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zombee · 7 months

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I feel like the luckiest Our Flag Means Death fan in the world after the season 2 finale. By a series of incredible circumstances - including a significant metatextual realization that came in at the 11th hour - it was close to perfect for me.

This essay has everything. Completely normal behavior over a television series. Steven Universe references. The David Jenkins School of Whatever is Best for the Bit. Humbling catharsis.

First: this piece does not exist with the central thesis of “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad.” I feel like thousands of words have already been written on this since Thursday, so I’m going to try to not get too in depth on that.

Second, cards on the table, because it’s relevant and I don’t want to waste your time if this is going to sour your ability to hear me out: I’m an Izzy Canyon hater. For MANY reasons, but from way before the concept of the Canyon existed, (some) Izzy fans pinged me in the same way as Snape/Kylo Ren fans did, and before May 2022 was over I went from genuinely enjoying Izzy’s character and place in the narrative to hating him because his fans made it impossible for me to enjoy him anymore.

(SOME! of his fans. Please don’t keep making me say this, although I’m not going to talk about the Canyon directly anymore after this. I know there are a ton of normal Izzy Enjoyers and even Canyonites, I am literally friends with many of them, please take this all in the good faith it’s intended and if you’re not One Of The Bad Ones then you’re fine! I very carefully don’t go anti-Izzy on main, and when I stopped enjoying his character, I stopped writing him into fics. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to be honest. Anyway.)

The season 2 finale made me weep over Izzy Goddamn hands.

ALL season long, I was disgruntled. All season long. I really, truly, DEEPLY appreciated what they were doing with his character and arc, I thought it was wildly on brand for the themes of community/queerness in the show, I saw the vision, I liked it!!! But. I wanted a fucking apology, yall. I needed three seconds of “sorry I called you a slur, Ed :/” and that would have been enough. But I had to let it go. It was poisoning my enjoyment of the whole season, which I loved with very little exception (not none!) and I just had to let it go. I wasn’t getting an apology. That didn’t negate what they were doing with his character.

Yall. They withheld the apology on purpose.

THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Let’s go back a bit. I was at the episode 6 + 7 screening, and the breakup shook me. Probably a LOT more than if I had watched it alone in bed at 3am on my laptop - five days of no sleep after NYCC, lots of emotions, seeing it on a big screen with a hundred other intense fans, etc etc - but I did see other folks reacting in parallel ways to me when the episodes aired to the regular public, so maybe I would have felt the same way. Regardless, I was mad at Stede and to a lesser extent Ed. I NEEDED AN APOLOGY FOR THAT FISH LINE. I needed it! “Whativah” autocorrects to “WHATIVAH” in my phone. I was going through it.

(When I rewatched the episode when it aired it was not nearly as bad as I remember, lol)

So now the episode 8 screeners go out and the reviews drop and I think I catch one half-glimpse of a “What a heartbreaking ending!” kind of snippet, and some of my friends who are spoiler fiends unintentionally drop little hints about similar ideas (devastating/heartbreaking/split the fandom) type shit.

And I was a fucking WRECK! about it.

I do love this whole show with my whole chest. I do!!! But I’m not rotted because this is an excellent television show, I’m rotted because two old men kiss each other! On the MOUTH!!! in an excellent television show. You get it, right? I’ve written 700,000 words across almost 100 fics and 98% of them are dedicated to those two men falling in love in different universes.

So it just did not even occur to me the “heartbreak/devastation/fandom split” would be about anything but Gentlebeard.

Another piece of this that was fucking me up - David Jenkins and his “satisfactory” ending biz. My brain was reacting like this show was ENDING ending, even if I knew logically! that this is just season 2!!! And I wasn’t ready for that, because what if it wasn’t personally satisfying, and I’m a mess about it? Why was I so worried about not liking it? I’d liked the whole season! Even if they didn’t nail the landing I wasn’t going to stop writing fic or hanging out with my pirate community & friends.

…is what I kept trying to tell myself, but the way anxiety disorders work is funny like that lol. What if I did stop writing fic and hanging out in pirate spaces? That would hurt much more than a show I like disappointing me. And for anyone who’s having that experience with ofmd s2, I’m so very, very sorry. It sucks and that’s where my epiphany came from on Wednesday before the finale.

Because it has happened to me before.

I flit from hyperfocus to hyperfocus, as ya do when you’re spicy, but the last thing to get its hooks in me PROPERLY like pirates was Steven Universe. And I did NOT like the way the regular season ended!!! (I actually really did like most of Future; that’s not what I mean. I mean season 5). I don’t like how they handled the Diamonds, tldr; I think the scope of their villainy got too out of hand, and I was left grieving the thing that had meant enough to me I ran a fan convention for four years based around it.

Side note: imagine if I had channeled the hyperfocus of almost a million words of fanfiction into an American OFMD con instead. We could have made magic :( I did consult with Our Con Means Death though so I am at least a teeny tiny bit of that one!

I did not like the way Steven ended… but I do respect the story they were telling and think they told it well.

I’m still sad about it. Steven is still one of my most beloved, it will always be beautiful and great to me, but that experience did and does sully my memories. There is so, so, so, SO much more good than bad from being in that fandom, and I cherish it. And I hope, if you’re having this experience with OFMD right now, that you’ll find similar comfort.

But, like I said at the top, “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad” has been belabored already by people better at writing about it than me. I just had the incredible privilege to remember my brush with lower case T trauma and having that experience in my last REALLY big deal fandom. That’s why I had been so extra anxious about being disappointed. Because it happened to me before. It helped so much to connect those two.

So the finale happens, and it’s actually about twelve hours of me going from “eh, rushed but fun, whole season was great” to “THIS MAYBE IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, ACTUALLY!”

BECAUSE THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY OVER IZZY FUCKING HANDS!!!!

They literally told me this was the story they were telling this season. “Men can change” “The end of piracy” “Ed leaving Blackbeard behind (ish).”

As for me? I didn’t get an apology for the fish. Instead, I got “Sorry I was a dick.” “You weren’t a dick. Life’s a dick.”

Just… fuckity BAM. THREE FUCKING SENTENCES resolving that fight. Saying so much in so little.

In real life, should these two men have an actual conversation about this shit? Sure!!! But that’s not how OFMD tells its stories!

It works in symbolism. It works in vibes. It works in an hour’s worth of content into each half-hour episode, and for how much lamenting I have done about the pacing, I would prefer that 100x to having to stretch it out too much.

I have said since March 24, 2022 that OFMD wields anachronism as a weapon. First and foremost, it’s fucking funny, but in addition to that, it’s stating clearly: “This is a fantasy world. This is not real history. This show is about romance (and so much more than that), and the rest is just VIBES!!!”

Sometimes vibes can be historical accuracy. Sometimes vibes can be true emotional poignancy. Sometimes vibes can be Ed finding his sunken leathers in the sea, changing underwater somehow, and coming out of the ocean like the Birth of Fucking Venus, because water and rebirth and mermaids and shit is all very prominent this season. And ALSO, and this is very important! BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!

I don’t want to do much real Izzy meta here. It’s been said by others, and better than me. But it was telegraphed and it was symbolic – he was the paragon of Traditional Piracy in season 1, for goodness’ sake, and Traditional Piracy is Toxic Masculinity, and he was a part of Blackbeard and Ed had to leave Blackbeard behind (yknow, ish), and he got this ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING LOVELY! storyline about appreciating what a (queer) community can do, and god fucking shit fucking dammit… most of all, best of all (for me), was Buttons landing on Izzy’s grave at the end. Men can change. And Izzy DID!!! He did it for Ed. For love. For community. I am puzzled by “it’s fucked up to use Izzy to further Ed’s storyline” because… this was Ed’s season, in the way that season 1 was Stede’s. And Ed cannot be removed from piracy as a whole (neither can Stede!) so to have this old, set in his ways, coded-queerphobic character blossom to the point he can give this gift to Ed and to piracy… idk man. I just find it so fucking beautiful.

It is okay not to like what they did. It’s okay!!! It’s okay, and it’s okay to mourn, and while it’s not okay to do [insert vile behavior here], it’s okay to carefully examine what you think is “bad writing” vs “what you would have preferred to happen” and give good-faith, textually-based criticism on that.

But I want to remind you over and over and over again, this show works on vibes. It tells its stories leaving many, many, many gaps. There are many things I would have liked to see, and y’know what? I would have told the Izzy story differently. I would have personally done it differently. But it’s not my show! It’s not my show, and I am humbled and delighted to remember that, and to appreciate Our Flag Means Death for what it is and not what it isn’t.

Other words have been written better than I could about the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2 and what that does to us as rabid fans with expectations of how things will go. Millions and millions and millions of words have been written about OFMD, fictional and non, and that is going to color our expectations and experience. We had built it up SO MUCH in our minds and along the way I think some of us forgot (INCLUDING ME!!!) that it is first and foremost about Vibes.

The vibes of Izzy’s death are about rebirth and forgiveness and leaving traditional piracy behind. And he got to die in Ed’s arms, knowing (HAPPILY!) that he had been wrong, and giving Ed the gift of letting him know he is loved, and being a part of something. We had a funeral but we also had a wedding. The only constant is change. Men, piracy, Blackbeard; it all changes. And Izzy found peace in that.

