#there's a very specific role and story he plays in the world he made

[sleep-nurse]

my sona's lore outside his real life lore gets so fucking complicated i should just write it all down somewhere because holy fuck

[swampjawn]

What happens when you let a film nerd make an anime?

Fuuga Yamashiro (山代風我) joined Science Saru in 2017 as an Assistant Production Manager during production of "Night Is Short, Walk on Girl." He was essentially Studio Co-founder Masaaki Yuasa's secretary, but he worked his way up to assistant director on "Keep Your Hands off Eizouken" and finally got to direct his own first full Anime series, Dandadan.

Having worked so closely with one of the greatest living auteur directors, you might think he would share that overpowering individual creative influence, but as he has pointed out in interviews himself, it's much the opposite.

Instead of relying on his own creative voice, which he doesn't seem confident about in interviews, he literally collects techniques from his favorite movies, breaking them down into storyboards and adding them to his arsenal to re-contextualize later. And as you may be able to tell from watching Dandadan, his biggest influences aren't anime and manga, but live action film -- something he seems to have studied obsessively.

And when you compare the anime to the original manga (which itself is already filled with references to old movies and TV) subtle adaptation choices make the deft application of techniques borrowed from other storytellers very clear. Every choice is made for a reason and furthers the story being told in some way; nothing is there for no reason. like the simple, controlled camera pans and tilts that make the serpoian spaceship feel cold and sterile, or the crazywackysilly, un-predictable wide-angle camera movements that intrude on that cold sterile world when turbo granny shows up.

In one interview during the production of "Keep Your Hands off Eizouken" Yamashiro pulls out his notebook where he had collected all these techniques and gives an example:

"There's a technique called 'Dolly Zoom', which is a technique that changes the perspective of the background while keeping the size of the subject." […] "In 'Cult of Chucky,' which I saw recently, there is a scene in which a long passageway is filmed in telephoto, while a wheelchair moves forward. The character is 'getting closer, but the viewer feels farther away'. This is the kind of thing I collect." […] "I'd like to combine these things in various ways and do it in animation." (I took some liberties with this, the translation was pretty rough)

And sure enough, that exact same type of dolly zoom rears its head in Dandadan as Okarun sprints away from Turbo Granny and the mouth of the tunnel stretches impossibly into the distance.

It may seem counterintuitive to ascribe too much importance to the creative vision of one person who specifically talks about his own lack of strong creative vision, (and to be clear, he's far from the only person playing a major role) but I think it's precisely that encyclopedic knowledge of film techniques and that pragmatic, meticulous attitude that may have acted as a stabilizing force for Yuasa, and that also provides some needed structure to a ball of pure energy like Dandadan, while still preserving its essence and the eclectic influences that it wears on its sleeve.

Also, mad respect for using the seventh installment of the Child's Play franchise as your example of a dolly zoom instead of, like, Vertigo, Jaws, or Goodfellas.

This is just a sliver of what I talk about in this full video! A minuscule piece of the pie! Some tiny little crumbs for the peasants! So if you consider yourself worthy, go watch the whole video. I think it's good.

Uhh also reblog! I spent way too long on that intro animation, so I need it. Bad.

[scarletdreamers]

There ultimately is one question that bothers many when it comes to Will: Is Will Graham actually a bad person? (because no one knows what exactly swims around in the hot darkness of his mind, but I tried to sum it up anyway)

The thing about Will is that yes, he is certainly not a ‘good’ person. At least not after Hannibal started messing with his head, though I’m convinced Will never was in the first place. However, not only Will’s character, but pretty much the whole show is about the thin and multi-shaded line of good and bad. Moral and immoral. It’s exactly that blurry line that makes Will such an interesting protagonist. He is not the bad guy, neither is he the hero in his own story. He tried to play the roles of both (FBI agent vs killer), managed to fool even himself for a while, but Will knows very well who he is and what he was doing.

It’s an ancient question, isn’t it? What is good and what is bad? Are those two defined by societal norms and standards? Are they based on culture, religion, or is morality something personal? Something only you can decide for yourself? 

I’m going to include Hannibal here for a second, because when it comes to Hannibal, the last one of those options applies. The thing with Hannibal is that he has his own philosophies, his own ideals and morals. Hannibal constantly rivals God, claiming that he himself can’t be called evil because God does the same things and isn’t considered ‘’bad’’. Hannibal has his own borders and limits very straight. He can recognise plain cruelty, but the thing with Hannibal is that he is a very stylised manifestation of sin.

Hannibal is religious, though there might not be a specific religion or deity he believes in and he worships no higher beings, he does believe in the ‘’rules’’ of certain religions. He is well aware that he crosses most of those. They hold no value for him. He makes his own rules, plays his own game. In his world, there is no ‘’good’’ or ‘’bad’’ when it comes to actual crimes against humanity. A bad person is for him someone very rude, someone who lacks respect and manners. He doesn’t consider himself a ‘’good’’ person. He is something entirely else. A way of perceiving life and his own morality that no one except from Will can truly understand. 

Hannibal, however, is to us a bad person. He is the ‘’ultimate bad guy’’, because the way he feels about Will doesn’t excuse the rest of his behaviour. Hannibal is a sadist, a narcissist, a manipulative and awful man. He kills and feels no remorse for most if not all of his victims. For him killing is an art, a pleasure, he delights in it. For him, that is not as ‘’bad’’ or evil as it is for us (society), though he knows he is alone in that world. 

For that same reason, Hannibal doesn’t consider Will a bad person. He considers Will his equal. He knows that the both of them are deemed ‘’bad’’ people to the public, but that doesn’t matter in his world. In Hannibal’s mind, it’s just him and Will against the rest of the world. They are neither good nor evil. They simply are.

So back to Will, who understands Hannibal’s view of morality, but doesn’t necessarily think the same. If we look at it the same way as we looked at Hannibal, in a societal and common sense, yes, Will is a bad person. Can a stereotypically ‘’good’’ person like killing, even if it’s bad men? The satisfaction in killing, even if it’s a bad person, isn’t a moral thing. Someone truly ‘’good’’ would always choose punishment over murder. Then there’s also the fact that Will didn’t blink twice when he and Hannibal ate human meat and that he consumed it, knowingly, without a single complaint.

Will had no issues using innocent people (Chilton, Freddie Lounds, etc) to achieve his own goals. He is as (if not more) manipulative as Hannibal and is sometimes cruel in ways that even shocks the Chesapeake Ripper. Will made absurd sacrifices to get what he wanted, did things no stereotypically ‘’good’’ man would ever think of doing. Then I’m not even talking about maybe the simplest and most ordinary example of how little he actually cares for most things, which is his sweet wife, Molly (her son Walter, too). 

However, Will did try to be good. He tried very hard. He wanted to be a good person, to save people. Will can care for others in ways Hannibal can’t. Hannibal has no moral compass, Will does. A broken one, but he does. Will wants to help people more often than he wants to hurt them (The conversation with Bedelia about crushing or saving a wounded bird is a perfect example of this. So are his needs to save dogs and Abigail.) The thing about Will is that he desired to be good. He worked for the FBI, saved many lives, because he understands pain and suffering like no other. He doesn’t wish such horrid things upon innocent people. 

During the show, Will's morality is completely tied to Hannibal, so much that Hannibal himself and the stag even serve as metaphors for his corruption, while at the same time, his morality has nothing to do with Hannibal. Will always had dark urges. He always knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, with the things he wanted and was capable of doing. Perhaps that’s why he joined the police and later the FBI. He suppressed the worst of him by focusing on the best of himself. By forcing himself to save people through a job, he couldn’t afford to misbehave and do things he knew were wrong. Will’s fantasies, dreams and understanding of killers throughout the show make it very clear that he struggled with his own morality, even before Hannibal.

Then came, of course, Hannibal. Who fueled those urges and gave them attention. Who didn’t create them, but cared for them. Allowed them to sprout and grow until Will got entangled in such a web of situations and feelings that he couldn’t suppress them anymore. Hannibal forced Will to deal with who he really is, he broke Will’s shield. His costume, the same way Will did with Hannibal’s person suit. Hannibal is a ‘bad’ influence on Will because he brings out what’s always been inside him, but was repressed for years because Will was aware that society would label him a monster or a freak if he acted on those feelings. Will felt alone and alienated his entire life, of course he tried everything to not fall into a complete pit of loneliness and darkness. 

That was until Hannibal came into his life and Will realised that there was someone who understood him, who loved him for who he really was, even (especially) his ‘darker’ side. Someone who was like him. Who understood how he felt and didn’t see him as an immoral person because of it. Will spent his whole life understanding others, but Hannibal was the first person to actually understand him in return. 

Hannibal thinks Will’s ‘worst’ side is the most beautiful version of him. Will himself is torn between what Hannibal (the one person who understands and cares for him) and society (his upbringing, religion, anyone he ever met, norms and values) think of him. He doesn’t know what to believe. He knows he’s a bad person, he doesn’t try to make himself believe he isn’t. As I said, Will still has a moral compass, he’s self conscious about the things he does.

However, there is a great possibility that Hannibal changed Will’s perception of himself. That he made Will see that there’s no need to think of himself as a bad person. Just as a person. A human with urges and desires. Who can decide for themselves whether their actions are good or bad. Law is far beneath them at this point. In the end, Will and Hannibal navigate their own morality through their perceptions of their own actions. They both have a dislike for labels. Good and bad, moral and immoral, those are all labels society has forced upon humanity. Cruelty and kindness are not. Will knows very well when he’s cruel and when he’s kind.

So my conclusion is, yes, Will Graham is stereotypically a self-conscious yet immoral person. At the ending of the series after everything has happened, at least. 

But, I think that, just like Will himself, it’s up to you to decide whether he’s truly good or bad. Some people have other reasons to believe someone is one of the two than others. Some believe that if a person can love, or if they feel guilt or know what they’re doing, they aren’t a bad person. Others don’t. I think that’s entirely up to you to decide. It’s just what you like to believe, because believe me, to Will the line is just as blurry as it is to us. He is as unpredictable to Hannibal as he is for the audience. Will is a mystery of a character, certainly when it comes to his morality. And I think that that is exactly what makes him so fascinating.

