Something something living with your mistakes Something something period of adjustment

WHY ARE YOU SO EVIL!!! /POS. ATTACKING YOU.

Xemnas and Xigbar for 37 if that number hasn't been done? If it has, how about 74?

no puedo pedirle lo eterno a un simple mortal // ay, todo lo que he hecho por ti.

[ID: a mostly black and white drawing with a purple overlay of xigbar and xemnas shown from the hip up on the left side of the image. the background is black and has some diagonal lines with a bit of transparency on the right side. the shadows are harsh, with only a bit of light falling on their faces.

they stand before each other turned to the audience. xigbar, holds the handle and the middle of No Name before him, head tilted down as he looks to the audience. xemnas stands a full head taller behind xigbar, his left hand held some distance below the bladed tip of No Name, his left eye is covered by his fringe.

xemnas visible eye is painted ochre with a white pupil, while xigbar's eye is white and gold. The eyes on no name's handle and the gazing eye on the blade are a vibrant cyan. the caption reads the spanish lyrics "i can't ask a simple mortal for a forever" and "oh, everything i've done for you." /End ID.]

close-up under keep reading.

do you have any thoughts on luna and harry as a potential couple post-canon? i was reading your post on harry/ginny and i really loved your perspective on it, especially when you said your vision for harry post war was basically just lots and lots of big dogs (i LOVE that mental image and i agree it would be SO good for him!!) but i was wondering if you'd consider luna and harry to be a good match for each other? personally i have a sort of soft spot for the pairing because of how fond harry is of her in canon, and i think if anyone was going to understand and be unfazed by all the difficult trauma responses and long healing process he's going to be dealing with for years after the war, luna seems like a good fit :)

My love for Harry as a character is kind of unusual to me, considering I go pearl-diving for ships when I read things, and I fall in love with dynamics as a conduit to falling in love with characters. That said, I don't really ship him with anybody. I just genuinely adore That Weird Little Dude. Same with Ron; I'm just as pleased to see them with a range of people, because (A) I believe they're good partners and can have great relationships with many people (Ron Weasley get behind me they could never make me hate you Ron Weasley), but also (B) I don't see either of their canon relationships as Definitive. Some characters I ship together because I sincerely believe they are (non-deterministic) soulmates, in that they bring out parts of each other that make them the freshest, happiest, most interesting versions of themselves. With other characters, I'll look at a couple and go: "Huh. Could work!" and smack my giant rubber [APPROVED] stamp on it, then get back to work on my blorbos.

Luna and Harry are one of those couples for me. As I mentioned in that other post, I think Harry's primary requirement in a partner is someone who can treat him normally, i.e. will be generally chill about the Became Wizard Jesus Twice situation. Which is a big ask. Luna is uniquely capable of doing that because Luna is not normal at all, and so treats all things, extraordinary and ordinary both, as uniformly dazzling and delightful. I believe this is why Harry enjoys her so much in their friendship, because he gets to feel valued and treasured without feeling unusual or othered — a hard line to toe, and one even Ron and Hermione occasionally trip up on. He seems to like hanging out with her a great deal, and I think it says something sweet that he asks her to the Slug Club party instead of any of the girls in Gryffindor from his year, whom he'd ostensibly know better.

Luna is a bit of a cipher to me, I admit. We know she's the daughter of an eccentric and probably traumatized single father, raised without a mother; deeply lonely, because of how she's been ostracized for her beliefs and hobbies, and the victim of some degree of bullying for it; and yet full of a passionate, almost effortless wonder and joie de vivre. She's also intensely loving (cf. painting her friends' faces on her bedroom ceiling) and very hard to embarrass. She likes Harry for understandable reasons; they share most of those qualities (Harry's more sensitive to others' opinions, understandably so), and the only point where they diverge is their actual hobbies and interests. Harry seems pretty fond of her nonsense, and I bet she could sell him on crumple-horned snorkacks given some time — maybe if Hermione took a vacation to Switzerland and left them alone together.