Before my last point, I want to @ myself on things I felt versus realizing in the end it is (I will say it until I’m blue in the face) about vibes.

· I was convinced they left Buttons’ transformation ambiguous because they wanted to leave room for it not having been real. NO!!! It is real, until they decided it isn’t. Magic in the OFMD universe? Fucking why not!!! IT’S SYMBOLIC!!! IT’S IMPORTANT TO ED’S STORYLINE AND THE CENTRAL THESES OF THE SHOW!

· I was unhappy, and still am a little, about the Polycule Situation, but now that I realize Oluwande is Zheng’s Stede… I am less so. The Zheng : Auntie :: Ed : Izzy vibes, btw? Fuckin immaculate.

· Obviously they touched on Stede/Ed’s “killing people trauma” but I’d reallyyyy like Stede to address it, and even though I think Ed’s is left on a very satisfying note, I’d like him to dip a bit more into it as well. But if they don’t, oh well! It’s not like they ignored it, they just didn’t have a Deep Dive like I Wanted Them To!

· They didn’t deal with Ed throwing Stede’s shit away. They just ignored it! Stede started to collect new trinkets, and I believe that was as much about giving the audience back the old feeling of the Revenge as it was anything important (not to say it wasn’t also important thematically!!!). Just like Ed going back to his leathers is both Extremely Important thematically and about putting Taika back in the leathers because that’s what Blackbeard should be wearing for the epic final scenes for the sake of visually keeping the show consistent. That’s Blackbeard’s uniform.

· Stede’s frilly little outfits my beloved. God I hope they give him back some of his frippery in season 3. I think they will re: cursed suit BUT his journey this season was about something else, so!

· Ed’s stupid little non-profit non-apology, oh my god. It was so funny. And there is a transition from eps 5 to 6 where Ed is back in his leathers and the crew is more comfortable around him. They didn’t have to have him do a Real Apology, it’s implied it was all settled. What was the timeline? A day? DOESN’T MATTER, BABY, VIBES!!!

· Lots more, I’m sure, but now that I’ve tried to let it all go, I’m remembering less of what I wanted and appreciating what I got!

And, last point here, I think it is also very very very important to remember that a lot of people are normal about this show. In fact, WAY more people are normal about this show than aren’t. And that is EXTREMELY! IMPORTANT!!! because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable and we all know what would happen then. We are the core of it, to be sure. Without word of mouth that stems from our intensity, this show would not be NEARLY as successful as it is. I truly, truly believe that.

But.

Do normies need deeply emotional discussions dissecting the central relationships? No. What normies need is Ed and Stede running dramatically toward each other on the beach and kissing. And I am happy, so fucking happy, to realize that’s what I need too. I’ve got fanworks for the rest.

I love this fucking show and this fucking fandom and its fucking creators so much. Fuck.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2

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fake-married-my-dead-fiance · 3 months

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Now that we have come to the end of the drama... Drama vs. Webtoon time!

I'm going to do this one a little differently, head to head, did the drama or the webtoon do it better in Marry My Husband?

Drama did it better! ML's Original Death

So in the webtoon, Ji-hyuk goes to Ji-won's funeral and then just offs himself by walking into the sea. It's not super clear why, like he barely knew Ji-won, and it felt really pathetic. I preferred the car accident.

Webtoon did it better! Su-min killing Min-hwan's mom

This didn't even come close to happening in the drama, but Su-min comes home to find the MIL from Hell having a stroke and then just turns around and leaves her on the floor. When it looks like she might recover, Su-min injects air into her veins and she dies. Su-min goes to prison for this as she doesn't kill her husband. Anyway, the drama showed us MIL very sad after her son's death, but I preferred this ending since she spent so long abusing Ji-won in the original timeline.

Drama did it better! Not So Much Love Triangle

Poor Eun-ho spent a lot more time pining after Ji-won in the webtoon. Happy that he got resolution there. Also, never felt like Eun-ho had a chance in the drama which I preferred.

Webtoon did it better! Eun-ho & Hui-yeon

I couldn't believe how little screen time these cuties got! Give me Hui-yeon proposing (at least she confessed first), give me them being in love! Why was Eun-ho not in the time-jump scene at the end?

Toss-up: Mr. Lee & Mrs. Yang

I liked the character of Mr. Lee better in the drama, but I liked Mrs. Yang's story better in the webtoon. Mr. Lee is way too nice in the webtoon, I liked his supportive and yet kind of rude persona in the drama. However, I wanted more of their story, in the webtoon Mrs. Yang's ex tries to kidnap their daughter as leverage, which is stopped, and then Mr. Lee has a very cute relationship with Mrs. Yang's daughter, who asks her mom if she'll marry Mr. Lee. We didn't really get any confirmation that they would end up together in the drama!

Drama did it better! Min-hwan's ending

Was it so satisfying to see him get the same ending he gave to Ji-won? Yes it was. In the webtoon, he sabotages his own car hoping that Su-min will die and he'll get the inheritance money. But then he drives his car to see his mom (after her stroke) and drives off a bridge. I liked this ending better.

Drama did it better! Mains as Parents

I felt like the webtoon went a little too far in making Ji-hyuk the only providing parent. I'm all for women working, but it just seemed unrealistic to me. I liked seeing both of them exhausted on the couch with their twins.

Toss-up: Plots that I Didn't Love

I really disliked Yu-ra in the drama, who I guess had to be included so she could take Ji-hyuk's fate. I think the webtoon was smart to cut her and I found her really annoying and over the top. However, I also didn't love the plot in the webtoon where Ji-won catfishes both Su-min and Min-hwan so that she can reproduce the betrayed by a friend thing. So I guess they both struggled with the third act.

Webtoon did it better! ML Doesn't Inherit

In the webtoon, Ji-hyuk decides to run his own security company and Ji-won continues at the original company. I guess the drama preferred a super rich power couple, but the webtoon was better in that way for me. I didn't love Ji-won becoming a stereotypical rich wife with a charity...

Webtoon did it better! MORE CAT

Pang (mold) the cat has a whole chapter from his POV in the webtoon. It was so cute!

Drama did it better! The Family Dinner

Honestly, I didn't think anything could top the webtoon's family dinner where Ji-won shows up in her revenge get-up, but I just loved Ji-won flipping Min-hwan so much!

Lastly, the drama really made Min-hwan and Su-min great characters. All the awards for Su-min's actress especially. Those two really came alive in a way that the webtoon just didn't do.

(and yes, I know the drama was based on the original webnovel but I'm not reading that, I like webtoons, and both are adaptations so fair comparison).

#tw: suicide mention #webtoon vs. drama #manhwa #marry my husband #spoilers

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kimbapisnotsushi · 3 months

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hey all i know a lot of us aren't on twt so here's a post of info from the translated material very kindly given to us by @TrianaNero. first we're starting with info from a bonus volume given to people going to the movie, in which furudate is interviewed about the characters!! some of the questions aren't really necessary to know, some are, and some i think are just funny, which is why there's a mix of them! find the full thread here, of which i directly quoted

kenma is STILL having trouble choosing a fave game BUT apparently his first game was mario kart 64!!

lev's weirdest nickname he received from the upperclassmen is "flora-san", which is (and this is a direct quote) "to honor lev's commendable gut flora that helps him always have good bowel movements" (LMAAAAAO I'M CRYING)

taketora's mohawk came from copying an italian player during his first year

okay i HAVE to include the question in this one because the question was "i admire how considerate and serene kai always is, how can i also become like that?" and the answer is. "face death once". ????? kai??? are you okay???

a "lame pun" that fukunaga likes is "happiceive" LMAO

other than racing each other, inuoka and hinata compete in who can eat fish the cleanest

THIS ONE IS ABOUT SHIBAYAMA MY BOY anyways the question was "nishinoya taught shibayama how to keep calm -- did he manage that?" and the answer was "i'm sure he still has a long way to go" so. it's a work in progress i guess (poor shibayama . . . )

"teshiro and tsukishima both try to avoid noisy places when eating or taking a break and because of that sometimes end up near each other" (this is SO cute i'm crying)

apparently the player that impressed akane the most at the tournament was atsumu?? girl you can do better

"what does alisa consider cool about her brother" "everything" STOP IT RIGHT NOW MY HEART

coach nekomata's favorite alcohol is "sake (the bitter kind)"

IUGASDAD LMNGAAAO ON THE OTHER HAND NAOI GETS "HALF-DRUNK "HALF INTOXICATED" FROM TWO GLASSES OF BEER (and his face turns red at one!)

furudate says that fukunaga was the hardest to draw "because i feel pressured to come up with interesting lines for him"

he also says that he'd be friends with yamamoto if he was on nekoma, because "once you get close to him, you become really good friends pretty easily"

the "we are the blood" speech was something kuroo and the others wanted to "come up with something original for the team" in their second year!! (i think for when they would become third years, according to the post)