[violettathepiratequeen]

How could the Shanshu Prophecy NOT have been about Spike in Chosen?

The Prophecy states that a vampire with a soul would play a pivotal role in the apocalypse, and would be rewarded with becoming human when that happened. This was introduced in S1 of AtS, where it was also explicitely stated that the vampire in question isn't named, just that it's one with a soul. And since Angel was unique in that way, naturally it's assumed that he's the one they're referring to (but then why not name him if he was the only one it could apply to hmmm?) Wolfram and Hart took the extra step of research to learn that it was unclear whether the vampire would play a pivotal role on the side of good, or the side of evil, so they tried their darndest to get Angel on the side of evil through all five seasons.

But, hello? Angel has had a soul for a hundred and something years. And he's been through an apocalypse or two, first with Buffy, then on his own show. What's he been doing all this time? Which apocalypse are we talking about here? Lindsey claims the apocalypse has been going on all around them in Season 5, but the Buffyverse has always had clearly marked events signalling the end of the world that had to be prevented. The world being a mess is NOT an apocalypse in and of itself.

And then another vampire gets himself a soul, that could only have been forseen in prophecy, because he decided on his own to go and fight for it. After getting said soul, the First Evil immediately latched onto Spike and started grooming him, manipulating him, and brainwashing him into killing people. Random bystanders at first, probably testing to see if it could work on Buffy and her friends.

So Spike could very well have been on the side of evil in S7, if he didn't work so hard to resist the First's influence, if he didn't ask Buffy to help him, if he didn't break through his trigger. Or hell, even if he'd left town.

And then Angel is handed a mystical amulet and some info meant to help with whatever is going on in Sunnydale. He hands it over to Buffy and offers to be the champion in question, but she says no, and chooses Spike instead.

I'm not gonna get into the whole Spuffy side of this, haha, but S7 was about Buffy choosing Spike, every single time, in every aspect of her life, in love, and in battle. And this universe did originate with her, so she ought to be the one to determine this, within the confines of the show, anyway.

Spike takes it willingly, they both know he's probably going to die, Buffy does try to get him out of there when she sees he IS dying, and he stays, giving his life so that she and everyone else can live. His soul powers the amulet, his love sets their hands aflame, and his heroic act bathes him in sunlight before he's destroyed.

In the battle against THE FIRST EVIL. If I was gonna pick which apocalypse the Shanshu was talking about, I would choose one that had a villain called THAT. Plus it's Spike's first apocalypse with a soul, so that would also make sense that it's the one the Prophecy is referring to. No resting on his laurels for THIS vampire.

Except, instead, he dies and shows up on Angel's show disoriented and alone and without Buffy and with a complete 180 personality, battling with Angel on who the Prophecy is about, and you'll notice the show never does answer that question. Because Spike objectively makes the most sense. But it's not like they could make Angel play second fiddle ON HIS OWN SHOW.

No, what they should have done, is let the finale of Buffy cross over with Angel properly. Not just a cameo, but bring the whole Angel crew in, so that anyone watching the show would be forced to watch that specific episode of Buffy just to keep up with the story.

And Spike should have Shanshued. And Angel would have been disappointed, sure, but hey, he's BEEN human before. And he didn't like it. He even got a ring that made him impervious to harm. And he didn't like it. He loved Cordy more deeply (and more recently) than he ever loved Buffy. So it's not like he's really waiting for her anymore. Plus Cordy is part demon now, so Angel doesn't have to worry about not being enough for her. (Oh yeah, they should have brought Cordy out of her coma for this ending, to make any kind of cohesive sense).

But Spike... Spike was always more human to begin with. He may not have ever thought becoming human was on his bucket list, but he didn't think that about a soul either, until the time came where he needed it. He would LOVE to take Buffy out in the sun, and grow old with her, and give her the family and white picket fence that she's always secretly wanted and didn't think she could ever have. He would have still died, the same way soulless Spike died the minute he got a soul, but without all the heartbreak the canon ending gave us.

I'm partial to the stories where the Shanshu means some vamp powers like extra strength and healing remain, but those are just semantics.

As a cherry on top it would prove to anyone who's ever called it into question, and I include Buffy and Spike themselves on this list, that it's not that Buffy wants normal, nor is it that she wants a demon. She loves Spike for who he is, demon or not, human or not, but the soul and humanity would have helped him be the best version of himself, a man worthy of loving her and living with her, and after all the battles they've fought in their relationship to get here, it feels like it would have been kind of a sign that someone out there gives their blessing on this pairing. And Buffy could have said she loved him and chosen him AGAIN, in front of everyone, including Angel, and that would have been our endgame ending. (Though... to be honest if the comics still happened after this and Spuffy broke up at any point I would have been betrayed in a whole different way.)

And that's how BtVS could have ended. Angel could have gone on to have another season more or less the same, without any Spike or Buffy or Shanshu to speak of. And it could have ended EXACTLY the same.

The writing was literally so perfect and set it up for Spike so beautifully and unexpectedly. It wouldn't have even had to be a slap in the face for Angel because a. neither show was afraid of disrespecting a character at any point, and b. if it had been done on Buffy's show, it would have been less of a blow and made more sense, that Angel went back to BtVS to watch this unfold, where he wasn't the main character anyway. The Prophecy introduced on his show was really intended to be in service to hers, as any spinoff show ought to be.

Plus the episode title Chosen is such a beautiful one that has so many double and triple and quadruple meanings that one more would have been awesome.

So yeah. Those are my thoughts on the Shanshu this fine evening. Obviously many, many Spuffy fics (including my own) have given it to Spike or Angel or neither, all with their own reasons. And of course there's lots and lots of opinions on whether we would even want that for Spike, or if Spike and Buffy would want it.

But I think it just needed to be spelled out that from a writing standpoint, this would have made the most sense, and why.

[sorcerersandskillusers]

Fyodor and the Devil: Analysis of Fyodor's motives and role in the narrative

Asagiri has stated that he based Fyodor not on Dostoyevsky the author but on a specific scene from one of his books The Brothers Karamazov where Ivan Karamazov confronts “the devil” in his room.

(It's a really good book, you should read it if you have time. Also. fun fact, Fyodor and the devil wear the same hat, “His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season.”)

Having read the book and gone over this scene, I realized that this could be used to find out a lot more about Fyodor as a character than we see in the story, including a potential glimpse at his real motivations.

A bit of context for the scene. Ivan Kramazov is a clever but deeply trouble man who has struggling with the concept of God and rationalising him with the cruelty of humanity, at one point while very sick, Ivan starts seeing a man in his room who claims to be “the devil”. Their conversation is a fascinating look at morality and why evil exists in the world, and if you look at it closely it reveals a lot about the role of a “villain” in a story.

This line from “the devil” is really interesting to me, and seems to explain a lot about Fyodor’s character, as well as align perfectly with how Asagiri has described Fyodor in interviews:

Before time was, by some decree which I could never make out, I

was predestined 'to deny' and yet I am genuinely good-hearted and not at all inclined to negation.

'No, you must go and deny, without denial there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of criticism?' 

Without criticism it would be nothing but one 'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't  create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible.

Basically the devil is saying that he was created because without evil then good means nothing, if everything was perfect then nothing would happen or change, life couldn’t exist, so he was forced to be that evil even though he never wanted to be.

This is so similar to how Fyodor is described in the BSD exposition 2020:

Fyodor is the antagonist, he is the villain of the story, that is the role he plays. This explains why he chooses to commit so many atrocities in the name of  “following God's plan”. It even connects to his line in The Dead Apple, and his ability name. He is both crime and punishment, as “crime” or sin originates with the devil, but it's also the devil who punishes sinners.

(I mean the title of the episode he is introduced in is literally “My Ill Deeds Are the Work of God” by committing evil acts he is fulfilling God's purpose for him.)

And if Fyodor is really based on “the devil” it's very likely he also either does or used to wish for release from this role that was assigned to him, but he knows that he cannot stray from his path or the story will cease to exist. My evidence for Fyodor wanting to be free of his mission is just one interaction, when he kills Karma.

Look at Fyodor's expression here, this is the only time in the entire series where we see him look truly sad. This isn't an act, there is no one there for him to trick, he simply says a quiet prayer for the life of a boy who's only purpose was to suffer and die.

This next part of “the devils” speech actually seems to fit very well for Dazai, it's interesting since he is the narrative foil to Fyodor and clearly is a very similar character.

We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask for annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you.

If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to.

For all their indisputable intelligence,men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. 

This ties perfectly into Dazai and Fyodor’s debate on the nature of God in the sky casino arc.

Dazai here points out that it's not perfection and harmony that make the world move, it's the irrational, it's the foolishness and stupidity of humans who charges into life making a million mistakes but always finding ways to fight on through it. Here Dazai and Fyodor represent the conflicting sides of “the devil” with Fyodor embodying his mission to drive the world and Dazai embodying his secret love for, and wish to join, humanity.

“I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay withyou from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. Yousee, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become superstitious. Please don't laugh, that's just what I like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I've grown fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it?

And I go and steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in simple-hearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings.”

“"Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto."*

* I am Satan, and deem nothing human alien to me.”

This piece from the devil feels like it could be a description of Dazai’s character, his wish above all else to find happiness and love as a human despite believing he is a demon. Both Dazai and Fyodor have strong ties to the Devil, both of them are often described as demonic or inhuman, with emphasis placed on the darkness of their souls and the isolation they feel due to their minds.

But the difference between them is how they dealt with it, Fyodor chose to embrace it and fully commit to his role in the story as the ultimate evil for the greater good, but Dazai has always shown a fasciation with humans and has spent his life trying to connect to them and find meaning in his existence.