In general, what I find sweet about the idea of these two is they're so chill. These are two people whose chief ambition is to hang out, enjoy their hobbies, and see some cool magical shit. Date night is so fucking easy for these two. Plus, Harry is a hothead a lot of the time, and Luna just... vibes. Literally never bothered. Insane levels of not fussed at all times. Very helpful for Harry, who has a bad tendency to bottle up his feelings and then blow up at the first person to sneeze at him. Conversely, I'd hope that Harry would age into the kind of genial, confident dude who would be able to rock up with a function where people were talking shit about Luna and be like :) My wife? You mean my wise and beautiful wife? Surely you are not talking about my wise and beautiful wife. :) instead of doing what he'd do from age 15-17, which is get mad and stomp around sulking. Which, again: teenager. Orphan. Non-stop trauma gauntlet from age 2-18. Excuses are made. But still. Would think it best if Luna's husband were not perhaps so keenly sensitive to gossip, for Luna's sake.

Anyway, these are just some dissembled thoughts. There's also something in there about Harry, boy under the staircase, falling in love with the magical world and ending up the Most Magical person, i.e., the person who took believing in magic to such an extreme that she imagines magic that doesn't exist yet. And Luna ends up with the one person who's inarguably stranger than she is.

Now that I’ve seen your tree post, I have to ask:

Assuming you at least know your tree species better than I do, which trees would you assign to which characters?

(No one in particular—just the ones that come to mind.)

That post has resolidified two universal constants of this blog.

One: everything is canon.

And two: you all think there are way more thoughts going on in my head than there really are.

I confess that I haven’t actually considered what trees would belong to what character/alt modes. This is much more of an aesthetic au grown from my love of Irish folklore and nature in general.

But, now that a few of you have asked what trees I would assign, I'm thinking about it

Right off the bat I think I would make Optimus a weeping willow, for no reason other than I think it's very poetic and I've always pictured a willow tree as a very protective, sheltering tree that hides secrets. And I also think that Optimus is a little bit of a sorrow-felt character (read: a lot. a lot of sorrow actually).

Megatron immediately feels like he'd be some sort of choking vine. Ivy, perhaps. Because while I did say trees in the original post I'm not going to limit myself to it. And frankly, trees aren't even a real thing. They're just a word/category we've assigned to tall, wooded plants. Palm trees, for example, are more closely related to grass than like,, an oak tree or pine tree lol.

I like the idea of all the medics being different types of medicinal plants. Cedar, birch, or oak would be a good fit.

This isn't a character per se (though more and more it feels like one to me) but I like the idea of the allspark/matrix being the mycelium network. The idea of a parasitic mushroom colony giving Optimus commanding thoughts and wicked nightmares is really compelling, and you know I'm already a sucker for the parasitic matrix head canons.

not kubrick's lolita having a scene of him reading poe to her

Important question, do more of the RE8 villagers survive in this version?

Yes, very much yes. I can't, at this time, guarantee any specific characters other than Elena (definitely) and Luiza (probably), and an undetermined number of unnamed villagers, but I definitely plan for some of the villagers to survive.

While the total wipe-out of the Village in RE8 is a lot more believable than other "total wipes" like Raccoon City or the Pueblo in RE4, as it seems significantly smaller than both RC or the Pueblo, and has a more intelligent breed of bioweapon under specific instruction to exterminate the Village, Resident Evil has a weird and kind of uncomfortable history with complete massacres over its long history that I'm always inclined to push against. It's lazy, uninteresting writing to me when it's a trope recycled so frequently... especially given it's very clearly mostly used to provide clean narrative "closure" between each game by eliminating any other survivors other than the main protagonists (and Wesker lol). Like... RE4, for example, functions as a contained narrative because the Pueblo dies at its end. Its function is over in the continued story of "Resident Evil"... it only matters going forth in the context of Leon, Ashley, and Ada as characters. But as a writer, I'm much more intrigued by a version of that story that involves other survivors. What would it mean to live through something like that, not as the hero outsider protagonist, but as a civilian? How do you even recover? Who would you be after?

The weight of the horror of the complete destruction of a place that's isolated to a single game becomes faded when it's the same shit in every game. I'm sick of it, and bored of it. It would hit harder if it wasn't every damn game... better to take it apart and try something new with its empty box.

Hi! I was curious why you flipped toward tenko being born with his quirk? And why you’ve flip flopped before? Like what are the pros and cons for the AFO giving him a quirk theory? Thank you shigaraki expert!

Shigaraki expert a;kshg;kasng you're very kind lolol

OKAY SO

This theory I was always 50/50 on since I got into the manga.