AYUDSFBTFDKAS WE HAVE CAT MASCOTS!!! apparently they're all crossbreeds except lev and inuoka (i don't know enough about animals or cats to know what that means) kenma: calico kuroo: black cat yamamoto: orange tabby (@kanoyachi says that he's not neutered in that illustration of them which i have not seen?? do with that what you will) yaku: grey tabby kai: tortoiseshell cat fukunaga: bicolor cat inuoka: maine coon (I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS) lev: russian blue shibayama: tuxedo cat (SOBBING) teshiro: white cat

never mind i have since been sent that image. what the fuck

uhhh okay i don't entirely get what this one means but Q: Share a secret about Nekoma A: It's not Hanako-san in the toilet, it's Suzuki-san

the full lyrics of hinata's toilet song: "Toi-toi-toilet! Toile-let! Whoam I! The guy! Who'll become the ace! Fly fly a 100 meters! Go go 10k km! And befo-ore tha-at--" (repeat from beginning)

the reason why kageyama is concerned that animals don't like him: "when i was in elementary school, a toy poodle from the neighborhood who'd show his belly to anyone always kept barking at me for some reason"

the only times daichi was angrier than when kageyama and hinata fought was when noya and tanaka "wrestled and broke some equipment". and also when they "tried to race a car while running". apparently they ignored the first warning both times

IUAHFDOS FURUDATE GOT ASKED WHETHER SUGA OR FUKUNAGA WAS FUNNIER AND THE ANSWER WAS "i think it depends on the person. for kenma it's fukunaga"

asahi's favorite animal is "whichever doesn't bite"

Q: How to become as mentally strong/solid as Nishinoya? A: Do everything you're scared of

Q: Tanaka said he gets down in the dumps about once in 6 months, what caused that before? A: When he couldn't spike or serve or pass properly, be that practice or official matches

tsukishima likes shortcakes bc "he used to be rewarded with them for getting his vaccine shots" . . .

apparently yamaguchi likes soggy fries because "they have a very pronounced taste". whatever the hell that means??

Q: What was Yachi's most pessmistic episode up until now? A: When she got an award of excellence at a crime prevention poster competition in middle school. She feared that other people'd be like "why did they choose this", "there's clearly better submissions" (YACHI YOU ARE SO PRECIOUS)

Q: I like Takeda-sensei's "Chaaah!" when he drinks. What other sounds does he make? A: "Okkaree"

ukai got healthy eating habits from a book where he read that your muscles break down if you don't get all the nutrients you need, "and that gave him a really good scare"

Q: Who'd you be best friends with on Karasuno? A: Azumane. Peace.

so apparently a secret about karasuno is that they used to share the club room with a mountain climbing club which "disappeared" (??? i'm assuming that means disbanded it just sounds so ominous) and so they "ended up with quite a big room"

furudate uses a bird-person as his avatar because "i like birds and apparently i remind some people of a bird"

Q: What was the idea behind the recent bonus chapter? A: I wanted to include how nekoma realized it was useless to dive after that ball but they simply couldn't help it in the main manga—but it ruined the flow a little, so i took it out, and then I wanted to include it here.

(STOP IT I'M CRYING YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT COUL;D HAVE BEEN IN THE SERIES???)

HJKSDFGBJKSFD LMAAAAO during furudate's research process he took pics of the players and the seated fans during the match and received suspicious looks for it. and ended that question with "I'm sorry for acting suspiciously" and that's that!!! WHEW that was a doozy. i'll make another post describing some illustrations from the same thread, and one covering the magazine digest thread, so keep an eye out for that as well!! thanks for joing me!!!

#this is such a glorious treasure trove of info i am ELATED #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#sou says stuff

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 9 months

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Now that submissions are closed, we can talk stats. There were 881 valid, unique submissions for 474 characters! Woof, women have it rough out there!

The most submitted characters, with a relevant propaganda snippet included, are:

1. Sakura Haruno (Naruto): 28 [where do i even fucking begin]

2. Cordelia Chase (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel): 21 [OH SO MANY THINGS]

3. Misa Amane (Death Note): 20 [The author of Death Note invented new forms of misogyny just to apply them to Misa.]

4. Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3): 15 [Oh, you thought we would have a female main character in one of our mainline games? With a cool defining talent, no less? That's stupid of you]

5. TIE: Kairi (Kingdom Hearts): 14 [I'm so mad. I think she deserves a gun.]

5. TIE: Stephanie Brown (DC Comics): 14 [She does eventually get retconned as surviving the event and hiding out in Africa (don't ask, it does not make more sense in context)]

The canons with the most submissions, with a relevant propaganda snippet included, are:

1. DC Comics: 61 [DC has SO MUCH sexism it's laughable]

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel: 35 [Fuck Joss Whedon, man.]

3. Naruto: 33 [because Kishimoto hates women]

4. Warrior Cats: 26 [Warriors is one of the most misogynistic children's series I've ever seen]

5. Danganronpa: 25 [I honestly had to think about it just to decide which woman is treated the worst because this series hates them so much]

The canons with the most characters submitted, with a relevant propaganda snippet for a specific character included, are:

1. DC Comics: 21 [Free her from the huge tits back breaking pose.]

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel: 12 [Anyways she was so hot and for what. 10/10 my lesbian awakening.]

3. Supernatural: 11 [Yeah, she got randomly killed off-screen for shock value and manpain, but she sent an email right before she died so at least her death wasn't in vain, right?]

4. TIE: Star Trek: 9 [She literally gets teleported out of her clothes in one episode.]

4. TIE: Yu-Gi-Oh!: 9 [One loss is particularly brutal as she falls from a large height directly onto her head and goes into a coma (again. yes this was the second time).]

5. TIE: Warrior Cats: 8 [I'm sure she'll get submitted again just ask any reasonable fan they'll tell you about her and her sister]

5. TIE: Attack on Titan: 8 [As a child soldier, she does commit some war crimes]

And here are some charts to show how some of these entries fucked the scale on my charts:

Look at Sakura, fucking up my chart with her numbers.

On a similar note...

Good god, DC, I know what you did, but add fucking up my charts to your list of crimes.

And now, enjoy some rankings of my favorite things:

My favorite universal sentiment quotes from propaganda are:

She lived she served cunt and then she got killed off super early so that the male characters could experience man pain and also because I guess she would have been too powerful if left alive. [Wen Qing (Mo Dao Zu Shi)]

That design. Dear god. I don't want to live on this planet anymore. [Mitzi (The Queen's Corgi)]

In the end she may have girlbossed too close to the sun, but I support her anger. [Ling Wen (Heaven Official's Blessing)]

the victim of “writer doesn’t understand women and also hates them” disease. [Naomi Misora (Death Note)]

She could 100% kill somebody but nobody ever effing lets her. Rip queen. [Kairi (Kingdom Hearts)]

My favorite raging at a writer quotes from propaganda are:

1. You took every single protagonist to weird lion heaven, Clive, but suddenly Susan isn't good enough. [Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)]

2. Being a woman written by Joss Whedon should automatically entitle her to financial compensation tbh. [River Tam (Firefly)]

3. A lot can be summed up in a couple words, namely, "Furman, why?" [Arcee (Transformers)]

4. Can you tell respect women juice ran in Tolstoy's veins. [Lise Bolkonskaya (War and Peace)]

5. TIE: (specifically a guy called Dan Didio, who we all hate) [Stephanie Brown (DC Comics)]

5. TIE: until Geoff motherfucking Johns comes into the picture [Pantha (DC Comics)]

My favorite quotes from propaganda that have nothing to do with misogyny, y'all are just funny:

I wish I could use bold here, because there's no such thing as uppercase numbers. [Arcee (Transformers)]

the most convoluted and lore dense piece of media this side of the afton criticality. [Jane Crocker (Homestuck)]

ended up starting a gang war by accident [Stephanie Brown (DC Comics)]

Ashfur, who later turns out to be a murderous incel [Squirrelflight (Warrior Cats)]

Hawkfrost is actively seeing Brambleclaw and his evil father in cat hell. [Squirrelflight (Warrior Cats)]

#not polls #stats

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thetorturedpoetsdepartment · 3 months

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I think it's safe to say that not a single Hunger Games character had an easy life, but Mags is the one who really gets to me. I mean, this is a lady who was the first victor to get a Victory Tour/Victors Village house, etc. She was the first Victor to really get the celebrity treatment when surely all she wanted to do was go back to Four in peace and try to forget her trauma.

I unfortunately think she might've been the first Victor to be sold, but we don't have any proof that she was sold in general, let alone that she was the first, so I'll just focus on what we do know: She wins the 11th Games, and then goes through roughly six decades of watching her tributes die, or they win and then they have to go through their own horrors. She has to sit through two Quarter Quells, mentor Finnick - the youngest Victor ever - who she becomes very close to and she has to sit back and watch as her honorary grandson goes through sexual abuse.

Annie's Games were hard for Mags to watch (watching a child from your district get beheaded? It'd be a miracle if she didn't go a bit "crazy" in the same way Annie did), but she was so happy to see Finnick fall in love and know just a little bit of happiness.

But then just a few years later the 3rd Quell happens. Finnick gets Reaped along with Annie, and Mags volunteers knowing she won't survive. She's thrown back into the place of her nightmares, with the endgoal being to protect Finnick, including and especially if it means sacrificing herself, which she does ultimately end up doing, in a very painful way.

