#So it's based on an actual dream someone had which is neat
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The Sounds of Nightmares unofficial transcript
Chapter 3 - The Theater of the Mind
(Once again made with @queen0fm0nsterz!!!)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
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[Click]
[Otto sighs, shifting]
OTTO: Noone vanished last night.
[Another sigh]
OTTO: As she slept, I was monitoring her ultradian sleep cycle. There was no REM/NREM oscillation; instead, involuntary spasms grew progressively worse. [shift] As I was about to wake Noone, her… body… evanesced. For a split instant- then returned, calm as can be.
OTTO: [deep breath, loud exhale] Lacking sleep, I can’t be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Yet the image of her sheets deflating… is imprinted upon my mind. [Sigh] After yesterday’s session, no less, when she claimed to hear this:
[Click, tape plays]
Recording of NOONE: “The faraway drifts near. Tread long, then, sink deep. Two flows from one, and here, is whole again.”
[Click, tape stops]
OTTO: A coincidence? [light clinking of ceramic/glass] Or, synchronicity? …(Scoff) Is that that bloody moth again?!
[Loud smack, Otto sits back down]
OTTO: Riddle piles upon riddle, and answers continue to elude. [Tape rewinding] I’ll sift through every word if I must.
[Intro plays]
[Click]
[Loud clicking and clacking, electric humming, Otto screwing something in]
OTTO: [Humming drops, returns] It’s clear. Noone’s symptoms go beyond parasomnias. [Continuing to build] Her retellings are too detailed, vocabulary too advanced, as if derived from the oneiric itself.
[Humming raises in pitch, clicking]
OTTO: However, what I find impossible to believe is that Noone’s seen who you saw, Cici. [Chair creaks, clattering] If two people, without any contact, shared the exact same observation, is it proof of transpersonal dreaming?
[Otto’s building continues]
OTTO: But such implies concurrence! And these dreams are years apart! Then… no. [buzzing picks up] I cannot be taken to metaphysical backwaters. Sounding like my old professor. [building] I’ve remained balanced over the years by clinging to the notion that my recollection of what happened years ago was wrong. [click, humming gets loud again] But now, those memories are coming home to roost.
[Clicks, electronic humming, building stops]
OTTO: [Shift] Before I began at the CPI I promised to finish this apparatus. I let it fall away, convinced that attempting it was fool’s work. Now struggling to put myself in her shoes, well. Fool me twice.
[Humming gets louder, buzzes out completely as it shocks Otto and he lets out an “Oh!”]
[A small pained noise from Otto before he starts to put the apparatus away]
[Door opens]
OTTO: (Gasp) Noone! [Scoff, he walks away from the recorder] You’re meant to wait outside.
NOONE: (Far away) What are you working on?-
[Audio cuts]
[Click, blank noise]
[Audio starts again]
OTTO: We’ve come to know each other better over the past weeks, haven’t we?
NOONE: Because we’re friends! That’s why. And, friends tell each other things.
OTTO: Friends. That’s right. One of the absolutes I’ve come to realize is that, the more time you spend with someone, the harder it becomes to hide who you really are. The only exception to this rule is with the company of oneself- we willfully hide what we’d rather not face. Like, the Candleman you mentioned seeing, under hypnosis.
NOONE: I don’t like that.
OTTO: What?
NOONE: Hiding things from myself.
OTTO: Nobody likes it. That’s why it’s important to reveal your inner face. “Depth analysis”, we call it. And so, I’d like you to think of this session as a dialogue with your unconscious mind- you are asking the questions, not me.
NOONE: …Asking myself questions?
OTTO: I’ll help! But, as you go, I’d like you to try. So! This… Candleman. Did you see him again?
NOONE: I-I did.
OTTO: And what was this meeting like?
NOONE: …He was much clearer. Not just him, everything about it. My nightmare.
OTTO: Elaborate, please. Was it worse? More vivid?
NOONE: What’s it like- Uhm… as if I’m watching a film, that I’m also the star of. And when I woke… it was here, in the Coppy, that felt more like the dream.
OTTO: Hm, more palpable. The Candleman-
NOONE: I can’t talk about him without the rest. …If this is an interview with myself, might I begin where I want?
OTTO: Of course! Let your imagination run. But don’t be afraid to interact with the dream. This is an important step in our process- the dialogue. Bring together the divided parts of yourself.
NOONE: …The mirror.
OTTO: Pardon?
NOONE: The one off your shelf. If I’m meant to speak to myself, well…
OTTO: [Pause] …Patients aren’t meant to have mirrors, but, here you are, my bright girl.
[Otto gives her the mirror]
OTTO: Begin as you please.
[Pause]
NOONE, Narrating: …In the dark… a hand let go of mine.
[Slip noise, Dream!Noone gasps. Dream ambience begins.]
NOONE: Opening my eyes, I lay on hot concrete, staring up at a sky with- no sun. And… before me was, endless grey, broken by- yellow lines of paint, all the way to the horizon!
NOONE: Standing, in that carpark, I heard a silence. So silent, my own heartbeat was a marching drum in comparison. …It was followed by… a loneliness, so lonely, I could hardly bear it. I had to turn away.
[Dream!Noone walking on gravel]
NOONE: Behind me, I was glad to see a building! A shopping mall, so large I- I felt half my normal size. Its doors opened, [sliding gravel] and I ran to them.
[running footsteps, transition from gravel to tile. Doors close behind Dream!Noone.]
NOONE: Inside the promenade, [lights click on] the lights flicked on, one by one, greeting me as the PA speakers came alive with music.
[Tinny, slightly off-sounding mall music]
NOONE: It had been ages since I’d visited a shopping center. I didn’t know where to start!
OTTO: You saw no need to find an exit right away?
NOONE: I felt like I was in good hands. But many shops were closed, though. There were no doors, and… no displays in the windows. Or, there must have been a private entrance, because- I could see shadows beyond the glass.
NOONE: …A-after passing by several shops this way, I grew disappointed, but that’s when… a cowboy’s voice came over the speaker.
COWBOY, slightly overlapped with Noone: “Sale at Jujube’s Toys! Dolls, games, puzzles, and more! Ground floor by the fountain!”
NOONE: I could see that fountain in front of me! And on the other side, was… a bright green storefront, with bubbles floating out the entrance.
[Dream!Noone walking over, doors hiss as they open. Different tinny music.]
NOONE: Shelves and- shelves of wonders lined the shop! The toys on the first shelf were very old, but… deeper shelves held the same toys I had back home, and deeper ones held exactly those I’d wish for, even Little Lotty Potty! But… these Lotties had black eyes, not blue. And their skin was… yellow, like autumn leaves.
NOONE: The shop owner wasn’t present, so… I grabbed one and began playing on the carpet.
[Dream!Noone humming Six’s Theme. Doll makes automated noises.]
NOONE: But, it didn’t take long for me to grow… bored. That was the first time I… I felt too old for dolls.
OTTO: (distant-sounding) Maturity is natural as you approach adolescence. The brain loses interest in things once held dear.
NOONE: The idea of growing up made me sad. And as if reacting… Lotty’s dress became wet. The doll was doing as its name said, but… [doll chattering] the liquid was- dark and thick. I put her down to find something else. But the choices were almost too many! Towering shelves extending deep in- the gloom of the impossibly long shop!
NOONE: I settled on the games section, but, most were meant for two. Suddenly, a staticky whisper said,
Voice, overlapping with NOONE: “I’ll play with you.”
NOONE: I-I thought it was the shopkeeper, but… nobody was around. My eyes fell upon a jewelry-making kit, with a red necklace on the cover. I took the box back to where I left Lotty, only… she was gone. The shelf above, where the other dolls had been, was completely empty too. I wanted to make the jewelry, I really did, but… I felt weird, so… I put it down. Then, the PA crackled, a woman’s voice this time:
Voice, ov. NOONE: “Jujube’s Toys is now closing.”
NOONE: [Lights clicking off] The lights shut off, bubbles stopped… and, the last thing I saw before exiting… [toy train noises] was the train set crashing to a stop. [quiet fake bell ringing, toy engine stops]
[Dream!Noone walking out of the store]
NOONE: The promenade was empty, still. Each step [steps become echoey] echoed across the walls and floors, which were- pearl white, and had patterns like… veins.
[steps and music continues]
NOONE: I came to three sets of stairs, side-by-side, leading to the next floor. I chose one, and, reaching to the top, I saw another open shop. Mademoiselle’s… (saying it wrong) bijottery.
OTTO: (still distant) Bijouterie. But, regardless- you could read this?
NOONE: Yes. The letters were quite big.
OTTO: …Have you been able to read in your dreams before?
NOONE: I’m not sure. That’s not a question I would ask myself, though, Otto.
OTTO: Apologies.
NOONE, Narrating: The glass case in the center of the room… pulled me in. Full of… gold, and silver necklaces. Hanging in the middle, was… an enchanting red pendant. And before you ask, yes, it was just like on the box at the toy store. T-The PA came on again,
Voice, ov. with NOONE: “A free gift to all little girls 10 and under!”
NOONE: Without asking, I put the necklace on, glowing, like a ruby teardrop. With my gift, I set to leave, but… someone must’ve left the speaker on because… I heard arguing.
NOONE: (overlapping) “Don’t overdo it!” Said a first voice, followed by a second, (overlapping) “One more prize can’t hurt!”
[something being set down, wheels across tile, whoosh]
NOONE: From the back room, a rack of dresses rolled out. All, exactly my size.
[Dream!Noone looking through the dresses]
NOONE: It’d been ages since I’d been allowed to pick out my own dress. The telly people chose them for me. These ones were very pretty, with lace and, and bows and stitching but, one… it… it was the plaid dress I wore the day I arrived at the Coppy. How could my dress be here? [lowering pitch of voice, asking questions to herself] Your real life doesn’t have to mix into your dreams Noone, why now?
OTTO, interrupting narration: (astonished) Pardon?
NOONE: (giggling) I’m asking myself questions. Well, the only explanation is that they could see inside my head.
OTTO: I’m not sure that’s logical.
NOONE: Let me finish! Please. You’ll see.
NOONE, narrating: Back out on the promenade, the shop gates began to slam shut. [Gates slamming] I was worried the mall was closing, but on the floor above, a set of spinning bright lights came on [Lights turn on]. The music stopped and, the PA crackled with a sing-songy voice,
Voice, ov. with NOONE: [music] “Showtime’s patrons! Our daily motion picture will begin shortly. Hot popcorn’s popping and the seats await in the playhouse!”
NOONE: [Lights shutting off] The rest of the mall went dark, making the lights more enticing to follow.
[Dream!Noone walks across the mall]
NOONE: The lobby was- red from floor to ceiling. Buckets of popcorn overflowed on the concession stand. I grabbed one, and hurried to push open the huge golden doors leading into the theater.
[Running steps, doors creak. Slightly off organ music plays.]
NOONE: The velvet seats went for rows and rows, full of people. A spotlight hit the stage, illuminating an organ, but… there was no organ player. Only tall curtains swaying in some breeze. I tiptoed down the aisle, and sat centered with the screen. The chair seemed to hug me, and the room fell dark [crunching] as the first buttery bit hit my tongue.
[Music stops playing, sounds of projector booting up]
NOONE: Without adverts or introduction, the film began. Images of… trees on fire and… white hooves galloping. I recognized the picture instantly because I’ve seen it a hundred times. “The Healing Horn”. [Movie plays] Only the scenes were out of order, and the unicorn… her horn was misshapen, like… a rotten tree branch. The evil prince’s face, too, was… was wrong.