Because:

It doesn't change a whole lot either way, AFO is still big bad and Tomura is still the one who needs saving--regardless of whichever option ended up being canon

However, after we got Touya's backstory and saw the panel of AFO in the hat and shit, everybody (myself included) jumped on the bandwagon that it's the same guy we saw dropping Tenko off at home at the beginning of his backstory (this is probably still the case but I'll get to that)--and then it led to believing he gave Tenko decay. Honestly, it's not a bad theory--it's super believable and makes sense. The parallels with the MC work, the devastation behind it works.

But there's a thematic issue with it.

The whole thing about Tomura is that he hates himself because:

He's been told he was only born to destroy

He's been told by multiple people that his quirk is proof of this

He's been told that because he was only born to destroy, he "obviously" killed his family on purpose

Now, there are clearly some issues with those statements. Tomura believes every single one of them. The entire reason he can't break free from AFO is because his hatred (for himself) keeps his willpower/agency/independence to take back his identity (an identity that he hates, just gonna keep reminding ppl of that) at an all time low.

Now I had a discussion the other night with some moots about this and this is when I officially flip flopped, and I intend to stay on this side of the fence until the end or until canon says otherwise.

The closer we get to the end, the more prevalent it is that Tomura has to be shown that he wasn't born to destroy, he didn't want his family to die, and his quirk isn't proof of those things---while having his quirk be naturally his. This is necessary in order to fight the "your quirk defines your purpose" allegations AFO and ReDestro and everyone else in the manga imposes. If the quirk wasn't his to begin with, it kinda starts picking away at the whole "your quirk doesn't define you" message, because it's like an easy way out of the guilt Tomura feels for his family dying.

Tomura has to really fight to reconcile that he did NOT want his family to die, which is going to be accompanied by a lot of pain and grief all over again, because it goes from being a reason to hate himself, BACK to being a major, devastating loss--which is what it always was, but he believed the lies that he wanted it all to happen. And realizing that is going to fuck him up, bad. (I'm so excited, I love when my favs have emotional breakdowns)

Having it to where AFO gave him decay would really only add devastation to the situation, but not anything thematically.

I do think there are good reasons for believing the theory that AFO gave him decay. Seriously. But my moots pointed out that it could be a red herring of sorts. And I'll be honest, if it ends up being one, it's a fucking fantastically done one.

I'm also on board with it because tbh, I've written on it before but Izuku and Tomura aren't super solid parallels or even foils. At times they are, in ways they definitely are, but their arcs are more about filling in gaps in each other's worlds than anything.

All that to say, I'm okay with letting go of the quirkless Tenko parallel. I don't think the idea came out of nowhere either. Tenko being quirkless isn't like, a bad theory at all. But I feel more strongly about him being born with decay than without.

Requestober ask- I love that we got to see last year what costumes you imagined for Edgar and Scri as kids. What do you think they'd be for Halloween as adults? I kind of imagine Scriabin as some kind of vampire or illusionist magician, or something similarly dramatic/elegant/mysterious~ For Edgar, though, I'm not sure. Sheet ghost? Lol. I can only think of lady!Edgar costumes, like her being a princess or smth. I feel like it wouldn't be anything too over the top, either way. Thoughts?

Day 8 - Buggy

I love your mdzs metas, especally the one where you say MDZS is not a hopeful universe and you can't fix it by just saying the Jin Sect is evil because the real problem is the powerful society.

And that post inspired my ask here.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about Lan Wangji deciding to remain in Gusu Lan Sect after wei ying's death. It's clear to me that his strong moral compass doesn't coincide anymore with the sect who was accomplice in the siege at burial mounds. Yeah his family wasn't the direct responsible of Wei Ying and the Wens' deaths, but still involved. I think his relationship with his family after Nightless city was deeply broken, not just emotionally but also morally. I think it would have been wiser leaving his seft after recovering from the wounds and being a rogue cultivator. Or living as a common with a-yuan, because I don't see how they could cohabit together after what happened. Or maybe lwj decided he was guilty as well for not being able to protect wei ying (and the wens), so he lived in remorse and guilt in the sect that allowed that crime? I'm curious about this dilemma because the novel doesn't explain fully in details that period of time. I was just thinking: "why lwj couldn't just live away from the sect after witnessing that their values ​​were no longer compatible and the corrupted cultivation society could no longer be his home". It would have been more coherent and right for him, I think. No one could blame him. Or maybe the punishment hurt him so deeply that he grow to think he deserved it... surely living there in gusu lan sect is not the healthiest option for his state of mind (we could agree that lwj doesn't care about money and privilege). So... why did he stay there and didn't choose another road?