(But there is a part of me that is glad she died during the 75th Games. Because if she hadn't, she'd likely have to live through Finnick's death, and maybe even be tortured by the Capitol if they picked her up, which likely would've killed her anyway given her age and frail state.)

There's a lot of discussion on whether or not it was possible that she knew about Lucy Gray / watched her Games, but I wanna know if she knew Coral and/or Mizzen. Imagine if she'd been close with them and watched them die and then she went into the arena immediately after?!?? District Four is pretty big so it's likely she didn't know them at all, but it's also possible she did.

She's older than the Games themselves, and she's been through so much loss. Her death itself wasn't peaceful, but I'm sure that she found peace in her death, especially knowing she was dying for Finnick and the rebellion.

And then, you know, if there's an afterlife in Panem, her heart broke when Finnick showed up just roughly a year after she herself died.

#mags flanagan #the hunger games #finnick odair #annie cresta

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maskednerd · 7 months

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FNAF Movie parallel Theory/Incoherent Ramblings! (Spoilers ahead.)

Originally, I was gonna give my thoughts on the film but I'm bad at opinions so theory time it is! This is just for fun and to share my thoughts.

I've only seen the film once so I might have misremembered a few things here or there. But there's no harm looking for connections and parallel to the games/books!

Since Mike isn't an Afton... his dad could be a subtle parallel to Henry Emily. Which would make Garett and/or Abby a parallel to Charlie.

Of course, the Schmidt family still has elements of the Aftons. But with all the changes to the lore, the Emily roles could have been added on rather than being non-existent like it seems.

Now, you may be wondering if I'm just desperately digging for any sign of Henry Emily in this film cus he's my favorite character (aside from Michael Afton). And to that I say-

...

Shhhhhhh... Pretend it's not that obvious.

Anywho, let's get to some of these parallels! Shall we?

Aunt Jane… Aunt Jen? Her name being a possible parallel to Henry's sister in the books.

Kinda a weak point here but I'll include it anyways. The Schmidt family is showed to be Christian, evident by Mike remembering them gathered around the table saying grave before eating. "For one of you, the darkest pit of hell has opened to swallow you whole, so don't keep the Devil waiting, old friend."

Mike mentioned that his father couldn't handle the lost of Garret, vaguely implying he took his own life. In both the books and the games, Henry committed suicide due to the lost of his child. Silver Eyes had the Suicide Bot and Pizza Sim had the fire. "I am remaining as well. I am nearby."

Garret's death happened before the Missing Children Incident. In the photo that Vanessa shows with her as a child next to her father as Spring Bonnie, she has the same toy plane Garret had when he taken. Which Mike notices. But, with that photo being at the Pizzeria, it's assumed it's still open during that time. Yet Vanessa mentions the Pizzeria was closed shorty after the 5 children went missing. That photo probably wouldn't exist in that form if the place was dealing with an police investigation and a threat of closure.

During Mike's dream sequences, Garret seems unnervingly calm. Almost as though he went willingly. Yet it wouldn't make sense, out in the middle of a forest, for William to be dressed in the SpringBonnie suit in an attempt to lure him. But, if William was a family friend and trusted by his father, it would be easier to get Garret into his car.

If Garret Schmidt was a random child he abducted and murdered on a mere whim, why would "Steve Raglan" recognize that last name? Unless he saw missing posters, the news of the disappearance, or was keeping track of the viticm's families, why remember that random child you killed back in the 80s? One that wasn't even a part of the Missing Children's Incident at Freddy's?

At the end credits, there's the "COME FIND ME" audio easter egg resembling "SAVE THEM." A minigame heavily linked to the puppet, despite the puppet making no appearance nor having a single mention in the movie.

As for Abby... that springlock suit she was almost suited in looked an awfully lot like Ella, one of Charlie's toys from the books. For a reference to Elizabeth, it could have been a clown or something looking like Circus Baby. But why that possible reference to Ella?

Haven't read Silver Eyes in a a good while, but isn't there a sequence where Foxy is chasing Charlie through an arcade? Where she hides behind one of the arcade cabinets, just like Abby does?

Are these just random references and easter eggs pieced together in an incoherent rambling? Indeed they are, thanks for noticing! But that won't stop me from pointing them out for no one else to read.

#boy howdy a surprise non Owl House post!#which there unfortunately will be more of cus I got other obsessions and I'm not too anxious to show them anymore #i need to think of something to tag these ramblings as #fnaf #fnaf movie #fnaf movie spoilers

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sugar-grigri · 8 months

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Hi there! Hope you are having a nice day! I really love your csm analyses and meta! It's specially great because I don't understand literary symbolism at all, I'm learning a lot. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on my boy Yoshida. What do you think is his role? Is he only an obstacle for the romantic relationship between Denji and Asa? In a world where every detail has a deeper meaning, why an octopus? Hope you have a great day!

The octopus trap

I think that if I asked every Chainsaw Man reader about Yoshida, most of the time I'd be told either "I have no idea what he's going to do" or, more precisely, "I keep expecting him to do something, but he doesn't end up doing anything".

You mustn't let your hair stand on end when you read remarks like that. Yoshida is my favorite character of Part 2, yet if I were to describe him succinctly it would be in exactly those terms.

When I say not to be annoyed by these remarks, it's because they're not the result of a lack of writing, a lack of development or even a depreciation of the character, these descriptions only underline the originality of Yoshida's writing.

Yes, it's surely worth clarifying what I mean by all this...

Let's take a look at things chronologically. Yoshida's first appearance comes just after Asa, who has just discovered she's possessed by the war demon, is unable to set foot inside her school, a victim of anxiety, school phobia and, above all, Bucky's death.

Yoshida suddenly appears during this scene. He is also quickly associated with Asa, as the demon-hunting club puts him in Yuko's and the protagonist's group. We all said to ourselves: great, something's going to happen between these two! She's dying of shame, so Fujimoto is bound to use this to create more interaction between them.

When Asa comes across her bullies, who have attacked her locker and shoes, only Yuko comes to comfort her, and Yoshida simply fades into the background. It's strange, because it was as if he had brutally hidden himself from the progress of the scenario and the reaction he might have had to this kind of situation. Keep this in mind.

Then Yoshida reappears in chapter 103, as if Fujimoto were accidentally placing an ink blot in the background, Yoshida simply blending into the background until he hits his target. For the reader, this creates a certain "ah yes, where the hell has he been?" situation, and the element of surprise is intensified by the fact that this is Denji's first appearance as a human in Part 2. This time, Yoshida doesn't disappear into the background, as if evaporated, he appears when no one was expecting him.

Put that in the back of your mind too.

Then, when he tries to put Denji's goal of a girlfriend into action, he introduces him to Asa Mitaka, whom we suspect, subconsciously or consciously, to be Chainsaw Man's love interest. So we're all thinking (myself included at this point), he's surely going to be the magnet between the two! Which turns out to be completely untrue, as Yoshida brutally declares that Asa has no business getting close to Denji.

This point not only shows that Yoshida's narrative function is hard to pin down, it also proves something else: he's not omniscient. He's not, as I've read, this absolutely perfect string-puller, since it's clear that he doesn't grasp until later that Asa may not simply be a young girl obsessed with finding a boyfriend, but a possessed one who might disturb the target he's watching: Chainsaw Man.

The aquarium was Yoshida's observation ground. Yoshida has no desire to be active, as evidenced by the telephone scene where, after Asa has been humiliated by his failure to call anyone, he shows Denji his phone, arguing that he can't get a signal anyway. Now I'll get to that line : "Do you think CSM would eat it for us ? The Death devil"

Whether it was making you believe that Yoshida is a genius string-puller, this line made you believe that the boy had something to do with the demon of death. Fujimoto wouldn't ruin so many mysteries surrounding one of the most anticipated demons so unskillfully. That's why it's necessary to interpret it differently. A line belongs to a whole, and this scene between Yoshida and Denji is not a scene that escapes its whole, on the contrary, it has consequences.

It serves to show two things: firstly, Yoshida is aware of Chainsaw Man's ability to erase other demons, which was surely reported by Kishibe who learned of it in chapter 84, proving firstly that the public hunters are now aware of this ability. Something that had never been said before. Then we come to the most interesting part. Yoshida makes it clear in this scene that they've been locked up for three days, and the cases illustrate how each of the students is dealing with their own mortality, with Haruka crying, Nobana flips out, another prefers to be physically active to keep himself busy, while Yoshida prepares to die. As for Denji, he's been through worse, and is cooler than the others.

Then Yoshida pointed out, "Do you think Chainsaw Man would eat the demon of death?" This triggers Denji's act of kindness, as he realizes that he can also "suppress", "devour" fears in his human form, by taking action. Denji has noticed that Asa is looking to be active; she's the one who offered her a date, so she's the one who has priority to receive comfort, so Denji comes to devour the fear that paralyzed the protagonist. All the more ironic given that the demon they were all really facing was the demon of famine.

I know everything I'm saying sounds disjointed at the moment, but hang on, I need to be a bit descriptive before I connect all this.

The same phenomenon of script feinting will occur, not to make it look like Yoshida will be a love rival, a friend of Asa, the magnet between Denji and Asa, or the demon of death.

