in time to help them face Deathstroke, but also have to contend with Rose who isn’t on Deathstroke’s side but also isn’t friendly with them. It’s only when Jericho comes to them and explains his and Rose’s backstory, of being Slade’s kids, do they understand and work out an agreement to help take down Deathstroke and his backers (who turn out to be Cadmus).

Meanwhile, with Deathstroke taking too long, Mercy approaches Conner with an offer to let them help him and that the Titans are only pretending to be his friend, meanwhile they only care about his powers; but in the end they’re kids and don’t know what they’re doing. When this fails to work, they kidnap him and Krypto, replacing him with a version of Conner who is obedient to them to work as an infiltrator. Mercy then approaches Deathstroke, showing him she has a guy on the inside, and tells him that she’ll help him take down the Titans but they’re doing this her way.

Eve, imprisoned by CADMUS, helps Conner and Krypto escape (by sacrificing herself or not by sacrificing herself, dealer’s choice), and they hurry to the final battle between Deathstroke & Cadmus vs. the Titans. Just when it looks like they have Deathstroke beat, ‘Superboy’ turns and starts attacking the others. Conner hasn’t arrived, and it looks like everyone is down for the count. The fake Superboy (Match) has Kory in his grips and is attacking her, only for Donna to recover and tackle him. She batters him, punches him, and as she’s about to strike him again he uses his laser vision to strike Donna through the heart (a la Graduation Day - a much better way to ‘kill Donna’ then by electricity). Superboy arrives too late to save her, but he does take the other Superboy away before he explodes (Mercy’s final play - it would’ve killed Deathstroke too). Conner is still alive, and he’s saved everyone. In the confusion, Deathstroke slipped away.

We wind down, Rose and Jericho promise to hunt Deathstroke down and make him pay for his crimes. This will at least explain why they aren’t in s3 (which sucks, because Rose was GOOD). Raven still promises to bring Donna to Themyscira and work on bringing her back. Conner isn’t blamed for Donna’s death and they reassure him that they’re his family and welcome him back. Dick has taken on the Nightwing mantle and accepts the responsibility of being a leader, and that while he might not have been mature enough in the past, he can’t let that define him - only he can define who he is). Kory wants to go with Raven, but understands that she needs to stay with the team and only wishes Rachel luck, hoping Donna can return from the dead. Mal rejoins the team, he and Karen promising to be better to each other. Gar’s feelings of uselessness will continue because, as Conner’s best friend, he should have known something was off.(I don’t see this plot point ever being fully resolved until maybe later on).

Deathstroke wouldn’t die because you don’t WASTE Deathstroke! Killing Deathstroke cuts off so much potential in terms of storylines. I mean, there goes the Judas Contract which, despite us already having a varied animated retellings, would be beloved if done live-action and right.

Also, sorry to my DickKory fans but season 2 would lay the groundwork for some DonnaKory endgame - although the main romantic struggle would be between Dick, Donna, and Kory, with Kory at the middle and Dick and Donna the best friends who fight over her.

SEASON 3:

If we are working within the parameters of this season, and want to tackle Red Hood, there is a possibility that I’ve been thinking over and will expand upon here.

As I’ve mentioned before, Jason is dead. Because of this, Batman has abandoned his crusade against crime in Gotham because he feels there is no point to his battle and can’t continue. He’s been gone for a long time, however, this is the season where I would introduce him. He comes to visit San Francisco and Dick a very changed man, smiling, brightly-colored clothes, very into new age mysticism (”This is Batman?”). We find out that, after Jason’s death, Bruce went out on a new mission, to find a way to be at peace over the things he can’t control, and so through this journey he’s discovered inner peace and how to live despite all he’s lost. And he’s come back to Dick to share this knowledge with him, as a way to make up for indoctrinating him with these bad habits and instead lead a healthier life (crimefighting being like a drug). This will put Dick in a crossroads, questioning if he’s doing this (this being heroics) because he’s trying to use it to heal or if he really is meant to be a hero. This will be the season where the driving question is - Why Do We Don the Masks?