Finally, let's look at what we can learn about Fyodor’s motivation. Fyodor is the villain, he is the final obstacle the protagonist has to overcome, he is the driving force behind so much of Atsushi’s life and the reason so much of the series has played out at all. He sent Shibusawa to torture Atsushi as a child, he was an informant to the guild who put the bounty on Atsushi making the mafia turn on him, he was involved in the guild invasion, and obviously he was the master mind behind cannibalism and Decay of Angles.

If he is aware of his position as the antagonist, then he also is probably aware Atsushi is the protagonist, he knew he was the “envy of all ability users” after all, so he knows Atsushi has some significance to the world as a whole.

Atsushi is also the “guide to the book” which is seemingly Fyodor’s end goal, so even though Fyodor doesn’t seem to be focused on Atsushi, he has been indirectly influencing his whole journey up to this point. This also explains why Fyodor is only moving actively now, because the protagonist has appeared and his role as the villain can finally be fulfilled and he, like “the devil” can finally get the “annihilation” he asked for. Hence, Fyodor’s true goal is to erase himself from the narrative.

There is actually quite a lot of evidence for this. The obvious part is that Fyodor wants to rid the world of ability users while he himself is an ability user, he cannot exist in his perfect world. 

Then there’s the fact that in the Dead Apple, Fyodor calls himself “crime” if Fyodor is “crime” or “sin” then a world free of sin would not contain him at all

Even when Fyodor talks about sin, he says how humans are easily manipulated into killing each other, while he constantly manipulates characters into killing each other, he is the cause of the sin he fights.

A really strong bit of evidence is this interview with Asagiri and Harukawa

Not only does Asagiri reiterate Fyodors role as the person who moves the story, Harukawa specifically mentions that Fyodor might be trying to create a world without ability users because he thought it was a “bad thing to do” aka the action a villain would take that would lead to a hero stopping them.

“Dos-san is the biggest villain in the story so far, but I have continued to draw him with spaced out eyes that are neither righteous nor evil for a long time. The only time I drew his eyes completely white was when he said he would create a world without skill users. It was because, in reality, we would decide what is evil or not by our own scales, but I wasn't sure if he himself was doing it because he thought that was a bad thing to do.”

This also connects to how Fyodor was able to understand Gogol when no one else could, Gogol is chooses to fight against the way the world is to prove to himself that he truly is free. Fyodor, who is bound to play a part in a narrative, would understand that feeling and that longing to be truly free.

To be clear, I don’t think that Fyodor is really a good person whose just been trapped in an awful position against his will, we see many times that Fyodor revels in his cruelty and enjoys killing and torturing others. Its the same with “the devil” in the book, although he hates the job he was given, he tells Ivan stories of the people he’s corrupted and seems very proud of himself for it.

My personal interpretation is that the sadistic zelot personality Fyodor displays is a mixture of a mask and a coping mechanism, kind of similar to Yosano developing a sadistic side to help her deal with the guilt of half killing people in order to heal them. I think it makes sense that after centuries of cruelty and manipulation a person would become detached and stop really caring about the lives he destroys.

This analysis is partially unfinshed but I wanted to post it now and see what other people think of it.

[sapphiresaphics]

I wanna talk about this moment from Blue Eye Samurai.

For those who don’t know what the show is about, Blue Eye Samurai follows the story of a half-Japanese half-White woman named Mizu who disguises herself as a male samurai and travels across Edo-period Japan in the late 1800’s to fulfill his quest for revenge.

The show deals a lot with the ways in which men and women’s rights were very different during this time period. Travel, for example, was heavily restricted and women were not allowed to travel at all without a male escort and travel pass.

Gender is also an important role in the show. Mizu is a woman, but she lives her life exclusively as a man, even going so far as to use male pronouns. And while this disguise affords him many privileges, it’s also made clear that deep down he wishes he could present as a woman and have womanly desires. Mizu (which means water in Japanese) bounces between the gender roles and struggles to find his/her place in the world’s expectations.

Which is why this little 10 second scene at the beginning of Episode 4 is interesting to me.

While looking for an inn in a town, Mizu and his apprentice Ringo are passed by these traveling flute players wearing straw baskets on their heads.

Mizu stops one of them and gives them money, bows, and moves on.

It lasts barely 10 seconds and I think for most people this is just a little bit of flavor to make the world seem populated and alive.

But knowing Japanese history this takes on a separate interesting meaning regarding Mizu’s gender identity.

These flute playing basket wearing travelers are the Komusō. Wandering non-monastic Buddhists.

They wore woven basket like hats that covered their faces. The idea being that wearing such a hat removed their ego. It also afforded them anonymity and concealed their identities.

The Komusō of this specific time period were almost exclusively Ronin and Samurai making pilgrimages to spiritual sites and temples. As such, this afforded them a lot of rights by the Shogunate government such as free travel through cities.

So this 10 second scene of Mizu paying their respects to the traveling Komusō takes on an interesting dimension, doesn’t it?

Mizu is a woman and a woman is not allowed to travel without a male escort of some kind, if at all. Disguised as a male Samurai Mizu is afforded a lot of privileges he would not have as a woman. But these traveling monks, who likely also are Samurai, are allowed to travel freely too. But only at the cost of their entire identity being concealed.

I find the fact that the creators took the time to learn about these monks and use them as a way to comment (however briefly in the scene) on Mizu’s struggles with identity. Mizu paying respect and giving the Komusō money is a way the show acknowledges how aware Mizu is of his identity.

And I just think that’s really neat!

[ybklix]

𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐀

★ pairing: chris bahng & lee minho x popstar!femreader

✦𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Prima donna: someone who demands to be treated in a special way and is difficult to please.

The sweet and perverse play of a life hidden behind an acclaimed character created by someone.

Minho Lee, a frustrated young writer working in one of the most important music magazines, is about to find out what’s really going on behind the scenes of the mysterious girl everyone is wondering about.

With small steps in your career, you are discovered by a famous producer under the pseudonym CB97, whose vision of work is very specific and quite peculiar… yet you succeed in becoming a rising star, who manages to spark the public's curiosity. Hiding little secrets under the image of a mysterious internet girl with an angelic voice and face.

Once Minho is challenged to come up with a really good story to keep his job, he finds your unusual videos on the internet, wondering if he could have a chance to meet you… only to find himself with no way out, immerse in a dark world, hidden and full of beauty and desire.

♡ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 - 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut, angst, daddy kink, soft bdsm, sex toys, sextape, est. relationship, cheating, threesomes, mention of sex workers, sugar daddy, dom!chan, toxic relationship, reader is slightly a nymphomaniac (current warnings appearing in each chapter).

♡⋆˙ FIC MASTERLIST

❀ inspired by the early career of poppy, the singer and her “weird” yt videos back in 2016, electra heart by marina and the diamonds and almost famous film.

main masterlist

current warnings: daddy kink, pet names, suggestive smut.

word count: 860

♡ PROLOGUE ♡

“Perfect, beautiful, but I feel you can do better, let’s do it again just one more time” your boyfriend said in a soft tone, focused on all his recording equipment watching once more your video, you nodded determined and quickly arranged your two pigtails back on your shoulders, “In three... two...”

You went back to your role and acted according to the script previously studied to perfection written by your boyfriend. It wasn’t rocket science, your videos were never longer than three minutes, and this was one of those that came out in one continuous take, but Chris, your boyfriend, was a total perfectionist freak.

Once you heard him say “Cut,” you felt yourself breathe again and were a little tired of the bright set lighting hitting your face.

“This is the good one, babygirl, you did excellent, I just edit it and it’s done” he said, cheering you on and still focused on his computer.

You approached him, this time he was so focused on the result of the video that he didn’t go straight to you to pamper you which seemed strange to you, like something empty, you missed his affection and compliments every time you did something well, or every time you did your job well and didn't complicate it for him too much.

You admired him, his handsome side profile, you sighed, you were dying to call him by his name, but he didn’t like when you called him that at all, according to him, it was like a lack of affection towards him.

“Daddy” you tried to catch his attention, stretching his clothes a little but he was still engrossed watching every detail of your recorded video, “Daddy” you called him again in a more needy tone.

“What’s wrong little one?” he replied without paying attention to you, deftly moving his long fingers on his computer.

“Did I do it right?” you asked.

“Of course you did, babygirl, I’m almost about to post it...”

“Then why don’t you show me how much you like it?” you whined, knowing full well that tone made every part of his body tremble.

He finally turned to look at you, your expression with a slight pout, your eyes bright, it was obvious you wanted sex to which Chris smirked as he couldn’t believe you were insatiable, you had a huge sexual appetite, you could last hours and hours, round after round until he left your body completely tired, until you cried and begged for no more. But you couldn’t help it, he had made you that way, he created you, from your dyed hair, to your feet with your socks and shoes on that he chose and dressed you in them. You were all his.

For a year now, you had this kind of relationship that was a little abnormal, but you were turned on by every part of it. It was a routine you kept, but besides the sex your favorite part was making music with your boyfriend, being able to share creative ideas, and ending up completely fascinated with the great work he did with your voice.

“That’s what you want, huh, babygirl?” Chris raised his eyebrows, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth watching you with desire, making your pussy throb under his penetrating gaze, “Wasn’t the good morning daddy gave you enough for you?”

You shook energetically, your heart racing at the thought of being touched again by him, igniting in you an inner flame that could only be extinguished by reaching your so intense orgasm that your daddy always makes sure you reach.

“I want more, daddy please, don’t I deserve a reward?”

“Mmm, the video wasn’t that hard to act...” he commented teasing you a little.

“Daddy, pleaseee” you begged, you were so wet that if he refused to touch you, you’d go to your room to lock in and give yourself an orgasm, without caring about breaking one of his rules, either way a very painful but sizzling hot punishment awaited you every time you broke one of them.

“Okay, come here” Chris turned from his chair, putting his body in front of you.

You moved closer, almost in a jump of happiness, wrapping your arms around his neck, Chris wrapped his arms around your body, squeezing it and dropping his heavy strong arms in you.

“What does my princess want?” he asked, close to your lips, brushing his big nose against yours.

“I don’t know, daddy, you decide...”