No, this time, in chapter 133, Fujimoto makes it look like Yoshida will be a great antagonist by proposing Denji's horrible dilemma of either being human and living with his family or being Chainsaw Man without it. But it all falls apart when he realizes that Denji chooses both, leaving Yoshida completely out of his depth. This time Fujimoto erases all the mystique around this character, he's not the player who moves the pieces against Fami, he's just a mediator.

The same phenomenon occurs when he locks Denji into this normal life that doesn't suit him, placing him in Fumiko's hands, leading to one of the least "normal" chapters, chapter 137.

I think that with all this, you're beginning to grasp a certain idea: Yoshida's purpose is a narrative feint, he's a character with indecipherable eyes for us to place all our doubts and mysteries in. The questions just pile up, and we project them through Yoshida, who answers none of them.

So who is Yoshida ?

The only thing I can say is that he's a mystery. And when I say this, it's not to clear my name, as nothing can be said about him, because he is written as such and should be appreciated as such. I often read that his eyes, fully black like Kishibe's, are not only perhaps a sign of kinship but also a sign of deep despair. I think it's precisely in this way that we can miss the originality of these characters.

Kishibe is not placed in the deepest despair, what makes him so strong, what makes him still here, being practically the only veteran of the public hunters (did you notice how young the public hunters still were?), is that he has accepted and internalized the madness of the system, bows to it instead of fighting against it, but is not dominated by it as someone unreasonable would be.

Whether it's Yoshida's black eyes or Kishibe's, the latter are simply the eyes of acceptance of the system. That is to say, their pupils are no longer illuminated by that little personal glimmer, seemingly devoid of emotion, since they are simply a reflection of the darkness of the system, of what's going on through them.

Yoshida's eyes are the eyes of a mysterious system that constantly stares at the characters without responding to them.

And now you're probably wondering, Anon:

What about the octopus ?

This is surely the most interesting answer to Yoshida's question.

When you're looking for meanings for octopuses, your first instinct is to think of mythology, isn't it? Leviathan, Kranken, Akkorokamui, the octopus is the subject of a multitude of legends, whose interpretations are intertwined, creative, healing or destructive, beneficent or maleficent, or even the subject of great divergence from the public, cute? Or monstrous?

This follows on from the previous statement: the octopus is a being onto which all concepts can be projected, even if they are contradictory. Yoshida's narrative function is the same: we project whatever we can onto him without him acting on it.

What's the one piece of information you could give me with any certainty? The fact that he's a demon hunter, right? In other words, the only thing you could say about the octopus is the environment it lives in? No ?

Do you know how octopuses are caught ?

Have you heard of the Japanese octopus trap? Specifically, the takotsubo? In fact, they're not really traps at all, but a form of passive fishing in which simple pierced stones or clay pots are placed on the seabed. The octopuses then enter these pots to protect themselves, using them as shelters to protect their fragile bodies. Above all, when the pots are brought to the surface, the octopuses don't even try to escape, pressing themselves against the walls.

Yoshida acts like these octopuses, not fighting the system, but rather embracing its walls, thinking he's safe when in fact he's trapped.

Hidden within this obscure system, the octopus has no idea that it's not safe, but has headed for its own destruction.

Now the connections make themselves. The only answer those big black eyes can give is a reflection of the system.

Asa is rejected by her classmates, by this micro-society that is school? The system appears.

Fans cheer Chainsaw Man on, as society is increasingly forged around him. The system takes an interest and invites him for coffee.

As Asa is rejected after her second date with Denji, the system will only add to her loneliness.

Chainsaw Man is a being whose function is to eliminate fears? The system will remind him of this.

Is Chainsaw Man an idiot? Will the system still try to control him, even if it means inhibiting him?

What if we were to use the metaphor of the octopus trap to provide the opposite answer ? Yoshida sticks to the walls of the system.

What does the system do? It weaves itself around Chainsaw Man.

Is this such a good idea ?

#chainsaw man #csm #csm part 2 #yoshida hirofumi #yoshida #my thoughts #csm spoilers #denji #asa #haruka #habana #yoru #yuko #ask

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antianakin · 9 months

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I think something a lot of fans of Anakin tend to forget about him is that his story is told and looked at in reverse: the effect of his actions (Vader and the Empire) were shown an written before the cause (him being a Jedi and then falling). Vader, the irredeemable monster, being forgiven by Luke, is supposed to be a statement on Luke’s character, not Anakin’s. Vader isn’t post Anakin, Anakin is pre-Vader. Framing him like that, it’s suddenly clear just how flawed and terrible Anakin was even before he took a nosedive off the diving board of common sense (if he was ever on it)

The redemption that so many fans want to give Vader, then, is framed in film less as Vader realizing he’s wrong and doing a 180. It’s Luke recognizing how close he is to becoming Vader, choosing a better path, and getting tortured for it. Honestly, as far as Vader’s actual redemptive moment, it’s a fairytale moment of “death equals redemption” that holds up in the narrative of Luke’s story, but wouldn’t actually accomplish anything for Vader.

All that to say… Anakin should be recognized as being Pre-Vader, and if someone wants to do a fixit good ending story with him they either need to kill him off or spend a LOT of time getting him to actually recognize his failures and then turn away from them.

(Unfortunately, that’s a LOT of *work*, so most people just woobify him and call it a day. Thank you for your work of correcting this misunderstanding, and sorry for the long ask 😅)

In fairness, Lucas had a pretty good amount of the story from the Prequels WRITTEN already, he just ended up having to make the story in reverse, which is why there's references to Anakin having been a Jedi who fell and the Clone War. But most of it is just that... references. We ARE focused on Luke's story and so Anakin's background is there to, as you say, highlight LUKE'S choices and struggles and triumphs. We never find out why Anakin did the things he did in the OT (aside from Obi-Wan's comments about his own arrogance in trying to train Anakin which the Prequels retconned anyway), so Anakin's choices are a reflection on Luke more than anything else because Luke is the character we actually know.

And... yeah. Anakin's redemption is difficult for me because I get why it happened the way it did in the OT. Anakin's biggest crimes within the context of JUST what we see in the Original Trilogy are against Luke himself (chopping off the arm, killing Obi-Wan) and so the fact that he dies by saving Luke means he's fairly directly addressed those crimes and made amends for them. He can die having fixed those mistakes and forgiven by the person he's hurt the most. It works. But adding in the Prequels means now there's the Tuskens he murdered, Padme who he manipulates and betrays, the Republic he's dismantled, and the Jedi Order that he betrays and genocides (and adding in TCW means we can also include the clones that he betrays and enslaves). And now all of the sudden there's a LOT more that we have directly seen him do that needs to be redeemed and a lot more amends he needs to make and a lot more people whose forgiveness he doesn't have and will likely never get. There's a lot of things that killing Palpatine can never and will never fix or undo. It doesn't directly address almost ANY of those sins. And so this sudden redemption via death stops feeling so satisfying because it just... doesn't actually mean anything in the face of what we've now seen him do.

Like you say, it holds up if you just look at Luke's narrative, but it falls apart when you look at Anakin's own.

Redeeming Anakin while taking into account everything he has done over the Prequels, TCW, Rebels, the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and anything else that's been written for him in other media would be a difficult story to write. It WOULD take a lot of time, he may never actually completely redeem himself for what he's done because he may never truly be able to let go of some of those fears or some of his guilt and grief. He may never quite lose the instinct to react to things with violence. It SHOULD be messy and complicated, but that's not always the most satisfying story to write or even to read, so that's where we end up with woobified Anakin who just gets to do one slightly goodish thing and call it a day.

#star wars #anti anakin #anti anakin skywalker #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #luke skywalker #never apologize for a long ask!

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animehouse-moe · 9 months

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Chainsaw Man Chapter 139: A Chair's Feelings

Well, as expected we get some more juicy information regarding the world and the existence of devils, but also a surprising amount of progression for Denji as a character. Lots to chat about for sure!

Right away, Miri (the sword hybrid) tells Denji that other weapons are with the Chainsaw Man Church. This tells us one of two things: the weapons that we know are being controlled, or there are new weapons in here.

It's a pretty easy line to take because Quanxi and Reze number amongst the hybrids that we know of, and there's no way that they would exist with the Chainsaw Man Church without seeing Kishibe or Denji.

So where does that lead us? Well, to the fact that the weapons are being controlled, just in a different way. And Fujimoto relays that very well to readers.

Miri chokes on his words as a "free man", and instead says that he's doing this specific thing of his own free will. Personally speaking, I think it's pretty easy to see that Famine has these hybrids wrapped around her finger, which provides a much more interesting picture going forward.

In the vacuum of power that was created by Makima's death, Famine either appeared or took action. Taking in the hybrids, she's been biding her time for the appearance of Yoru. All for the sake of the prophecy. All that said, the Chainsaw Man Church suddenly makes sense with Famine's power.

Famine needs someone to be hungry or starving to be able to control them. She needs a concrete desire to latch onto to be able to subjugate a person. Denji as a character has always struggled with concrete dreams or ideals, so what Famine is attempting to do is different. Rather than lure Denji in with shallow promises and whatnot, she's stripped him of his identity, and has weaponized that against him. Raising up Asa to take his place, and then having ghosts of his past appear and beg him to come to the church. It just screams of a plot to isolate and overpower Denji.