At the end of the first episode, however, we do the scene where the crime bosses meet up and Red Hood introduces himself, saying that he’s going to be taking control of all the criminal enterprises in Gotham.

This catches Barbara’s attention, and so she contacts Dick to fly back to Gotham and help contain this. After her appointment as Commissioner, she’s made great strides in helping clean up Gotham - especially in the tough months that followed once Batman retired (”Joker’s been imprisoned in the Slab, and he’s been abnormally quiet”). They still come up against costumed criminals but the police are better prepared to fight them, especially with help from Barbara, who knows the strategies, and Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne, who helps develop non-lethal tech for the police to use in the battles. What’s also been helping is a small group of crimefighters who have taken to the streets, picking up the slack after Batman’s disappearance. (Barbara, “But this Red Hood... he might be too much for them to handle. We don’t want another me, or worse... another Jason.”) Dick promises to help, with both Red Hood and this group of kids - especially because one of them has taken to calling himself Robin.

That’s right! I’d introduce Young Justice in s3 - composed of Robin (Tim Drake), Spoilers (Stephanie Brown), Hawk and Dove (Hank Hall and Don Hall). Tim saw what was happening to his city after Batman quit, and decided enough was enough and became a vigilante to honor him and Jason, taking up the Robin mantle. He met up with Stephanie Brown, daughter of criminal Cluemaster, and brother Hank and Don Hall, who were working as vigilantes targeting molestors (very in-line with how Titans showed them, they’d just be younger). They’ll end up in a situation where they’re in over their heads, only to be saved by Nightwing who tells them with no uncertainty that they need to shut their operation down or else they’ll end up hurt (because they’re untrained).

Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Starfire isn’t handling Donna’s death nor Rachel’s absence well, and is being inundated with strange visions that is making her act out of character. What’s not helping is that Bruce Wayne has decided to stay in San Francisco with them while Dick is in Gotham. Conner and Gar are enjoying this relaxed, free-spirited Bruce (he’s like the fun uncle), but it drives Kory crazy. These visions are from her sister, and even though she hates her for selling her, after finding out she’s on Earth and trapped somewhere, she goes to rescue her with Gar and Conner at her sides. They resuce her and bring her back, and Blackfire ‘apologizes’, telling Starfire that it was either Kory or their planet - and as the eldest she made the tough choice so their people wouldn’t suffer anymore harm. Starfire accepts this and welcomes her back. Also happening in San Francisco, Karen and Mal are at a crossroads because of a new development - she’s pregnant. This has put a stop on her hero journey, and while she is excited about being a mother she also wants to be a hero and we see more of them trying to work through their problems. Gar is also using Bruce to indulge himself so he doesn’t have to think about being the ‘useless’ member of the team, using his powers like a party trick to feel like he’s useful, which worries Conner.

In Themyscira, Raven pours through their texts to see how she can resurrect Donna. While there, she befriends and is aided by a young girl, Cassie Sandsmark, who is staying on the island with her mom while doing work (archaeology work); together, they find a way to reach Donna in the afterlife through an ancient ritual most of the Amazons are wary of. This doesn’t stop them, and together they perform the ritual. Raven journeys into the afterlife while Cassie is there to wake Raven if things look rough; while in the afterlife she hears the voices of Sebastian Blood and the ‘dark’ side of her, but is reminded of who she’s searching for by a soft, familiar woman’s voice and makes it to Elysium. There Rachel finds Donna and Mia, together. Donna is wary about going back, because she is happy with Mia; but Mia and Rachel remind her that there’s happiness down on Earth and there’s a lot left to live for. Donna agrees to follow Raven back, but not before saying goodbye to Mia who tells Donna she will find love again, only she shouldn’t be afraid this time to say something about it. I’d also love to see a way to involve Dark Angel somehow, maybe as a dark force approaching to prevent Donna from returning to life?

