#anyways i love this series. not as much as i love touhou (not yet anyways) but i by no means think it's inferior or anything- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

godginrai · 2 years

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I don’t want to make a whole essay’s worth about it but I really do want to talk about how much Revue Starlight really surprised me. Especially one particular character.

I don’t know when or where I had heard of the series, though very likely it was a Touhou server. My only surface level knowledge was maybe two or three things: There’s some sort of theatre school, there’s action with some nice animation and elaborate costumes, and of course, there’s a girl named Daiba Nana with a whole banana motif going on.

Around the start of this year I had seen some acquaintances suddenly talking about it again with excitement and recommending it, so with the ongoing anime binge with me and a close friend at the time, I thought it’d be fun to try something neither of us had seen.

I don’t really feel the need to go into the play-by-play of how the first episode went for us beyond “what the fuck is with the giraffe. is any of this really happening” etc. But it certainly got us intrigued to continue.

What *really* got us though was in the third episode during Karen and Maya’s Revue. At one point Maya talks about every stage girl’s ambitions and desires to be top star. During this, it shows brief flashes of other characters and their weapons, some of which had yet to fight on-screen. One of them was Nana. However, it was only a brief flash of her sword handle and little else.

Me and my friend immediately began to read into this slightly ominous shot and wondered “Is Nana actually the strongest?” We quickly got another hint at the end of the episodes when we saw she was ranked 3rd overall in the auditions.

We then spent the rest of the anime’s first half super pumped and wanting to see what Banana’s deal was.

And then of course, the end of episode 6, during the title card preview, which was just a screen of nothing but “Daiba Nana”. They really knew.

I’m not sure if I was ready. I don’t think I am even now.

This may be entirely subjective to call her this, but I’m willing to say that Daiba Nana is one of my favourite antagonists in anything I’ve seen.

I think what does it is the simple fact she’s a genuine loving and caring friend first, and antagonist second. There’s no tragic and lengthy backstory we’re shown or overtly informed of. Everything that drives her misguided methods is entirely shown and enforced through her genuinely kind and loving actions as a friend to everyone.

Her motivations can be and ultimately are selfish, but it’s so very easy to understand what brought her to them and why. Her crippling loneliness, excess attachment to friends, and extreme fear of change are thoroughly human and grounded emotions. I think just about any other person you’d ask has a point in their life they’d happily return to if possible. I know I sure do anyway.

And that’s what I have to ask myself. Would I do the same in her situation? There’s a high chance yes. Would I repeat it countless times like her at least? That much is hard to say. I think what helps her case is how mundane a thing it really was she wanted to preserve. It wasn’t some high stakes changing of fate or anything. It was just a lonely girl wanting to see her friends at their alleged happiest.

Then there’s the movie. Nana is definitely one of the most prominent characters in conveying the themes of following an established role and doing what the audience wants to see. Revue of Annihilation is more or less fanservice. She didn’t *have* to curbstomp her friends to make them stop and consider their place in things. Surely some words could have done the same, right? But that’s not what we want to see, I don’t think.

I still can’t get over the presentation of that scene. The sheer buildup in the transforming stage, the tense and rushing music, then the reveal of Nana staring down her friends as the sole opposition. Her calm, piercing eyes but with a casual tap of her foot to the beat. That whole revue embodies the cool factor of Nana’s ruthless fighting style when she’s in an antagonistic role. I fucking love it so much.

Then the Revue of Hunting. I don’t know what opinions are online about this and I don’t really need to know. From the first viewing I always took away from it as Nana still knee deep in her “villain” role of the film in order to test and push Junna to be more confident.

But the bigger thing I really like and personally take away from that is a further wake up call on Nana’s character. Having probably some of the darkest and most emotional moments of any revue, it really comes off to me as acknowledging Nana’s unhealthily obsessive behaviour over Junna in particular. And by the end both of the pair have to acknowledge they may not be the best for each other.

Nana is a deeply flawed individual. But it all comes from what’s also so kind and uplifting about her. Her strength as a fictional character, as an antagonist, is not that I merely sympathize with her, but empathize. Her motivation and what she wants to protect genuinely makes me want to cry when I think about it, but I am glad she had the strength, love and help needed to move on.

#revue starlight #revue starlight spoilers #aimless ramble i dont know where i was going with all of this

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peace-bone · 9 months

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Yachie had been humiliated at least three times today already, now this miserable dog was rubbing it in much worse. Saki beat Son Biten without even realizing what was going on, but that was far from the worst of it. She had set aside a large chunk of her plan to simply getting Aunn away from the shrine. She thought the plan was excellent, and yet only now she remembers that Aunn can make two of herself! She felt humiliated, forgetting it considering it was Aunn's entire main ability!

Of course, doing that put Aunn at half strength, at best. And then she lost a fight to her! She planned on beating Aunn at full strength and expected no trouble!

"Ehehe, you're really silly. You do all this to bring half of me out here but you can't even beat me? Why are you trying to fight so much when you're so weak?" Aunn teased, rubbing the tiny Yachie into the dirt.And where did this dog learn to shrink people anyway?! Their foot was filthy, coated in dirt, bare, grimy, but the fact that Yachie was powerless and being ground under it was far worse that any filth!

"You're clearly no threat. So, since you're not a threat, how about I fufill your wish a bit? Come back to the shrine with me! There will be two of me to play with then~!" Aunn laughed, looking at the tiny girl underfoot.

Yachie paled as she heard it, not only were her plans all shot, but this might not be the end of it, either...

---------------------------------------------------

I'm running off of Twitter gossip cause there's no translation transcript out yet and I know approximately one 'nani' worth of moonrabbit speak, but I decided to write this anyway! IF I'M WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING I'M WRONG, LET THE DICE FALL.

Touhou 19 is out! So much to talk about with it. I wasn't that big on Yachie before, didn't have any real thoughts on her, but TH19 has made me immediately love her by making her the biggest failgirl in the series. A huge chunk of her plan is apparently devoted to distracting and luring Aunn away from the shrine, and she just flat out forgets Aunn's entire thing is being in two places at once. And apparently the two half-power Aunns are capable of independently thwarting any ideas Yachie had.

And I know even less about the other plot but apparently Yachie convinces Son Biten she's the Monkey King and sends her out to something something but Saki just beats them up without realizing she's thwarting more plans. CONGLATURATION

Aunn is best Touhou confirmed, I guess. Super cute, loyal, capable, and apparently super powerful and cunning, too. Did she causally spend her whole story using her two body ability? Does that mean she basically spends the whole game fighting at half power and is just that strong? Or is Yachie just THAT MUCH of a loser?