Sorry for the long post!

Thank you for the ask, and for your kind words! 

There are factors we have to consider in this – practical, emotional, and thematic.

Firstly, there are the logistical (and most boring) reasons. After Lan Wangji brings A-Yuan back from the Burial Mounds, he’s responsible for him – and while he could take A-Yuan with him when leaving the sect, A-Yuan would have a much harder (and lonelier) childhood growing up as the child of a rogue cultivator, than he would growing up in the security of a prosperous sect with other disciples of the same age around him. We have an example of the former with Wei Wuxian himself, actually! And though he seemed to have a happy childhood, it certainly wasn’t secure, and at the age of five his parents, who were also very capable cultivators, died on a night-hunt while he was left at an inn (which probably happened regularly, because I can’t see his parents bringing him with them while on a night-hunt). If being raised in the Lan sect was an option, I don’t think Lan Wangji would choose to give A-Yuan that sort of very insecure childhood. I can’t really see him leaving A-Yuan at Gusu and defecting by himself either, especially with how reluctant his family was to accept a Wen into Gusu Lan anyway*.

Additionally, it’s important to remember that when Wei Wuxian dies, Lan Wangji is heavily injured from the disciple whip, and has to spend years recovering – he wouldn’t physically be able to become a rogue cultivator in that condition, even if he wanted to! And after he’s recovered, Lan Sizhui has already been a member of the sect for some time – again, I can’t see Lan Wangji taking him away from that.

Lastly, and very importantly, he holds a lot more influence as the second young master and Twin Jade of the Lan Clan (to the cultivation world at least – his reputation to the common people was made on his own merits!) than he would as a rogue cultivator... and that brings us to the second idea: Lan Wangji’s feelings and motivations.

Because I agree with the fact that the majority of the Lan sect, at the time of the siege, wasn't morally compatible with Lan Wangji's own ideals. But instead of leaving the sect and letting that corruption and hypocrisy stay and fester, he chooses to stay and work towards making a difference – to make it compatible, to shape it into the righteous sect it claims to be. He uses his position to teach an entire generation of juniors to be open-minded, compassionate and brave, and to not let the rules stop you from doing so (with Lan Sizhui as the primary example, but you see that in the others, too – he didn't spend all his time raising just A-Yuan). So that if or when another situation like the Siege or the Wen camps arises, they'll have the forethought to think about the situation and not be driven by mob mentality, the understanding to not fall victim to prejudice, and the courage to stand up and do the right thing, even if that means breaking some rules, because certain things are more important.

He teaches that to the people who he knows are the future of the Lan Sect, and when they take over, Gusu Lan can become the righteous sect it claims to be.

That's what he chooses to do, and chooses to do again and again – to take the initiative to make the world into a good place, when it isn't one. He didn't gain a reputation as Hanguang-Jun, for going wherever the chaos is and spending his time helping people rather than chasing acclaim, for nothing. If the sects aren't going to help, he's going to do something about it, and time and time again he does.

And that's infinitely more powerful than just walking away.

As we’re talking about Lan Wangji’s emotions and decisions, let’s consider your other thought, too: that Lan Wangji perhaps stayed because he thought he deserved it as a punishment. I don’t really believe that’s the case – not because Lan WangJi doesn’t have any turbulent feelings of guilt and regret, but because punishing himself is simply not the way he chooses to act on them. There is the scenario with the Wen brand, but it’s crucial to note that he’s drunk during that scene! It may show us his subconscious thoughts and feelings, but it doesn’t show how he’d act on them, because he doesn’t actually have the power to make conscious, meaningful decisions. However, when he does have that power, he consistently chooses to channel his grief into the inspiration and drive to not make those same mistakes, instead of channeling it into self-loathing, or even resentment for others. Instead of punishing himself for what he couldn’t do then, he focuses on what he can do now – raising A-Yuan and teaching the Lan Juniors are some examples of that. 

He and Wei Wuxian are quite similar in that aspect (another way they’re alike), and both actually have very healthy ways of coping with what happened in the past! Neither of them punish themselves over what they did wrong and can’t change, but instead focus on the present moment – and likewise, neither of them unhealthily fixate on those they’ve lost and get stuck in the past, but instead carry them with them and keep their memory alive, while accepting they’ve passed on**. However, I do think that Lan Wangji uses the past, and more specifically his grief, a lot more than Wei Wuxian, and actively channels it into not repeating the same mistakes he did. Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian simply lets the past be (while still acknowledging it) and focuses on the present. Both are very healthy ways of treating grief! 