Chris moved one of his hands down to your wet center, starting to stroke your clit, making you gasp and moan.

“You’re so wet... You want daddy to play with you, don’t you?”

You bit your lip, aroused, every muscle in your pussy throbbing, so needy at his slightest touch. You loved him, you worship him.

You didn’t believe that anything or anyone could break such a bond between you. He knew absolutely everything about you, or at least you were so blinded as to believe so. But trying to figure him out was a constant game that sometimes you had to lose. And gosh, you really fucking hate to lose.

[eddiegettingshot]

now im curious, as someone who ships them what are things you think they'd need to overcome?

so i don't have anything that i think for sure they'll have to deal with because i simply do not know what is happening. but i can think of some potential stories + facets of Them that could be the underlying cause of strife in their dynamic. this is so long sorry in advance

classic workplace relationship stuff. like ok they practically have to do secret relationship hijinks which is Funny. however maybe they're keeping it a secret to avoid one of them having to transfer (as much as i love fujo bobby). alternatively maybe fujo bobby lets them stay together but after they get together their easy acceptance of the risks they take doesn't feel so easy anymore. i actually think it would be CRAZYYYY good if they turned the classic assumption on its head and it's BUCK who's anxious about things happening to eddie (given their history and the way buck has responded in the past this makes sense 2 me but whatever the specifics don't matter). omg maybe one of them passes on some kind of promotion or opportunity without talking about it because whatever bathena is made of buddie is the same idk. maybe their relationship just gets in the way of them doing their job somehow in ways i cannot currently envision.

obviouslyyyyy chris is something they'll have to think about. and parenting in general. theoretically chris could respond badly to them dating but that would be lame. i'm way more interested in seeing them try to navigate defining buck's role in chris's life and having inevitable problems rise out of that despite all three of them feeling positively about the change. buck has been a father figure for most of chris's life but he does not actually parent him. chris's abandonment issues are tied pretty specifically to shannon leaving him and his dad ... how do buck and eddie get through buck and CHRIS having actual issues for the first time possibly ever??? is buck even confident about taking on the actual parent role? is eddie actually ready for his family dynamic (which has been him and chris against the world for like, a decade) to change in a formal way? it's easy when they're best friends but that's because eddie doesn't see them as a real family unit, which comes with certain obligations and expectations. he's not thinking about those right now but he tends to struggle a lot and over-correct when he does have to take them into account and i don't think buck would know what to do with that, especially given his. ummm. insecurities.

kind of in the same vein but like they will have to think about the future. at some point. i get the sense that neither of them have thought about what they want (ACTUALLY want) their lives to look like in a concrete way beyond just "i am happy and loved and not dead and chris is happy" for a myriad of reasons. kind of in the same vein as above—do they want more kids? me personally i am enamored by the idea that. well eddie loves being a father. buck loves children but he has never thought of himself as a father or gotten close to being one. i would LOVEEEE to see him grapple with anxiety over this now that he's with someone he might actually have kids with. marriage? eddie has a lot of hangups around his being a bad husband. this is actually the thing he was worried about when shannon told him she was pregnant—he didn't know if he could be a good husband. is that something he's dealt with? buck knows eddie's baggage around this is complicated and he's also very aware of his own impulsive history. this show is basically fanfiction so i can see them wondering in turn if their relationship is going at the Correct Pace and hitting the Correct Milestones but not like. talking about it. careers? with the caveat that this is tv so they play fast and loose with policy. if they want to keep working together they may need to forego promotion. alternatively what if one of them gets a job offer elsewhere (that they obviously won't take because neither of them will ever leave LA) ... are they willing to make that move? etc. etc.

their families may have opinions. about their relationship. which hasn't been an issue thus far for either of them but well they are soulmates so the evil buckleys and evil diazes have the potential to cause problems in some way. (pretty much all the other couples have had in-law issues or non-issues at some point soooooo).

in general, both buck and eddie let their own wants take the backseat and are not particularly forthcoming communicators (although they're better about it with each other than they are in their actual relationships and i imagine they will continue to be way better about it). buck tends to be a passive people-pleasing partner, and eddie is far more decisive and willing to steer a relationship—it's just that he doesn't tend to operate off of his actual desires, just his fabricated internal compass. i think it would be interesting if they bumped up against each other in this way somehow because being together has caused a blind spot to develop where they used to be able to read and evaluate each other with a lot of clarity BUT because it's Them and they know each other they can actually work through it... whatever it is... and GROW. i just think that given that these tendencies are pretty much what led to the failure of all their other relationships it would be good to address them and show. that they are not only soulmates but working to build something that lasts.

[kawaii-queen-kaiju]

Lies

Maribat March - Prompt 10

~

"He gave me a diamond the size of my fist! You can't tell anyone though; the paparazzi would be all over us." Lila loudly proclaimed from across the cafeteria. Marinette scoffed, throwing a disgusted sneer over her shoulder at the Italian. This was the fifth celebrity engagement story. She wondered just how she got unfortunate enough to be surrounded by these idiots. She could kill everyone in this room in two minutes flat, and yet, she had to restrain herself for the sake of the mission. Keep playing the role of meek little 'Mari', keep pretending she wasn't one of the most skilled assassins in the world. Stupid Hawkmoth. Because of some random ass dude, she was stuck among these sheeple.

She quickly left the cafeteria, exiting the school and heading to the bakery. She greeted Sabine - a member of the Order of the Miraculous and one of her old handlers - and climbed the stairs to her room. Just a little longer. She was so close to finding the man who had enough audacity to steal from the Order. And Hawkmoth, him too.

Her phone rang, startling her out of her inner monologue. It was Damian, her betrothed. She happily answered, the smile on her face genuine for once. 'Habibti. How was your day?' He asked, an odd whirring echoing in the background. 'Have you stabbed the harlot yet?'

She rolled her eyes, the smile on her face persisting. "It was fine. And no, I have not stabbed Lila, as much as I may want to. It's annoying, but it's helping my cover. She keeps the idiots from following me around, and it makes easier to search Paris for the lousy fake-Guardian and whatever asshat he let take the Butterfly." 

'And you're still sure you would not like me to join you and help?'

She sighed, the conversation a common one since she was sent to Paris. "I've got this, Dami. Besides, you wouldn't last five minutes here. I love you, but you are very temperamental."

He squawked angrily, and she could picture the offended look on his face, his jade green eyes crinkling adorably. 'I am not temperamental! You seem to be forgetting just how many of our trainers you sent to the infirmary.'

She rolled her eyes. "They were misogynistic pricks, and you know it."

'I was not arguing that they weren't, Habibti, merely stating that you extensively hurt each of them. In fact, I am quite glad for what you did. Had you not, Mother never would have seen fit to have us betrothed.'

Marinette smiled happily at the memory, standing in the middle of the large al-Ghul throne room in ceremonial garb, opposite Damian in matching robes. "Yeah." She glanced at the clock on the wall and cursed. "Sorry, Dami. I need to head back. Call you back later?"

'Of course. I love you, Habibti.' He answered curtly, though she could tell he was peeved at being cut off. "I love you too."

She came back to excited whispers throughout the classroom, and a huddle around Lila's desk. Marinette rolled her eyes, heading towards her own desk at the back of the room. Except...

She was stopped in her tracks by one whispered word. 'Damian'. There were plenty of Damians in the world, and several rich ones Lila could be claiming she's engaged to; but what if? Marinette continued up the stairs, but kept an ear on the conversation at the front.

'Wayne'.

Marinette clenched her teeth. They were talking about Damian. Her Damian. She'd seen articles and heard rumors before, right after Damian's debut as a billionaire's son, but something about hearing her beloved's name come from that liar's mouth made her see green. She was fuming, trying to force away the murderous haze. She was chosen for this mission specifically because of the ease it took to banish the Pit's influence from her mind, and she was not going to let Lila of all people ruin it for her. 

At the front of the room, the door slammed open. Marinette's mind screeched to a halt, because standing there in all of his glory was Damian. She shot to her feet and raced down the stairs before she registered what she was doing. He was here, right in front of her! She flung her arms around him, squeezing tight.

"Hello, Habibti." He whispered in her ear, squeezing her back. "What are you doing here?" She asked, pulling back to look at him. "Father found something. Camera footage of the akumas, and an identity, over a hundred and twenty years old. They're going after them now." He said, a happy gleam in his eye despite the lack of emotion on his face. Marinette grinned widely. Her mission is over! She can go back to Nanda Parbat - or Gotham!

"Marinette, what's going on?"

She turned around abruptly, remembering their audience. "Who is this?" Alya was front and center, glaring at her accusingly. Marinette's mind was whirling, trying to find an in-character way to answer. Except they found them. The false Guardian and the Butterfly. She didn't have to keep up her cover anymore. She grinned, her true smile, not the meek thing she'd developed the past few months.

She watched as Lila's little lapdog recoiled, enjoying the effect she finally got to have on her classmates. Marinette stalked forward, easily falling back into her natural gait. The walk of a predator. "I'm happy to announce that I'm done! I don't have to sit here and pretend anymore! You're all horribly stupid, and it was definitely not a pleasure to have known you." She let her smile widen to that terrifying degree that always made her targets believe she was inhuman. She never dissuaded those thoughts, instead encouraging them. "And you, Lila Rossi. You are a lying sociopath, and to be honest, I can respect that! But you chose to put my beloved's name in your mouth, and you've made me mad. Unfortunately for you, that is an unpleasant situation to be in."

"M-Marinette?" Alya tripped backwards on the steps, falling on her butt. She was ignored. Marinette's focus was on Lila, the repulsive girl who dared to soil her beloved's name with her tongue. To her credit, Lila was managing to hold eye contact with Marinette, even if it was in paralysis. "Tell me," Marinette slammed her hands on the lying girl's desk. "Do you do any research before you decide to spread rumors?" 

Lila was pale and shaking, her mouth a thin line. She didn't answer. "You do, don't you? You recognize my beloved, and you realize your house of lies is toppling around you." Marinette ended with a whisper, her face inches from the Italian's.