Nightwing is working with Barbara to shut down Red Hood’s operations, but it’s not going too well. It’s starting to feel like Nightwing is being taunted now, too, because a lot of what Red Hood is doing feels personal, like he knows Nightwing behind the mask. Ultimately, when Red Hood catches Young Justice and gives them a good beating, Dick stops him and it’s revealed that Jason is under the helmet. We then find out how he was brought back to life when, just as Dick has Nightwing beat, someone intervenes and saves Jason - Thalia al Ghul. We get an episode dedicated to Jason’s backstory, where he wasn’t killed, only badly beaten to the point of death. However, it was assumed he died because of the explosion. Bruce couldn’t find the body, he assumed it had been obliterated. Really, Jason had wandered away and was found by strangers and admitted to a hospital with severe brain damage. One day someone came to collect him, Talia al Ghul. She brought him to her home and used the Lazarus Pits to revive him, then trained him in assasinry so he could do the one thing Bruce never could - save Gotham.

Dick, while recovering in the Manor with the kids from Young Justice, calls up Bruce and tells him that Jason is alive. This will lead to Kory finally confronting Bruce and yelling at him that he hasn’t ‘found peace’ and instead switched coping mechanisms. This inspires Bruce to return to Gotham, the Titans following him (save Karen and Mal). Donna and Rachel meet them there, and we get the reunions plus Young Justice meeting the Titans.

We get reports that the Joker has escaped the Slab, and we find out Jason has kidnapped him. As the team investigates across Gotham, Dick goes on his own to where he knows Jason has Joker. They fight, with Jason threatening to blow them all up because as long as the Joker is dead it doesn’t matter. “He deserves it. He deserves it for all hat he’s done. For what he did to me! Please... why can’t you let me do this?” Bruce arrives, at that point, to tell him why. Because it won’t change things. Jason yells at Bruce, then, and Bruce accepts it. We also hear from Bruce about why he didn’t kill Joker, though he was close. Bruce admits that he snuck into Arkham with the decision to kill the Joker, but stopped just outside his cell. He realized that it wouldn’t bring Jason back, just as it wouldn’t bring his parents back, and he didn’t want to disappoint Jason by becoming a killer. Jason and Bruce make up, though Joker still dies - Thalia kills him. “If you won’t ensure a safer world, my Darling, I’ll do it for you.” She then detonates the explosives to escape and the three barely escape with their lives.

You’d think they’d get some rest, then, huh? WRONG! Because while searching for Jason, Blackfire betrays Kory and reveals she sold Kory so she could secure her position as ruler of Tamaran. A warship then appears in the sky where Blackfire takes Kory, announcing that Gotham will be the first city to fall during the invasion.

The s3 finale would then be the Titans vs. aliens as they drive off the alient threat, with Donna, Jason, and Dick working together to free Starfire from her sister. We’ll get a final battle between Starfire and Blackfire where Starfire asserts her status as the stronger sister, and that while she wishes Blackfire wanted a relationship between them, she won’t cry over it anymore. Blackfire takes her fleet and leaves Earth after facing humilation, and the group returns to Wayne Manor to celebrate.

Bruce has decided that, not only will he return to Gotham, but Batman will be coming back. He won’t be alone, as he’ll have a team with him. Jason decides to stay in Gotham and work on his relationship with Bruce, although knowing he will have to go out and find Thalia at some point. Hopefully by then, Tim and Steph will be well-prepared to stand on their own as Robin and Spoiler - inducted into the Batfamily. Hank and Don choose to go with the Titans back to San Francisco, especially since they were very impressed with their teamwork and Gar, who was able to transform past a tiger into something else.