Anyways, Denji as a character. He does really well here in understanding his dreams. The past conversations about his happiness, about who and what he is and what that means to him, they're starting to build up within Denji so that he can begin to understand what happiness and dreams really are. He's definitely not quite there yet, but he's certainly showing progress.

Of course, it's more than just Denji that we should be focusing on in this moment (though it does tie back into Denji). Just take a look at Miri's reaction to Denji turning down his invitation to the church. Everybody, Miri included, has an idea as to who Chainsaw Man is. How he should act, what he should do and what he should represent. And they all foist those ideals onto Denji as a character. So, much like Fami, they weaponize Denji's identity and character against him, trying to lure him away with empty promises and the like. And Denji bites on it, after all he's still a teenage boy with his head in the clouds.

And just to add a bit, I definitely think having Denji fall for the bait with this piece was important. He's clearly becoming more and more aware and understanding of himself, but at the same time he's still kinda stupid and naïve (just look at the movie chapter).

And to our last little bit of info, teleporting Denji. It even catches Miri off guard. Now, for the sake of comedic effect it's definitely possible, but what about a more interesting theory?

The door was closed, so Denji's ability to get through that way without alerting Miri is highly unlikely, so it leaves only alternate routes to the stairwell. Miri didn't make it far before noticing Denji, so even if Denji could move incredibly fast, the chances of him making it there before Miri saw him is unlikely.

This all brings it to the conclusion that this likely isn't Denji. But who would it be? Who would pretend to be Denji and go to the Chainsaw Man Church in his stead? Who protects Denji from the shadows and very rarely shows his face?

Yoshida. I know, it's crazy, but I still can't shake the idea that Yoshida's ability/contract with the Octopus devil may have something to do with shapeshifting.

Overall, it's definitely more a "story" chapter than "character", but Fujimoto continues to sneak some solid moments in for Denji and his place in the world. Bits and pieces of development that are reflective of his experiences in his now daily life, offset by the constant overshadowing of the "Chainsaw Man" persona so many wish to impart onto him. It's really great to see, but even better is getting another step closer to figuring out what's going on with the hybrids and the church. Public Safety should have known about their whereabouts, or at the very least their disappearance, but seem content with idly watching. There's a lot going on under the surface, and I'm really curious to see what the next chapter dredges up from the depths.

#chainsaw man #csm pt 2 #chainsaw man manga #csm manga #chainsaw man part two #chainsaw man part 2 spoilers #csm part 2 #csm part two #csm spoilers #csm denji #csm yoshida #manga recommendation #manga review #anime and manga #manga

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rustyelias · 2 months

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This ask/character dissection contains events from Red Valley, including major spoilers, blood and injury, and the fear of death.

*takes a breath*

Okay so I have become some what of a Clive Schill blog of late, and given that Red Valley in of itself isn’t wildly popular, and that Clive Schill is simultaneously the comic relief and antagonist of the show, there aren’t many people to talk about him with.

Initially, he comes off as just an arse. He’s mean to the protagonists, seems to have no remorse for his actions and is generally shown to also just be bad at his job? His main character traits are his “colourful” insults and his status as the Redval sugar daddy.

This doesn’t really change until near the end of season two, at which point he’s noticed Bryony’s treatment of the mc (Warren) and steps in. His concern is framed as a need for Warren to be in the best shape possible, for presenting to the world as a “solution to cryosleep”, but I do think he was also genuinely uncomfortable with the situation and wanted to get Warren out of there.

This all goes tits up when they return to Red Valley and the season finale happens. Won’t go into details but this winds up with Clive getting shot in the knees. Warren has simultaneously had a brain haemorrhage, and Gordon (mc no.2) has also just been shot. The focus is placed on getting the two mc’s inside of cryopods before they both bleed out. Clive is left forgotten on the floor of the lab.

He is eventually helped by someone else, and doesn’t die, but I think this is an incredibly important moment for his character. His entire story revolves around moving up the corporate ladder, and his desire to be the first to crack hypersleep is Always framed as a desire for recognition (and money).

Clive Schill is terrified of being forgotten. This also ties into his fear of death. He is terrified of dying and nobody remembering him. I think this fear translates into why he’s always so loud, so quick to argue and insult. He’s trying to be noticed.

So when he’s left on the floor bleeding out, with everyone else focusing on saving Warren + Gordon, it’s a huge fucking moment for him.

He goes on to form a business partnership with the person who saves him, they make Aloha Eternity, a cruise ship that utilises cryopreservation. He gets his recognition.

And then…

There’s growing unrest surrounding cryogenics. The world is rapidly going to shit thanks to climate change, partially due to big companies like Overhead (this is the one Clive, Bryony and the entire Red Valley team work for). The leaders and higher ups of said companies all plan to hypersleep (in cryopods) for 1000 years until the world’s unfucked itself. Clive helps this happen with the tech development he’s funded.

And when the time comes, he is not offered a place in the cryopods. Instead, he is made CEO of Overhead Industries. He got his fucking dream come true, because he was deemed expendable enough to let die in the real world. (Before this his cruise ship got blown up by terrorists, truly he has nothing)

So yeah uh there are some mildly coherent thoughts about Clive Schill. There is more where that came from but from here the thoughts get a Lot more incoherent.

Such as Bryony referring to Clive as “the shovel bit of the shovel”

She uses him for his status in Overhead and his money.

Also I think Clive is incredibly touch starved. Never comes up in the show because the only time people get close to him is when they’re hurting him (Warren’s headbutt)

Oh and he looks like Alexander J Newall. And Murph from D20. Just a mix of those two.

And he’s a musician. Like a really talented musician. I have no basis for this hc other than the fact I feel it in my soul.

Anyway if you’ve read this thanks so fucking much, and if not it was still great screaming into the pit

raaah!!! i love him! it's been a while since I last listened to red valley but omg! he is such a character to say he is treated like the comic relief or what I called him that prick™️ he has SO much going on!

Bro really gave his whole life to this business only for them to basically leave him to die in the fucked up world :( also the fucking cruise business bsjdjdjjdj

I love how I went from loving him because he was just the worst to loving him because he is a complex character. Gosh after he was shot man :(

jskskxkdkjd he is SO touch staved you get it! you get it!!

“Also he looks like Alexander J newall” oh god oh fuck its him:

Okay yeah after my relisten of rqg I am 100% going to listen to Red Valley

#infodump moment!!!!#I love when people talk at me /gen #also raaaah the red valley autism is coming back #uensjdjndhd #red valley #eli madness

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zhansww · 2 months

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spoilers up until episode 14

Let me try and analyze this for a moment... I think Tunan already made it clear in episode 8 that he trusts Wei Ruolai, even saying he'd take responsibility himself if Ruolai should turn out to be a communist. And yet, he still allowed that police captain to arrest him. It makes no sense imo. Especially not after Ruolai even admitted to stealing the gun and Tunan could figure out for himself why he stole it. Like, why does it take Ruolai, getting imprisoned and tortured close to death but still being loyal to his xiansheng for Tunan to finally trust Ruolai.... he already trusted him before that. Or he should have. The only actual reason I see as to why the writers tortured Ruolai is to show how evil the non-communists are, basically. That's all that those torture sequences are supposed to serve. Which tbh, doesn't make all the angst that came with it less effective but it still annoys me. They knew, we, as viewers, may not feel much for any random guy, getting tortured but seeing our sweet protagonist get whipped, electrocuted, branded and drugged is bound to have an effect. As in, make us hate the non-communists more. Mind you, Tunan’s “betrayal” may only be a slight divergence from his previously established character but it’s still egregious enough to annoy me. Especially when they coulda so easily fixed it by having him not allow that police captain to arrest Ruolai but have them do it anyway. Heck if anything, that woulda served their purpose of making the non-communist side look evil even more, and without making Tunan’s character be a dick for no discernible reason. Literally, Ruolai has given him no reason to earn his distrust, even including the fact that he hid the robbery from him.

I def have no complaints when it comes to Ruolai’s character... he’s been way too humble and self-sacrificing from the very beginning and especially when it comes to his xiansheng. He repeatedly said that he’s willing to die for him and with this, he basically got to prove it. His last words to Tunan at the end of the episode sounded like a goodbye even which was... painful. As unjustified as this was, I’m kinda relieved we got it behind us now, tho. I’m sure there’s still a lot of angst ahead but at least the worst is past. And even better, given the previews for tomorrow’s episodes, Tunan seems to be willing to risk it all to get his boy out of prison. And when he comes back, he’ll get ganged up on by all the workers at the bank cuz they want him to leave but we’ve already seen what happens in that scene in the trailers; Tunan will ask Ruolai to be his student. In a way, he’ll maybe hopefully finally get his loyalty and devotion to that man somewhat reciprocated/rewarded.

#war of faith #spoilers #text #can you tell I'm invested lol

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yukidragon · 4 months

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I always wonder about the time-line in mafia au with Bo and Jack

I know in aphrodesia they have cellphones but what about the mafia au?

What year do you think it is?