The room was silent, everyone's focus on the scene before them. On the way Marinette's personality did a complete one-eighty and froze everyone in their spots. Well, everyone except for the boy. He was staring at Marinette in adoration, hands clasped behind him as he watched his betrothed tear into her hemorrhoid of the last several months. His phone buzzed in his pocket, the only sound in the room. "Habibti. It's done."

Marinette whirled around, her sunshine smile back. "Then why are we still here?" She linked arms with the boy and left the room in stunned silence.

(The LoA and The Order are the same organization under different names)

[hanafubukki]

Kingsroad: The Sword for the Crown

We assume that The Knight of Dawn was forgotten by history because we haven't heard about him until recently in Book 7: Part 5. But, what if that is not the case? What if his story was passed down orally? What if Princess Leah lived and that's how his story was told?

And it was right in front of us all along? Specifically in Rook's Endless Halloween card, as can be seen below.

I talked to Mumble, @irafuwas, about this and isn't the lyrics rather interesting and very reminiscent of the Knight of Dawn?

King of a Land, Knights that he led were capable, fact that Lilia is singing and telling this story to Malleus. The parallels with Lilia, who's also in history books. (Altered as we know now, in this case, it might apply to KOD as well since we don't know much about him yet.)

Rook never mentions his name, but as we don't know the King's name, we also do not know the Knight of Dawn's (please tell us soon twst devs). This song symbolizes the Knight of Dawn from his hardships to his contributions to his kingdom.

On a further note, look at the lyrics. Those lyrics can apply to the KOD but they can also apply to Silver.

Hear me out. There is a sword in RSA. What if that is the KOD sword? And the one who pulls it out is Silver?

There are many connections of the lyrics with Silver: he's KOD's son, Silver has the sword symbolism, and the title also is "Kingroad: The Sword for the Crown," It can have two meanings here. Silver, who is the prince of a fallen kingdom, but he's also The King's Sword. The Sword of the Crown (Malleus' Sword).

Additionally, Silver has fought in land, the dream squad has been traveling by air In the dream world and I wouldn't be surprised if we fight Malleus in the air if we have a fight with his dragon form. We might even fight in water in Octa dream chapter thus fulfilling the lyrics in this musical. (As if it is a prophecy, as if it was foretold, who else do we know that can "see" the future? 👀)

Let's also think about Silver as a character. The current struggle can be considered a King's road, trying to bring back Malleus to his senses. Also, Silver as the Sword for the Crown, does this not also remind you of Silver's determination? His embrace and renewed dedication to Malleus and Lilia. He wants to be a knight and he's more determined than ever to bring a smile back to Malleus' and Lilia's faces.

Now let's talk about Princess Leah and her role. It was never confirmed she died, but that she ran away when the castle was being invaded.

What if Princess Leah lived and helped founded the RSA and helped pass on the memories of her kingdom. After all, we don't know much about the curriculum of RSA nor do we know who they look up too. With the Inter-School SpellDrive possibly being in Book 8? We might just get some of the answers we seek.

Moreover, RSA seems to be a newer school especially since General Vanrouge never mentioned RSA. He mentioned NRC but not RSA. Knowing General Vanrouge? Who made fun of NRC's capabilities? Would he not have also made fun of RSA if it existed back then?

According to Book 5, Ambrose mentions that if they win the inter-school tournament in May, it would be their 100th victory. So the school is at least 100 years old.

This tournament is also in May, and do you know who else's birthday is in May? Silver's, the one who this musical has such great ties with. It also brings into thought, Silver was recently found and woken up, he's 17. What we know now from Lilia's dream world, the treaty with the humans was signed around the time Silver was found. All of this has some interesting timing. 👀

(maybe it took so long because of the treaty negotiations, because it takes time to found a school and their dorms, maybe Ambrose's ancestors plays a role since we saw those animals in part 5 of Book 7, but you have to admit; the timing is all suspicious, especially considering that the dark mirror has been picking students since only a hundred years ago. 👀)

If I extrapolate even more, we saw RSA students using wands like how the “Fairy Godmother” does. If the Fairy Godmother is an actual fae and a diurnal one at that, would that not be another connection?

We know KOD was blessed by a diurnal fae and we saw Silver was put to sleep by them too. Wouldn’t it be interesting if RSA was somehow connected to diurnal faes? Especially given the fact that Silver took part in the Fairy Gala If Event with said type of faes? An event where he wishes for all races to live in harmony?

This card is also interesting because we have Rook, Idia, and Malleus in it. Characters we have seen recently in Book 7 part 8. Who are talking about kings, knights, and history. Topics that have been emphasized in both gameplay lessons and in Book 7.

Geographically, Briar Valley is considered "North" in the twst world map. The king in the musical ruled a small northern country. Meleanor's castle could also apply here could it not? After it was taken over?

Recently, we have also seen an emphasis on music and dance and its importance. Giving us more clues to focus on this tidbit of lore. Importances in cards such as Ace's Endless Halloween Card, this Rook card, Malleus' Glorious Masquerade, Silver's Platinum Bday. (Events and characters who might/have play a important role in the future)

History being passed down orally usually has some ties with music and dance. Even now, in modern times, such methods are used. With the musical being one of the three greatest in the twst world? It will never be forgotten, so the Knight of Dawn will never be forgotten and will always be loved.

I can't wait until more lore is revealed. I feel many of our questions can be answered when we find out more about RSA, especially in terms of the Knight of Dawn and Princess Leah. I always find it amazing how cards and events from the past still gives us main story hints even now and how intricately laid out the entire twst lore is. It always has me in awe. 😊💞🥰

Translations and Credit to @/mysteryshoptls

[artificervaldi]

If Louis is Lucifer, then Satan is...?

[NOTE: this post will contain spoilers for Metaphor: ReFantazio as well as various SMT games and I guess Dante's Inferno if you care about spoilers for that]

So, it's not a secret Louis Guiabern (AKA Louis Charadrius. AKA Louis C.) is very clearly based heavily on Lucifer, specifically SMT's version of Lucifer. Of course he has Satan elements, though these are mostly Dante's Inferno cues rather than SMT's version of Satan.

While Metaphor is meant to be it's own thing/a third pillar for Atlus there's no denying the SMT DNA present in the main antagonist. From his boss forms' titles matching races in SMT (Archdemon we'll get into in a moment, Destroyer being 破壊神 or Hakaishin matching the light-chaos race of Fury), to his very ideal of the world matching the Chaos alignment well.

But within SMT2, Atlus proposed Satan as a sort of opposite to Lucifer, a Law aligned being to the Chaos shown before. So does Metaphor have any character that matches up to that Satan? The Angel of Judgment and Servant of YHVH?

To figure that out, I want to touch on a few things about Louis, specifically the Archdemon and Destroyer forms we see him in in the game's final boss fight.

It's pretty obvious that there's a lot of Kaneko-cifer in the DNA of the design of Archdemon Louis Charadrius, albeit with eight wings rather than six (though a few times SMT and its spinoffs have shown Lucifer with more than six wings)!

Interestingly, Dante's Inferno contained 9 circles with Satan at the center. There are 9 tribes including the elda and he is at the center of his wings. Given the wings represent the other tribes and notably skip 4 to make it 9, this shows Dante is at play even here with regards to his design.

See below for reference.

1) Anger - Clemar 2) Pride - Nidia 3) Deceit - Roussainte 4 skipped 5) Greed - Mustari 6) Fear - Ishika 7) Gluttony - Paripus 8) Lust - Rhoag 9) Sloth - Eugief

One final thing to touch on with this form is the title of Archdemon. In JP it is 大魔王 or "Dai Maou." This is also used by Atlus in SMT as a race title, but unlike Destroyer/Fury, this one is specific to a certain someone...

Specifically, Lucifer, though in Nocturne and Vengeance it was translated as "Devil." Do pay attention, this will be on the quiz.

Now, Destroyer Charadrius.

We know his design is based heavily on the Lucifer/Satan of Dante's Inferno. His first form and the way it eats the puppets calling to Satan chewing on those Dante considered the worst sinners especially comes to mind.

Honestly speaking, the second form to me is a bit of that SMT-influenced Lucifer coming through. Once again doing their own spin on various mythologies.

Notably, by the by, is that Satan in the Inferno is frozen from the waist down. This is even mimicked, somewhat, by Louis's lower-half in this form being the Charadrius itself.

But this isn't the first time a frozen devil has been featured in an Atlus game. It's actually been used in story at least twice for Lucifer and is otherwise often reflected in his moveset.

(Worth noting in both of the above cases, he does eventually canonically have to get out of the ice at some point. You don't have to release him in NINE, but given he's around in 2 he definitely gets out at some point.)

As for gameplay he often has ice skills (along with others, though the tendency towards ice is very notable) or, in the case of Raidou 2, they're a good thing to use AGAINST him in battle.

As we move into talking about SMT Satan here... It's notable that he usually is associated with fire, but P5R and Soul Hackers 2 specifically pivot him to a more ice-based skillset.

...Interestingly enough, Louis has a small association with fire. Strohl even says that he believes Louis is still stuck in "that night of flames," leading him to the choices he made in the end.

Now back to Satan. Compared to Lucifer his story roles in mainline SMT are farther and fewer between. So while Lucifer we can pull from more games than not, Satan-wise the only one I feel is really comparable to is the one from Shin Megami Tensei 2. Namely because of the human element of Satan.

Zayin is a temple knight and one of the artificial humans made by the Archangels in their madness from TFW no YHVH. He is, in fact, an aspect of Satan and the one meant to judge all life in His name. He starts the game loyal to the center, the theocratic nation you live in, but thanks to the protagonist begins to question and fight for what he believes is right.

This ranges from starting a revolution among the lower classes to attempting to fight the elders (leading to his own frozen/petrified moment -- albeit one more meant to be an homage to Star Wars than anything).

Hell, if you take the Law Route he ends up turning on his very creator and judging him as he judges all other life. But at his core, Zayin is a good man who sees the value in "weaker" life but also value in being able to stand against leaders who do not have your best interests in mind.