#giantess feet #feet #size difference

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anchorshots · 3 years

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...that sure was an ending! as disappointing as sotsu has been... it’s been fun, keeping up with everyone’s reactions and theory crafting and even just throwing my own thoughts into the ring. i’m definitely gonna miss higurashi thursdays, even if the product in question was... well, not the best quality?

the stuff i loved about the ending:

that gorgeous rendition of you playing at the end

the beauty of springtime hinamizawa (those cherry trees, oh my god???)

okonogi looking smug as hell because he's off to start a food distribution company and get in with the ushiromiya family

smol eua was very smol

SATOSHI WOKE UP HOLY SHIT

SHION GOT SCREENTIME HOLY SHIT

the message from the club that it’s okay if friends grow apart and don’t see each other all the time; they’re still friends at the end of the day, no matter where life takes them.

the stuff i didn’t love:

... a lot, honestly, but a lot of my issues with the last episode have to do with my issues with sotsu as a whole? so much of it just felt... rushed and kind of unearned? i think a lot of my feelings can be summed up as “cool ideas, awful execution”.

this could’ve been really good, but either r07 yeeted the ball down like 34 flights of stairs when it came to giving passione his outline, or they did while adapting it. something went wrong there, and i think the push to market sotsugyou as newcomer friendly shot the entire project in the foot; we spend so much time retreading old ground that the new material barely has time to breathe and stand on its own, and any newcomers were just told “you really wanna go back and read the vn/read the manga/watch the anime before starting gou” anyways, so like... why bother with that?

in any case, i really like what tomato akase’s been doing with the gou manga, so i have higher hopes for higurashi jun. hopefully its conclusion will be less of a trainwreck than sotsu! as it is, unless jun pulls off some gotdam miracles, i... am still not considering this canon to OUR matsuribayashi. maybe some other matsuribayashi fragment had all this happen, but the one we saw in the original series? nope. (there are happy st lucia timelines in mei, after all, so like... yeah.)

i think that’s all i really have to say, but i’ve rambled a bit more under the cut just... i dunno, to clear my head and process what i watched?

i was all for redeeming satoko in the end, but... one (1) round of looper thunderdome, a dbz/touhou inspired miko battle, then punching the heck out of each other in the river... does not feel like enough from what they’ve shown us?

if they’d built up to this moment more in the answer arcs by showing more of satoko’s hesitation, her guilt, any horror at what she’s doing to her friends, her desperately assuring herself that none of this will matter when rika finally, finally stays and they can all be happy... then led up to the tatariakashi breakdown and teppei murder where she kills off all of those conflicting feelings to win the game as quickly as possible so all of this can stop... i dunno, i feel like it’d be easier to stomach her being forgiven without question? like, the teppei and sea of fragments scenes were clearly meant to convey she’s been feeling like this the entire time- but when we actually saw satoko on her own, we got one scene of her being sad she pushed rena into murder, then it was all mustache twirling villainy from there on out until teppei?

or, hell, i’d have taken seeing her having to account for unexpected problems in her plans and adapt on the fly more. like... the biggest problems she encountered apart from the teppei guilt situation were to do with mion taking longer to go off the deep end ( requiring needling on her end to push mion into a more fragile state where she’d act out ), then having no idea whether mion had killed rika or not once the tragedy was kicked off. apart from that... there was nothing? she was totally in control the whole time? everything went according to plan 95% of the time? i get it, i get it, certainty(tm), but certainty isn’t an instant win button. certainty is perseverance. certainty is overcoming every single setback thrown at you and clawing your way to the top in the face of adversity. hard work and an iron will go rewarded. you know... takano’s entire thing?

also... uh... how’d they get yeeted back into the original matsuribayashi fragment from the miko battle fragment? and... after the advice session from the club, did they just off themselves to do it over and go their separate ways properly? or can they just hop at will now without dying? huh???????????

lambda 100% split off from satoko in the ending, though, that’s for sure. i guess time is wonky in the sea of fragments, or as someone on reddit put it, lambda existing before bern was misdirection???

i guess my big question is where exactly bern split off from rika. saikoroshi was supposed to be the big split, but sotsugyou being where lambda split - and rika’s actions throughout the series, as well as their parting words - suggests that bern was still in there somewhere. maybe it was an incomplete split in saikoroshi, then sotsugyou finished it off? i dunno.

also what the hell was that final eua-hanyuu battle. like, you go hanyuu, but... it was so anticlimactic, she deserved better.

also kind of sad we didn’t get to see the satoshi-satoko and shion reunion but like,,, that makes sense. he just just woke up, boy’s not stepping out of that clinic for a while yet. still, i wish they’d done his scene first with irie in the room, then while irie was idk, stepping out to get something he needed, saw takano and tomitake come in and said something about how happy satoko would be to hear this... i dunno. just to allude to the fact that satoko has more in her life than rika. nii-nii’s back! once he’s confirmed safe to be around, she’ll be able to come see him! shion can, too!

god. i just. s i g h.

it just sucks seeing my favourite series of all time treated so carelessly. maaaan...

i don’t think i hate sotsugyou. it had great ideas, but its flaws... hoo boy, they were flaaaaaaaws.

#pepper.txt #higurashi gou #higurashi sotsu #higurashi spoilers #man... MAN...#im gonna miss higu thursdays but MAAAAAAAAAAN...

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nekoprankster218 · 3 years

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Just Wanted to Do 10 Fandoms, 10 Characters

Nobody tagged me but I saw one while scrolling and just felt the want to gush about 10 different characters (plus it said anyone who wanted to who wasn’t tag could, so that’s enough of an invitation for me!). In no particular order:

1. Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam from Halo

I love a bunch of Sangheili characters, and if the rule wasn’t “10 different fandoms”, half the list would just be them. But there’s one that just rises above the rest (funny, given he’s actually shorter).

2. Penny Polendina from RWBY

Ever since Volume 7, Penny’s quickly become my favorite RWBY character. Maybe it’s because of everything that happened in that volume, or starting a found family crossover fic with her as the focus, or something else. Either way - four episodes in, and I’m already worried about what the writers have planned for her this volume!

3. Entrapta from She-Ra: Princesses of Power

Probably the most recent favorite out of everyone on the list - she’s half the reason I finally started watching She-Ra (the only half was Catradora)! Not finished with the show (last I had time to binge, I finished season 3) yet, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take the “favorite character” medal away from her. Probably biased, because I am autistic and firmly believe she’s at least coded.

4. Paarthurnax from Skyrim

I like several named dragons from Skyrim, but Paarthurnax gets the honor of being on the list. Is it maybe convenient that a lot of his story arc mirrors Thel? Perhaps. I also attached to Sissel’s dialogue about her dragon dream immensely, despite knowing it probably meant nothing to Bethesda.

5. Sachiko Shinozaki from Corpse Party

I have a soft spot for ghost kids in horror stories, and Sachiko’s probably the epitome of that. She’s fun as a villain, has a nice balance between childish and mature that I like to see played around with, although you also can’t help but feel bad she ended up that way. You can tell she’s one of my favorites because she’s one of my go-to characters in multi-fandom crossovers (Thel also being one!).