NOONE: Feeling out of place I – I looked around. The audience, I… I realized, was not people but… mannequins.
NOONE: All of a sudden, a familiar scent entered the dream. Ocean. I was no longer alone. The dusty projector light made it difficult to suss, but a few seats over… was the Candleman. His eyes and mouth were… deep black pits inside a mess like a wet gunny sack, sagging down the floor. Without turning, he spoke.
[Growing noise stops]
OTTO, interrupting abruptly: He – what?! [Shifting] What did he say?
NOONE: [Sighing] It was like a – a voice underwater. The words could hardly escape the folds of skin. He repeated them to me.
NOONE as the FERRYMAN, glitching: “The faraway drifts near. Tread long, then sink deep. Two flows from one, and here, is whole again.”
OTTO: And then? [shifting in the chair] What else?
NOONE, as the FERRYMAN: “Here. Here. Here.”
NOONE: He just repeated over and over.
OTTO: There must be more! Try, try! Interact with the dream!
NOONE: There was no more!
OTTO: (raising his voice) Ask who he is, ask what he wants!
NOONE: (raising her voice) It doesn’t work that way!
OTTO: You were right there! Don’t tell me you did nothing?! Not a damn thing!
NOONE: Stop!
OTTO: [farther away] I’m beginning to doubt you’ve seen this Candleman! [Noone struggling] Perhaps you’ve invented the whole story!
NOONE: Please, stop- my head!
[Otto hisses (gets hit?), sounds of something being knocked over, Noone runs out of the room.]
[Otto huffs and stops the tape]
[Click. Blank noise. Another click]
[Various shifting noises. Silence. Door opens and someone walks, then closes it]
OTTO: [far away, stern] What are you doing? With the mirror. [Steps] You’re up to something, but we’ll let it slide. I know girls like you.
[Shifting]
OTTO: You’re upset with me, aren’t you? [plastic clacking] Here. A pill for your headache. (Sigh) Earlier, that was… awfully…[Otto sits] that- that was not how friends act. Sleep has evaded me too. I’ve grown worried, trying to… please, forgive me. I’d very much like to hear the rest. I won’t interrupt, you have my word.
[Silence.]
NOONE: … Fine.
OTTO: So… you were in this theater with him.
NOONE, narrating: … All kinds of pictured* flashed on the screen, and then he was gone, leaving me alone again. Or so I thought. The projector flickered in the booth. I dashed up, and found the door ajar. A new voice came over the PA, angry. “No patrons in the projection room!” The door was stuck, but I pushed and pushed. The PA boomed,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “You must not enter!”
[Crashing, door opens]
NOONE: The projector I saw first was shaped like… a deformed eye. Then, my attention fell to… the mass on the floor. [Slimy sound] A brain? A heart? …No. It’s muscles pumped and pumped, and its tubes ran into the walls. The voice came, both from inside the room and over the PA:
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Happy day, No One.”
NOONE: It… it knew my real nickname. The ones kids at school scribbled all over my books. How? Because it was in my head. …I asked, “You’re the one who’s been talking? All those voices?”. Then, I saw countless film cans around the room, and understood. It was so alone, it took to imitating. Then it said,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Are you going to leave? Like all the others?”
NOONE: I managed a… “Yes”. The thing began pulsing and, upset, it sort of cried out.
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “So many, they take what they want and go, or get snatched away or worse!”
NOONE: It paused, then went on,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Whatever you desire, it’s yours.”
NOONE: … But I didn’t want anything from it. The PA belted,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “The pendant! You wanted that!”
NOONE: The pulsing worsened until another voice came within the first,
VOICE 2, ov. with NOONE: “You’ve driven another away!” [Not overlapping, repeating: “You’ve driven another away!]
NOONE: I felt bad for it. Or them… this place had been warped by pain, and wanted so badly to keep me. Even the walls began throbbing. What could I do?!
[Noise intensifies, Dream!Noone breathes heavily]
NOONE: I – I ran. Down the stairs, out of the theater.
[Dream!Noone runs away]
NOONE: On the promenade, the lights were flashing so as to be dizzying. The PA screeched,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Everyone needs someone! Don’t leave me alone!”
NOONE: The walls began to cry that dark thick liquid, pooling around me, I looked up. From the floor above, the Candleman stared, pointing at my chest. At the pendant. I flung it down into the liquid, then he reached a hand toward me and –
[All noise stops]
NOONE: And all faded, as the PA sobbed,
VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Don’t take her! Not this one, too…”
[Narration stops. Silence. Shifting]
OTTO: T-There was um… uh, e-excuse me, a curious phrase. “Warped by pain”. Is that how you feel, sometimes?
[Silence]
OTTO: Noone? Are you still angry with me? Or… distracted by the mirror?
NOONE: Behind my ear… there’s… a sore.
OTTO: Is that why you wanted the mirror all along?
NOONE: [Hum] It’s like the ones I used to get. I need to see it.
[Shifting]
OTTO: Nothing’s there. It’s red because you’ve been picking at it.
NOONE: …I have one more question for myself. Why do I have these dreams? Water sickness, that’s my answer.
OTTO: Noone. It’s wiped out of your system. There have been no known reinfections. It’s in your mind.
NOONE: (with increasing distress) What if the cure is the cause? I never had nightmares or headaches before all of this, before going on telly, before – before this! –
OTTO, interrupting: (whispering) No, no, come, come, come, come here, my girl. [Shifting, Otto hugs Noone] You’re not sick. You’re perfectly fine. You’re a perfectly wonderful little girl. This time I will protect you.
[The mirror falls on the ground and breaks]
NOONE: I’m sorry! I’m sorry, uh, you were squeezing so tight and… it slipped.
[The mirror shards are picked up. Otto throws them away]
OTTO: You asked why you dream. The truth? Nobody knows. My studies always assumed they were more than the brain’s way of filtering unconscious thoughts. But I had no answer either. An old professor of mine thought he did. He believed dreams come from an ever shifting plane, a quiddity of consciousness.
NOONE: Quidd-i-ty…
OTTO: Quiddity. The essence of a thing. In this case, a semiatangible plane outside the mind.
NOONE: Is it the same as mutual dreams? I don’t understand.
OTTO: My colleagues didn’t either. I’ve flip-flopped over the years, but I figured it was impossible to prove.
NOONE: Will I ever get rid of them, then? Will I ever leave the Coppy?
OTTO: You must understand, you are a unique case. I want to let you go, as soon as –
NOONE, interrupting: I’m better?
OTTO: (sighing) Yes. As soon as you’re better. [Otto stands, picks something up] Now –
NOONE: I know, I know. (Lower pitch, mimicking Otto) “Sweets for my sweet”. …Do I have to go back to my room?
[Sounds of plates]
OTTO: I’ve- got to tidy, [wrappers] and, you reminded me there’s something I need to find. On you go. I’ll come by later.
[Shift, audio cuts]
[Audio starts]
[Otto looks through papers, and sighs]
OTTO: Ah, I found it. The paper that stained my professor’s career. Kept it all these years, hoping and dreading there was truth in these words…
OTTO, reading: “We know now that there is no center to the universe. Previously we thought it was the Sun, before that we thought it was the Earth. Our species always insists that ours is the quintessence of experience. Yet scientific observation proves our folly ad nauseum. If geocentrism took centuries to disprove, the question is not if but when the same will happen to reality itself. That which we are equipped to perceive may not be the only world. Let alone the predominant one.”
[Click]
[Outro plays]
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*This is what she actually says. I have no idea why.
#little nightmares#the sounds of nightmares#tson#transcript#the sounds of nightmares transcript#noone#otto#the ferryman#ln noone#ln otto#noone ln#otto ln#An origin for the name Noone chose.....#ALSO. It is confirmed!! The Nowhere very much exists!!!!!!!#And the Ferryman plays a much bigger role here!! Maybe a sign of Noone being pulled deeper in?#I wonder who that other hand was at the beginning of Noone's dream...#Also Otto. Otto. Grrrgagrg. I'm very mixed about him but right now I don't like him#You are a therapist!! Your job is to help kids!!! Help her!!!!!!!#Also fun fact!! This dream was one of the winners of that nightmare contest the official team held a while back!#So it's based on an actual dream someone had which is neat#Overall. Episode good 👍
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Weird question but do you think the centaurs SAd umbridge in ootp? It kinda feels like it’s written that way and it’s pretty disturbing tbh
thank you very much for the ask, anon!
the spoiler alert is that i don't - i think the series' approach to sexual violence leaves a great deal to be desired, but i don't think this is one of those cases - but obviously this discussion does come with a trigger warning for rape and is under the cut.
i know where this interpretation comes from - since a huge amount of the classical greek mythology surrounding centaurs is based in the idea that they rape human women - and i also know that the series' general view that any violence which happens to someone who "deserves" it is fine means that readers consider it plausible that jkr would have thought it acceptable for umbridge to be subjected to such a "punishment"...
and the text certainly can be read as showing the aftermath of a sexual assault:
All six of them looked around. Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up at the ceiling. Dumbledore had strode alone into the forest to rescue her from the centaurs. How he had done it - how he had emerged from the trees supporting Professor Umbridge without so much as a scratch on him - nobody knew, and Umbridge was certainly not telling. Since she had returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody really knew what was wrong with her either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were bits of twig and leaf in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed.
“Madam Pomfrey says she’s just in shock,” whispered Hermione.
“Sulking, more like,” said Ginny.
“Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this,” said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clip-clopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking wildly around.
“Anything wrong, Professor?” called Madam Pomfrey, poking her head around her office door.
“No... no...” said Umbridge, sinking back into her pillows, “no, I must have been dreaming...”
Hermione and Ginny muffled their laughter in the bedclothes.
but i think its actual intention is for us to take ginny's reading of the situation as the correct one.
the series likes to punish its bad characters for their bad deeds with a punishment connected to their defining flaw. lockhart - the epitome of grasping narcissism is felled when he believes that he'll be able to perfectly cast a memory charm, too convinced of his own brilliance to notice that ron's wand is broken and the spell will backfire. fudge - a coward who's obsessed with his own public image - is forced from office when his year-long burying his head in the sand is revealed and the public turn on him. marietta edgecombe - a traitor, and a character jkr is on the record as loathing - is punished for wanting to remove the risk of negative attention falling on her and her family by having her crimes, quite literally, written on her face.
bellatrix is taken out by her arrogance, wormtail is taken out by his moral insubstantiality, and - of course - voldemort is taken out by his attempts to outrun both love and death.
what the series hates about umbridge is that she is the encapsulation of bureaucratic bigotry - she's someone who is obsessed with maintaining control and order by subjecting everything in her life to elaborate rules, she values the rigidity of social convention, and she is completely intolerant of anything which contradicts this rule-system. her ruthless discrimination against "half-breeds" is because she wants to confine things she fears or doesn't understand into rigid boxes - she doesn't want to risk discovering that a colleague she likes is a werewolf, because that would undermine the belief system she upholds, and so she removes that threat to herself by passing legislation which prevents werewolves from working alongside her.
her punishment for these crimes - in the series' world-view - must therefore directly relate to her prejudices, and - specifically - to her prejudices being wrong. it wouldn't do for her to be raped by creatures she considers subhuman, because this would justify her belief that centaurs [and werewolves, mermaids, goblins etc.] are savage beasts who will violate wizarding norms at every opportunity, and who, therefore, need to be subjected to violent wizarding control.
it makes more sense to suppose that she is subjected to something she would find it impossible to deny was "civilised" - i imagine, for example, that centaurs have their own legal system, and that she is dragged off to stand before the assembled community and have something which she can meaningfully recognise as a trial - and that her shock and disorientation is because her conviction that she'd be brutally attacked by a group she considers incapable of restraining or governing themselves did not turn out to be true.
and she is also, i think, supposed to be read as affected by the fact that dumbledore - whose authority she has been trying to eradicate from the school - is the person who rescues her, and who achieves through his commitment to [ostensibly] respecting centaur autonomy, far more authority over them than the ministry does.
her humiliation, then, comes - in the text's eyes - from the fact that her hypocrisy has been utterly exposed. and so ginny is right to say that she's "sulking" as a way of trying to save face.