Also worth noting as part of the Satan equation, however, is Seth. The demonic half of the angel.

A dragon that sleeps but spells destruction for many/all when he awakens and finds his other half... Surely that's not gonna come into play here later (it is, keep an eye out).

So, who from Metaphor would make a decent fit for Satan, keeping Zayin's arc in mind? First thought might be, say... Gideaux.

Warrior Monk fits Temple Knight fairly well and he does have a (let's be honest, rushed) arc about realizing the corruption around his religion and trying to do right by it.

But he's just... Not a good fit. He's willing to do some of those corrupt things (remember, he's the one who suggested pillaging the relics of the mustari!) and only comes to realize the mistakes when Rella broadcasts them to the world.

Not to mention he's too passive. Yes, he turns a new leaf, but he doesn't lead a charge. Doesn't judge if someone is fit for their role in the world, doesn't rally the people behind a common goal, doesn't even have a connection to Louis outside of a pissing match with Glodell!

...You know, Zayin at one point broadcasts to all of Tokyo Millennium about the corruption. He rallies the people behind a common cause, behind the protagonist.

Doesn't something similar happen in Metaphor?

That's right, I'm presenting the following candidate for the Satan of Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Rella Cygnus herself is the character I want to present as in fact a perfect stand-in for Zayin/Satan. She hits so many of the marks too perfectly not for me to present her as my choice here.

A devoted member of the theocracy's faith of choice? Check. Aware of the horrors behind it at some point and working to better it? Check. Battle against the protagonist and then rally the people behind them when they prove worthy? Check. Willing to die for what they see as right? Check.

Hell, she even has a related dragon with an S-starting name! (And remember, this is the only dragon ever fought alongside a person in their right mind. The rest are on their own or with a Human!)

Does this mean Rella had more planned for her that got cut? Probably. Does this mean she could get thawed out if we get a sequel and we get another proper Law Antagonist? If Hashino loves me, yes.

And uh. It's not very big but. You know how Louis has a few Satan-like traits here and there? You know how Rella's darkest magic presents as thorny vines? Just thought this line from Lucifer in the Freedom ending of SMT3 was interesting.

Anyway, yeah. Rella gets hit with the Satan beam agenda. Thank you for your time.

[kradogsrats]

Okay, so: I have a theory.

Aaravos doesn't know everything. (That's not the theory.) If he knew in exact detail how everything would play out, that would undermine the story's overall central theme that the world (destiny) can be changed. Most of his actual advantage is millennia of observing mortal behavior—he's very, very good at predicting how elves and humans will react when put in situations. He can also, however, be surprised.

Now, that isn't to say he doesn't definitely have some degree of cosmic foresight/timeblindness. (That's also not the theory.) However, even the Cosmic Council in its entirety doesn't seem to necessarily see things in detail, since they obviously see "humans gaining primal magic starts the spiral into chaos" but not "because you then execute a child, prompting her father to personally oversee that spiral." So when Aaravos says things like this:

I don't think he necessarily knows exactly what role Claudia will play, besides that she is important—even necessary—to his plan. It would be chef's kiss irony if what he's actually seeing is that she will become important to him, personally. (That is also not the theory. I'm getting there.)

Despite his general foresight Aaravos can be surprised, and he's specifically surprised by Rayla making a second attempt at killing Viren despite being disarmed, sacrificing herself to stop him. So: did he know Viren was going to die, just not at that moment? Did he prepare a multi-year Worm Plan specifically to resurrect Viren? Or was there another purpose he had in mind?

This isn't the theory, either, but: I do think the plan from the beginning was for The Worm to, uh... pupate(?) into Sir Sparklepuff, and then to lead Viren (and Claudia) to the other archdragons and the clues to Aaravos's prison (or at least the one clue they actually need). The Worm begins to grow aggressively right as/after Aaravos and Viren corrupt the Sunforge, like it's preparing for an imminent new stage. I suspect that after hatching and once in proximity to the prison, Aaravos had every intent to use Sir Sparklepuff in some way to re-manifest in the world. After all, he's tied by blood to Aaravos just as much as he is to Viren—if he can be used to "restore [Viren's] life and future," there's no reason he can't serve the same purpose for Aaravos.

Of course, that all gets derailed, and instead we wind up where we wind up, which is with Aaravos being surprised:

He's surprised enough that, if it isn't in itself responsible for his hold on Avizandum weakening enough to be broken, he's at least distracted enough to be ambushed and physically overpowered. Someone has asked the "what's Sir Sparklepuff's unfinished business?" question, but I don't think that's actually what's at play, here.

Because this, finally, is my theory: Aaravos is surprised because this creature, this little homunculus puppet made a living battery, isn't supposed to have a soul.

He shouldn't be there at all—in the In-Between, or anywhere else. The essence put into him when the chrysalis was opened gives him a rudimentary consciousness, but if there was even enough there to persist, it should have been consumed to finalize Viren's resurrection. Aaravos is looking at something that should be impossible, and yet here it is.

Which makes me wonder... I had kind of dismissed the fairly extreme difference between the symbol for infantis sanguine in Aaravos's book and what is shown after the fact:

Like, that's a lot to draw in the sand. Maybe what's in the book is actually a more functional diagram or instructions of some kind, and Claudia has drawn the actual functional part?

However, because the rune Claudia has drawn is the same as the one on the cursed coins, I have to question. The assumption, I think, has been that Aaravos instructed Claudia in the infantis sanguine ritual to save Viren. I took that for granted because a) it makes sense, and b) it's funny to imagine Claudia's unhinged little "Blood of Child" giggle in s6e1 as "unfortunately for both of us, I do know you fucked the sparkly elf." However, depending on how quickly Callum and the others depart for Katolis, Aaravos is potentially moving away fairly quickly—maybe not so quickly that he can't contact Claudia and give her the ritual before being cut off, but still.

We also know Claudia knows about the cursed coins, including a good grasp of what they entail:

It's not clear if she understands it in the way Lujanne explains, with the coins containing only a piece of the soul and the rest being trapped elsewhere, in the In-Between:

Aaravos may have given her a different ritual (maybe infantis sanguine itself can only be self-targeted) that works more like that. Maybe, if Sir Sparklepuff had enough of a soul, only part of it was enough to anchor/revitalize Viren (essentially "stored" in him as the coin) and the rest went to languish in the In-Between.

Anyway, if Sir Sparklepuff is not meant to have a soul, but does... that raises some interesting possibilities, both thematically (depersonalization/what is a monster) and narratively. What if Sir Sparklepuff needs his soul completed to pass on, like Rayla's parents? Could he be after a piece of Aaravos's? Or, what if Sir Sparklepuff didn't have enough of a soul, but what he had entered the In-Between rather than being consumed because it was actually a piece of Claudia's that broke off to save Viren?

idek man this is just the shit I think about like constantly

[beautifulqueerexistence]

I remember standing in the bathroom of my Church’s Youth Group meeting at fifteen, hands pushing back my chest to try and imagine an alternative world where it didn’t fill out.

I remember telling my girlfriend at the time how I wanted a reduction, how my back pain was getting worse… but specifically leaving out the fact that my chest felt foreign and detached.

I remember my mom obsessively commenting on my long hair, never letting a day go by where I wasn’t reminded of how beautiful and healthy it was… how my long hair was a gift.

I remember the panic in middle gym class when the group was separated between boys and girls, my heart torn between the two before I even had the words or courage to understand why.

I remember cutting my hair, how many taunts and comments were made. “Such a shame,” I’d be told over and over from girls who envied the length I had freed myself from.

I remember watching the only openly out transgender kid having to walk half a mile across campus to change in the nurse’s office for gym class, only getting to participate in gym for ten minutes before he was forced to walk back to change in time for his next class. I remember how horribly he was treated by my peers, who called it his “walk of shame,” and promising myself that I’d never let myself be put in that position.

But most of all, I remember looking in the mirror after several weeks of isolating quarantine. The sting of my church’s rejection still fresh and the abandonment I felt from God. I remember begging to be fixed, to have this suffocating, confusing feeling torn out of the body that was supposed to be mine. I remember tracing over every little arbitrary gender rule, tearing through my closet of leggings, dresses, and skirts, unable to find a single article of clothing that actually felt like mine. I remember the bittersweet feeling of finishing a theatrical production, saying goodbye to the character I was expected to embody, and feeling that same nostalgia for the girl in the mirror before me. I remember suffocating out any piece of me that didn’t suit her role, the expectations people had for her, and feeling as though her very existence contrasted my ability to live. I remember how my life wasn’t my own, rather countless strings pulling me to dance and dress and act the part they all expected me to play. I remember the night I realized that stage was supposed to be mine.

I’ve been on testosterone for two years, and I get top surgery in 5 days. Though I remember the sacrifices I made for her character to thrive, I no longer find myself grieving who she could have been. Instead, I see a clear stage, ready for whatever set I build, whatever story I wish to portray. For the first time in a long time, the mirror in front of me no longer shows the girl I gave up 18 years for… but the person they were always meant to grow into. Though I now face my own version of the walk to the nurse’s office, I see now that his choice was one of bravery, not shame. He represented a courage I had not yet found, and planted a seed in me that knew all of this was arbitrary and pointless. Because he had chosen himself to be visible, I would eventually go on to set my weights down and join his stride. I don’t know where he is now, and I don’t know what lays in his walk… but I’m forever grateful he was bold enough to show himself for people like me.

[deadbeat-motel]

ᕼᑌᔕK ᗩᑎᗪ ᑎIᖴᖴTY ᖇEᗪEᔕIGᑎ

Deadbeat father with his baby-leashed daughter.

I believe these are the last of the designs that will try to follow the original design as best as it can because looking at my sketches right now, Alastor, Cherri Bomb, and Pentious (and Crymini) goes a different direction than their counterparts.

You know how this works, thoughts below:

My issues with their Original designs:

Niffty:

Man, I only have two things to critique about this one since she's also a solid design:

What is the purpose of the scarf? It comes out of nowhere for the design, what is the connection/purpose of having it? Genuinely asking since it does bother me a bit.