I think the year itself is meant to be ambiguous for Aprhodesia, as well as the other series by SnaccPop Studios. That's likely why we don't get exact ages for the male leads in their bios, and only Jack is given a birth year due to the year of his death playing an important part of the story.

I'll admit I don't know a lot about the lore of Aphrodesia yet, but I do know it definitely takes place in an alternate version of Earth. There's a lot of fantastical and sci-fi elements, including robots and angels becoming crime bosses in the city of St. Valen's. I don't think it's meant to really reflect our Earth's timeline, but instead be its own thing based off aesthetics, kind of like fantasy worlds tend to be based off of medieval aesthetics.

In that spirit, I don't bother trying to give the Mafia AU an actual year. This is an alternate Earth, with alternate events that mean the timeline as we know it on our world no longer really applies.

I mean, the clothing that Bo and Jack wear in the original piece of art Sauce made that started this AU is pretty timeless, in my opinion.

Isn't it so nifty? Full credit to Sauce as always for their stunning art and being cool with me using them in my rambles. In the spirit of supporting them and the rest of the team who makes such awesome visuals and ideas for us to play with, why not consider joining the SnaccPop Studios patreon? There's a whole bunch of artwork there that you can only see by joining.

Remember, don't share anything privately posted on the patreon. Doing that only hurts the team. Instead, just encourage others to sign up as well, or just spread word about these fun games and audio dramas they're making.

Anyway, this picture, as I recall, was inspired by this comic drawn by Rain over on twitter. As you can see, it's a different sort of crossover, but it has the same vibe of the Mafia AU.

Sauce then did something of a genre swap with their characters. Here we have Jack and Bo as a crime boss and wise guy respectively in an Aphrodesia-esque setting. This picture's sister image was Jambee wearing a kids-show appropriate thief costume, complete with a black and white striped shirt and domino mask, as if he was an antagonist character to the SunnyTime Crew.

While this AU is a crossover between Something's Wrong with Sunny Day Jack, DachaBo, and Aphrodesia, I don't worry too much about sticking close to whatever timeline any of the three actually have, or their original continuities. This crossover is about being inspired by some stylish art and letting whatever urge feels fun to me when it comes to pulpy mafia crime drama indulgence, with a nice splash of sci-fi and fantasy elements thrown on top.

As such, the timeline itself isn't all that set in stone yet. Even the original ramble's timeline of events when it comes to Alice's influence on the world isn't completely solid, as expanding the King family's lore changed some things in this follow up post. This universe, as well as its timeline, is very much a work in progress.

Also it's an excuse to have Jack be touch starved and need to have very intimate (and especially spicy) contact with his sunshine as often as possible.

In essence, the year is modern day, only modern day in this world isn't the same as our world. We have cell phones, computers, and the internet, but also some classy retro-style aesthetics for clubs and the like. Or at least that's how it is in my version of this AU. Others might take it a different way.

On that note, why don't I give a shout out to some of my fellow artists who have also played with this particular crossover?

Glassy Shards over on twitter has a really cool take on this AU, giving Bo this creepy "glitch" ability that allows him to no clip through realities. Her take on Bo is pretty creepy and intense, as you can see in this delightful art here and here.

Fun fact: it was actually Glassy's audio dramas that made me inclined to have Bo be more promiscuous, violent, and rebellious in my version of the Mafia AU. The audio dramas are really well done, which makes sense considering she was Bo's original VA. I suggest giving them a listen here, here, and here if you want to hear Bo be a very scary alpha on the hunt.

Lilith Rose on twitter made a fun comic, which really pops in her colorful and distinct art style. It's just another day in the city of St. Valens with some goons getting pummeled, and Bo falling for his puppy. Check it out here, here, here, here, here, and here. Oh, and a cute piece of art that isn't part of the comic, but Bo in suspenders and Lilith in a dancer outfit are just so cute.

CheriiHoney on twitter and here on tumblr also has an adorable comic for this crossover. Jack is lovestruck, and Bo is just dumbstruck. There's also this very delightfully spicy follow up picture of Jack being so yandere for his sunshine and Bo is still annoyed by his boss, hahaha.

I'm sure there's plenty more takes on this crossover out there. If you have any favorites I missed, feel free to tell me in a reblog. Also, consider checking out these awesome artists and leaving a kind word or two. It was Cherii's birthday yesterday, so you could also consider giving her a belated happy birthday as well.

One thing that always tickles me about this AU is how much we've inspired one another when adding to it. It's almost like a community project. Rain inspired Sauce who inspired so many others. We're paying it forward artistically, which is why I wanted to shout out so many of my fellow artists in this post who have given me so much inspiration. You're all awesome. Keep on creating. 💖

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

#Sunny Day Jack #Something's Wrong With Sunny Day Jack #SunnyDayJack #DachaBo #Aphrodesia #sdj #swwsdj #Headcanon Ramblings #Sauce-y Art #Mafia AU

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sparkles-rule-4eva · 1 year

Text

Analyzing Sonic's love language + Sonamy, pt. 1

Sonamy is probably one of the most conflicted ships I've seen in the fandom. Which I find funny, because it's quite clearly the ship that the Sonic Team favors the most and gives the most content for, at least when it comes to Sonic himself. But anyway, I've seen a lot of people claim that Sonic "clearly" doesn't like Amy back because of how uncomfortable he looks whenever she showers him with affection. (And yes, I know the more recent media has given her a ton of maturity regarding that, which I appreciate.) But from my observations, that's just not the case.

Why? It boils down to each of the characters' love languages.

And Sonic's love language is quite clearly NOT physical affection. And that doesn't just manifest with Amy; it manifests with EVERYONE that tries to show him more touchy-feely affection, including people we know for a fact he loves to death. Like Tails.

Sonic himself doesn't initiate hugs very often, so when Tails got hurt in the Sonic Boom episode "The Sidekick" and Sonic was trying to figure out some way to protect him and express how much he'd been worried, he does awkwardly hug his little brother. Look at Tails' reaction.

He's probably shocked right now. He would know better than anyone else that Sonic doesn't normally do that.

I don't think Sonic minds hugs, but he actually isn't a big fan of them in general. In the episode "Do Not Disturb," when Sonic and Tails ended up driving each other nuts with their personal lifestyles, Tails walks over and throws his arms around Sonic after they apologize and reconcile. This time, look at Sonic's reaction.

His stance and expression make it pretty clear he was not expecting it, and after a couple seconds he says "Kay, too long, gettin' weird," and gently pulls away. But he's still kinda smiling, so it's clear he's not mad, just slightly uncomfortable at the touch.

While we know there's many different variations of Sonic's character throughout the franchise, this trait is pretty consistent. Something very similar to this situation happens in the second live action movie, when Sonic tells Tails that they're pals, and Tails hugs him. Once again, look at Sonic's response.

He's startled and pretty quickly picks Tails up and puts him back, but he's smiling amidst it. Same as before; enjoying the emotion, but not necessarily comfortable with the means of affection.

Yeah, yeah, at the end of the movie after he comes back from being Super, Maddie and Tom both come running and each individually hug him. Sonic doesn't pull away that time, and I think he's more okay with it that time, since barely five minutes before they thought they were going to die together. He just kinda smiles a little and closes his eyes when they hug him.

(on a side note those screenshots give me such happiness 🥹 this family >>>)

I'm gonna leave it at that for this post, but yeah, this is part 1. Mostly because I can't add many more images, and I had too many more to share. Part 2, which I'll post as quickly as possible, will move on to Sonic X and apply these things to Sonamy. 😁💞

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sonic and tails #miles tails prower #sth #unbreakable bond #they're brothers your honor #sonic love language #love language #love langauges #physical affection #sonic doesnt like hugs #it's quite simple actually #analysis #sonic character analysis #scu #sonic the hedgehog movie #sonic boom #sonamy

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ae-azile · 3 months

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Progression - Chapter 20 Preview

Arm: I'm taking the day off. Sorry. Good luck with the meeting and the dinner later, because I am not attending it either.

Once Kinn looks at the message, it forces him to do a double take at his phone screen. He can (almost) ignore the fact that Douglas is talking to Porsche.

Almost.

The abrupt text really isn't like Arm. He rarely takes days off, likely because he is the most knowledgeable in all aspects of their security. There was no question on who would be replacing Chan. They asked Arm as soon as he began organizing the reconstruction and clean up. Tankhun had thrown a fit, and Arm initially said no because he thought it meant being removed from Tankhun’s team. It took a lot of incentives and adjustments to get him to agree, including letting him stay on Khun’s security team and becoming the co-head of it with Pol, which admittedly made sense since Arm was now the most seasoned out of Khun's guards and Pol was the most frequently scheduled with him. But Kinn has never seen Arm argue so much prior to that, although emotions were running high. While Arm never said as much, he is sure Pete’s abrupt departure upset him. Pa faking his death and getting so many people hurt or killed probably pissed him off more. Since he respects Arm and they could NOT lose more staff, Arm got pretty much every incentive he asked for. He probably knew he had the upperhand. Kinn is relatively sure Khun strongly encouraged Arm to play his hand that way, although Khun never admitted that. When Kinn mentioned Arm suddenly being a pain about it, Khun just smirked.

Despite all of that, Kinn eventually respected Arm more for the out-of-character stubbornness he showed. But he hasn't experienced a defiant Arm since.