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Hello! I’m a big fan of your rivalsduo fics and analysis and I wanted to ask your thoughts on something I noticed!
So, when the community house is blown up, Tommy switches to sides to Tubbo and confirms he’s betraying Techno and this exchange happens:
Techno: “Wooow. Welp. 1 v 30 it is! Who wants to go up first?!”
Dream: “No. No no no no no no. Listen, listen..”
Techno: “..Okay.”
I always love picking apart rivalsduo moments but do you think Techno calming down for the moment when Dream asks him to wait shows a sort of established trust they have in each other? A trust sort of based on the fact that they don’t want to be in direct conflict with each other and, therefore, have faith that the other won’t take any action against them without a warning?
The moment just stuck with me on a rewatch and i might be over analyzing but I thought ur thoughts would be neat :]
[link to clip]
i actually think this moment is super telling!
because it comes after another very important c!techno moment: he's just been betrayed by tommy. you can hear in techno's voice how this bothers him. the way he says 'wow' and then pivots directly into preparing for a fight.
because techno has been here before! he's been betrayed in a very similar way and it ended with a battle. technically two times if you consider the red festival (which I do).
so techno does what he does best. he takes the very real hurt he feels and tries to deflect away from it by giving people what they think of him as; violent and a weapon.
and to be clear, this isn't an impossible situation for techno! it would be hard, sure, but he has pearls, he could get away in the same method he had just suggested to tommy. he has potions, he has his gear. if he wanted a fight, he could have one and get away.
but dream speaks and techno immediately switches his demeanor. he doesn't even know what dream is going to suggest, but he drops the 'blade weapon' persona instantly and goes 'okay'.
it'd be easy to say that's because techno knows from everything that happened, dream is ostensibly on his side but all things considered, sides mean nothing.
so, what do we have?
we have two people who have never gone against each other. as dream would state later, he's never betrayed techno. he's gone out of his way to help techno and has saved techno's life. and techno knows dream doesn't want to go against him. their brief confrontation at the portal told him this! he had the chance to fight techno right then and there, to go back with backup later, or to use the favor to get techno to hand over tommy. but dream does none of these things. he just kinda shrugs and goes 'eh whatever'.
that makes it very easy for techno to stand down. dream doesn't even have to tell him why or anything. he just tells techno to wait and techno does. because what dream's reason for this is or what he might be planning isn't the relevant part. it doesn't matter what dream follows his 'wait' up with. (in this case the immediate follow up is just insulting tubbo a whole bunch before he even gets to the point)
because the follow up isn't what techno is basing his decision on. he's basing it on the fact he trusts dream. and sure, it's not in a wholesome, 'we're best friends' way. it's in the way that someone who has been betrayed a whole bunch trusts someone who hasn't betrayed them and has done everything to help them. if dream wanted techno dead, he could've. multiple times. which right now is the most important thing to techno: dream has not only never betrayed him but has consistently worked to put himself on techno's side. which means, yeah! he's going to listen to dream! he's gonna step down, he's gonna switch gears because he has no reason not to.
and this leads to another moment in this whole thing i think is an important piece: dream again defers cashing in the favor and stating that techno was already going to destroy l'manberg. it puts them on the same level. this is a choice that techno is making (and this aspect is important enough i've talked about it before) and he is dream's equal in this whole thing.
it makes it easy to see why techno considers dream as someone he can trust, listen to, and eventually risk his life for.
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a teenage (14-15ish) elesa to go with her fellow baby nimbasa city celebrities here!
(proof of process, notes and hcs under cut)
some notes:
why. why did her ace have to be a zebra of all things. no hate to the animal but fucking hell am i dreading the possibility of having to draw blitzle again, or worse, zebstrika. horse proportions + stripe patterns = a real tough cookie to draw. if i never draw elesa with her pokémon again this is probably why.
(actually while typing the above, i just realised her ace is black and white. really ties her association with unova / submas together which is pretty neat.)
on a more positive note, i had a lot of fun with the design! was going more based on her bw1 appearance (given it's closer on the timeline) but with the preppy popular kid look thrown into the mix.
her original hair colour is black (as in bw2) but here it's dyed blonde with blue streaks.
headcanons time: i was thinking elesa would've come from a rich family, with both her parents being successful businessmen who wanted the perfect daughter to show off. her image is definitely controlled by her parents to some extent - her clothes are fancy and expensive, but fairly normal. even her hair was first dyed blonde to match her father and give her parents the perfect blonde hair blue eyes daughter. fortunately, they aren't at home much, so elesa has some opportunities to make small changes such as the blue streaks and her jacket (more on that later).
despite her parents' expectations, elesa is in fact much more interested in fashion, design and battling. she's an intern gym trainer at the current nimbasa gym (was thinking the gym leader would be a musical actor but nothing concrete) to not only prove that she can strike out on her own without her parents, but also to hopefully secure her future once she turns 18 and can move out and cut contact with her parents. the gym leader has taken a shine to her, encourages her to follow her dreams and is already planning on making her their successor.
by the time of bw1, when elesa talks to bianca and her father to encourage them to let bianca go on her own journey, it's a reflection of her own growth as well - she followed her dream despite her parents and found her own happiness and success, and she wants to inspire other people to do the same.
between the twins, elesa is a lot closer to emmet at this point - in fact, she isn't really close to ingo at all. that comes later after she's known emmet for a longer time. her friendship with emmet surprises a lot of people bc it's literally the popular cool kid befriending the weird kid no one else really cares about (besides his brother).
on the other hand, this is exactly why they're friends - emmet is not only grateful to have any friends at all, but elesa is also someone frequently misunderstood because of her appearance, lonely and the right amount of silly (reminds him a bit of someone...). also she loves electric types which is verrry cool. elesa finds emmet's bluntness and genuineness extremely refreshing compared to how much everyone else works to pretend and fit in. he's also the first person to see her for who she actually is and not her parents or her reputation.
the jacket is a bargain buy she saw in a shop once when she and emmet were out on the streets, and she mentioned her parents wouldn't let her get such clothes as much as she loves the jacket. emmet bought it for her for her birthday.
her closeness to emmet but not ingo is reflected in her design - blue and white feature much more than black and red.
her blitzle's name is chromatic, or chrom for short. she doesn't know about fe awakening for the record.
as a trainer, while she definitely trains mostly electrics, she does have a few off-types for coverage outside work - a lilligant, cinccino, cryogonal and later togekiss.
proof of process
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I know this is very much not canon (or maybe it...is kind of? I haven't read the book in a while and maybe I'm super misinterpreting something), but I think it would've been neat if the movies had played around with the possibility that Paul like...can't actually see the future at all. It would be interesting imo to establish him early on as someone who's hyper-observant of details and really good at pattern recognition, and can therefore just "guess" stuff about people and future events. And then when he does actually start having prophetic visions/dreams there would be like...a seed of doubt. For the audience, for him and for everyone who knows him, just that hint of "well wait a minute, how much of this is him having psychic powers and how much is just...him being him? Where is the line?"
This is gonna go on a bit of a tangent so hear me out. Last year I read a really fascinating book called Hild, which was a fictionalized early life account of a real Anglo-Saxon saint, St Hilda of Whitby. In the book, Hild is portrayed as being highly intelligent in a way that, in the context of early Medieval spiritualism, is mistaken for precognition. Her mother, due to them being in a dangerous political position, uses this to essentially scam the king into believing her daughter is a prophet, and her position as a "seer" ends up winning them much political gain.
But Hild can't actually predict the future. She's extremely pattern recognizant, and can take educated guesses about people and nations' next moves politically based on details that are usually overlooked, she makes connections many others don't -- but she's not a seer. And obviously now, looking at this book in retrospect, the whole "mother installs her child as a false prophet for their safety but also for political gain" thing is giving me some Dune brainrotty parallels.
So while I don't remember this strictly being in the source material, I still think it would be neat for an adaptation of Dune (or just me, playing around in fanfics because I might do that) to have more hints towards that possibility. That maybe Paul isn't super smart and intuitively knows things he shouldn't and can see the future - he is actually just super smart. Not confirming 100% that that's the case, but leaving room for doubt. Leaving you wondering up until the last minute where it turns out it doesn't matter anyway; if he's believed to be what he is, then he is. Idk. Just a thought.
#dune#paul atreides#??? does this makes sense#and maybe the books do actually do this more idr#and while i know him being Special is like. the whole thing. i kind of love the thought that every Weird Thing abt paul#actually just has a really normal explanation#and on one hand this is also kind of the whole thing right. that he's a false prophet.#so i just think it would be cool if . hm. there was an even deeper layer to that?#idk
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I love political and tactical fantasy shenanigans so I'm very 👀 over that appearing in the princess luz au in some way. There's so much you can play around with, like the public opinion, who gets supplies for not just the castle but the civilians, or runs this or that, and how the different coven's are run (i read a v neat theory that the abomination coven has more opportunities because of Darius, for example), any new covenhead will have to untangle the mess and horrors of their predecessor, and bringing in new people to run a section or help support a coven that's surprise surprise being held together by string and luck because the previous head was incompetent or didn't care enough. Or both.
Like the plant coven's plantations that are mentioned once in Hunting Palismen that guard the remaining palistrom trees. That'll need to be dealt with so more witches can recieve palismen, and then they'll need someone to carve them(possible lead in to Hunter getting intrested in palisman carving? ovo CLAWTHORNE CLAN APPEARANCE MAYBE??). Not to mention the overhaul of the education system, of which TERRA is apparently in charge of, which explains a lot, actually. How many buildings on TBI aren't built to sustain the boiling rain and rely on magic or pure luck to stay standing because the construction coven either didn't bother to do their jobs or they simply couldn't because they didn't have the resources and time, so those who have the most money get priority?
Not to mention taking care of monsters! The empress coven can't be too different from the emperor's coven yet, so they're not very efficient(because they're a cult and that's how they function) and someone has to address that and Lilith is too used to the system to recognise the problems by herself. Maybe Luz makes it law that all coven's now must have a head coven and a vice head of sort, so all the power and decision making doesn't rest with only one person?
Sorry, I'm rambling, I just love this kind of stuff, I go a little insane over it. Adding on all the characters being very stupid or very crazy or both makes for a funny time.
YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!! THIS IS ALL SO GOOOOD these thoughts are all so good. at first i didn't want to plot a big long story about what exactly luz does to solve some of these issues, bc watching and dreaming addressed everything so well... but the circumstances of this AU have changed enough that i'm getting invested anyway. like. how DO you dismantle an empire when you also have to pretend that that empire is normal and fine and that your fragile allyships with power-hungry coven heads are fine and that your so-called "divinity" isn't based on the bullshit lie of a genocidal colonizer. HOO BOY.
i love love love political worldbuilding fic that explores things like infrastructure and different political dynamics and schisms in fantasy worlds, that was ALSO one of my fave things when i would write homestuck ancestor fic. plotting out what a galactic war might look like and how resources were distributed and how empire weaponry could be commandeered and how propaganda on both sides would function.... MMM. my bread and butter
i think the thing i've put the Most thought into toh-wise is the abomination coven, simply because i am a darius girlie and think about darius All The Time. like i think that the abomination coven has opportunities because there's a lot of capitalist stuff going on, because darius has taken a very libertarian-seeming hands-off approach to running his coven. but you can't apply 1-to-1 real world politics to it because actually, darius """small government""" deamonne is letting people get away with having fake abomination coven sigils and repeatedly break the law and game the empire's systems... all under the guise of "i don't know anything about that. i'm just lazy"
i had Extensive palistrom tree lore (and tragedy) planned in the darius & prev gg fic i outlined, i don't know if i'll ever write it in full but MMM the palistrom trees and the bat queen are on my mind Constantly. also tucking these construction coven thoughts into my back pocket for later use because i hadn't thought much about the infrastructure of the isles' buildings but you're RIGHT. living in portland oregon there's CONSTANT vicious local debate about rebuilding our bridges and older buildings and coastal evacuation plans for when cascadia ruptures, bc most of that wasn't built with a 9.0 earthquake in mind. could definitely pull from. All Of That. LOL
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Bokuto Koutaro x Male!Reader [Fluff]
Warning; reader has social anxiety, the plot of this one is based on komi-san.
Masterlist.
Haikyuu!!
Bokuto and (M/n) had known each other practically since birth. Their mothers had been best friends since childhood and the illusion of their children being friends warmed their hearts.
Since little, (M/n) has always had trouble speaking to people, seemingly coming off as rude and cold towards the girls and boys in his class, even the teachers thought the little boy had no manners. But the moment (M/n) got to be with such a happy boy as Bokuto was it was clear that (M/n) had trouble talking to others.
That never changed, it only seemed like it got worse. By the time they were in middle school, (M/n) was known as the 'Ice Prince' always silent, stoic, and seemingly voiceless. The boy never spoke, he couldn't speak, his body froze and his mind went numb every time he had to speak out loud, but with Bokuto was different, it has always been.
Bokuto never made fun of him or forced him to talk to others or make friends, he knew (M/n) wanted to but simply couldn't. It was clear when, during the last week of their last year as middle schoolers, (M/n) and Bokuto were talking like usual. Well, Bokuto was the one doing most of the talking while (M/n) listened attentively, a soft look in his eyes as he observed every move Bokuto did with his hands as he explained his story.
But after a while, Bokuto remembered a small talk he had with his classmates a few hours before, they were talking about what their dreams were, and of course, Bokuto wanted to be a professional Volleyball player and represent Japan in the Olympics. He felt curious about what (M/n)'s dream may be, so he showed a bright smile the male's way and asked.
"What's your dream, (M/n)?"
With wide open eyes, (M/n) thought for a second about what his dream actually was, and he opened his mouth to say it but couldn't, Bokuto noticed that and reached inside his bag, grabbing a notebook and a pen, handing them to the (h/c) haired, who scribbled with (messy/neat) handwriting on the blank paper. Bokuto waited patiently, at least physically, his mind was impatiently wondering what (M/n)'s dream may be and holding his breath when the pen was placed on the desk, Bokuto's yellow eyes read the written words.
'I want to have 100 friends, you're the first one, Koutaro, I just need 99 more :)'
Bokuto wasn't sure what made his heart race so fast, whether it was the cuteness of (M/n)'s dream, being referred to as his friends, or being called by his first name, he didn't know, but that day was the day where Bokuto started looking at (M/n) with different eyes, eyes that were now filled with love and adoration.
///////
Ever since then, Bokuto has realized that his heart always beat a little faster whenever he saw (M/n) or was alone with him, a blush would show on his face during the rare occasions he got to hear his voice.
Now in their third and last year at Fukudorani, most of Bokuto's time was taken by the volleyball team, spending hours every day training and practicing, which made him get easily distracted and he would usually leave something behind.
(M/n) and Bokuto were still in the same class, somehow they always were, so (M/n) was quick to notice anything the cheerful male left behind due to his rush. As he walked through the school halls on his way to the gym, people turned to look at him, the 'Ice Prince' looked as handsome as ever, making girls and boys sigh whenever he walked past them or simply glanced at them.
There wasn't much (M/n) could do about the state except ignore them and keep going his way, which is what he always did.
Usually, whenever he got to the gym, the door would be open all the way or just a little bit, the net preventing the volleyball from bouncing out, and he stood there, peeking inside with a cold glare until someone noticed him. The players that made eye contact with him would flinch, starting to feel like they were being judged by God itself, of course, Akaashi would realize the mood change and look around so he could find the cause, only to see him by the door, looking inside and straight at Bokuto.
His hair cast a shadow on his face and the sun coming in behind him made it seem even eviler, so Akaashi would call out for his senpai so he could take care of the situation.
"Bokuto-san," the male would look at him with questioning eyes, "Someone's looking for you."
And with curiosity, Bokuto would look at the door where Akaashi glanced at, only to start running at the male standing outside, jumping to hug him.
"(M/n)! What are you doing here?" Getting off from him, Bokuto waited patiently, it surprised his teammates how calm he could become with (M/n) around.
The (h/c) haired male lifted his arm, showing what he was holding out of sight. Bokuto's jacket.
This kept happening pretty much every day the volleyball team had practice, it could be Bokuto's backpack, bento, his sports bag, or anything he left behind in the classroom. And some players began looking at them suspiciously, observing how they interacted.
But there was one time when (M/n) came to the gym with Bokuto, well, (M/n) didn't come by his will, Bokuto was dragging him with him, his loud, vociferous voice audible from outside, and as they walked in, the rest of the team stopped what they were doing to stare at them.
Already there, every single pair of eyes was placed on them, especially (M/n) who was shaking due to the attention, his mouth open to say something, but he was stuttering to a point where Bokuto decided to talk instead.
He held (M/n)'s hand and everyone saw how he visibly calmed down, but he was now slightly hiding behind their captain.
"Guys, this is (L/n) (M/n), my best friend!" He said proudly, everyone observed how said male bowed as a greeting before being dragged by Bokuto further into the gym.
Glances were sent in their captain's direction, watching them talk, but soon their coach called to start practice, and (M/n) was left by himself in a corner.
This kept happening, and eventually, some players approached (M/n), who struggled to talk back to them, but instead, he wrote down what he wanted to say. With that, they understood that (M/n) wasn't cold or stoic by choice, he was just bad at talking to people, and when they understood his circumstances, he was soon surrounded by people that saw him like a friend.
Watching (M/n) interact with people he was close to made Bokuto's heart beat faster, seeing him finally get comfortable around people he didn't know. A smile grew on his face, a look of love and adoration in his eyes, the same look he had the first time he saw (M/n) with other eyes.
"They may not be 99 but... we're getting close," he mumbled to himself, unable to tear his eyes away from (M/n)'s smile.
#haikyuu#bokuto koutaro x reader#haikyuu x reader#male reader#reader insert#x reader#fluff#one shot#.mackjlee9 writes
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Season 3 Ramble#2 - “romance" lol ver.3
This month’s episode is all about romance, the third time around now and somehow I find myself with yet another tweak in format. Guess that just goes to show that love comes in many forms. In any case this month’s format isn’t that different from last time. I’ve still split my reads into 3 categories, the main difference is that the categories themselves have changed. Last time it was cute stuff, fucked up stuff and lewd stuff, this time I still have the cute category but I've switched out the other two based on this month’s reads, which I'll explain as we get to them.
So basically how this episode is gonna go is I'm gonna give my top reads this month in ascending order for each of those categories and then my top 1 reads before this month for the same.
Getting right into it the first category up is
Awww {basically v cute v innocent stuff}
#3) The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague (ongoing w 57 chapters, story & art by Miyuki Tonogaya)
This is an extremely simple but extremely cute story. The title pretty much summarizes it actually, the main character is the descendant of an ice demon, which is apparently not too strange in this world since he works a normal office job,,, and he has a crush on his cool, stoic, almost expressionless female colleague.
It's a pretty neat take on slow burns because one it's pointedly ice related, and secondly the ice guy’s emotions affect his environment, like if he gets too excited there'll be a blizzard or tiny snowmen will appear.. If you've ever had a crush on someone you know it's already hard enough to act natural or “be cool" so this guy has a pretty rough go of it.
The art is pretty nice but the characters, especially the wider cast leaves more than a bit to be desired. It actually almost kinda feels like the creator really just wanted to focus on the main two but the editor was like,, that's not how the real world works, especially not in an office... I do appreciate though that some of the wider cast includes different types of demons and it’s fun to see the different ways their emotions leak out, the different pairings, and so on.
As I said it’s an extremely simple story, almost feels like a 4 panel tbh, nothing I'd push too hard but it’s undeniably cute and makes for a super easy binge read or just something to pick up from time to time to escape the harshness of reality and indulge in the very cute but very absurd fantasy of a successful workplace romance… I think more than a few ppl have that one coworker you would if you could… but no… just no… leave it alone… leave it in fiction land my friend…
#2) Skip and Loafer (ongoing w 58 chapters, story & art by Misaki Takamatsu)
The story here follows our main heroine, a real go getter, who moved from the countryside to big city Tokyo for highschool, all so she could follow her dreams of being a politician and help out in rural areas around the country. Anyways she’s characterized as not being great at much else but studying, and in that spirit, gets lost on the way to her entrance ceremony. Here enters our main hero who’s also late but for the opposite reason, he’s super laid back, slept late and was considering just skipping but he felt sorry for this obviously lost but obviously trying girl so he decides to help her out and the story takes off from there.
Just wanna get out of the way that I love all the characters and their interactions with each other and especially within themselves. If anything, that's this manga’s strongest point. It makes the characters ooze real feelings that really feels in place for each where they are. Like not too dramatic where you wonder if they’re really highschool kids or even in school for that matter, and not too fantasy like where everything is perfect and it’s almost like characters are machines just filling a roll.
It kicks off pretty early on with engaging character interactions and the way they change and develop as the main cast gets to know each other is really endearing. I especially really really love the main heroine because she’s that innocent character type but it’s not done in that way that makes her this pure cinnamon roll that’s too good for this world, where nothing gets her down or she chooses peace and love every time. Her thing is that she’s basically socially inept and so she doesn’t really get when people are mean or even when they're being nice sometimes, but she’s all by herself in this new place so she’s trying and though she doesn’t always get it, it’s a real pleasure to see her grow.
It’s ongoing, only 58 chapters but there’s been a ton of realness and real growth in a bunch of ways for most of the cast packed in so far. Really can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Anyways, cool art, great cast, love the interactions and would definitely highly recommend this one.
#1) Horimiya (complete w 152 chapters, story by HERO & art by Daisuke Hagiwara)
The story here is that the main hero/heroine pair each have a hidden side to them that nobody else knows. At school, the heroine is always super put together but when she’s at home she’s too busy taking care of her little brother for all that and takes on a more homely caretaker persona (the art is shoujo leaning so she and most of the main cast pretty much always looks pretty). But anyways, at school, the hero is seen as a gloomy glasses wearing loner but when he leaves school he looks like he came out of a rock magazine. Tattoos and piercings everywhere. Anyways, this and that happens, the convenient plot is convenient and they end up becoming friends who hold each other’s secrets.
As much as the story kinda feels like shoujo perfect world fantasy stuff, and as much as it came out as top 1 largely because it’s complete, I think a small part of it might have been that a tiny part of me still wants to believe in, and might even still want that kind of “perfect” love. From the innocent buildup to the accumulation of every day special normals and beyond… but in any case, I did honestly like the theme of more and more of your true self coming to the surface and being able to show that true self to someone.