6. Gajeel Redfox from Fairy Tail

Pretty sure Gajeel was the first time it really hit me that I liked reformed antagonists. I can’t even explain why he became my favorite (same for some of the other characters on this list, actually). It was just nice to see his arc develop over the series - his personal growth, his budding romance, his dynamics with others. (Also yes, I liked Fairy Tail, dunno why that’s such a controversial opinion in the anime community.)

7. Rattlesnake Jake from Rango

Speaking of antagonists! I know I just said I really like reformed antagonists, but villains without a redemption arc are good, too. Especially in Jake’s case, where you see he still has his own code; it’s just that, his own code. And let’s be honest. Rattlesnake with a gattling gun on his tail? He has only 10 minutes of screen time and he stole the whole damn movie. If they never make Rango 2, I really hope they at least make a Rattlesnake Jake spin-off.

8. Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy

Looking through the entries on this list, starting to think I just find intense/deep character arcs pretty neat. Rocket’s an a-hole, and usually I do not like a-holes, but he’s also a really interesting case. The MCU has yet to really say much about Rocket’s backstory, but the little crumbs it has given speaks volumes, so when Rocket’s doing his self-sabotaging behavior or talking out his mouth...only negative emotion I really feel is sadness. He tries to act tough, but he probably needs more therapy than Volume 8!Penny or Red!Sachiko.

9. Hakase from Nichijou

If I could put the whole Shinonome household, I would. Their segments were always my favorite part of the episodes just because kid scientist, big sister robot, and talking dad cat. You know how Ouran Host just got a second season announced? Can that happen to Nichijou? Just, please, there’s more manga to cover!

10. Godzilla from the MonsterVerse

‘Nuff said.

And that’s my 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, in no particular order and certainly missing plenty of characters from the same fandoms and different ones. Also tried to keep it varied. Kinda weird actually that I never once brought up-

11. TouHou Project

I. COULDN’T. DECIDE. There are so many good Touhou characters! I really couldn’t narrow it down to one! This is probably a promise that I’m gonna do a 10 favorites post just for TouHou Project.

Anyway, usually people tag 10 others, but I really don’t have the confidence to tag 10. So, uh... @katthescalie show me what you got (if you want).

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pangtasias-atelier · 4 years

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Random questions but who's a character that you liked design wise but once their personality or their stats/usability in-game were revealed, you just hated them? Also, who's a character you hated design wise but ended up loving their personality or stats/ usability? (Characters can be from any game, not just FE)

THIS POST DOES INCLUDE CHARACTER HATE (AND LOTS OF IT LMAO)

Ooh, I love questions like these!!! This also turned out pretty long lmao

Characters I liked design wise but personality made me hate them:

Xander. (Fates) I can't stand him outside of a kink context. When the very first Fates trailer was shown (before we even knew it was the shitshow of different routes) he looked cute. But he's just so frustrating. I get that he's supposed to be the Camus archetype but he just falls so flat and doesn't work well. And that's cause there's absolutely no world building or any development at all to help give reasoning! It's just "I'm crown prince, and that's my father you're trying to kill," which like okay that's a fair reason. But the game doesn't do much more to justify it and Garon is so stupidly obviously evil that like, it makes Xander look so stupid. Plus the games keep trying to make him this badass warrior but Fates LOVES to tell not show so it's just informed attributes. Even in Conquest, he's not much better than he is in Birthright imo. If anything, Xander is worse in Conquest cause Conquest has the worst writing in the series by far. At the very least, he along with Camilla help make Lunatic conquest bearable. (Still haven't beaten it lol, but CQ Lunatic is just so unfair, and BS. Plus the last 2 chapters being back to back with no saves is the worst idea ever)

Sylvain. (Three Houses) His design was alright and I even manages to accidentally recruit him on my first playthrough while going for Ashe and Mercedes. But GOD his personality is just bleh. Womanizer types aren't inherently bad but the crests system being pushed as this unique thing makes Sylvain much more annoying since crest's aren't even unique or well done. Like, sure, people want him for his crest, but that's literally nobility in fucking general and also, Mercedes is right there with it being worse and she's so fucking sweet! Also, FE characters are lot deep, let's face it. Their interesting moments basically come from snippets of info about their past and intys makes it sad cause they know that catches people's attention. But most FE characters are pretty static. And that's fine! I love Grima and Corrin and they're pretty fucking godamn bland! But I'm not gonna act like they're these riveting 3 dimensional characters. Which people love to do for Sylvain and it just makes me hate him even more.

Felix. (Three Houses) I really enjoyed the Navarre archetypes. But Felix exaggerates it so much. And yeah, his scathing remarks and refusal to be anyway (I can't think of the word, FUCK) like willing to talk or come to an agreement is so just awful. Like, it makes sense since he's more like that with people he knows, but he's just such a fucking jackass. And the fandom praises it when he's really just a dick imo. Glad Seteth calls him out on it lmao. Also, sylvix is such a fucking straight ship, I cannot with it.

Characters I liked design wise but play style made me dislike them:

Regal Bryant. (Tales of Symphonia) Now, he's not a bad character or anyone I really hate at all! He's just so awful to actually play as in ToS. His attacks feel like they struggle to connect oftentimes and he has a much higher skill floor than other characters such as Lloyd, Kratos/Zelos, Sheena, and Presea. Genis and Raine should just never be used in the players hands cause magic casting times and the AI targeting the player lmao. Colette isn't too bad but like, honestly, just spam her paraball. Regal also gets shafted storywise but they at least fix it in the sequel. Also, he's a SPLENDID character. Regal being this buff man, yet he's just so calm and reserved while also having a playstyle usually reserved for women makes me love him even more. I just hate playing as him lol.

Assasin of Shinjuku/Yan Qing. (Fate/Grand Order) His part in Shinjuku was great, except for that wierd ending upon him fading away and all of sudden remembering, like it felt it was gonna make fun about the whole last limited rushed sympathy yet they play it so straight lmao. He's incredibly hot and he was so great in the Halloween Event. (The Mecha Eli and Osakabehime one. I forget the name) Yan Qing just literally offers no real meaningful team support and he also doesn't have any actual buffs to help boost his own damage. He has a use, it's just so pointless diverting crit stars when you can use a better servant with star generation to just make a bunch consistently. So, Yan Qing hits like a noodle and also dies to vasically any NP since he has no defensive skills. Even with his upgrade coming next year? he still just is so bad. I love him and he's lvl 90 but he's awful gameplay wise.

Byakuren Hijiri. (Touhou) I love Byakuren so much but she's just so unwieldy in the fighting games. I still tried to use her, but like, o was just so much better with Miko that I basically stayed Miko the entire time. Miko/Byakuren's story in Antinomy of Common Flowers.