At least until now.

Kinn: This is sort of sudden, considering you left the conference room without a word. Is everything okay?

Arm: My preference is to not lie to you about this, so no. It's not okay. I sent the email file with the security upgrade plans and presentation if you wish to present it anyway.

Kinn: We can reschedule the presentation. The guests will be here all week.

Arm: I will let you know if I feel like I can do it without significant decisions and adjustments being made.

What the fuck? Why is Arm being an asshole right now? Since there is no active discussion going on and people are just socializing, he takes the time to step away to call him instead. He is actually grateful that Tankhun decided Arm and Pol would keep their phones, even if it was technically special treatment. He's probably right. They are in the know about Namphueng, and Arm is the head of security and surveillance. After everything he has done, he deserves his phone.

But Arm sends his call to voicemail.

That. Fucker.

Kinn: This is unprofessional. Call me.

Arm: I am getting your brother out of the compound. That is more important right now. I apologize for the lack of notice. We should be back late tonight. Pol is staying with Nam and Phoenix. If you feel reprimanding me is called for, you can do so when we get back if you are still up. Or you can do it first thing in the morning. Up to you.

Kinn grips his phone tightly in his hand, then lets out a steadying breath. If Pa saw these messages, he would require a punishment. He may say it calmly, or even chuckle about Arm’s sudden audacity, but he would still require it.

He would punish Arm for having his phone without prior authorization too, but Kinn has long decided to let that drop.

The thought of punishing Arm leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He has spent a lot of time with him the last few months, and he is the one who tracked down Kim. Not only does Kinn respect him, but he has also felt like a good and very reliable friend as of late. The anxiety brought on by the thought of spending the day in close proximity to Douglas actually lessened because he knew he would have people he trusted there. Mainly Porsche, but Arm was in second place, since Arm has been a friend. That's what he thought, at least.

So more than anything, he feels hurt.

Kinn: I really don't want to do that. Are you upset with me about something? You are being very short with me, so if you are and want to discuss some things, we can do that tonight or tomorrow. If I did anything to piss you off, I apologize.

Kinn: I can't think of anything recent, but please let me know if I did.

Kinn: Can you let me know what it is?

Arm: I have no issues with you. I am sorry if I came off that way. My sudden absence has nothing to do with you, but I need some time to cool off. It's personal, but I will let you know if I am able to talk about it soon. I need to leave for the day, and I want to work on some things tonight when I get back. I will let you know if we can talk about this in the morning. Sorry again.

Just as Kinn trying to figure out a way to get Arm to call him so he can get a slightly better idea of what's going on, he gets a text from Khun.

Khun: Leave Arm be. Please. It's my fault he's so worked up. He's protective of me. You know that. We are going on a day trip so we can both get our minds off it.

Kinn: Off of what?

Khun: If I say, then I am failing to get my mind off of it, aren't I? 🙄 Arm is trying his best though. He even called Pete to see if he wanted to go on the day trip with us! But Pete is already out of town with Vegas and Macau. 😒 I would be more hurt, but he said he would rather be with us. Some family drama is going on back in Sisaket. He said his grandma was fine, so it is probably his annoying and abusive estranged father getting arrested for assault or drugs. 😡😤 His grandma HATES his father, so she won't help her ex son-in-law when he gets in trouble with the law. If Vegas truly loves Pete as much as his Instagram implies, he should slaughter him for everyone’s sake.

Kinn knows Khun is trying to distract him from the topic at hand. It's glaringly obvious, even if Khun is telling the truth and genuinely wants Vegas to kill Pete’s father. The thing is, it sort of works. Bringing up Vegas tends to distract Kinn from whatever he was talking about. It doesn't distract him in a good way, but it distracts him.

But that frustration is quelled by the relief of seeing emojis in Khun’s text. The first one didn't have any, and that is usually a sign Khun is anxious and not doing well, as strange of a sign that is.

Kinn: Can you please convince Arm to meet with me tomorrow morning?

Khun takes longer to answer than Kinn likes, but he does get back to him.

Khun: We’ll see.

Whatever.

“Is everything okay?” Porsche asks when Kinn walks in. Kinn doesn't nod, shake his head, or provide any peace of mind. He just opens his texts with Arm and hands his phone over to Porsche.

“What has gotten into him?” Porsche asks, “This isn't like him.”

“I was hoping you could tell me. He's your friend.”

Porsche glances at him, “He's becoming yours too. This might be a good sign, at least in some ways. He feels more comfortable being defiant with you.”

“Is defiance something he frequently displays outside of work?”

“Not really,” Porsche says, “But he has a strong sass streak when he's feeling annoyed.”

Kinn huffs at that, “Still shouldn't have left.”

“Oh, come on,” Porsche says quietly, “Maybe something personal happened and he needs some time. It's not the greatest timing, but he's done so much for everyone. I doubt he would just take off without a legitimate reason. Besides, all these men are longtime allies, right? The mutual business connections are beneficial for everyone? There probably isn't a reason to prepare for a significant threat. Right?”

As Kinn looks away and chooses not to answer that, he locks eyes with Douglas. The older man is staring right back at him with a smirk on his face.

#armkhun fic #kimchay fic #kimchay fanfic #kinnporsche fanfic #progression spoilers #progression preview #chapter 20 preview

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darkestprompts · 9 months

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Highest vs lowest alcohol tolerance?

I can't believe this got this long

Highest

So, a few notes on the method. The factors I'm considering are body mass, drinking habits, preferred type of drink and health. Genetics also play a role, but most of the times it will come into headcanon territory.

So, the big chonky lads IMO are Baldwin, Reynauld, Tardif and Barristan. Boudica is also muscular and tall, but not as broad. The ones who have the most explicit indications of a drinking habit in canon are Audrey, Dismas and Boudica.

Baldwin and Reynauld are out, I think. They may not be perfectly adherent but they are religious. Irrational Reynauld will even call for love and drink for all, indicating those are desires he represses. They do drink, but they don't regularly get hammered.

Neither, I think, does Tardif. We get few explicit hints from him, but he's focused and distrustful. Not the type to test his boundaries when it could put him on a disadvantage. Although, in DD2 he refuses some of the wine for being "too sweet" and accepts the whiskey, so I will give him some points for preferring harder drinks.

(even though I disagree with canon about him disliking sweet stuff--he could have been a baker!--I'll just choose to read him as not drinking things that go down easily while on the job, since he might get drunker than planned)

Barristan definitely drinks. He was a party guy back in the day, although his ambitions restrained him to just getting buzzed. After the death of his squad it would get much worse, however, he now he has a sense of responsibility to his soldiers. Plus, he's aging. I conclude he's a hard drinker, but the years are catching up to him and he has some boundaries.

Boudica is a promising candidate. While genetics are only headcanon, we know her people have a culture of hard drinking, which suggests some resistance. And she's a big lady! We have plenty of references to her drinking habits through both games. One thing I will note, however, that since getting rowdy and fighting with only determination and fury in mind are normalized where she comes from, she doesn't have the same incentive as some of the others to keep herself together while drinking. Strangely enough, in DD1, Revelry traded stress healing for significant debuffs, while DD2's Raucuous Revelry only has upsides.

For Dismas... Look, I will simply deny canon here. Dismas is not a buff monstrosity. If he ever was, after prison he wouldn't be anymore. No "big guy" points for him. I refuse. Anyway, Dismas is still a hard drinker. He has barks that refer to alcohol and inebriation and even drug use. Unlike some of the other guys, I'm sure he's gotten shitfaced. He had no incentive to practice moderation and the fact that he chose the life of a highwayman instead of a chandler suggests recklessness. This guy has woken up in a ditch covered in piss at least once, I just know it. Still, he has to be able to watch his back, so I feel like he can be deceptively alert even after drinking a lot. Another potential problem is that he's had a rough life and his body is starting to feel it, even if he isn't nearly as old as Barristan.

Finally, we have Audrey. You could interpret her as a regular party drinker like young Barristan, but that's the character whose CC set includes a bottle of absinthe. Her DD2 skill Absinthe actually heals her. We know she also uses snuff, laudanum and whatever the hell is DD1's "Toxin Trickery". I have no doubts she's an alcoholic just like Dismas and Boudica, but she may have had more incentive for not showing it, since it's unbecoming of a lady to throw up on the carpet. She knows how to drink and mask drunkeness really well.

My conclusion: Boudica has the highest natural tolerance, Dismas's has the record for most inadvisable amount of alcohol consumption in one night and Audrey is queen of getting drunk but somehow acting exactly the same as normal.

Lowest

It's a close call, but I'll go with Bonnie.

Para may be a small nerd, but you don't go through med school without a few inadvisable decisions for your liver and, besides, she knows how to stall drunkenness by eating and keeping hydrated. Junia is also a potential candidate, since she's a nun, but she's a bigger woman with healing powers.

Bonnie got that convent education, low body mass and no drinking habit. The first time she has the chance, she downs whiskey like juice and nearly chokes. It gets up her nose, her tearducts and on Dismas's face. Boudica nearly shits herself laughing.

#darkest dungeon #asks #anon #dd ensemble #headcanons #this got way more elaborate than it needed to be

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