She barely is a bug, there is no feature in the design that gives us any idea that she might be a bug (Or even an alien since apparently Cyclops are just a normal sinner type in this hell). Looking at the Wiki, I think the only reason for the alien aspect is that it came from a song? Either way, she doesn't showcase any of either in her design.

Husk:

GOD THE WINGS. DEAR GOD THE WINGS. IT'S SO UGLY AND CLUTTERED AND THE PATTERNS BARELY MAKE ANY SENSE. It's so awful ewwww. Every scene that didn't have them closed looked extremely rushed and ugly. It could've benefitted from just copying how actual feathered wing patterns naturally are.

His eyebrows are not a problem for me (It's my favourite part of him) but the unnecessary two black stripes are.

He's probably supposed to be a tuxedo cat, but he legitamately looks like the cat in the hat with his entire face being white.

The thought process for these two:

Niffty:

Personally was not into the whole Cyclops thing, especially when there are no hellborns (that I can recall at least) in Helluva Boss that posess a singular eye. She's got 2 eyes now because.... reasons.

The mismatched eyes was my solution to removing the Cyclops sinners of this world. Plus it's a neat little character detail that her insecurity of some kind of eye defect manifests as this odd eye shape.

Her hair is a bit neater because as much as I enjoyed how her original hair looks, It's kind of silly to think a person who's obsessed with cleanliness would have such an unkempt haircut? (Specifically talking about that scene kid-esque bangs she has.)

While I kept the maid aspect with her clothes, I made it a lot more flowery so that it reads more like a child's outfit mimicing a maid's.

I gave her one fucked up antennae since in the rewrite ill be doing, she's very easily lost and thus became homeless, drifting to any place that would allow her to stay for a little while long until they kick her out.

Bug wings and the spurs on her arms and legs are just to sell the bug aspect a bit more.

Hopefully, it was clear enough. But her arms are made of two arms conjoined together to create a singular arm.

Admittedly, I did not choose a specific bug for Niffty. Insects are not something I'm interested in and I got lazy with this aspect.

Husk:

MADE HIM A LOT FATTER AHAHAHAHHA. Husk feels like he could've ended up as a bara if Vivzie's twinkif-y ray didn't hit him.

Specific fluff areas as well as a red mustache make him look older and do more to make you understand he's much more aged than the rest of the cast.

Genuinely enjoyed the hair that they gave Husk in his flashback, it looked handsome on him. Why Vivzie didn't put that in his actual redesign is beyond me, but here it is on him now

Since his wings barely play any role in the story, I shrunk it and de-cluttered the poor thing.

The red suspenders are there to simply put a pop of color on his already muted colors.

Despite the running joke that Vivzie's characters all have a bowtie, kept it on Husk since I think it would be cute that he probably keeps it on because Niffty made it herself for him.

This is just personal, but I wanted to give him an actual cat's pattern because I saw Husk from the headcanon voices video and thought that he was a sloth for some reason.

[quillpenartistz]

・❥・ Headcanon time ・❥・

╰┈➤ Here’s only a few headcanons I’ve made throughout my whole ego phase [my life basically]. Some that I have are already pretty popular amongst the community, so that must mean I’m doing something right!!!

.·:*¨༺╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗༻¨*:·.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

・❥・ Wilford Headcanons

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

•⌇⌦ Can shift fragments of reality intentionally and unintentionally [he can’t necessarily manipulate all of reality itself. But he is aware of his existence and its purpose - he knows he is a character meant to play in a story and he simply goes along with it, all while manipulating and shifting the story in some ways.] His reality shifting power is similar to Wanda’s [marvel] reality manipulating powers in a way, though watered down. He can sneeze confetti, take out balloons out of thin air, spawn bubbles in his hands, teleport, and defy the laws of physics.

•⌇⌦ With his reality shifting abilities, he can turn into AU [alternate universe] versions of himself. Maybe there’s a universe where he’s a cartoon? Chibi? Horror eldritch creature? He can turn into those versions of himself in the physical world whenever he wants! The laws of those universes will then apply to the world he is in [such as onomatopoeia words appearing in physical text midair.]

•⌇⌦ He is easily distracted and can never sit still. He always tries to actively distract himself from the darker parts of his mind.

•⌇⌦ His body ‘desaturates’ similar to pinkie pie from my little pony whenever he is in a ‘dull mood’ or when someone drives him to the point of being sad.

•⌇⌦ He loves stickers a lot, he can never stop collecting them. Mischievously, he also likes to splash glitter onto anything he deems necessary [to torture people to clean it up, but he claims that it’s just to ‘liven things up’ a bit.]

•⌇⌦ Too much creamer in coffee kind of guy [“Can I have coffee with my vanilla creamer please?”]

•⌇⌦ Constantly eats and smells like fruit candies.

╰───────────

.·:*¨༺╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗༻¨*:·.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

・❥・ Dark Headcanons

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

•⌇⌦ More monster than human. [Yes, Dark is all the mansion, Celine, and Damien in one walking corpse. However, overtime, as Damien fell into the role of the villain, he may have embraced it a bit much. He still cares about his sister very dearly… so much so that he made sure she’s in a permanent sleep. Celine, even in her sleep, knows about this, and parts of herself influences Damien - thus influencing Dark as a whole. He is completely merciless, sadistic, manipulative, and couldn’t care less about the consequences of his actions as long as it benefits himself and his plan. Besides, he is immensely powerful, so if he is met with his consequences, he simply destroys them.

•⌇⌦ He is also very aware he is nothing more than a character, but, he knows he’s much more than this. Because he knows he’s a character, you often see him staring at the fourth wall but never necessarily addressing it [unlike Wilford.]

•⌇⌦ Can read minds and telepathically speak to people, conceal his presence, move through shadows, mimic voices, shift shadows and blend into them, and can turn himself into a Raven. Ravens hold a lot of symbolism, but for Dark specifically, The Raven means ‘Death, bad omen, bringer of chaos, transformation & metamorphosis, and the duality of existence’. He often stalks, observes, and travels within this form of himself.

•⌇⌦ Camera’s, no matter what kind, CANNOT pick up him as a whole. Whenever a picture is taken, a video, or anything of that sort is taken of him, he will always appear as a sporadic blur of blue, red, and black. He can never be caught on any footage.

•⌇⌦ Whenever he is present in a room, depending on his mood, the ringing sound that emits from him can completely shatter ANY kind of surface. Glass, wood, stone, etc. His surroundings also turn a bit desaturated/monotone whenever he’s around.

•⌇⌦ EXTREMELY tall, eerily tall, to the point it is very obviously inhuman.

•⌇⌦ Can take form of people’s fears and/or desires [used for manipulation tactics.]

•⌇⌦ Loves being praised for any reason. In fact, he could get distracted by it… likely because he’s slightly egotistical.

•⌇⌦ His body, to the touch, is always ice cold. Just being around him gives off cold chills and makes rooms colder.

•⌇⌦ Neck twitches constantly.

•⌇⌦ He’s highly patient.

•⌇⌦ Smells like smoke and old candles.

•⌇⌦ He is constantly tired, yet he never sleeps.

•⌇⌦ He can be referred to as Damien only by Wilford as he knows it’s a comfort for Wilford rather than anything else.

•⌇⌦ Dark wisps, like smoke, often emits from his hair and leaves a feint trail wherever he walks.

╰───────────

.·:*¨༺╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗༻¨*:·.

・❥・ Bonus Short-Story ・❥・

.·:*¨༺╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗༻¨*:·.

A fuchsia haired man sat on a weathered wooden bench, the crisp autumn air swirling around him, carrying with it the scent of fallen leaves and the hint of change. The trees stood tall and dark, their skeletal branches reaching out like gnarled fingers against the dark sky. Beneath the rolling clouds of black was a light shower of cold rain, paired with occasional deep bellows of thunder. Wilford, unbothered by the weather, wore a bright yellow coat that bore a striking contrast to the muted colors of the dark day, yet he felt oddly muted himself, as if the world around him had absorbed all the vibrancy he once possessed just moments ago. He stared at the trees, his curled mustache twitching as he was lost in thought. The shadows cast by the branches danced around him, triggering a flood of memories that flickered in his mind like fading autumn light. This time of year always made him contemplative how everything seemed to prepare for a long slumber, how decay and beauty coexisted in a delicate balance. Just as a gust of wind dragged him out of his thoughts and rippled up his spine, a dark figure swooped down from the sky. It landed gracefully next to him, perching on the back of the bench; its form a sleek raven whose feathers shimmered black as the void. The raven’s eyes glowed with an otherworldly stygian energy, deep pools of darkness that could drag anything into them.

Wilford turned to the raven, raising an eyebrow. “Well, aren’t you a striking little creature?” he quipped, a grin tugging at his lips. “What brings you to my little corner of the world? Here to steal my bread?” The raven tilted its head, regarding him with an unsettling calm, remaining silent but observant. Fragments of its being would fall out of place and come back together, as if reality itself fought against the creatures existence. Wilford leaned back against the bench, hearing it creak from his weight while his expression shifted. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the roles we play, the expectations we uphold… it’s exhausting.” He glanced at the raven, as if seeking validation. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m still just a part of the show. One of the many characters in this unending, chaotic play. Am I the hero, the jester, or maybe even the villain? It’s hard to tell when the lines blur! As if I would use any scripted lines… but you know what I mean.” The raven hopped a bit closer, its gaze cold. Wilford felt a familiar chill run through him from the stare. “And then there’s the bigger picture. All those choices we make, the paths we tread. Are they truly ours? Or are we really just puppets on strings, guided by forces beyond our understanding? It’s like we’re all just fragments of a larger story, one even I can never understand, lost in a labyrinth of our own making.”