Marisa Kirisame (Touhou) Marisa always gets the straightforward shot that does great damage. The problem with that is, she really really really REALLY struggles with stages and even some boss attacks. Plus Reimu has homing while unfocused and straightforward shot while focused PLUS smaller hitbox so Marisa is always at a disadvantage. Marisa being being the best shottype (to some, I prefer Youmu but Reimu is infact the worst shottype imo) in Wily Beast and Weakest Creature doesn't make up for Marisa being worse than Reimu in all other games besides maybe Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

In general there's not many characters that I hate due to design so these were harder

Character I hated design wise but loved due to gameplay.

Zhuge Liang (Fate/Grand Order) Granted, I basically know nothing about the Fate Series outside of FGO so I don't really know about Waver. But I just wasn't crazy about his design. And how he gets younger as you ascend him. But MY FUCKING GOODNESS! 50%NP charge is just way too good to pass up and he fits on literally any team whatsoever. Team Attack up, team efense up, targetable crit damage up, and NP drain+ stun chance on his NP makes him so versatile. And he's charging up people's NPs!! I use him for everything at this point lmao.

Character I hated due to design but liked due to character:

Scáthach=Skaði (Fate/Grand Order) The fact that Skaði looks like Scáthach really has no purpose in any meaningful way imo. Like, it's not Scáthach at all. And while I honestly would've preferred a brand new design, Skaði was just so wonderful in LB2. Especially since Ivan was kinda meh in LB1, so it really makes me look forward to the other Lostbelt Kings (Qin Shi Huang and Arjuna Alter. Both who I already love lmao) But yeah! Skaði being this kinda benevolent ruler who's doing everything she can to suppress Surtr's flames while trying to keep humans and giants from growing extinct due to her mother/goddess complex makes her so compelling to me. Also, LB2 focusing on women and the general theme of love was so touching. I didn't even care for her amazing gameplay, I was still gonna try for Skaði cause she was so great in Gotterdamerung.

#asks #this is so fucking long lmao #listen if you give me th chance i will drone on and on and on

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shidiand · 5 years

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How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

#tenco's story #freshlybakedspiderbread

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radramblog · 2 years

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posts of 2021

This is how the blog ends. Not with a bang, but with a meta. It’s fitting, I think.

We sit now at post number three hundred and sixty-five. One Full Year of posting. Unfortunately, I’d have to go for another 272 years to hit the dreaded power of one hundred thousand posts, and I don’t really plan on doing this until I’m literal dust.

Having to actually choose which of my own posts I liked most would be impossible. For one, I don’t remember all of them- though tumblr does have a relatively convenient archive function that makes it less difficult than it could possibly end up being to comb through them all. I have ones I am definitely proud of, and a few that I’ve gotten good comments (both on the site and irl) about, but even if I could vote for some of them I’d just have so much trouble killing my darlings. Well, like, a lot of them. Some of the posts are pretty bad.

With that in mind, I was wondering how else I could possibly discuss Posting in 2021. And fortunately, I found something of a solution- let the hands of the people decide (and by that, I mean some of the people and also whatever fucked-up algorithm Tumblr works using) and look at the most notable posts according to the site itself. That is, the ones with the most notes- likes, reblogs, comments, whatever.

None of them have that many. And that’s okay.

I think there was some part of me that desperately hoped that at some point, one of these posts would get spread around a bunch. That one of them would get caught in someone’s tag search and catch a reblog, then another, then more until I’d have to mute notifications or something. That obviously hasn’t happened, but I know so little about how this site functions from a user perspective that I feel comfortable appending a “yet” to that sentence.

One anonymous messenger told me that Tumblr as a platform was very “all-or-nothing” when it comes to visibility, and I can completely believe that. I’m pretty sure that unless you explicitly search for a tag, you aren’t going to see posts on your dash that aren’t from things you follow or reblogged by them. And I don’t exactly have that many followers (shoutout to all 32 of you!), nor do I follow literally anyone on this account- fun fact, I kinda don’t use tumblr in general, in case it wasn’t obvious.

Still, some of these posts somewhat caught on, so we take those. Not like they were meant for anyone else in the first place- I actually have no idea how well these read, because they basically don’t get edited beyond spellcheck. It’s called the ramblog because it’s a ramble blog, though I realise that my inclination towards the ovine makes it kinda look like it’s a bit more of a pun. That’s why they’re all (except the 11 I’ve apparently forgotten) tagged as #ramble!

Anyway, enough bullshitting. Fortunately, so I don’t have to search through the entire 365(+ admin posts) backlog, Tumblr does conveniently have a “year in review” thing that has a list of the top 5 posts noteswise. I’m not 100% sure it’s correct- the thing lists me having made 363 posts so far, which sent me into a brief spiral trying to figure out which day I missed.

(there are actually 369(nice) posts on this blog, because it includes the admin posts and the two from before this was what it is. But there are definitely 364 Actual Ramble Posts prior to this one)

So. What did the people want to read?

#5 (16 notes): “love me some fuckin toohoos” (March 21, 993 words)

I have to assume this got spotted by people in the Touhou fandom proper, because it’s only got that as an unusual tag, and most people came straight to the post itself. It’s not a topic I ever really returned to, though- ultimately it’s a series I was definitively more into in high school than I am now or have been all year. I actually have no idea what exactly inspired it- prooobably seeing news about Unconnected Marketeers? That or checking my Steam Wishlist and remembering that basically every game in the series is on there.

The post itself kind of doesn’t hold up to my completely arbitrary standard, in my opinion. Mostly because I think I was trying largely to explain the series’s nature to a layman- and by that I mean my mates, who I thought were the most likely to read it, and thereby a lot of it is fairly basic stuff. Like, there’s a bit of looking at the impact of the series re: indie gaming and doujin culture, but not much, and that’s kind of a hugely important point to harp on about with the series. It’s a huge fucking deal, more than “some fuckin toohoos” belies, and I’m not sure that’s accurately represented here.

I still haven’t actually beaten any of the games save Phantasmagoria of Flower View, which arguably doesn’t count. Now that I actually own a legal copy of one of them, I might actually get around to doing it? If nothing else, I know it’ll be fun, if a tad frustrating.

#4 (17 notes): “Every Boros Commander, Part 2” (January 9th, 1932 words)

I was actually pretty surprised by this one. Of all my allegedly 52 (damn that’s consistent) M:TG posts, why this one? It’s not like the part 1 is up there, is it- oh it’s also at 16 never mind. Honestly, while none of them (aside from these, apparently) are huge hits or anything, I think Magic was one of my topics where I’d much more consistently have one or two notes on most posts.

These “Every ___” posts were very much inspired by the weekly article series-es that one Joseph Megill writes on EDHREC, that I follow pretty religiously- essentially, taking a particular list of cards (planeswalkers, mana rocks, equipment, etc.), ranking them all by EDHREC usage, and then just. Going through them, 10 or so per week. I guess I just really like these listicles, because I spent a lot of time doing similar work, and getting well and truly out of hand in the process.

