#especially when they're very clearly evil
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The dumb anti BKDK/DKBK arguments:
I've seen a lot of people kinda making fun of bkdk/dkbk antis' takes on their dynamic/relationship. But,I think there's also an underlining issue with the mischaracterization of the story,characters,and Hori as a writer himself.
Katsuki/bullying
One of the biggest arguments used against bkdk/dkbk is this one panel.
Which,this scene isn't as deep as people want to believe it is. Well,it IS,but just not on Katsuki's end (I'll elaborate on this in the Izuku section). This scene isn't about Katsuki being an awful person,it's about what Izuku endures as a quirkless person. Don't get me wrong: Katsuki was an absolute asshole in this. But,he's also a fourteen year old egotistical brat. His age obviously doesn't cover for what he's done,but it doesn't make him an evil monster who wishes to abuse and victimize Izuku whenever he possibly can. That's just not true.
(Important side note: it says several times that this is the furthest Katsuki has ever gone with his bullying with Izuku. His friends even comment on Katsuki going too far. So I really don't get why the antis try to claim this is consist behaviour for Katsuki,when it clearly isn't. This doesn't make what he did OKAY though,that's not what I'm saying at all. This scene just gets blown out of proportion most of the time)
Also,let's not forget about the hypocrisy this scene brings. Many antis will say that bkdk/dkbk can't be romantic and it's toxic because Katsuki told Izuku to "kys",but here's the thing; they're the same people who argue they're strictly platonic. It makes no sense. If this relationship was actually as toxic and abusive as they say it is,then they couldn't be friends. Antis use this scene for disproving the romantic interpretation of the two,but then completely ignore it when it's not relevant to their narrative.
Now,Katsuki's ignored development! I've seem a couple antis claim that Katsuki's apology scene was a self pity speech and it was all about him. Which is...SO FUCKING WRONG? I can understand if you've read the first lines of the apology and thought, "Oh,he's just thinking about himself," if you were just really dense and had no context of the earlier events leading up to this apology and stopped reading after a page that is. It's probably one of the most stupid takes I've seen on Katsuki and Hori's writing.
In these panels Katsuki is talking about his feelings,yes. And this is important! Izuku deserves an explanation to Katsuki's bullying,Izuku deserves to hear how Katsuki actually feels. But,right after,he turns it around to talk about Izuku. This sequence of events is extremely important to what Katsuki (Hori) is trying to convey. The truth. I know a people wanted this to be about Izuku being a helpless victim,but that just isn't true to either of their characters,especially Izuku's. And these words are backed up by actions. Over. And over again. Katsuki said he was going to be there for Izuku?
(Note: I'm aware a couple of this manga panels aren't the official translations! And that's because the official translations are very DIFFERENT from what Katsuki is actually saying in those scenes)
He's there. And that's kinda something I feel people forget when thinking of Katsuki's apology. He's already been reconnecting and making it up to Izuku.
Katsuki has gone through so much development over the course of mha,and it's astonishing that people still use the first page of this manga to view Katsuki and the whole story. Of course Katsuki is going to feel incompleted and lazily written when all you focus on is the very first chapter of the manga. Foreshadowing and growth exist,let's not forget that.
Izuku the victim
This is something that definitely annoys me when I see people hating on bkdk/dkbk. Most of the time the antis hate Katsuki so much that they victimize Izuku as much as they possibly fucking can.
Was Izuku bullied? Yes! Was he mistreated? Yes!
But that doesn't make him a helpless victim who doesn't see himself as anything. Izuku does have a sense of self worth. That's just the truth. It always pisses me off when people bring up the "take a swine dive off the roof of the building," line and say if Izuku didn't get OFA he would had committed suicide. Honestly,I think when Izuku starts devaluating himself is when he receives OFA.
For example,when Katsuki backs Izuku into a wall telling him he can't get into U.A,
Izuku says "there's no harm in trying",Izuku thinks he can get into U.A,even without a quirk. He believes,deep down,he can be a quirkless hero. Until he's told otherwise from All Might,then doesn't believe in himself even more when he has OFA.
(In the anime,or just the dub,Izuku says something along the lines of, "they changed that rule!" To Katsuki when we says he can't get into U.A without a quirk,which further proves this point)
And about the, "take a swine dive off the roof" page, this doesn't effect Izuku as much as people say it did. Even in the moment. Izuku wasn't distraught,Izuku didn't go into a deep depression over it,he was pissed.
That is a look of anger. Now,why was Izuku angry? Because he didn't believe this. He knew what Katsuki was saying was just BS. In this scene he calls Katsuki an idiot,then he thinks about his mom. This scene was deep,because it was about Izuku's trauma with his mother and discovering when he was quirkless. This scene was,as I've said,to show what Izuku endures as a qurikless kid and to segway into his backstory.