We won’t be involving the Scarecrow in this. Scarecrow’s involvement wasn’t about the Titans and more of DC trying to tie him in elsewhere since Fear State will be starting soon. Plus *spoilers* Bruce killing Joker was the worst decision for Titans to do. It only served to do away with Bruce Wayne so he wouldn’t be involved in the show anymore which they could have easily solved if he wasn’t introduced too early. Keeping the Titans in Gotham for the entire season feels incongruent to who the team is and what the team is about, so if they divided the storyline between Gotham and San Francisco it’d probably play easier and allow for the characters to grow in their own way instead of being chained to the one prevailing storyline that is Under the Red Hood. And when they come back to San Francisco the Titans realize the benefits of training the youth of heroics and commit to teaching Rachel, Gar, Conner, Hank, and Don - and they introduce Cassie who joins them after getting the go-ahead from her mom and Diana. While Karen might not be able to delve into heroics for awhile because of her baby, she can still help by teaching. This will then lead into the next season which would be Titans vs. H.I.V.E. Academy, reintroduction of Slade, and bringing Terra into the fold while also having Rose and Jericho return, too.

Season three would sort of test everyone, give them the option to walk away from being a hero or choose being a hero, and strengthens their resolve to continue, comforted by how this is their choice and it’s what they’re good at.

If anyone from Titans reads this and wants me for s4 feel free to contact me

19 notes · View notes

i-make-random-song-parodies · 3 years

Text

Historically accurate Hamilton

Hamilton faces a lot of criticism because of its historical inaccuracies, but people seem to forget that it isn’t supposed to be completely accurate. It’s historical fiction, and many details were tweaked to make the musical run more smoothly, make more sense, and generally be easier for an audience to follow. To emphasise my point, I rewrote some of Hamilton to show what it might have been like if it was completely historically accurate (or, parts of it. I’m not rewriting an entire musical).

NB: I am by no means a historical expert. The following is meant for comedy purposes only

For songs where multiple people sing, the speaker will be denoted by the following letters: B – Burr, H – Hamilton, L – Lafayette, J – John Laurens, M – Hercules Mulligan, T – Thomas Jefferson,

Use of the squiggles (~~~~~) means some of the song was skipped

I think that’s everything! Enjoy the musical!!!!!

♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪

Aaron Burr – Historically accurate

~~~~~

B: You punched the bursar?

A: Nope

~~~~~

Showtime! Showtime! Yo!

J: I’m John Lauren’s, in the place to be! It’d make sense for you to meet all three Of us together, but unfortunately It’s gonna be a while ‘til you finally meet me!

L: Oui oui, mon ami, je m'appelle Lafayette! And just like Laurens, I have not arrived yet I sing from afar and I say “bonsoir” To these strangers at the bar, they do not know moi

M: Brrrah brraaah! I am Hercules Mulligan Talking to myself, cos I don’t have a single friend Wait, I’m already friends with Alex Ham, And this introduction’s pointless, cos he knows who I am! No more people, we need a solution The two of us alone can’t start a revolution!

Well, if it ain't the prodigy of Princeton college! Aaron Burr! Give us a verse, drop some knowledge!

B: Good luck with that, you’re all on your own, Even Hamilton can’t start a revolution alone

M: Burr, the revolution's imminent. What do you stall for?

H: If you stand for nothing Burr, what’ll you fall for?

M: Who? Who are you?

H: ….. Hamilton? Your friend?

M: Oh. Right. Yea.

*awkward pause, then lights go down*

The Story of Tonight – Historically accurate

M: Raise a glass to the two of us

H: Why are there so few of us?

M: Not much is happening tonight

H: I need another drink tonight

M: They will forget about tonight

The Schuyler Siblings:

Angelica, Eliza, John, Philip, Rensselaer, Cornelia, Catherine, and Peggy The Schuyler siblings Angelica, Peggy, Eliza, John, Philip, Rensselaer, Cornelia, Catherine WORK!