Overall, besides the main pairing, the cast was kinda weak, not bad, just pretty one dimensional But that one dimension was very cute and fluffy and this being a romance manga, it worked. What I will say though is that it took a while for the wider cast to come into play and even more for them to make me care, like not until late 50s heading into 70s did i care about anyone but the main pairing. Meanwhile skip and loafer only has about 50 chapters total and I was fully invested in the entire cast well before then.
But as I said, when the full horimiya cast rolls in it’s all very cute and I liked that they even made the platonic same sex relations pretty cute like yh guys just having fun and it’s not weirdly pervy in any direction, just another form of love yk.. v cool… Again it did have me yearning a bit like wow imagine having a life with both platonic AND romantic relationships being healthy and fulfilling.
Anywho,, pretty neat art, the story kinda just goes on ig but having in mind that it was a romance and it goes on in an increasingly cute way and all, i’d recommend it.
hm:
Even the Introverted Gals Wanna Get Out There! - pretty funny, maybe more funny than cute, also it’s girl on girl, think dead dead demon’s destruction but the main heroines actually get to live life and breath air, literally just vibing out in the club room after school (ongoing w about 6 chaps)
Train Man - Net Development, the Love Story of a Local Train: based on a true story apparently, basically a dude saves some people on a train and becomes friends with one of them and stuff take off from there (complete w 27 chapters)
ftr everything in the main list has an anime but i can’t speak on their status or quality
also ftr I'd definitely rate skip and loafer higher than horimiya overall but because this is the cuteness category, + horimiya is a complete story which I tend to favour for higher places in lists and stuff
next category up is
Dense & Denser
{this is basically when one or more of the characters are just oblivious to any love flags thrown their way}
#2) How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend (complete w 42 chapters, story & art by Takeshi Moriki, original LN story by Fumiaki Maruto)
Had never heard of this one before but the title pulled me in like how and why would one raise a boring girlfriend anyways?
The story here is that on the way to school the mc has an encounter with a mystery girl and it’s love at first sight, even though he didn’t see her face…. The mc is an anime/manga otaku much like myself, and this encounter inspires him to make a dating sim game, but after he happens to actually meet the mystery girl face to face, he finds that she’s actually kind of plain,, albeit in a cute sort of way. In any case the feeling of their first mystery meeting lives on so he pushes through with his idea, intending to transform this girl into his ideal heroine. The main story, relations and problems arise around him trying to get the dev team together for this game, and of course this being romance they’re all girls.
It’s all very funny in a very meta way, with commentary on anime/manga culture in most chapters, and the so called main heroine, being outside that culture, usually playing a very good straight man. It’s also meta in how the mc goes about getting his dev team together, as i said they’re all girls so it’s almost like his life becomes a dating sim in trying to woo them into his harem… i mean game dev team…
In any case I’m not even actually sure the mc really counts as romantically dense or if he was just so committed to the bit of being a single weeb undeserving of love that he just pretended not to notice all the pretty loud romantic undertones,,, but maybe that's a type of density in itself… a younger me can def relate… being committed to the bit is a lifestyle… bed is bae… anyways it’s kind of ecchi but still surprisingly good in both the romance and meta aspects. Pretty good art, they made a decision to keep the cast compact and it worked out very nicely. It wraps up in just under 50 chapters but I will say each chapter is pretty dense and can be a bit word heavy. Would recommend.
#1) Monthly Girls’ Nozaki (ongoing w 148 chapters, story & art by Izumi Tsubaki)
This story follows our main heroine as she tries to get the attention of her crush, who is our mc. In approaching him she finds out he’s actually her favourite romance manga creator and through this and that ends up working on it with him as an assistant to try and get closer to him.
Right off the bat I think everyone in this cast is pretty dense but man is the main hero just the most dense mf in the universe. I feel sorry for the main heroine cause she knows but she’s just so down bad for him she kinda becomes dense to how down bad she is. In any case every chapter takes the form of a series of connected 4 panel stories and it’s pretty funny throughout.
The wider cast is pretty neat, nothing too crazy but as i said they’re all pretty dense in their own weird ways so the interactions are usually funny. The art is solid, cast is okay, pretty funny, would recommend for sure.
ftr both have an anime not sure of status or quality
and again ftr i’d rank boring girlfriend over monthly girls’ in general, especially as it’s complete it’s just that this is the dense & denser category and monthly girls’ nozaki is definitely dense central, like black hole event horizon density my friends…
and the last category
That’s Rough Buddy
{a direct reference to avatar when sokka told prince zuko his girlfriend turned into the moon and his response was “that’s rough buddy”, this category is different from the that’s fucked up category I used in very.2 in that these focus more on emotional turmoil and have no physical violence and so on}
#3) Kowloon Generic Romance (ongoing w 61 chapters, story & art by Jun Mayuzuki)
This is kind of eh tbh, cool art, and it’s kind of a mystery as to what’s goin on, so much so that I don’t think I can describe it without spoiling so i’ll lean on the anilist/yen press summary a bit here which is as follows:
“Welcome to Kowloon Walled City: a dystopian townscape where the people are brimming with nostalgia, and where the past, present, and future converge. Amid the hidden emotions and extraordinary daily lives of the men and women working in its confines, a tale of romance begins to unfold for real estate agent Reiko Kujirai—one that feels as familiar as Kowloon itself…”
I doubt that told you anything but I hope it sparks some intrigue, I will say it has a good number of dope one liners, and if i’m being honest the main characters smoke a lot which is an aesthetic I love for some reason so sue me…
Not much else to say tbh, nice art as I said, it’s pretty cool, okay cast, the story is pulling a bit but the bait isn’t that strong, though the aesthetics of it all has definitely caught my eye so I will be keeping up with it after this month… i wouldn’t push it as a recommendation that hard but there’s only 61 chapters rn so no real loss if you do decide to check it out
#2) How Do We Relationship? (ongoing w 115 chapters, story & art by tamifull)
The story here is that the main heroines are gay and in reality no matter how much the media and conservatives want ppl to believe that homosexuality and homosexuals are accepted and normalized in society, in fact that anything but being heterosexual and cisgender passing is accepted & normalized, that’s simply not the case in real life. I live in jamaica and man, not that I really care, but I could get shunned just for reading stuff with gays in it… In any case that’s the sort of reality the main heroines live in which was cool for its realness as they were/are hiding the fact that they're gay, but in any case plot plot plot they end up going out….
This is the “that’s rough buddy” category so I think it’s okay to spoil that it doesn’t go smoothly though I won’t go into further detail. I will mention a really cool thing the author said in an afterword where they say that a lot of romance stories tend to build towards and end at the start of the main characters getting into a relationship, but life isn’t like that. There’s life after that and that’s sort of what they wanted to illustrate. The life after a relationship…. Sounds like a spoiler but remember there’s more than just our heroines in the story. there’s a whole wider cast and they’re all pretty great. each having their own relationship troubles or lack thereof, ideas and philosophies on love and etc.
Pretty solid art, in fact it really reminds me of yokohama shopping log, so much so that i’m convinced it’s a fanfiction created just to make the characters from that series actually full on gay. Pretty solid cast, a story that gets more and more engaging as it goes on though it’s pretty solid from the start. would definitely highly recommend though it can be a bit tumultuous like damn you guys just never gonna be stable huh??
#1) Chobits (complete w 88 chapters, story & art by CLAMP an all woman manga group formed in the mid 1980s made of Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki lgarashi)
I’d always seen this around and always as the profile picture for some more than suspicious internet accounts… the vibe it gave off in my periphery view was just horrendous tbh but i took the dive and it was worth it, obviously, coming in at #1.
The story here is that in the future, the world is inhabited by humans who live alongside their extremely powerful computers called persocoms, that are shaped to look and act almost human. numerous stories have taken this angle so I think you can imagine the effects that would have on society, but in any case the story follows our mc who recently moved from the countryside to the city and ends up finding one in the trash that he takes in and starts to take care of. The thing is their memory is corrupted so he has to teach them everything, but soon enough the mystery of the discarded persocom comes to light and their abilities could change the world.
All that pompous stuff aside the theme of discerning the shape of love and who deserves it was pretty cool, the mc was bleh and so was most of the cast but the last few chapters and the questions they posed were enough, especially the origin story of the persocom like damn… that’s rough as fuck buddy,, def kinda weird but my condolences all the same…. Art was okay… and yh i’d recommend it..
hm:
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
Top Combo
Video Girl Ai (complete w 131 chapters, story & art by Masakazu Katsura)
This was probably my fav read this month, somewhere between this, boring girlfriend and skip & loafer but this definitely has the best combinations of the different categories I was working with this month.
Again this is something I'd seen floating around for the longest and associated with more than sus accounts but it was pretty good.
The lazy story is that the mc is a lame with no game and his crush ends up confessing to his best friend in front of him. obviously distraught he ends up renting what he thinks is a porn tape.. which I guess it technically is but it's supernatural in that the girl comes out of the TV and tries to mend the viewers’ heart.
Things get super complicated and it turns into the weirdest love polygon I've ever seen, lots of back and forth and dilly dallying but I enjoyed it. The art was great, had a great classic feel, there's more than a bit of ecchi but it's not entirely distasteful or weirdly out of context, the characters and their interactions were a bit exasperating with the back and forth, loves me loves me not stuff but that had its own entertainment value, and in any case I'd recommend it
now moving onto stuff from before this month, which I won't get into details for as I've spoken on them in previous versions which I'm encouraging you to go listen to or read the transcripts for,,
Oldies
Awww
Our Precious Conversations (top 1 oldie ver.1)
Dense & Denser
That's Rough Buddy
Hi Score Girl (top 1 ver. 2)
Boy's Abyss (top2 wtf ver. 1)
That's it for this part, got a little off cuff rambling in the rest of the ramble of you wanna listen in, thanks for checking this out as usual, hope you can find something here or elsewhere that you'll love and I hope you have a good one until next time 🍻
#just another day#mm..manga#writeup#the ice guy and his cool female colleague#skip and loafer#horimiya#how to raise a boring girlfriend#monthly girls' nozaki kun#kowloon generic romance#how do we relationship?#chobits#Spotify
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Hello, I totally love you art and designs.
The way the character sheets the expressions change when they show the body is just adorable, and that image of the princess! I'm like Leo! Do you have more designs like that?
By the way I also had that Yuichi's first name/surname debate, I loved your very complete answer.
And now my question I'm curious about Miyamoto and Yuichi's relationship in the image of the two of them together, Miyamoto looks kind of awkward, is it just my imagination?
Hi Nerish, thank you so much for the kind words and compliments! I think you're one of my earliest followers, so here's an official welcome to the blog!
By "designs like that" do you mean more references? I do not! I'm still planning on the story as it involves the already established characters, and they still have some time-period-specific designs that need to be officialized before I can finish their arcs. Other characters, as mentioned before, come in way later in the timeline. Our very first antagonist is one we already know, or at least, we have an idea of who / what. After that arc, we will see another antagonist, and that's where we can start seeing more characters & when I can post new designs.
Unless you meant more designs like Princess Miya, in which... Yes, I do! I had a dream about someone posting Leochi art in a discord server, and Yuichi was wearing a uh..... playboy bunny outfit. At the time the dream happened, I thought it was stupid-- a rabbit in a sexy rabbit costume??? But then it got me thinking... first of all, to any NSFW artists out there, that's actually a genius idea, and secondly, I know how to turn a bad idea into a good one. Here are some concepts of a "Magical Girl" inspired AU of Shuji and Yuichi, whose powers are based on different types of flowers. I wanted to keep the same kind of Light VS. Dark theme, and this isn't an AU I will be actively pursuing, but it does exist out there now.