I did like having consistent themes to work on, though- saved the trouble of having to think of something to write. Like, even though I think these articles are on average really goddamn long, they actually didn’t take much longer if at all than a lot of other stuff, by simple nature of not having to think of a topic ahead of time, which always takes me for fucking ever. That, and I can do most of the writing and theorycrafting off-the-cuff, though to be fair, I do just about everything off the cuff on this blog.

(arguably one of the only things that’s not off the cuff is the Roxy post from earlier this week, and I’m so glad to see that making much more immediate traction than anything else because it was kind of a big thing for me)

Anyway. Magic is kind of in a weird place for me right now- I want to be playing more of it, but my opportunities to do so are either limited or frustrating, so I can’t really do much more than theorycraft. Sharehouse when? I will force my housemates to draft my cube, and they will learn to fucking enjoy it.

#3 (20 notes): “and you don’t seem to understand” (January 6th, 873 words)

January sixth. The first goddamn week of this entire project. There is a slight bias towards the older posts on the blog, I think, but that’s probably just because they’ve had more time to get picked up.

In retrospect, this is such a weird fucking post. Kind of halfway simultaneously talking about Serial Experiments Lain, one of my favourite anime of all time, and Twilight, probably one of my favourite albums of all time, both connected through the song Duvet that opens both. I guarantee if I tried writing this now, I’d have rewatched a couple episodes of the show beforehand and listened through the entire album.

Anime is something I didn’t spend that long writing about in general. In part, that’s because the “anime fandom” is something I’ve kind of consciously avoided- even as much as I enjoy the medium, the stigma surrounding it is hard to shake, and i have been deep enough into it in the past to know that said stigma is arguably deserved. And I didn’t really want to alienate myself by talking about the stuff- at the end of the day, I can’t shake the idea that liking particular anime enough to write huge spiels about them is uncool. As if I’ve ever not been uncool.

Music, though, is something I’ve obviously spent ages discussing, and for good reason- I care a lot about it! And I have a lot of weird shit to share! And bôa is definitely an example of that. Honestly, I kind of want to go back to this album in my current, more detailed breakdown style- I’m still not sure if those are any good, for what it’s worth, but I feel better giving more attention to a piece of work when I’m sharing it to the world. Even in the cases where I end up shitting on some of the songs.

This post was born of me being unable to get Duvet out of my head. Top song of the year 2020, apparently, which did not surprise me at all at the time. It’s not even on this year’s list.

Wait, neither is Little Miss? What the fuck, me, that song goes.

#2 (20 notes): “Halo Through its Guns: Halo CE” (September 1st, 1401 words)

Man, this series. This is what finally got me to play Halo 5. Fucking hell.

The response to this post came quicker than I expected, which I think was part of what convinced me to buckle down and commit to the full series. That, and having half of it planned out ahead of time- I think the ones that weren’t quite as planned out are really obvious, though.

In part, I think this was inspired by Late Night Gaming’s video/series, The Evolution of Halo’s (weapon name here). Certainly, some of the ideas in this particular post were inspired by the Plasma Pistol video, which is very much to its benefit- I think this might be one of the strongest ones as far as analysis of game mechanics goes. But across the series, it kind of changed very much into something else.

There’s kind of no beating around the bush- the posts for Halo 5 and especially 4 were downright cathartic. The series was not intentionally building up to them, that was not a conscious decision, but it just kind of happened. 4 was a lot of opinions and emotion that had been simmering for a cool 9 years, and also something that had notes taken down and ideas toyed with for over a month at that point. And 5 was raw reaction, the result of both building something up in my head and of going into a game thinking “how bad could it possibly be” and, well, finding out. I’m still a little annoyed about how long I had to delay before said 5 post (something that also kinda made it seem like it had to be grander), but it just wasn’t a convenient time of year for driving half an hour to a mate’s place to borrow the old XBone.

I think I still might make an Infinite post at some point, once I’ve gotten to dive into more than the tutorial. While I may have gotten the game working a couple days ago, these last couple blog posts have taken a lot longer than they should, and also, it’s a busy time of year!

So. What was the number goddamn one post of the year according to the whims of the masses? By over double as many hits as the last one? Um.

#1 (43 notes): “have a plan to kill everyone you meet- Fallout New Vegas Genocide run notes” (January 16th, 1234 words)

This is really confusing to me, actually. I mean, I guess it’s possibly one of the more useful ones, considering it straight up just has a walkthrough of how to do this dumb idea and part of how I worked out how all of it could work. In theory.

Ahh, fine, in practice. I definitely got, like, halfway through this before getting bored. Turns out a game like FNV is actually more fun if you talk to the characters instead of violently removing their body parts. So not only is this a weird walkthrough for a meme run of a game that actively avoids a lot of the best aspects of said game, not to mention the incredibly restrictive nature of the gameplay required to maximise the kill count to “every killable character except for three of them”, but doing it isn’t even that fun.

At the same time, it is kind of striking. “Genocide Run” is a concept that has taken off somewhat since, well, Undertale, and Fallout New Vegas is finally starting to get the cultural recognition it actually deserves. It’s one of the few games where the concept actually lines up kinda well to Undertale’s one in action- that is, it’s really grindy, mostly not hard at all except a few things, and because you’re killing all the interesting characters you don’t get to see all the interesting dialogue and plot. You do get to see some different plot elements, but at the end of the day, it’s still just going to end at Hoover Dam, but you have no friends this time.

At the end of the day, this is basically just a dumb idea that I took to its logical conclusion. And in a way, that’s kind of a metaphor for this entire blog project. So I suppose it’s fitting that this takes the number one spot.

And that, uh. That does it, I guess. Dang.

When I started this blog, a year ago, I definitely wasn’t confident that I’d actually make it through the other end. I didn’t think I’d manage a couple weeks of posting, let alone a few months, let alone the whole fucking year. And yet, here we are. It’s over. It’s complete. Fin.

Except, it’s not really over. I imagine I will cease posting completely at some point, but I still have things I want to talk about, ideas to explore, and maybe even things I’ll need to vent about. Obviously, it won’t be consistent, but hopefully this will mean I can put a bit more effort into the posts I do upload. If nothing else, I want to take a look at the year’s stats as far as word count goes (and notes)- and I might be halfway through harvesting that data already.

With that, I guess I bid thee adieu. Because I have to go get ready for the New Year’s party. Here’s hoping 2022 looks a bit better than 2021, and here’s hoping that I don’t have any more colossally silly ideas for new year’s resolutions. Or at the very least, have said ideas be a bit less time-consuming.

#ramble #meta #fuck cannot believe this is actually the 365th one #thats so utterly wild #c'est fini #may the blog remain eternal

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mrgameandpie · 7 years

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So hey, I’ve been drawing a lot of Joane Vemb lately, probably not gonna stop for a while, so now that y’all have seen her design (or what I’m capable of drawing of it, anyway) I may as well throw out some factoids about what she’s like!