As for Izuku's self worth,we also see through these pages of him being upset with his mother,he still has hope he can be a hero. He still wishes to become a hero,still acknowledging that he's quirkless,he still believes he can be.
because he doesn't let people hold him back. Because he's stubborn as fuck (a character trait people often forget Izuku has). So I really don't get why people try to paint Izuku as this kid who leaves his self Image in the hands of others,he knows he's not useless.
And when I say Izuku devaluates himself,I don't mean Izuku sees himself as useless. Izuku sees himself as a vessel for OFA from that point on and takes the responsiblity/burden of it. He dehumanized himself because of OFA,not because of the bullying he faced.
(I'm not saying this didn't hurt Izuku in anyway! It did. But I feel Izuku wasn't as effected by it as people think he is,it wasn't something Izuku saw as worth it. He knew what he wanted to be at the end of the day,and stuck the finger to everyone else.)
I hate it when people say Izuku is a basic character,then don't actually know the first thing about him.
Can't be cannon because it's shonen
This argument I can get! But,there are a couple of reasons this is still a dumb argument.
First of all,we're usually talking about shipping. So this doesn't necessarily apply to fan work,which they do for some odd reason.
Second of all,MHA is pretty lgbtq+ positive. With Toga being bi/pan,and they're being several trans characters,and let's not forget about characters like Mineta who is pretty heavily hinted to be bisexual.
And I feel Horikoshi is using the romantic shonen formula,just not in the way they thought he would...
Katsuki is very love interest coded.
With Katsuki being the one the villains (not just villains,people in general) go after to or to get a rise out of Izuku.
And,another important thing to mention when talking about shonen is Horikoshi as a writer himself.
Horikoshi is doing this for himself. He wants to enjoy what he's writing. So,if bkdk/dkbk becomes cannon? It wasn't fan pressure. He wanted to do it. If it doesn't? Same thing. And,from what I've observed,Hori REALLY likes Katsuki and Izuku.
I mean,he's done so much with these two,so many unnecessary moments,for...what? We have to remember bkdk/dkbk was seen as toxic from the fast majority of the fanbase when people starting shipping them. But,what did Hori do? He kept putting in these moments. Kept foreshadowing something...more. And in the process put down many popular ships at the time. Like,Kribaku (NOT HATING) it was seen as the healthy,fun relationship Katsuki could be in romantically. Horikoshi used this to deepen the bond between bkdk/dkbk. (And to probably to add some gay yearning angst)
and let's not forget all the unnecessary sketches he made between the two,and some of his comments on them,
(From the ultra analysis character book)
From the looks of it,Hori just enjoys these two together. Especially considering some of the new drawings/sketches he's made.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter if it's shonen or not. Horikoshi is going to do what he enjoys. And I hope he continues to do so! If mha's end doesn't result with cannon bkdk/dkbk? I couldn't care less if Horikoshi is pleased with the ending,as much as I see the cannon potential.
#greenade#dkbk#bkdk#Mha#Bnha#These are just a couple arguments I see recycled the most#deku x kacchan#dekucchan#Midoriya Izuku#Bakugou Katsuki
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yttd chapter 3-2 predictions!
i saw a bingo card going around on twitter... and i completed my own but id really like to dive into my predictions a bit!! under the cut because this is going to be loooong!
1. gin / keiji will die
for starters. i do not want either of them to die dude if gin goes... but whatever! i predict that they'll function similarly to shin and kanna, as in they're looked to a certain route. i'm going back and forth on the idea of the player making a conscious decision on who to kill or if it's based on former decisions.
now i don't necessarily believe in the memorandum theory, but i think it's quite interesting that gin and keiji are still alive despite them being mentioned clearly. (man who's views align with the girl = keiji and boy much younger than her = gin.)
at this point sara has come to care so deeply for these two, with gin and keiji constantly being her rock and both of them risking their lives for her in chapter 3-1.
as for how they'll die, gin is really anyone's guess. keiji will probably die sacrificing himself for the group i feel.
someone else is going to die, i feel like that's inevitable. especially in emotion considering that the cast is stacked with either yabusame sibling still being alive.
2. midoris status
i have a sinking feeling that he's not quite dead. do i know what purpose this would really serve? not really! i just feel like he's obviously so influential and important... so i feel like him dying in the coffin would be. i don't know! either way i think we'll get some backstory and or clarification for him!
3. escape
i think an escape ending will be possible. i have a few ways i think it could go. but for clarification, i dont think emotion and logic are going to balance each other out. i've seen some people saying that emotion will take a dark turn and logic will take a positive tone, but i dont buy it.
if i had to guess, id say an escape will happen in logic (?) while i don't think that the two routes will balance out, i do think that some sort of story incentive will be given to make logic a viable option to play. shin is also still alive, and id say he's the most capable of getting the group out. (not to say i dont think emotion won't have a happy ending..)
an escape might happen after someone "wins". i just think nankidai will pull this to be funny. sort of. idk..
a good ending to the death game doesn't necessarily have to be a concrete escape, maybe there's another way to end it? idk!