Shuji is based on a Balloon Flower, has a light, airy, and elegant kind of look, while Yuichi is based on a Himalayan Blue Poppy, and has a messy, rough, kind of luxurious feel to it. I like them, but they don't match each other. Most Magical Girl teams, I think, kind of look the same as each other, to signify they are a "team". This looks, well, not like that, lol. Also, couldn't decide if Yuichi should have an asymmetrical arm piece. Lots of strange design choices made here, but they're neat.
Yuichi and Miyamoto... Well, I wanted to portray something between them in that image, but as you can see my art style was different then so the expressions are off, the posing is off, everything is... Off. I do think there is something there, though. Miyamoto is training under Yuichi to have the values of a Samurai, but he doesn't abide by them outside of the house. He believes house = safe, and outside = survival, much like Yuichi and Shuji do. Miyamoto is a Samurai at home, and a rogue outside, which is different than the twins who are Samurai all the time. Yuichi is older and wiser, but he has a kooky quality to him that makes Miyamoto question if he was right to train him. Imagine... you know your Uncle to be this funny, kind of hot-headed, stubborn, and even somewhat air-headed dum-dum that never takes anything seriously (from your POV). Then, the mask comes off and he is actually.. really, really strong. You knew that, but you didn't know he was willing to actually pin you against the wall, just to prove a point. It can be a little awkward to think that your Uncle is entirely capable of killing anybody including you, and he is training you to do the same thing. Miyamoto is by no means a pacifist, but he's a peacemaker. If he offers peace and the other side refuses, of course there will be war. But Miyamoto has never had to imagine that he needs to know how to do what Yuichi is training him for, and so, metamorphically, he puts down his sword and walks away from it all. It's a tough responsibility for him. He's not sure he wants to be a Samurai yet. And he has to face the fact that his strange, oddly chillax and really cool Uncle is trained to kill. So this stirs up his little angsty teenage phase, where he shows up to training late, leaves early, doesn't try as hard, and is often away from home. He loves his Uncle. They just gotta work it out is all.
#uv asks#shuji#shuji usagi#yuichi#yuichi usagi#miyamoto#miyamoto usagi#relationships#usagi chronicles#usagi yojimbo#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rise of the tmnt#uv
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commentary first and then theory that i can expand on just a tiny bit more. before you click open on that read more, know that i finished all of the 2.0 missions out including sparkle's. this got longer than i intended it to be
yes, sa.mpo's english voice is still off even if not as deep as those newer lines that got added a couple patches ago ( which has since been "corrected" ) and evidently it's not just because it's sparkle pretending to be him in the main mission line. even the delivery on certain lines strays from how he's done things in patches before. it's just meh
edit: after talking with someone i came to the conclusion that he used to sound more lively over all and less gruff on certain deliveries
okay trailblaze mission:
like i had said, you're meant to know from the start that something is off with him. gait isn't as obvious in the in-game scenes, but speech is slightly off. normally he introduces himself with first and last name. and then mistakes firefly for march
the way firefly describes him though implies that sparkle had practiced being sa.mpo to an extent. the description is rather spot on, however him being 5'9 then looking at the rest of the cast's heights makes me feel weird so i'm keeping my headcanon height aksdjgh
hearing aha referred to as The Laughter was rather neat. i'm eatin that up
the only time we see a pre-rendered scene with sa.mpo is when the reveal happens. we clearly see sparkle's gait here
sparkle's perception of sa.mpo is rather interesting compared to what we have seen of him. enough to trick the trailblazer and perhaps someone who doesn't pay super close attention to his mannerisms. though, his use of "my dear" and related terms isn't frequent in the english VO. he's a bit more suggestive and "flirty" if you wanna go there. that and he apparently lied a bit about what happened on jarilo to sparkle, she says this herself.
world of adults, adult entertainment. listen. the implications of sa.mpo having his own VIP card and the things he frequents in pen.acony cannot be because sparkle has spent a lot of time as him. i wholeheartedly believe she's borrowing his stuff and status while masquerading as him. which HONESTLY, man someone needs to come have a drink with sa.mpo ajksdhg
the amount of out of context stuff and red herrings regarding sa.mpo being on pen.acony was amusing to see thru the trailers. because yeah the tat.alov thing was such a small section. going back to my previous statements though, it seems as if that dreamscape/dream was sparkle's own based on what sa.mpo might've lied about/embellished. which... is interesting that he would've said outlandish stuff rather than the truth. sparkle wasn't in on his reasonings for going nor what the bel.obog catastrophe might've been. giovanni might have been
i still think that at least based on what i have heard, the reveal scene in chinese is more sinister than what we get in english. maybe that's just me but i've always seen english sa.mpo more goofy, but this newer direction for his english VA is even goofier
i was DYING at the dialogue options you had to combat "sa.mpo's" antics.
"since when did i acknowledge you as my friend?"
"the garbage king? you're the real garbage king!"
sparkle's companion mission:
once again we are met with sa.mpo. though this is a dream available to us so, how much is real and what portion in memory is this maintained properly?
we are led to believe that sa.mpo on penacony isn't actually him. and with good enough reason
in terms of helping sparkle to fake her own death and play along with the investigation. i'm wondering what kind of importance his own mask is considering he didn't have it for some time? based on their conversation at the end
my smol theory is just placing when this takes place. i've always thought it to be in the past, but from the sounds of things it's not in a FAR distant past, it's rather recent. at first i reckoned this happened during the period of time when the astral express was on the xia.nzhou or something like that. but it seems to be a bit before but not TOO long before
BECAUSE sparkle and black swan are there for the festivities and bl.ack swan also mentioning that sparkle mixed her up with another memokeeper. the invitations were sent right before the trailblazer mc being a part of the crew. in addition to this sparkle says "a show of unprecedented splendor is about to be staged in penacony" implying that the main story stuff hadn't yet unfolded in any way and considering how sparkle trails the MC rather quickly, i'd have to assume we aren't in the picture just yet.
secondly, sa.mpo when having that memory lapse mentions that their surroundings don't look like be.lobog. implying he's already spent time in belobog. it's implied that he's spent quite a while on jarilo just doing his thing, and since sparkle is here on penacony "early" i have to assume sam.po was on jarilo "early" on purpose as well, scoping out the planet and getting acclimated to then have an easier time befriending the astral express crew.
third, the reason i think this takes place just slightly before in-game events, before the MC is introduced and playable, is because sparkle asks sa.mpo if him needing his mask has to due with the be.lobog catastrophe. which based on the surrounding information shared in dialogue, MUST be related to the ste.llaron and the astral express showing up... not the IPC showing up ( at least not on their own, but sa.mpo isn't even really in that story line once that time comes until aetherium wars )
plus sa.mpo literally applies sparkle's line to the ja.rilo talk: "if you're too late to take the stage, you can work behind the scenes." and guess what sa.mpo said to an unknown person while on jar.ilo during the 4th wall break ? "aw, it was a close thing alright! good thing it dawned on me: hey sa.mpo doesn't have to be a protagonist, right? the likes o f us are better suited to... shadowy comic relief, huh?"
so the mas.ked fo.ols seem to be partaking in things that don't necessarily concern them for fun but then there's some underlying ulterior motive. bla.ck sw.an points this out about sparkle specifically, not sa.mpo on penacony
sa.mpo being able to admit that he likes to take the stage and make a fool out of himself to me implies that he doesn't mind wilder stuff, but it still depends on what he's doin. but he makes it clear that he doesn't like sparkle's methods/aesthetics "after all, the Elation that Miss Sparkle seeks... isn't something ol' Sa.mpo can stand by". and even told her to stay away from be.lobog in the same breath.
considering the aeth.erium wars convo between sa.mpo and giovanni... it's unclear what exactly giovanni knew about sa.mpo's involvement in anything. after all, sa.mpo does tell sparkle to tell him hi which implies they would've all known where sa.mpo was spending his time and what task he more or less did for sparkle...
though that brings me to my other point. why did sa.mpo trust sparkle with his mask? and is it actually his mask? did her having his mask have anything to do with her being able to disguise herself as him? sparkle's masks and such evidently have their own power/deal about them so i'm not gonna try and say that sa.mpo's mask would be like her's in the dreamscape without more evidence.
that's all i got for now. i'll probably write stuff associated with headcanon when i've got more time
#i don't know if this'll esscape search but man that was longer than i meant for it to be#( spoilers; )#( ◇ ᵐʸ ᵈᵉᵃʳ ᵃᵘᵈⁱᵉⁿᶜᵉ┊ ooc; )
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I was just throwing ideas around when i said earlier that Lestat being significantly older in the show than in the book when he was turned could mean that he was married but now when i think about it more it actually makes sense and could be interesting! I know fuck all about 1700s France so someone correct me if i’m wrong but i think most people would be societally expected to get married in that time and place if they didn’t have a specific reason not to? Lestat’s brothers were all married and had families in the book. Lestat was very young, in his early 20s in the book and wasn’t thinking about marriage, but in his mid 30s in the show so it would’ve been relevant to him. Lestat didn’t as a bi man fit in the societal mold but i don’t think he would consider being married to a woman abhorrent either, and we know he enjoys the role of the provider and bases his feeling of self-worth around it. I don’t think it would’ve been a happy marriage based on love though, especially considering he calls Nicki his first love (and seemingly the only one before Louis). Then there’s the question of children. Back then married couples were automatically expected to have children, it was the whole purpose of the arrangement. If Lestat was not only married but had kids it would actually explain a lot of how he acts later. One of the biggest changes in his characterization in the show is that he didn’t want Claudia and is very ambivalent about her, in contrast to the book where he’s all “i’m like a mother, i want a child!”. Book!Lestat was too young and inexperienced to have experienced having a family of his own but if show Lestat had already been a father and it had negative memories and connotations to him it would naturally change how he approaches having Claudia.
And what about Nicki then? I already said earlier that i don’t think Lestat being aged up means they’re going to make his relationship with Nicki much longer, because Lestat and Nicki’s whole thing was that it was a relatively short and intense affair that had no realistic future and caused them to make romanticized irrational choices. It would be a very different story if they had like 15 years long affair. Although i think it’s possible that they could’ve already had some sort of relationship when they were young (which would make sense since Nicki was called Lestat’s first love) and then met again after a long time in their 30s. It would also be a neat parallel to Louis and Jonah, childhood friends meeting again and still having feelings for each other and causing marital strife. Again, if Lestat was married it would mean he left his wife and possibly children to run away with Nicki and to live his dreams of art and freedom. Which would actually be insane. Like it would be considered so much more scandalous than what happened in the book which was already pretty scandalous. Now i’m actually hoping they’ll go that route. Also even though this is pure speculation at this point i’m now mad on behalf of this woman and kids who maybe didn’t even exist. Lestat consistenly THE worst husband and father of all time
#this is a lot of words on something with near zero direct basis on canon i should become a fanfic writer#mal watches iwtv#keanu.txt
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How would you describe saitamas morality? I've seen him placed all over the moral "scale" when the topic comes up (though i cant say i understand the "lower" placements), so I'm interested in others thoughts on it
I'd say Saitama is a person with high morally good values and integrity.
Warning: long ass meta ahead about morality.
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One of the ways Saitama's morality and his values are illustrated is in the dream which Saitama has, directly after Beefcake basically killed thousands of people and he did not bat an eye, because he was losing his capacity to empathize with people. Then he squished his own brother and Saitama again, did not bat an eye. On the contrary, he found malicious humour in it instead.
This fact started to bother him when he realized what was happening to him.