Finally, Lan Wangji choosing this path also makes the most sense thematically. One of the main themes of the novel is the idea of moving on from resentment – the most obvious example of this is Wei Wuxian himself, but it appears in so many other characters, too. Wen Ning, for example, who decides to save Jiang Cheng from Nie Mingjue’s corpse, even after everything Jiang Cheng did to his family at the Burial Mounds. The rest of the Wen remnants, who, when they emerge from the blood pool, choose to channel their power into protecting people rather than doing something harmful (which sounds a little familiar, no?); Lan Sizhui, who after finding out about his heritage continues to be kind and compassionate even to the members of sects who were responsible for what happened; Jin Ling, who’s been brought up in an atmosphere of resentment his whole life, but learns to let go of that and has a breakdown because he realised he simply couldn’t hate anyone for the deaths of his parents!

Alternatively, if you look at the antagonists, all of them (apart from Jin Guangshan, who was driven by greed) held on to resentment in some way, and let it fester. Regardless of what people think of him, Jiang Cheng plays an antagonist’s role in the present storyline, and a big part of his character is that he let his resentment for Wei Wuxian fester instead of letting it go, and that leads him to convince himself that Wei Wuxian is still alive somewhere and therefore to him torturing demonic cultivators – and that resentment (along with poorly expressed care for Jin Ling) pretty much drives all his actions in the present timeline. Jin Guangyao’s driven by resentment for people disrespecting him and his mother because of their heritage/job, Su She is driven by resentment of Lan Wangji. Xue Yang is driven by resentment for Xiao Xingchen, and holds onto that motivation, convinces himself of it, even when his feelings get more complicated – and ultimately chooses to act in accordance with that. Even Nie Huaisang, whose role in the narrative is admittedly dubious, is driven by resentment for his brother’s death, and that is not presented as right.

Neither group of characters has suffered more than the others, and you could even argue that the first group suffered more. However, the thing that sets them apart is the way they deal with resentment. And so we come to Lan Wangji. 

Like so many other characters, he has ample reason to turn his back on the cultivation world, to not forgive and to place more importance on his negative feelings towards others than on anything positive. But just like so many other people – like Wei WuXian, like Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui, like Jin Ling – he chooses to not focus on his resentment. He gives his sect a chance, while still preserving Wei Wuxian’s memory, while still accepting they did something wrong. Lan Wangji is not somebody driven by resentment, and not someone to hold onto it; he’s someone driven by love***.

And being a member of the Lan clan won’t constrain him from that.

Thanks for the discussion, it was really interesting!

––

*Edit: Apparently it’s only Lan Qiren who was reluctant to accept him until he saw Lan Wangji’s behaviour! But with the general prejudice against the Wens, I feel like that (not necessarily the family, but other people) was still a factor in him not wanting to leave A-Yuan alone. They didn’t tell anyone, but if anyone somehow found out, that was a risk. Thanks to kimalysomg for catching that!

**Which is part of the reason takes that say Lan Wangji spent the thirteen years searching for and waiting for Wei Wuxian bother me, actually! It very much undermines Lan Wangji’s healthy coping of with grief, and diminishes his character and character arc a lot, too.

***And not just for Wei Wuxian!

chomp chomp mother fucker (please)

This is a slightly longer version of a thing I'm pretty sure I posted before but whatever chomp chomp chomp chomp-

"O'Brien's butt!" Beard called through the door. "Finally happened. His ass exploded."

"Fuuuuck," Roy buried his face in his hand.

It wasn't that they all hadn't expected the day was coming--O'Brien and his hair-triggered arse had been a stop-and-go problem for the past two years. A pinched nerve in the wrong place. One day their goalie was a beast, and the next they were tending to him like an elderly couple gone soft over their aging poodle.

With how much Zoreaux -- Zorro? Fuck, he'd meant to check the group chat -- had stepped up since his first untimely injury, it hadn't been a problem. But now--

"We're out a reserve goalie," Roy said, spelling it out.

Higgins popped up on his toes. "Ah-hah! We were out a reserve goalie. But since our win on Saturday--let's just say we have some exciting new options.

"You'll recognize most of these from the scouting reports," Higgins said as he passed around the files like they were candy. He even had a copy for Trent.