I came up with Joane Vemb via a collision of two trains of thought. For one, I really love both the Kirby and Mega Man series of videogames, and these series both share a central game mechanic in common: copying enemy abilities. Kirby copies regular enemies and tends to get powers that are often only tangentially related to what the specific enemy is capable of, having a wide variety of techniques for every ability. His main limitation is that when he gets hit he loses the ability he has (or has a chance of losing it depending on the game). Mega Man, meanwhile, copies only bosses, and the weapons he gets from them generally act exactly how the boss used the weapon and will only have on potential use. There are exceptions for both of those stipulations, but that’s the general rule of thumb. Mega Man’s limitation is ammo, he can only use his special weapons so many times before they run out of shots and need to be refilled again. Kirby can only have one copy ability on hand at a time (with the exception of during Milky Way Wishes and Kirby Squeak Squad) while Mega Man tends to get around 8 abilities he can switch between at will. I looked at these mechanics, and thought, what if you put them together? The ensuing concept was a game character that could absorb regular enemies, and get a slew of weapons associated with the enemy type. So for example, lets say Kirby inhaled a fire enemy, and thus gained the ability to use Fire Storm, Atomic Fire, Pharaoh Shot, Flame Blast, Scorch Wheel, Flame Sword, Wave Burner, Magma Bazooka, and Solar Flare at will, but they all used the same ammo bar, and the only way to refill the ammo bar would be to gain a copy ability again.

The other train of thought requires much less explanation. I find chubby women to be very aesthetically pleasing. I like sweetness and softness and a combination of both is absolutely fantastic. However, I don’t generally see chubby women represented in media that often, and certainly never as the main starring role of an action/adventure story. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone when I say that it’d be nice to have more diversity among fictional characters in media. As such, why not make our ability copying hero a chubby woman? It’d certainly give the game a unique edge in the protagonist department right from the get-go! There was also an element that games like Skullgirls and Shantae give basically every female character the same busty body type, while games like Touhou and Rabi Ribi give basically every female character the same moe body type, so what if I made a game where basically every female character had basically the same chubby body type? I don’t think I’m gonna stick down that route, I’d imagine should I get to the point where the game is becoming a reality as a game it’ll have a wide assortment of body types, but still, it was something.

So hey, we got to see the early inspirations and conceptualizations for Joane, so what’s she actually like? While most of this could change in the future at some point, this is the backstory I’ve got planned for her at this time. The world we’re looking into has a variety of supering sources. Super sciences, a variety of magic forces, extradimensional nonsense, the works. As one might expect, most regions of the world have their own supervillains of the like always trying to take over. Well, one day they all succeed practically simultaneously! This is completely random happenstance, none of them were working together whatsoever. So of course, now that these villains have taken over the region they’ve always sought after first, their next step in their world domination plan would be attacking eachother. This climaxes in a huge battle where each force unleashes their Ultimate Weapons upon eachother, and what results is a massive vortex absorbing each of the weapons. In just an instant, the backbone of each force’s capabilities disappear, resulting in a constant stalemate for an exceptionally long time on all fronts. Out of this vortex, an infant appears, a baby Joane. She was picked up and brought to a hidden civilization that raised her in a more peaceful situation than any place currently existing under the villains’ rule. We skip forward to years later, and Joane is an adult with a full understanding of her abilities. Due to the fact that her creation was the result of each faction’s greatest weapons being combined, her physical and magical biologies are unstable and flexible, allowing her to augment herself with any of the group’s weaponry, copying their abilities and powers. Eventually, Joane decides that it’s time for her to do something, and goes out in the world with the intention of freeing the lands from their tyranny.

So we have our gal’s backstory, and that’s cool, but what about her as a person? Well one thing to note is that she decides to go on this adventure of her own volition. She has a unique birth into the world, certainly, but she’s not exactly a chosen one. Nobody’s got any predestination “oh man you’ve gotta be the one to save the world” stuff going on. Even within her family and community, nobody is particularly expecting her to go out and save the world herself. Despite the fact that these empires have been continuing for well over 20 years, nobody within Joane’s community really takes them seriously. “They’re not stable enough, they’ll collapse on themselves any day now!” Well, Joane says any day now should be this day right now, and she’s gonna do something to make sure it is! She cares about the people these empires are hurting, even if she hasn’t met them before, and she’s ready to use her incredible power to restore order and stability to the world.

Joane tends to be a sweet, positive person. She believes in herself and she believes in you too! Very little of what she says is ever mean-spirited, unless she sees someone as being particularly terrible, she can actually be something of a doormat to the people she particularly cares about.

If she wasn’t out adventuring and saving the world, Joane would definitely be a geologist. She’s the kind of person to go out on a walk and just pick up pretty much any rock she sees. She has a pretty big rock collection with only a few types of rocks due to the low variation found in the place she lives. Maybe going on an adventure across the world will increase the variety in her collection! She also has some interest in astronomy, mostly relating to how planets across the galaxy operate with the kind of rocks and minerals that would form given different planet densities, temperatures, and compositions. In this regard she also has tangential knowledge of other studies like physics and chemistry, all areas she has a talent for. Though ironically, despite her powers coming from her unique biology, that’s actually one of the few sciences she doesn’t have a natural knack for.

Joane tends to be a pretty silly person. She loves laughter, both from others and from herself, and loves making people happy. You can pretty easily expect her to make silly quips and puns for just about any situation she finds herself in, even if her life happens to be on the line. Unsurprisingly, her favorite movies tend to be comedies. She’s not afraid of being or looking ridiculous. In fact, she kind of revels in it. No matter how dark the world around her may become, Joane consistently acts as a light of positivity to look upon.

So, there you go, there’s some stuff about Joane Vemb. Like I said near the beginning, a lot of this is liable to change over time, but I guess we can consider this something of a time capsule. I hasn’t even been a full week yet since I came up with the character, and this is what I have so far. Maybe in a few years this’ll all be totally different! Either way, I’m gonna be working on this stuff quite a bit, so I hope y’all look forward to it!

#Joane Vemb #oc

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clarste · 7 years

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Okay, so there’s been some controversy about this, and I recently talked to someone who misunderstood my reasons for stopping FS. First of all, this might have been way too early to make this announcement. We haven’t even gotten an official press release yet. Second of all, we’re in the middle of this first (and only?) major arc of the series, and basically I’m leaving everyone on a huge cliffhanger. Which wasn’t my intention; I didn’t think about that at all, actually. So, uh, sorry. My bad. I handled this very poorly.

Anyway, while I don’t feel like taking it back right now, if only because I would be dropping it again later for the same reasons, I have spoken to people who plan on finishing this arc, at the very least. So if that’s your concern, as a reader, you can probably rest easy. You won’t be waiting 3 years to find out what happens with Kosuzu and Yukari.