After he recalled the time when he started out as a hero and Beefcake incident, it subconsciously bothered him so much it manifested as dream where 70% of the population had died and someone he knew more closely had also died, because he had just been callous and feeling like he failed to act on his high sense of moral virtues and deserving some kind of punishment. Practically a Lucid dream based on his intuition alone that something was wrong. Not only that, but I believe it was his subconscious also showing him that even if he let go of his inhibitions and showed some actual emotions, his emotions would not steer him wrong towards his goal of being a protector, something he is afraid of.
And wouldn't you know, the first thing he did was punt the subterranean boss in the head. Then he went out and saved Genos.
This feeling of caring for people a lot and yet failing to act on his high moral virtues that he demands of himself once again rears it's head in the Saitama vs Garou fight where Saitama dumps his virtues in the trashbin, to not kill other humans by choosing to serious punch Garou.
The moral ambiguity moment comes from the fact that we do not actually know the outcome of the serious punch squared. We also have Blast as an example who's first priority was to get everyone else to safety, as a neat little counterpoint to Saitama's actions in the heat of the moment when he wasn't thinking clearly anymore.
Saitama acknowledges this wanting to punch Garou to smithereens as a moral failure on this part. Yet letting Garou just go around free is also not morally correct thing to do because he basically murdered people and would continue down that same path, so it is a moral dilemma for Saitama who has high sense of moral values.
It is further moral dilemma that he ends up destroying Jupiter and I.O when he tries to stop Garou though, one that he does not have a good justification for, because he was showing off with little care at that point. He was relying on his ability to show superiority to make him back down, but they did intentionally destroy the moon and Jupiter.
"For the greater good" is a slippery slope.
But the facts that he can question whether or not he is morally right or wrong and is highly critical of himself, is what makes him truly a high moral person in the end. If one never questions themselves, their sense of right and wrong and remains rigid in their interpretation without considering the circumstances, then sense of morality can end up becoming very black and white. More rigidness can mean less empathy if morality is cut and dry.
Saitama is always trying to improve himself as a person too, this includes his sense of morality. So in this sense, his moral code may change and/or improve when new evidence emerges.
True morality is not bound by ethics either, because someone can violate ethics all the time while thinking they are morally correct in doing so.
Saitama does not let societal rules, ethics, determine his sense of right and wrong. Ethics are a social construct that people often follow, such as law and culture and in this case, the ethics of killing monsters in world of OPM, but Saitama follows his moral compass without being bound by the expectations of the society he lives in and what is considered ethically acceptable and unacceptable.
Not to say he's ethical or unethical just because ethics and morals are different. Ethics and morality often go hand in hand, but distinction has to be made.
So when it comes to moral values that Saitama has, they are very high moral values. He's far from flawless, but he's always trying to do the right thing based on his set of moral values.
One of the ways to evaluate the person's type of moral values and integrity is when they uphold said values even when nobody is looking or holding them back.
Saitama has all the power to just get what he wants like punch the soda machine, even a little bit, just to get the soda he wanted, grab all the cash he wants when the car got wrecked and nobody would know. He would never have to be poor again. He has all the power in the world to do whatever he wants and infinite growth potential to boot and nobody would be able to oppose him.
But he won't. What he chooses to do instead is pick up litter and save a little kid held hostage. That would make him a morally good aligned person with high integrity.
--
Saitama at his core, believes in the good of people and that everyone can change if given the chance to do so, like he himself always strives to change himself to be a better person.
Which is one of the reasons why when Saitama thought he had Garou figured out, that Godrou dealt Moral injury on him.
Among other kinds of mental injuries he suffered like high emotional damage. Saitama was already moderately to highly stressed from everything that had happened before that and was relying on his dominant cognitive function, introverted intuition, to get him through the Garou fight as a stress reaction.
It was a Full KO in that sense.
Moral injury is defined as harm that is done to an individual when their most deeply held beliefs and values are violated.
Saitama could not believe that Garou could have done something as heinous as kill other people in cruel blood, just to taunt him and make him give his all because he instantly understood the motive behind it. That is the dark side of the personality type, capacity of understanding even if someone acts in completely heinous ways.
His willpower to maintain his self-control was already in shambles from the personal hell of MA arc, when he let Garou feel his negative emotions behind his carefully controlled mask. Saitama probably does not handle stress well at all.
(Which I've yet to make a meta about how well it's crafted to specifically destroy his willpower over maintaining his self-control)
(In a more direct translation basically saying "You did this for this, right?" You got exactly the kind of reaction you wanted Garou, are you not entertained?)
Saitama believing in this human ability to change, to be morally good, is what he believes cost him everything, so to the trashbin it went and what makes it such a great moral ambiguous moment that it seemed that he would have destroyed the Earth on the same go. Because him lashing out was such a poorly planned out, impulsive act that he did not exactly think it through that Garou would also punch him back and it would endanger earth.
Chances are, it would not have if it was just his own punch, but what he let go is belief in himself to be a morally upstanding person. That it is pointless if he tries to be morally righteous and caring individual because ironically that got people killed and instead he was being callous when he tried to care more.
In this, it would seem that he then put all his remaining care in doing right by Garou, at least, to make sure that at least one person makes it out from this mess and believing in this one person to change back into the person they used to be.
And maybe trying to redeem himself at the same time, that he could be excused for his own lapse of control, if he held tight to this belief. Losing control is not worth it.
The quirk of this personality is that in right situations, they can logically justify anything.
If he does not believe in that, his core value that humans can inherently change to be better, then he would lose his sense of self.
It was Genos' belief in him being able to be a hero, that allowed Saitama to still keep a grip on himself and his values. Because Saitama no longer truly believed in his own values that he had just thrown away, like his lack of belief in his heroism would mean his clothes would shred instantly, he needed the core as memento to remind him of those values. To remind him why he's a hero.
Maybe he could do one last thing correctly at least, while keeping himself in control over his emotions.
(Chances are he actually changed his mind about letting himself loose here, because he was reminded of his values. Huh.)
--
This belief in humans ability to change, even if at first they seem to be merciless and understanding the motives when someone takes a more morally questionable action can be observed when Saitama for instance, chastises Genos weakly when Genos suddenly blasted away house of evolution without making sure that there wasn't any humans occupying the upper floors and Saitama is floored by Genos suddenly doing that.
Genos never presented himself as irredeemably merciless, in Saitamas moral opinion though. What genos did was wrong because there could have been human casualties, but he understood the motive behind suddenly incinerating the entire house because they were also bad guys sending mutants to attack people and after them specifically. So they were the aggressors first and Genos and Saitama were defending themselves. Hero association had nothing bad to say about Genos code of conduct either and probably won't.
Genos wants to eliminate evil just as bad as Saitama wants to, but chances are, Saitama's only awakening sense of humanity like emotions and morals after the warning that he was losing himself entirely, allowed him to shrug off genos' blatant disregard for ethics and possible lost human lives there as casualities in his quest to exterminate evil, when it turned out that the baddies were probably hiding underground and no actual human lives were lost.
When Genos no longer disregards other human lives as potential casualties, including his own, Saitama commends him for it. His disciple has come around to understand Saitama's deeply entrenched moral code.
--
On the moral scale? I would say Saitama ranks high on the moral scale, all things considered.
It took a loss of a very close loved one, the loss of everything he owns, being responsible for allowing someone go against his core values of murdering people, damaging the planet he lives on and highly stressfull situation in general and lowered amount of self-control, to make him re-evaluate his values and let go of his inhibitions.
It is a moral failure he has yet to own up to because he does not remember it, yet, though it was something that never ended up happening and he "redeemed" himself for it by traveling backwards with the help from Garou to deny the causality of his lack of action and action taken.
But even when he has literally nothing left and no reason to even exist, he ultimately, still tries to uphold the one last and most important moral value he has; not taking a life unless he has to.
It is a thing that he already suffers from emotionally, because his morality regarding killing monsters does not line up with the ethics of the Hero association and them killing monsters, because some monsters used to be human. One of the reasons why being a hero did not line up with what he thought it would be; helping people and defeating evil and this will probably become more and more apparent.
But the theme seems to be that he would strive to do the right thing. Within his capabilities and within his knowledge.
What he deems as morally right and wrong though, that may change if he gets more emotionally invested and his emotions and his full empathy makes a return and he may even make some morally questionable decisions based on feelings alone. For better...and for worse if he regards it as moral failure on his part to actually take care of and save every single person. To be an ideal hero.
No doubt he will get morally tested from time to time however and we'll see how sound his moral judgement remains.
#opm#one punch man#saitama#opm meta#morality#opm manga panels#opm anime screencaps#moral ambiguity#moral failing#moral injury#ethics#moral dilemma#moral alignment#asks
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palm tree 🌴
nutmeg
ivy
and chia 🩵🩷🩵🩷🩷
get to answering lol
Ayee there's my fren...
palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?
Damn, ik they're morally gray characters n very popular or infamous choices for such questions, but Snape n Draco, i don't usually like characters that act out the way they do because of whatever negative experiences they've been through, because you always have a choice to not bleed on those who haven't hurt you, but anyhow, i think that their backstories and everything that they do based on them, doesn't make me love em exactly but appreciate them a lil more than others ig. Also, just a blanket answer will be all those side characters in movies or TV shows, that are not exactly villains but are villainized by others on the show or they and their struggles are hidden from the spotlight because they aren't as quirky or likeable as the main character's problems, just makes me love them even more! Also, might be a bias cause i identify as a side character..
nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?
My room, oh the tragedy, i wanted it to be a subtle dull-ish green, or teal kinda maybe, but it turned out this bonkers paint that i hate now, but anyway, i try to work with it. There's no theme, because i didn't have a room of my own until i was way older and then the prospect of me leaving my parents' home made me think, why even bother decorating.. but yes, as of now, it's just a place i occassionally occupy n has my pride n joy, my bookshelf n my canvases on it and i am a neat freak so i like to organize stuff but ever since my seemingly never ending exams have started n my life decided to go to shit simultaneously, i haven't gotten the chance to clean n organize, but soon i will n it will feel better. (It being me, n also, a bit, the room ig? haha)
ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?
Ukw, funnily enough, i don't have a lot of 'tells' especially when I'm sad because i self-isolate, (ik toxic trait, but i feel like i don't wanna burden people with my sadness) so yeah that... But i am quiet mostly when sad n when i feel joyous, i think i hum n sing quite a lot, n take interest in my hobbies again n dance somewhat, but hey that could also be because I'm depressed but I wanna distract myself or procrastinate dealing with it so I just do the happy stuff, fake it till u make it or die amirite? For anger tho, i recently found out, i can't express it healthily, *pause for gasp* n end up screaming, crying (which i hate!!!! Crying when you're angry is horrible!!!!) n actually have very bad symptoms like a racing heartbeat n shortness of breath n have thrown up too, God, I'm oversharing! But yeah, might as well drag the cat that's outta the bag now... (Sorry, no, i still love cats, LIKE A LOT!, Please apologise to your cats, i didn't mean any harm to them)
chia ⇢ what’s an inside joke you have with someone else?
Ok so this is actually a very geographical joke (The Office reference, the kind of jokes u have to "be there for" hehe) so as i said i have my exams going on rn, n in this one subject we had to study about what makes an entrepreneur... And idk if it was a typo in the notes that we were provided with or what, although i wouldn't put my uni past that, but apparently one of the reasons one can be held back from being an entrepreneur is "not being able to have dreams", now ik they must've meant dreams as in a vision or high ambitions or something... But when me n my friend read it, we just imagined this one person going to sleep every night n waking up disappointed like "Dammit! I was so tired, i straight up went to sleep n i didn't even have a dream! This is why mom was right, i will never amount to anything because i don't see any dreams.." now they didn't even bother to specify what kinda dreams, so it can range from nightmares to fantasies or wet dreams for all we care, but ever since then, whenever there's a problem n we can't find a solution, me n my friend say to each other, "Oh well, this is because we never have dreams man! We can never think outside the box for creative solutions to anything, because we sleep too soundly n dreamlessly"
Ik it's a very, very stupidly silly joke but it gets us cracking each time so ig it works out for us atleast lol..