The 25 Duel Commandments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

It’s the 25 duel commandments It’s the 25 duel commandments

Number 1:

Instead of giving a concise set of rules, To explain to the audience the basics about duels We’re gonna list every single commandment and derail The entire musical with unnecessary detail

Number 2:

Lee’s second wasn’t Aaron Burr it was his friend Major Evan Edwards, who you’re never gonna see again As Burr isn’t here, we miss some foreshadowing And Alexander’s death might not be as heart-shattering

Number 3:

Okay folks, this is taking too long We don’t have time for 25 commandments in one song By the time we finish you’ll have stopped paying attention So let’s just finish this, while there’s still some apprehension

Number 24: Look ‘em in the eye, aim no higher Summon all the courage you require Then count

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Number 25 paces fire!

Cabinet battle #1 – Historically Accurate

W: Secretary Jefferson, you have the floor

T: Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness We fought for these ideals we shouldn’t settle for less But I’m quiet and reserved, and not a fan of fighting So I’m just gonna give you my objections in writing

W: Thank you, Secretary Jefferson Secretary Hamilton, your response

H: Thomas, that was a real nice declaration You speaking up at all is a cause for celebration But obviously, there isn’t that much to discuss Seeing as you didn’t kick up much of a fuss My new financial system is a masterpiece Our debts will be sorted, our independence will increase Tell me if you have any suggestions or notes But I have high hopes that I can rely on your votes

W: Great. Meeting concluded.

Cabinet Battle #2 – Historically Accurate

W: The issue on the table, France is on the verge of war with England And do we provide aid and troops to our French allies Or do we stay out of it, remember My decision on this matter is not subject to congressional approval The only person you have to convince is me Secretary Jefferson, you have the floor, sir

T: I’d really like to help out France But I’m still too shy to make a whole song and dance

W: Thank you Secretary Jefferson. Secretary Hamilton, your response

H: Jefferson’s dumb, let’s not get involved I’m sorry but not every problem can be solved By recklessly running to join the fight We stay out of it. Thank you, and goodnight.

W: Hamilton’s right. Hamilton, draft a statement of neutrality

T: Did you forget Lafayette?

H: Nope

T: Ok then

Burn – Historically Accurate

~~~~~

I’m erasing myself from the narrative Historians have no idea how Eliza reacted So neither will you Sorry, but for historical accuracy this song is through

The world was wide enough – Historically Accurate

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

There are 25 things you need to know There are 25 things you need to know

Number 1:

This duel was a long time coming You’d have known that if we hadn’t skipped most of the foreshadowing

Number 2:

A bunch of secondary characters were there I’d list all their names but you probably don’t care

Number 3:

The election wasn’t the main reason for Our duel. Hamilton, the bastard, son of a whore Tried to undermine me in my gubernatorial race So I told him “if you have something to say, name a time and place”

~~~~~

Number 24:

Look him in the eye aim no higher Summon all the courage you require Then count

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Number 25 paces fire!