Flipping through the pages, Beard asked, "What's our largest wingspan?"

Nate, magically off his fake phone call, shuffled back into the office. "Oh, I heard a rumor that Ramirez was looking to transfer away from Crystal Palace. Did we get him?"

Roy reluctantly grabbed the offered file the third time Higgins offered it to him.

"Er, no. He was quite a bit expensive I'm afraid. Looking for a bigger pay raise than we're offering. We do have two candidates though who look quite promising--"

"Henry Rimmer," Roy read out from the top of the stack.

Nate winced.

Beard threw the report to the side. "Pass."

"Oh," Higgins said, a dismayed little utterance. "Are we sure?"

Roy looked him dead in the eye. "Didn't he get benched during penalties for throwing a ball at the ref?"

Higgins bobbed his head from side to side. "Kind of thought that would appeal, if I'm being honest." He wrung his hands together, asking "Are we sure? There's only so many goalies in our price range, and with his skill level-"

"His price is low--," Beard enunciated with a stern look from under his hat, "--because no one wants him."

Hello.

You and gay-jesus-probably have successfully made me question everything with your view that Tears of the Kingdom is imperialist propaganda, so that's been fun.

Anyway, I decided to share this discussion with the Zelda fans on reddit, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of them disagreed. Here is what they said (I'm Alarming_Afternoon44):

So what do you think? Have I and all these other people just been duped by the game's manipulative framing? Or do they actually have a point?

And if you'd rather not answer this, or would prefer if I censored the usernames, just tell me and I'll delete this.

Hey! Thanks a lot for reaching out, and I'm glad it made you think stuff through!!

Honestly, as I mentioned in this post, I am not super interested about in-world conversations about who oppresses who, because what can be assessed from the game is super vague and more vibes-based than evidence-based. Within the text, of course that the Good Zonais are good and the Bad Ganondorf is bad! But that's my whole point! The narrative has been deliberately crafted so that the zonais and Rauru (and Hyrule) are as blameless as possible (and it's not doing a great job at it overall to be frank; we would not be having these conversations about how offputting it all feels for a non-zero number of people if it did do a great job). More importantly, I want to focus on what sort of real-life narrative it all parallels. Because people make stories, and people live in the real world.

Not going after everyone's throat here, gamedev is hard and the hydras that are AAA game production do end up doing super weird stuff, especially since the thematic ramifications are absolutely never prioritized (and it's also always the same kind of people who make the final calls and push out what can and can't be talked about also). And as fans, we tend to have trouble stepping outside the lens of lore and take a look at the bigger picture sometimes; not as an attack on any individual part of that decision-making process but to just pause, stop, and question our standards, our priorities and the kind of reality (or skewing of reality) the stories we tell each other reflect.

Again: do we want to take videogames seriously or not? If we do, then we need to accept they are a vehicle for ideology, just like any other artform. And sometimes, you push out questionable ideology, sometimes without meaning to, because you didn't unpack your own biases as you did. And it's even fine to do it, nobody is perfect, a 300+ people team spread over 6 years certainly will not be that. But that it wasn't prioritized is, in my opinion, a problem. As a narrative designer, I want games (at least the narrative side) to be held to a higher standard than this. It's literally my job to work with the industry so it can hold itself to higher standards of quality --so the whole TotK situation is quite frustrating to witness from a very pragmatic, work perspective where I already spend my days trying to convince people that things mean things. I have a vested interest here in not having the companies I work for being given a free pass by gamers to do literally whatever as long as it's fun, especially when we're talking about a billion-dollars company suing its own fans left and right for any perceived slight. Nintendo are not underdogs here. It's fine to point out they cut corners and maybe promoted messy ideologies, voluntarily or not.

So long story short: no I don't believe anyone here has a point in regards to what I think is actually important, which is why these choices were made in the first place. If you look at an imperialist text expecting the text to tell you that it's imperialist instead of recognizing a framing used for propaganda by yourself, you're never gonna find any imperialist text ever, obviously not!! I'm sorry if I sound a little gngngn here, but I don't know why audiences have, at large, this feeling that lore and story beat decisions materialize themselves already formed and without any human bias, meddling, intervention, internal politics or approximations (it seems that people can only conceptualize this part if they have actual names to attach to the story, but without clear authors it's like there are no authors and so no bias, which is... a very strange bias in itself). I can promise you that it does not work that way in practice: every narrative department on every big game is a battlefield --some nicer than others, but all of them very emotionally draining either way.