Wow, these were fun to answer!
Would love more asks people!
N if u reblog the OG post I'd love to fill up your ask box too...
Also, love ya n thank u sooo much for sending this love ❤️✨
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you know me so you know which one I Have to ask about: Six/River memory loss???!
OH RIGHT YES! So this occurred to me when I was listening to World Enough and Time (the Diary of River Song episode not the TV episode), when she drugs him with her amnesia lipstick and leaves him in his TARDIS. Which is a very neat way of cleaning up the timeline, but I started worrying about what he’ll think when he wakes up. Historically, episodes of lost memory for Six are... not a good sign: notably, they tend to happen when either (a) he has been threatening Peri (Twin Dilemma) or (b) somebody else has been threatening Peri (Mindwarp).
Granted that he’s doing a lot better, mentally, by the time WEaT is set, I don’t think he ever really loses the fear of another bout of that regeneration sickness that never quite went away. Those terrible first days were pretty formative for this incarnation. So alongside all the self-confidence and contentment--and Six is very happy to be himself!--he has the quiet knowledge that Something’s Broken and sooner or later Everyone Will Know.
(Yep, this story would have the ‘internalized ableism w/r/t mental illness’ tag that I have already used on a Six story before and probably ought to go back and add to one or two as well. Thanks, Gallifrey (derogatory).)
(I have thought about this characterization of Six’s relationship with his own mental health for long enough that I am no longer 100% certain where it came from, but I think it’s partly TV, partly audios and partly just how I think he’d respond to things.)
So when he wakes up where he didn’t go to sleep, the past few days a blank, with fuzzy memories for longer than that (and they don’t seem to be quite in-character), the first thing he thinks is: what did I do?
He doesn’t have any evidence; maybe he figures out where he last was and tells himself the dream machines must have affected his memory. It’s fine. He’s fine. (He says very firmly.)
But if he keeps meeting River--it’s not her fault; it’s just that she liked this incarnation and she wanted to see him and she honestly didn’t realize the visits were so close together, much less the effect they’d have on him--but she keeps using her lipstick, and he keeps waking up in the wrong place with time missing. Sometimes there are the signs of a fight on him (of course there are, they had an adventure!). Sometimes he wakes up around people who ask him where the lady went (River snuck out the back after her goodbye kiss). What lady? He thought he was travelling alone. He was travelling alone.
...People have told him he shouldn’t travel alone.
I don’t think he ever quite articulates what he’s afraid of. If he actually up and said ‘I think I’m an amnesiac serial killer,’ even he would realize that that’s just not how anything works, even mental illnesses that are actually fictional. But that’s the thing, you see, about Six and whatever’s going on with his brain: he quite often just doesn’t want to talk about it. (I have a whole collection of quotes where someone goes ‘are you crazy?!’ and he says, effectively, ‘yes, but I’m also saving your life right now, so shut up!’.)
So, haunted by the fear that the Thing That’s Wrong With Him (which he is convinced is Fundamentally Wrong With Him) has Gone Wrong Again, he keeps travelling alone--which he really shouldn’t do, although not for that reason--which means that every time he encounters River he falls for her completely again and wakes up with more time missing, lipstick on his collar and a black eye (he ran into a doorpost. Which was being used as a melee weapon by a Sontaran)--and finally, convinced that he’s a danger to everyone around him, he does the unthinkable: he visits Harry Sullivan.
Harry “Actual Medical Degree” Sullivan and also Harry “Genuinely Decent Person” Sullivan, for that matter, is pretty sure none of this quite adds up, but he doesn’t remotely have the knowledge base to figure out what is happening. But he also suspects that basically what the Doctor needs at the moment, as much as anything, is peace and quiet and someone’s ear to talk off: ideally someone he knows and trusts who happens to have a nice country practice of his own.
Harry swears, because the Doctor insists, that if the Doctor turns violent he’ll defend himself (‘I was in the Navy, you know’) but--rather as Harry suspected--it doesn’t happen. Instead the Doctor has a nice rural holiday and makes a general nuisance of himself.
The difficulty with this fic, you see, is that I don’t know the ending. He can’t actually find out about River and remember her, because timelines. But I don’t know what else would be satisfying. Perhaps she turns up, explains to Harry, and swears him to secrecy, and Harry has to convince the Doctor that he’s actually safe.
Eh, it’s one of those ideas where the character interactions are interesting but the plot’s all over the place. If I ever get the plot more orderly--or indeed if anyone else does--I think it would be fun.
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questions
stolen from liv (is anyone surprised at this point?)
do you read or write fanfiction and why?
yes. obviously? apart from being fun, i feel like i have a lot more freedom than with traditional writing. you'll notice in all of my fics (especially atcybyna) that i don't have strictly correct writing all the time. that's intentional (unless it's a typo or something, then it's just me being dumb). having mostly correct punctuation and such and then suddenly having the narration turn into run-on sentences? that conveys something. i really enjoy parallels and motifs (if you hadn't figured that out already) and this is part of that. having traditional writing standards and then breaking them is what makes it interesting, but it's hard to do that when your reader expects you to keep up those standards throughout the whole work.
that and brainrot
2. how and when did you discover fanfiction?
there's a fic not in lolrpf on my account. i'll let you figure out the rest.
3. how has fandom and fiction evolved since you found it?
i'll be honest i don't really know how to answer this question? i haven't been in fandom for long enough to see much change, i don't think
4. do you still engage with it in the way you used to?
i have to scroll past a lot more cringe things now.
5. which fandoms do you enjoy reading/writing?
lolrpf at present but can't say i enjoy looking through the fandom tag. the few people actually writing gen fics are what keep me sane
there's a tua fic that's just been sitting there taunting me for about six months. doubt i'll ever get around to finishing it but it was an interesting restriction i had to work around with the one line i really wanted to include at some point
That One Fandom. i have a doc full of fic ideas and a bunch more wips. might go back to them some day when the lolrpf brainrot runs out. but that'll take a while.
6. who are your otps?
i participate in exactly zero fandoms where shipping isn't at best awkward and at worst incredibly problematic! there's a reason for that!
7. have you told anyone you write fanfiction?
well sometimes people ask what i'm writing and i just laugh and say it's…creative writing, other times i tell them and their face falls instantly. have been able to convince some of them that as long as you're not cringe about it it doesn't have to be cringe though! we're getting there.
8. what does fanfiction mean to you?
the fact that you don't have to do all the world and character building yourself and just get to the angst or the fluff is pretty neat. my twin shadow. the way that you can build a community by just throwing your writing into the world. lots of things. i think it's hard to pin down.
9. do you prefer canon-based fanfiction or au? (so fanfiction that slots seamlessly into the original story or ‘alternate universe’ fanfiction where the world is slightly different)
aus just kinda hit different, ngl. you can do so much more with—well, everything. and pure canon in rpf—it can get messy extremely quickly if you're not careful. i tried once and it basically turned into an au anyway.
10. tell us about a fanfiction you’ve either read or written
one time i had a dream where i was a certain pro player (not gonna name names) (and no, it's not who you think) who was basically jhin but with a bit more restraint about that whole war thing. i'm sitting at a table in the back of a bar, and the people at the bar are talking (loudly, they're drunk) about the war on the horizon, and how much simpler it would be if the second coming of jhin hadn't disappeared.
woke up and wrote down a basic plot and then i worldbuilt the whole setting: basically, champs are gods and can make someone their vassal, depending on the god that can mean anything from visions in their dreams to full-on getting possessed every so often.
with jhin, well…like in canon, mans is a bit murderhappy, so his vassal is freakishly good at killing people…but it’s always a spectacle. he doesn’t even know he’s jhin’s vassal until one day in a battle (he’s a soldier, there’s a War going on) he blacks out and suddenly all his allies are cheering for him. they don’t know his name, so they’re not shouting that. they’re shouting the name of the god that won them the fight.
fast forward a few months, he’s basically won a war single-handedly. that’s great and all. but he doesn’t remember how he did it. all he can remember are the screams and the blood and the joy he had felt doing such horrible things. and that terrifies him.
time skip to a few years later, he’s trying to live a normal life, trying to pretend like the voice of the god in his head isn’t constantly telling him to murder everyone in the room. but another war is coming. and this is where our story starts.
he gets drafted (again) because even though he’s a war hero, that only means he’s proved how important he is. and, you know, corrupt government and all.
in the army, he meets people who were able to keep their being a vassal secret, and they all bond over the gods in their heads.
and that was about where i ran out of plot. it was an interesting world, but the story that i chose to tell was both too long and too directionless for me to ever finish. might do something else with that setting at some point though.
oh yeah and @space-axolotl you should answer these too >:)
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for that last oc question meme, the first 4 (im super interested in metamorphosis) for rowan, but also the last question, too! wild card! what even is that?!
True Name: Rowan Dane (no middle name). Given that "rowan" is a mountain-ash notable for its red berries, and that "Rowan" the name has some Irish ancestry, and his surname Dane basically coming from the Viking invasions of the UK, you'd think Rowan would be of Irish stock. He doesn't actually know.
How I came up with it: It sounded neat. ;) I had an SF character with red hair named Dane years ago, and played around with a few variants of the first name (Roman, Ronan) before settling on Rowan. I didn't realize I had two characters named for trees (Rowan and Willow) until someone pointed it out to me.
Portal. What is a crossover you've done/thought about for this character?
Lordy, what haven't I done? Off the top of my head, Rowan's been in Mob AU, Hippie AU, 1960s AU (different from Hippie, 1960s was the granddaddy of the AUs), etc and all of these have involved @the-lastcall's character Will as Rowan's kid sister. We are actually cowriting the "Crossover" project which started all this, when Will ended up in Rowan's Halcyon.
Softly. Describe one of their dreams, good or bad (with proper warnings).
Bad Trip features a few of these, and generally, Rowan remembers the bad dreams more because they're more common. Anxiety and depression play a big part in that. His dreams tend to be surreal as well as unpleasant. If he gets the right medication/treatment, that will help a lot.
Metamorphosis. Has this character evolved/changed since you first conceptualized them?
Rowan's character was built heavily off of game stuff at the start; I chose his origin/backstory (janitorial) based on the effects it gave, and his time-skipping/dissociation comes from me being really, really bad at TTD. (I keep trying to use it like VATS.)
But as I wrote him, I realized he was remarkably articulate for his original background (poor, lonely and unpleasant upbringing, etc) so I came up with the idea that he took refuge in the library as a kid, and loved reading, and did strive to better himself over time. Then, of course, he watched a lot of movies and TV all through his life, and paid attention to those and the stories in them, and sometimes attempted to write his own stories. All of this helped him out when he had to start pretending/acting (which is how I get around that holographic shroud game mechanic).
In the story, he uses the tossball stick as a weapon, when he does have to use one; in game he's lucky to know which end you hold, and has a specialty in long guns.
Wild card: honestly I don't like "wild card/free space" type questions because dude, the point of these lists is for specific asks, but here's a free fact about him: his favorite dessert is carrot cake. Sometimes he'd go to the store and treat himself, like on birthdays, to a slice of carrot cake in those clamshell plastic containers.
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