He aims his pistol over my shoulder, and fires. I strike him right between the ribs

~~~~~

BONUS SONG:

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story – Historically Accurate Summary

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known When I was young and dreamed of glory You cannot write A good, historically accurate story

Lin Manuel Miranda I’ll give him this His Hamilton musical is a work of art I couldn’t correct it if I tried And I’ve tried

Lin Manuel Miranda He took your country from knowing nothing about Hamilton to knowing at least some stuff about him I’m happy to admit it He deserves all the credit he gets

A historically inaccurate but still incredible story

♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪

You still here? Well congrats for making it this far!!! I hope you enjoyed, please (please) leave a comment if you enjoyed it, I survive purely on the validation I receive from others, and feel free to send me requests if you want :)

Credit to where I got all my info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrVjfVmAow&t=518s

https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/2020/07/03/politifact-fact-checking-hamilton-the-musical/

https://screenrant.com/hamilton-historical-inaccuracies-wrong-true-story/

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pebblysand · 3 years

Text

[the thoughts on canon-compliance you did not ask for.]

last night between 2 and 3 in the morning (look, i couldn’t sleep, got up to write, then got caught up, okay? don’t judge me for my terrible sleeping patterns please) i had a super interesting discussion with a few people on the hinny discord channel about the definition of canon-compliant-ness. i think this is fascinating because to be honest, before getting into the hp fandom, i didn’t even think this was something one could disagree about. to me there was what was canon, and what wasn’t. a very black-and-white sort of system. i’m finding that it’s not.

through the discussions that i’ve had both on my fics and other people’s fics, it seems that i can narrow down - in the hp fandom - three elements of canon.

i. the events of the books/films

now, as a general disclaimer, you can obviously argue about whether the films are ‘canon.’ you can also argue whether cursed child is canon. there’s a lot of elements which differ between those and lots of opinions about how to look at them. personally, i tend to ignore cursed child. as to the books v. films, i pick and choose what suits my story more. generally, that’ll be the books. but for instance, i’m writing a harry&hermione friendship one shot right now, and there are a lot of movie-isms in that story because that is an aspect that was more explored in the films. however, for the purposes of this post, i’m mainly considering the source material to be the seven books. nothing more or less.

having said that, to me personally, that’s what ‘canon’ is: the events of the story and the characters that gravitate around those events, as described in the source material. things like: tom riddle killing lily and james, or harry, ron and hermione rescuing the philosopher’s stone. anything departing from that is, de facto, an ‘au.’ the whole world of what-if scenarios: what if Harry was sorted into slytherin, what if dudley was a wizard, all of those, to me, are aus.

generally, both as a reader and a writer, those are not scenarios i’m particularly drawn to. my default answer to those what-if scenarios is: ‘well, if harry is sorted into slytherin, there’s no story.’ or at the very least, there’s no story as i know it, and if there’s no story as i know it, then i’d rather read/write original fiction. it’s obviously a very personal preference and there are exceptions to this preference. i loved the changeling [1] for instance, and love the self-aware style of dirgewithoutmusic’s aus [2]. but as a general rule, that is not my preferred genre.

now, aside from the what-if scenarios, there’s also the question of filling in the gaps of the story itself. like, i find it interesting that we only make tsunamis [3] is labelled as ‘canon-compliant’ because i get the feeling that a lot of people would disagree that a fic in which hermione is harry’s first kiss is canon compliant. but, by exploiting the silence sometimes left by the author and turning it to your advantage, are you writing an au? is a negative space canon? is silence canon?

again, as a matter of personal opinion, i would not push my definition of canon-compliance as including blank spaces. to me, as long as it does not contradict the letter of the text, adding in events to the books to suit your story (i’ll address character in point ii) does not make your fic an au. to give another example that was brought up to me regarding my own work, i don’t believe that the events described in chapter nine of castles [4] are au because they exist in a blank space of the books. the fact that harry didn’t notice the 1:1s between ginny and amycus doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, it just means that they’re not in the positive space described by the books.

ii. the characters/characterisation

(as a quick vocab note, please note that below, i’m using the terms ‘ooc’ to mean that the characterisation of a character in a fic is not canon-compliant. they’re synonyms to me.)