The raven remained silent, but its intensity seemed to deepen, as if it understood. Wilford sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I guess what I’m really trying to say is… I’m not sure where I fit into all of this. Sometimes I want to scream, to break free from agonizing expectation. But then I think—what if in doing so, I lose everything that makes me… me? Do I even have the power to break this? If I do, what would happen?” He would ask, hoping for an answer. With a rustle of feathers, the raven leaned in slightly, almost as if offering comfort. “You will never know until you try, William. Every great discovery begins with a leap of faith.” The raven spoke without its beak moving an inch. The raven studied the man in the yellow coat for a moment longer, and then, with a powerful flap, it took to the air, soaring high above the trees. As it ascended, Wilford felt an odd sense of clarity settle over him. He smiled softly to himself, the weight of the world feeling a little lighter as he returned his gaze to the autumn trees. In the depths of uncertainty, there was hope. A chance to steer his path towards an unforeseeable future. And it was all only a leap of faith away.

.·:*¨༺╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗༻¨*:·.

・❥Thank you for reading! If you wish to see more, request some ideas. What are you curious about the most?❥・

[zeravmeta]

The Value of Rules, The Heart, The Soul, and The End of the World

So as we're entering the final arc of the series i wanna make my own theory on how things will shake out, specifically one question:

What is the Heart?

The final artifact that Luna put in place capable of harming Sol, the Heart is the third Sacred Spirit Treasure alongside Rebellion and Aegis which was never found in any of the past loops and something Fuuko theorizes only drops in the 101st loop.

But now in the final battle, it's still nowhere to be seen. We've seen the other two Sacred Spirit Treasures, but despite being weapons that Luna herself made that are capable of slaying Sol, we've also seen throughout the manga that the game was HEAVILY rigged against humanity with their actual effectiveness in Loop 100 showing them to be kind of weak compared to Sol himself. Loop 101 Union maybe has two of the three already, and yet despite the promise of the Heart dropping through quests, we have long skipped past that opportunity, so now we need to determine how the Heart will come into play.

So, here's what I think: I think the Heart is Apocalypse, or rather the completed form of Apocalypse.

(books are heart shaped lol)

Since I started reading, Apocalypse has always had this weird role in the story to me: It's an Artifact placed by God to add more UMAs and help along the end of the world, but it specifically gives quests for the Negators to complete and gain more advantages for when Ragnarok comes. Moreover, they make sure to specify that Apocalypse is an Artifact instead of an UMA, even though it seems to act so much like the latter. There's even the joke in one of the end pages of Clothy and Apocalypse fighting like small dogs held back by their owners, and one of the only other Artifacts we see with sentience is Rebellion, one of the Sacred Spirit Treasures.

So what's the deal here? If Apocalypse is the Heart, how is it that it was never discovered, how is it that it's never been "properly" activated? What's the true purpose of the Heart? How will it slay Sol?

Well, the true purpose of the Heart is meant to show the value of the rules, not as enemies of humanity but as companions to them.

As much as they deny it, Apocalypse does care about Juiz personally. Even though it's the instrument of humanity's destruction, Apocalypse aligned with Victor's motives in letting Juiz die so that she can reincarnate and have a peaceful, happy life away from this war with god. He's even infuriated with Fuuko for trying to get Juiz in Loop 101 because he doesn't want her to be involved in this anymore. You can't spend 455.4 billion years alongside someone without caring about them at least on some level, and ironically both Victor and Apocalypse shared this mentality in never realizing just how much they cared until she was finally gone. Apocalypse, one of God's instruments to make humanity suffer, is capable of displaying compassion for them.

But that's not the full story. The Heart as a name is also to note, and I think maybe we can look at this manga's tendencies to play around with language as a base. In Japanese, "Heart" is usually said phonetically as "Kokoro" / written as "心" and tends to just mean "heart", but it actually has multiple meanings depending on the context used, specifically mind and spirit.

One's spirit. One's soul.

I think that Soul plays a part in the Heart artifact, not only due to the power he grants humanity but also that of the UMA, as well as his weird parallels with Apocalypse: Soul is the only known UMA made by Luna, whereas Apocalypse is the only known Artifact placed by Sol. Soul is the only UMA shown to be capable of directly controlling Apocalypse, and has been capable of warping it to his needs. Soul is the rule which gathers information and memories from the past and transfers them to the living, and Apocalypse is the book which stores the information of the past loops, the past lives of the world. Juiz in the very beginning of the series even says that "God resides on the other side of Apocalypse", where we know that the Superior 10 Rules are housed inside of the Sun itself.

And critically, one of the goals of the wager between Sol and Luna is to see if humanity is capable of reaching the Gods. Soul and Apocalypse both provide the potential for that above all others.

So, I believe the Heart artifact comes from combining the two, combining Soul and Apocalypse. And how would this theoretical combination come about?

Well, I think Soul is going to be the true final antagonist of Undead Unluck, slaying both Sol and Luna to usher in his own validated world, one that is also free from the whim of the gods and lets the UMA live freely.

A critical point to note is that the UMA, despite the pride many of them take in their purpose in tormenting humanity, are just as much victims of this game between gods as humanity is. They are concepts given form and made specifically to torment humanity for the goal of "finding the greatest life", but we see that this mentality is still a choice in and of itself. UMA have distinct developed personalities and can clash, as seen with Seal and Spoil when they interact with other UMA.

Clothy, Spring, Blood, Shadow, Move, UMA have also showcased that they can peacefully interact and coexist with humans, even care about and love them. If anything, from how Seal talks, the main point of contention UMA seem to have with humans and Negators is that humanity is somehow seen as "worthier" than they are to garner so much personal attention from the gods. Most UMA seem to mainly just be interested in expressing their rule's function over anything, and humanity just happens to be the target they're pointed at to put those rules into action. Seal himself even has the aspirations to be the "King of UMA" just because he feels like he's special for the scraps of attention that Sol gives him. The parallels with Ruin are Not subtle whatsoever in this department, especially as Ruin's abusive parent is depicted as just a black void that burned him (how sunshine burns his skin), eerily similar to the way Sol appears as an avatar.

If humans are dolls that the gods play with, then the UMA might as well just be the stage which the gods use, a mere backdrop item for the Negators to break as necessary for their development.

Negators being "vessels" for these rules has also always stuck out to me, because we see that the UMA and the corresponding Negator can be two separate beings; they're not really possessed in the conventional sense. Fuuko even points out during the Beast fight at Beast's mention of "UnBeast" that there are far fewer Negators than UMA and their rules, further pointing to a discrepancy in the advantages given to each side. It may seem like it's the UMA who are winning, but it's actually humanity; Ragnarok necessitates Sol himself to come down and destroy the planet, meaning that the UMA themselves aren't actually capable of defeating humanity. Juiz alone was able to hold off the Superior 10 Master Rules by her own ability, and it was only to hide her trump card, no less.

To add to this, when I thought of what vessel could mean, what immediately came to mind was not only how the souls of previous Negators are carried over to each new one, but how Rebellion could possess Victor.

Perhaps Soul will have Apocalypse possess him (or vice versa), and this will create the Heart artifact? It should be capable of slaying Sol as Luna said, but it's just as likely that Soul could point this weapon at her too, and given that Luna's domain is in the spiritual as stated by Language, if anyone would know how to exploit her weaknesses, it would undoubtedly be Soul.

Apocalypse being the Heart would also work with Undead Unluck's meta-narrative aspects as well: From Me, To You was a manga which prophesied the events which would take place in both a narrative (Anno Un) and meta-narrative (shoujo manga romance that Udul uses for inspiration) sense, much like how Apocalypse is a book which prophesies the end of the world. Perhaps it prophesies Ragnarok, the physical literal end of the world at Sol's hand, but it could also prophesy the end of the manga itself by way of slaying its final antagonists.

And this would all be Soul's ambition to free them from the gods. At this point, we don't fully know what Soul's feelings on humanity are, given that he does hold them in high esteem while also being willing to exterminate them, but perhaps he would care more about saving the UMA from the gods instead of further tormenting humanity.

A goal that Fuuko Izumo would agree with because it will free both of them from this endless blood feud.

Mutual understanding. A Heart.

The Negator powers which cause tragedy and invalidate the rules will disappear, the UMA as avatars to make humans suffer will disappear, but all the rules which the UMA embody will apply in a completely validated world, not made by either of the gods, but by both humans and the rules themselves.

I think Undead Unluck will end not with the Negators or UMA winning one over the other in the conventional sense, but coexisting and ending the gods as a collective.

Soul's ideal world. The character who understands even more than Sol or Luna the power of both Humanity and the Rules. The power of the Soul, the Heart.

small tinfoil hat subsection but tangentially related to this I also think Ruin's comeback as a good guy (lets be real its gonna happen) will come from him gathering the UMA as a force to work with the Negators against the gods because he refers to all the UMA as his friends, and I think an interesting comeback here will actually be UMA Galaxy.

Fuuko's strength as a character lies in her acceptance and understanding of others, even the people she dislikes. It's why Andy himself says that Unluck is "the world's cruelest ability within the world's kindest person" because it specifically targets the people she loves the most, leaving her alone. The imagery of the round table Ark (Apo on it makes it look like a sundial lol) compared to Luna's own table on the moon is intentional: Luna (and perhaps even Sol) have a profoundly lonely existence. They've set themselves up in this wager where they torment everyone for a potentially unreachable goal. Luna created Soul but she doesn't understand humans the same way she doesn't understand rules, and the UMA who have souls as well are also something she does not see the value in. Neither Sol or Luna understand anyone nor have anyone who understands them, and it's Fuuko's Unluck, which necessitates understanding, which CAN reach them.

UMA Galaxy itself was the Master Rule added after Loop 100, as well as being the first proper UMA we see in the series AS WELL as being the UMA most tied to Sol and Luna in general by concept alone (outside of Soul), so I think it'll be interesting if maybe UMA Galaxy comes back as a critical supportive ally to stop both Sol and Luna from destroying the Earth/ending humanity or UMAkind, and that the way the UMA help in stopping the gods is by using their rules in tandem with the Negators against the gods, especially UMA Galaxy using their literal cosmic scale to let Earth escape the gods grasps. All in gratitude for the one Negator who dreamed of them existing in a validated world.