That said, a lot of people I’ve spoken to have talked about this as “drama”. As if my announcement has necessarily created a lot of “drama” that I have to deal with, from upset fans and the like. But that’s not how I feel at all. Mostly I’ve gotten a wave of thanks and support that’s frankly caught me completely off guard. It’s been an experience that can only be described as heartwarming.

When I made the announcement, I honestly didn’t expect people to care that much. I just figured it was something people should know. But now everyone’s acting like I’m retiring (which is weird because I’m still doing WaHH and VFiS) and telling me how much they respect me or look up to me or whatever, or that they’re worried if Yen Press can live up to the standard of quality I set, and, well, I didn’t realize that anyone cared about me? I’ve been giggling uncontrollably for the past day or so. So, uh, yeah. Thanks, everyone. Unexpectedly, this has meant a lot to me. And if you insulted me, well, I love you guys too. I’m glad you like Touhou.

I am left with this weird feeling that I tricked you somehow though, like I planned my own funeral to see who would show up, but seriously, that wasn’t my intent.

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daemon-knight · 7 years

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Allen’s Ramblings XXIV: Venting... Also talking about Canon RP Blogs

Well folks, after doing that meme I stole from Aster of wearysouls I’ve honestly been thinking about going back to doing canon RP blogs again. I mean, I’ve been seriously thinking about it. I really miss a lot of my old partners in certain fandoms and I’m honestly curious about the state of some of them, but... I’ve been worried about going back.

The main reason I strictly do OC blogs nowadays is because I was seeing so much drama and pettiness going on in the bigger fandoms I was in, specifically the Touhou and Dangan Ronpa communities. There was a lot of vague blogging, shipping drama, complaints about power levels, and so on. I just... walked out after that. It’s been a few years since then so maybe things have settled down a tad. Plus I’m 23 now and not 17, so I know when to say no, and unfollow people now, but I’m still weary. However, I’ve really been wanting to write for Sanae Kochiya, Tsubaki Yayoi, and even Orie and Nanase from Under Night again now that late[st] is coming out this year, and my hype for that game is UNREAL (BLACK THINGS). Hell, I really wanna’ try my hand at playing Cranberry from MGRP too, so.. yeah.

However, I’ve still got some worries about coming back to those fandoms, so... I just... need to vent a tad about some of the frustrations I had when doing canon RPs back then, some of the precautions I’ll be taking when I go back to RPing canon blogs in the future, as well as my own personal thoughts RPing in general.

I was debating on if I should make this a Rambling or not since this is less of an essay and more an... actual rambling, but I think this’ll be worth archiving on the Rambles blog for future reference, so... yeah, here’s Rambling number 24.

Also, much like when I did my off the cuff post a while back on this blog, I won’t be hiding my opinions under a read more since I’m not talking about NSFW-related things nor spoilers. If anyone wants to discuss, break down, or refute my opinions they are more than welcomed to. I’d be a coward to not allow it after publicizing my bare thoughts after all, especially my more jaded ones. Anyway, onto my... vents, I guess.

I think I’ve said this at least twice on this blog before, but if I see one more post about power levels and “respecting my character’s power” in OOC in some way, shape, or form, I’m gonna’ start blocking people. This was super prevalent in canon RP, especially in the Touhou community. It drove me nuts then, and it drives me even more nuts now that I’m starting to write my original stories. To quote myself from a few months ago:

I, the writer, indeed respect the character you wrote. I, the writer, respect that the character you wrote may have abilities, powers, and skills that exceed my character. I, the writer, respect and know that your character may, can, and will become violent toward my character and will act accordingly if pushed to that point. I, the writer, will not make complaints if your character reacts in a way I didn’t expect because (ideally) the profile of your character will have made it very clear your character could and would react that way. However, the characters I write are usually arrogant, violent, self-entitled assholes that neither know nor care about those things. They (the character) will be outwardly snarky, rude, and violent themselves, I don’t need the warning labels for things I already know. I’m not going to throw much of a fit if something happens, but I will say big dramatic moments like that should probably be plotted out so there’s no surprises and no one assumes anything.

Another thing that might make me block people: dash commentary. It’s either lighthearted and comedic or it’s pathetic vague blogging. Look, if you’ve got a problem with someone, how they write their character, or how they’re treating your character, just talk to them directly about it. The writer is rarely as bad as the character they’re writing, and they’re probably willing to pull the reins a little if asked, or discuss how to get your character can get out of the situation they got in. Most of us just want to write stories after all, not hurt feelings. So don’t vague about it using your character as a mouthpiece.

Less of a vent and more of an announcement, but any canon blog I make won’t have anon on it. Anons and canon blogs usually lead to a bunch of shipping drama and trash talking I don’t want to deal with, so I’m not.

Fandom Drama usually means the respective RP community is going to have drama too, and I’m not looking forward to that when it happens. I know the Naruto fandom was losing it after certain pairings weren’t fulfilled when that series ended, god only knows what’s happening in the Fairy Tail fandom, but I know the quality of that manga is debated everyday, and god forbid you tried to have a discuss about the political arrange of Gensokyo in the Touhou community without someone losing it... again, this was a few years ago, so maybe things are better, but... I’m still keeping this in mind.

My feelings on canon-divergent blogs are kind of mixed, so I don’t know how I’ll be handling those yet if I see them following me. As an OC blog, it doesn’t really matter to me since my character doesn’t follow any series’s canon by nature, but when I do Canon RP stuff again this might be an issues since I tend to have single-verse, single ship muses.

As much as I want to go back to playing Sanae, The opinions of the Touhou RP community are just... low... Again, that RP community really jaded my views of canon RP to the point of wanting a three-year break from the whole thing, but... I’m willing to give another shot, albeit at the cost of being hyper-selective.

More of a general vent, but I will lose my gosh dang mind if I see another fighting game character RP blog with a mun that refuses to do fight RPs. What’s the goddamn point of writing for a character that’s known for punching people if you refuse to punch people and be punched in return? This might be because I come from several forum RP groups that specialize in battle storytelling (if you couldn’t tell from how I write Clauds here), but still... just... why write for them? Their personality? Their character design? Their ships? Friend, just write fanfiction and do art of them in that case. I just... I mean... I just don’t get it... I just don’t..

Another thing I’m gonna’ lose my mind over: villains and villainous characters. Guys, villains do bad things. Those bad things create conflict in the plot, which makes protagonists/heroes grow into better characters and make the premise of that story interesting. That’s how you write a goddamn story and how you make interesting characters. Most people don’t write villains to have them cuddle kittens and sip tea with their first love, they write villains to push other characters and create plot. Using my OCs as an example, Claudia is a fight-happy, morally neutral character that can be villainous or heroic depending on who she’s killing/fighting and why. Amber is a goddamn street gangster that has robbed and beaten at least three defenseless characters for the sake of pushing them mentally and physically. Villains have a purpose and it’s not to look cute. Understand this or don’t RP with villainous character.