now, while the above was pretty straight forward, i believe that this is where i perhaps differ from the masses in my interpretation of what “canon-compliance” means. more i discuss with people, the more i realise that i don’t really think there’s a real ‘canon’ characterisation. or at least not in the big things. like, yeah, it’s canon that harry likes treacle tart, because that’s a fact. but anything that is down to psychology or perspective of the character is, to me, generally up for grabs.

as a human, i believe that there’s things that people do, events that they go through, that condition them to act a certain way. while there is a core to every human being, i personally believe that in life, anyone would basically be capable of doing anything, given the right circumstances. i’ve recently - rightfully - been told my writing is all about the power of choice in our life, the reasons why we make those choices and the people those choices lead us to be. for example, do i think i might murder someone tomorrow? probably not. do i think i might be capable of murdering someone in wartime? perhaps? i don’t know, that’s not the world i live in and my life choices have not lead me to find out the answer to that. however, my point is: to me, good ‘characterisation’ is down to the circumstances and choices outlined in any work of fiction. hence, good characterisation is essentially, to me, equal to good writing.

i often say that good writing could make me believe anything and i mean it. i don’t tend to gravitate towards these fics because these ships are not my personal taste but i genuinely believe that good writing could make me believe in drarry or rarry if it tried. it’s funny because over the course of the discussion yesterday on discord, this was brought up ‘well, no one tags drarry as canon compliant,’ and i’m kind of like, i don’t know whether or not they do because i don’t read it but if they did and none of it contradicted the events as detailed in the books, perhaps it could be? like, that would take really good writing (imo), but good writing has - on occasion - made me believe in dramione a couple of times, so why not? in ‘til the sirens come calling [5], good writing made me 100% believe that harry and hermione would have an affair together. in we only make tsunamis [3], it makes me believe that they had this quiet little relationship building throughout hogwarts that we never knew about.

now, though, i suppose the question isn’t: do i believe it? the question is: is it canon? and, i think that’s where i differ from most people because to me, it is. to take ‘til the sirens come calling [5] as an example, i believe the fic is an au because hermione marries victor krum in the end. that’s going against the hard fact presented by the epilogue, and thus makes it an au. but i don’t believe the concept of a harmony affair is inherently au, because nothing is inherently au, character-wise. it’s about how you write it. how those people get to that place. that’s what makes canon-compliantness, in my opinion.

for example, for that fic, truth be told, we don’t know what those nineteen years include per canon, so they could very much include an h/hr affair. and whilst i don’t believe that the characters as they are in the books would have an affair together, i believe that the characters as they are presented in the fic, with the events and hardships that they go through, definitely would. good writing, to me, is - in part - recognising that characters are moving on a spectrum and that whilst their decisions/actions might not make sense in book-verse, they make sense in fic-verse. good writing is convincingly moving your characters from book-verse to fic-verse, and it not feeling ‘off.’

if it does feel off, that is bad writing to me, and that is also ooc-ness/non-canon compliant. it means that for whatever reason, the writer has not successfully transitioned and explained said transition through the events outlined in the story. with the right prose, you could make me believe draco decided to take on a career as a ballerina dancer after the war, and it would still be ‘canon-compliant’ to me. on the other hand, i have read fics (i won’t name them because that would be shit and also i don’t keep track of my ‘bad’ reads) where harry, ginny, hermione, or ron all act according to book canon and yet, their motivations felt off to me and completely ooc because the writing didn’t successfully lure me in. specifically, there was a lack of character evolution that i found uninteresting. i read mostly post-war stuff because i want to see my characters grow up [6].

as a last, additional note on characters, i also think that the characters in a story only exist within the prism of how we view them. this means that to me, locking my own understanding of a character's personality as 'canon' is particularly difficult because my understanding of a character is unique. i believe there are as many harry-s or ginny-s or hermione-s as there are readers. so i think saying someone's interpretation of a character isn't canon-compliant is odd because i don't actually believe there's any wrong or right answer. as i said, do i believe it likely that draco would become a professional ballerina? no. but if that works within your understanding of his character as described in the books, who am i to say that is or isn't canon compliant? i'll admit, the idea makes me sort of lol though.

iii. tone

lastly, i’ve come to find (in potter particularly) that canon-compliance might include tone. as in: hp is a story that is a) written in a certain style and b) written for children/young adults.