So yeah, I guess that on these grounds, I disagree with every point raised here. Sorry Reddit :/

But thank you for the ask and sorry if I didn't go more into details as to why. The big Why I Dislike Rauru Post and the Gerudo Post might have some more specific rebuttals, but I am not super interested in debating small detail stuff tbh. I feel like it's no use if the frame of reference isn't being understood in the first place.

Dear Stilton, when are you going to update Travellers through the Empty Gate? I love that fic and keep checking to see if there is a new chapter, when there isn’t I get sad. And it’s Christmas! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I'm currently working on chapter 30 of TTTEG. I've been very busy for the last several months (hence the delayed updates for my major WIPs), but chapter 30 is a unique challenge because it involves topics I'm incredibly uncomfortable writing about...and which I now have no choice but to write about, because I laid the rails for this arc several chapters ago. I'm going to try to get this chapter out before New Year's, though!

I think that Mochizuki was also inspired by Banana Fish in terms of relationship dynamics, tone, and themes. Do you see similarities between the two?

Mm, maybe? Full disclosure that my experience with Banana Fish is that I binge read roughly 70-80% of it in a day or two like 10 months ago, and I have not finished it or revisited it since those couple days, so my impression of it may not be the most accurate.

Off the top of my head, there's a similarity in that they're both stories of relative outsiders who become entwined in the life of a very doomed young man with horrifically traumatic past. I know Eiji is a photographer, but I don't actually remember whether there's any element of him documenting Ash's life, so I can't comment on if him and Noé have that similarity. There's also the prevalence of sexual assault as a theme and source of trauma in both, and the way that both series are sort of straddling the shonen/shoujo line. VnC is a shonen that very much feels like it's being written for women (or at least, not particularly aimed at teenage boys most of the time lmao), and Banana Fish is an uncommonly violent and action-heavy shoujo.

That said, I definitely can't say I find the tones or vibes to be very similar. VnC is a series defined by the intricacies in its relationships. There's a good deal of action and flash, but it's also a series in which every little glance and expression is meant to be read into. It shines in its characters and relationships and in the way it continually loops back on itself to psychologically examine its characters and drive them closer together.

My experience of Banana Fish, on the other hand, was defined by how much it felt like a whirlwind of an 80s action movie. That's not to say that it doesn't have quieter scenes or develop the relationships between its characters, but I certainly wouldn't call it relationship-driven like I would for VnC. Also, though we do certainly get a lot about Ash and his history and how he ended up the way he is, Banana Fish is not The Case Study of Ash Lynx. It's not about examining him in the same way that VnC is about examining Vanitas.

I might not be articulating this super well bc I'm writing this post while very tired, but overall, I'm guessing Banana Fish probably wasn't that direct an inspiration for Mochijun. She's talked a lot about her inspirations for VnC, and it hasn't come up, and though there are interesting parallels, I don't think the vibes or content *quite* match up.

However, it is a really interesting comparison to talk about. Sometimes something isn't an inspiration for something else, but it is a fascinating touchpoint to hold in up against. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.

y'all gotta stop opening your fanfics with descriptions of the weather

I know you've probably been told this a thousand (1000) times, but I love how you draw the Dirk Guy™️ with Self Harm scars, It's not that usual to see just, y'know, your not so usual little guy doing every-day things while having Self Harm scars. Like, you most probably won't see SH scars unless they're a vent drawing (potentially triggering (obv nothing bad with vent art! Ofc It's great seeing someone coping with something they created and sharing it with other people! (: /gen)) or g*re drawing that's like showing the hypodermis or smth, but you? You have such a nice composition + anatomy + your art style give a sense of comfort that I can't really explain, It genuinely makes me happy whenever I see the Dirk Guy™️ just, idk, tidying his bedroom while having scars, It's kinda refreshing to see ! Sorry for the long rant, but I really do love everything about your art. :)♡♡♡ Hope you're doing alright, and hope you have a great day!

thank you all. I'm a bit at a loss for words because I've fallen ill and can't get out of bed so please take this dirk drawn with the worst art program I've ever had the displeasure of using (procreate). I appreciate the messages dearly... I'm glad my art makes you happy and helps you out. sidenote though I'm laughing at how you censored "gore". why did you do that

I love when people tell me they go through my blog without having read Homestuck it's so funny and awesome. like truly it's one of the most flattering compliments I can receive