Speaking of villains, most villains will fail and lose despite their power or standing because that’s the point. They’re villains, and villains/antagonists are meant to be toppled 90% of the time to show how even great odds can be overcome and teach readers to never give up, believe in the power of friendship, all that fun stuff. Especially anime/video game villains. Half the interest of the villain is seeing how they’re knocked off their high horse. A villain without a hero may be successful, but they’re also kind of boring without an obstacle in their way to show off their villainy. Understand this or don’t write for villainous characters.

Wow, these vents have gotten real general... anyway, moving on. Character’s flaws. Your character has them, and you need to freaking deal with that. Your character isn’t perfect, they’ve got flaws, they’ve got bad alignments and twisted morals at times. They’ve got issues that people in your fandom can, have, and will write paragraphs about, calling them shit characters and saying they should be removed from the show/game. Those aren’t attacks on you personally, but they are points about the show and game and how they’re written. If you can’t handle that, then I wouldn’t suggest writing for that character. I mean, if the Sword Art Online RP community can deal with that, then... what are you scared of?

Last vent, and it’s more general complaint really, but please know that RPing requires communication. I’ve been seeing blogs that have been saying they prefer to have minimal communication because of... several reasons I don’t feel like debating, but a lack of communication between partners is just shooting yourself in the foot for when communication needs to happen. It’ll make your partners just silently drift away and you really only have yourself to blame for that.

And... that’s really it in terms of my venting and complaints about... well, RPing on tumblr in general I suppose, given how I’m ending this. I’ve got a few dummy accounts still online and activated, so I’ll just re-purpose them for a Sanae, Tsubaki, and Orie blog once I get some research done. I’ll promo those whenever I get to them. Anyway, that’s all for me, I’ll be getting to my drafts soon enough, and like I said before I’m willing to take any criticisms of the rant I just gave so... come at me I guess? Anyway, see you all next Rambling. Hopefully it’ll be something a bit more pleasant.

#.ooc #.ramblings

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sittschowrites · 6 years

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Writing Schedule — October 2018

First off all, as previously stated on Twitter, I will be trying out quarterly schedule updates from here on out. Maybe I'll finally manage to hit a "deadline" or two that way...

Now, with the release of the next RWBY volume around the corner, the main focus for the next couple of months is pretty straight forward: RWBYNov.

The plan is to push an update for the main story in time with every new release of an episode, starting with the revisions for the second and third part followed by the "brand-new" fourth part (which is only about two years late...).

Beyond that, I plan on reviving what was supposed to be last year's Christmas special for this year's holiday season, which was a series of short stories introducing a Fairy Tail AU focused on Erza and Mira (who, in my opinion, should have been the main characters of that show).

And by Christmas special I mean something to be released over the holidays, not something with a Christmas theme. (Transposing holidays, especially religious ones, into universes where they have no place existing is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. It should never be done...)

Additionally, I have picked up and worked on several new-ish obsessions since the last update, which may or may not reach the showcase stage as side projects:

Touhou (Kaguya/Mokou, romantic)

Not actually a new obsession by any means but one I've finally made some progress on. I have outlines for an introductory story establishing the core relationship as well as several of the games' plot lines altered to include Kaguya, Mokou, or both.

I do love those two girls and their rather intense love-hate relationship, but for some reason that I don't quite understand, there is a drought of stories about them out there (at least in the English-speaking world) even though they feel like they should be the premiere pairing as far as Touhou is concerned.

Supergirl (Kara/Lena, romantic)

What an absolute train wreck of a show. Seriously, I haven't even made it through the first season yet and that is supposed to be the "good" one while everything beyond seems to be universally hated (Mon-el, apparently, is a bigger douche than Sun, which is hard to believe), and aside from a few clips, I haven't actually seen Lena on screen yet, but from what I have seen, Kara and Lena stand somewhere halfway in between Regina and Emma, and Korra and Asami, both of which happen to be among my favorite pairings.

I just couldn't help sketching out a few story lines for them while skimming over what other people have written, and it feels like one of those shows that really needs its story and how it treats its characters "fixed." (And I want to turn Lena into Tony Stark, high-tech combat suit and all...)

Also, it does go hand in hand with the next point on the list:

Teen Titans (Raven/Jinx, romantic; Raven/Terra, platonic)

I'm not a comic book person by any means---in fact, I quite dislike superhero stories in general---but Teen Titans just hit a nerve with young me and stuck with me over the years. More specifically, Raven is easily one of my favorite characters of all time, and I have been planning on working with her almost for as long as I've been writing stories...

Not being a comic book person, I do lack a lot of background about the convoluted universe created by DC, and fans will probably complain a lot about my rendition, but I do have several story arcs loosely based on the show plotted out, starting with the dawn of the Titans and going all the way past Raven turning proper demon lord. While the earlier parts would be more focused on being ensemble pieces (especially the first arc), the main focus, eventually, would be Raven's friendship with Terra and romance with Jinx.

I also like the possibilities for crossovers between Supergirl and Teen Titans as they both are technically set in the same universe. (Or parallel universes, which is a distinction easily enough to ignore.)

My Little Pony/Equestria Girls (Sunset/Sci-Twi, romantic)

In case anybody has been wondering why I haven't released much of late (not that anybody would), it might have to do with me "wasting" my time reading pretty much every Sunset/Twilight story ever written and plotting out a whole bibliography of stories spanning both the human and the pony universe.

Sunset is just too awesome a character not to love and she doesn't really get enough of the main character treatment in the actual show. There's always a Twilight around to upstage her even in her own universe and her stories always seem to play out the same way: Sunset looses friends for arbitrary reasons, Sunset mopes around about not having friends, Sunset learns a lesson about friendship, Sunset regains friends.

It's very repetitive, boring, and it doesn't do her character justice, which is why I have outlines for all the Equestria Girls stories as well as several of the major Friendship is Magic arcs revamped (and moved about on the timeline) around Sunset taking a starring role that doesn't just revolve around "making friends" but around her actually doing something.

On the romantic side I used to be a bit torn. I was perfectly happy pairing Sunset with Princess Twilight and I tend to stick with my first choice no matter what other characters come along, but human Twilight is just a better fit overall. With Princess Twilight, Sunset is the mentee, with human Twilight, she's the mentor in the relationship, which is a role that just feels more appropriate. (And they are kind of the same person anyway...)

Also, alicorn Sunset (eventually) with blood ties to Celestia. I mean, how could I not. Her backstory just becomes so much more interesting to play with if she is Celestia's daughter rather than some random, albeit gifted, personal student, and she bloody well deserves those wings for all the crap she had to go through.

I'm also quite fond of Rayla and Claudia from The Dragon Prince, but there just isn't enough material of that show or those characters around yet to actually work with. Maybe in a season or two. Besides, I'm pretty sure I've already put more on my plate than I can handle...

#Schedule #Writing #RWBY #FairyTail #Touhou #Supergirl #TeenTitans #MyLittlePony #RWBYNov

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