regarding style at a), this is honestly the main reason why it took me 15 years to write potter fic, despite the fact that i’ve been a fan for even longer than that. i genuinely thought you had to write like jkr. and i, well, don’t write like jkr. i love the books, but i don’t even particularly like her style. i like: camus, and sorj chalandon, and sally rooney, and dirgewithoutmusic and copper_dust [7]. i have zero ambition to write like jkr and don’t particularly want to read stuff that is written like her stuff either. it’s a style that imo works for her, but it doesn’t work for me as written by other people. i don’t particularly think you need to stick to her style to be canon-compliant.

which brings me onto my actual point: b) hp is a story written for children. young adults perhaps, for the later books. it sometimes explores dark themes but the writing style, the tone, etc. is lighthearted enough that it appeals to a younger audience. there’s snogging but there’s no sex, there’s violence but the torture is mostly off-screen, etc. issues like sexual assault, substance abuse, etc. aren’t explicitely brought up in the books, although they would one hundred percent fit in a book about a war that wasn’t necessarily aimed at children. the question is whether this setting and tone is part of what we call ‘canon-compliance.’

honestly, i don’t know. i didn’t think so until it was brought up to me that castles might be a dark!au and i was like: maybe? like, if you want it to be? i know what i like to read in fanfic: i love the exploration of serious themes that were not explored in the books, or explored differently due to the fact that they were written for children. one thing i will say and insist on is that i don’t think castles is all dark. i actually make a point of having lighthearted moments in each and every chapter, even just a notch, because i am attached to the fact that life as a concept is a mixture of good and bad, and you could laugh at the funeral of someone you loved, again in the right circumstances. but yeah, to me the post-war world is dark. so if tone is part of canon-compliance, then yeah in that way castles (as well as most of the stuff i read, to be honest), is a dark!au.

as a last side note, i’m not sure what that means for my other, lighter stuff though. like are the wolf’s just a puppy [8] or slipped [9] more canon-compliant than castles? i never thought about it in those terms but perhaps? it really opens up a world of questions in my mind and i don’t really have the answers to them.

conclusion:

so in sum, as a reader, what i mean as ‘canon compliant’ is basically a) the events as described in the source material and b) the characterisation of characters as they are at the start of the fic. if character evolution is sufficiently justified and well-written in the following thousands of words that the fic has, then said characterisation can still be canon-compliant, even if the characters act different than they would have in the source material itself. i’m a fan of good writing and good writing can make me buy into literally anything. it takes me places that i've never been before and convinces me that those places are the ones i should be in.

as a writer, i hope that regardless of 'compliance,' whatever i write at least makes ‘sense’ to people within the universe, even if they don’t consider it canon-compliant, per se. i feel like i can’t really be the judge of that. from the discussions we had last night, i feel like there are as many versions of what is and isn't canon-compliant as there are people.

---

[1] the changeling by annerb

[2] the boy with a scar series by dirgewithoutmusic

[3] we only make tsunamis by disOrdely

[4] castles by yours truly

[5] ‘til the sirens come calling by vexmybones

[6] as a side note and to take my own stuff as an another example, i totally agree that harry in castles isn’t harry in the books. i don’t think there’s much debate to be had in that assertion. i wrote him like this frankly because every other fic i’d read didn’t. they often had him sort of continue to be perfectly himself after the war, which i felt wasn’t speaking to me on a deeper level. imo, i think the war’s done a lot of scarring and the fic is about him growing into a new version of himself. so, to me, if i get a comment that says ‘i don’t think harry would act this way but i really love your writing’ it’s somewhat flattering but also confusing because i don’t really understand how one can enjoy the writing but not the characterisation. to me, they’re so intrinsically linked. what the comment tells me is: i think you did a very poor job at explaining character evolution and justifying character x’s [harry’s] choices but i still like your writing, somehow? i suppose that’s nice, but it doesn’t particularly compute in my brain. like, if the character feels off, it means the writing feels off and thus, why are you still reading? i appreciate all and every comment that i get but it doesn’t mean they always make sense in my own brain. if i’m honest, these comments often send me into an ocean of self-doubt about how shit my writing must be.

[7] copper_dust’s work and profile.

[8] the wolf’s just a puppy (and the door’s double locked), again by yours truly

[9] slipped (and said something sort of like your name), same.

#writing #fic writing #canon compliant #the meaning of words #pebblysand goes off a tangent #also general disclaimer that these are my thoughts #there's no wrong or right answer #it's just my own thoughts about the meanings of words

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