4. shin tsukimi goes 10 dollar mode
i think shin just losing it would be! interesting!! it doesn't necessarily have to end with him killing someone or being a villain... but i think it'd be cool to see.
i think he will refill his role of being an antagonist in 3-2, and i have my reasons for understanding why he's taken a back seat thus far.
i think a catalyst for this could be learning about his relation to kanna.
5. joe ai
i have no concrete theory for this, it's just wishful thinking. why is there an ai of joe? is there an ai of kugie or nao? i guess we'll never know!
6. miley
miley has been seen helping the group before, so i think it'd be interesting to see her take on a more. neutral stance. she's in the preview images, so she's going to play some part in the story at the very least.
7. mishimas head
wishful thinking again. WHERE THE HELL IS HIS HEAD!!! WHY!! WHO!! WHERE!! WHAT!! HOW!! WHEN!!
8. learn more about saras family
i feel like this is bound to happen, given that it's been hinted at since the first chapter. while it's obvious that the mr. chidouin we see in game is connected to the games, id like to know about her biological family too.
9. shin / sara conflict
i think them arguing is funny. but also i'd like to see it resolved. he literally had an evil joe locked and loaded, hello?
10. closure for dummies
i hope they aren't forgotten when the story wraps up. maybe there's a way to speak with the ai again? idk. especially for emotion ranmaru, id like to see him again.
11. game overs
i think there will be a few random game overs like there were in chapter two (ex: qtaro betrayal, sara hallucination meter)
12. winner
someone is going to win. whether that be someone wins and the game continues or someone wins and it functions similarly to a sacrifice massacre ending.
if i had to place my bets on anyone id assume it'll be either shin or sara. but i think a yabusame sibling for funnies. idk!! it could be anyone!
13. joe
joe has been a driving force for the narrative since the very beginning, and i don't think he's going to go away just like that.
even if it's cheesy, i'd like for sara and joe to have another ai (or something like that) moment in the emotion route.
i would like to see him in logic though! whether sara remembers him or not, i feel like it hasn't been wrapped up as neatly as it was in emotion.
extra : my opinions on some prevalent theories!
memorandum : BOOOO!!!! TOMATO TOMATO!!!! IDGAF!!!!!
gin / joe mastermind : i honestly don't see this happening... i mean, gin is twelve! and he bleeds so we know he isn't a doll, so i don't see any reason for him being involved.
i feel the same way for joe. "surely her friend will also take part" doesn't really hold any weight with me? he's always with her, obviously he'll end up taking part. i'm assuming asunaro was expecting to pick up collateral damage since participants and candidates are literally written into the rules.
kai isn't dead : ahhh i don't really see it. i don't see a reason why he would be alive. the only person i could see living would be mishima!
ai theory : this only works as a concept for a banger fanfiction. feels lazy and similar to "it was all a dream".
and that's it!! i didn't proofread this at all so. pardon me i was just sort of rambling!! but anyways if there's anything i missed lmk
#kimi ga shine#yttd#your turn to die#kanna kizuchi#shin tsukimi#sara chidouin#joe tazuna#reko yabusame#alice yabusame#gin ibushi#nao egokoro#oh i hate tagging#keiji shinogi#qtaro burgerberg#kazumi mishima#AGGHHHH
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Spoilers for Chapter 293
(I will not become a Razberry blog. I will not become a Razberry blog. I will not become a Razberry blog. I-)
Have more manga colorings I did of the masquerade deviculum ball thingy. A bit more rushed because I also have to study for my two worst exam subjects but at the same time kept getting sidetracked and colored these instead.
(Note once again: The colors are not official. I could not find official colors of the masquerade outfit so I just made it whatever looked good. These were made entirely for my own satisfaction and fun.)
Bonus
Look I love them sm I can't even express it properly. Sillies.
#mairimashita! iruma kun#mairuma#m!ik#manga coloring#belial berry razberry#razberry#iruma suzuki#welcome to demon school iruma kun#I am totally normal about Razberry yep#One of my favorite things about Mairuma is the series' ability to give a character like 4 chapters of screentime#and I still end up thinking about them a lot#even when they're very clearly evil#especially when they're very clearly evil#belial-berry Razberry#mairuma spoilers
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i'm torn because on the one hand, 'adam and the general's narratives are both very queer and stand in counterpoint to each other, which i Can't Unsee, and find more compelling as hideously cruel generational trauma than Standard Homophobic Dad Narrative.' on the other, DIVERSITY WIN to shake the heavens
#lorien legacies#adamus sutekh#andrakkus sutekh#LL tag#fellas is it gay to already have your bestie's kid mixed in with your family; immediately adopt that kid when said bestie dies#and consider him your child more than your other two kids from a clearly sterile and loveless marriage#which is strongly implied to be solely for the purposes of reproduction because you have more kids than most couples#and also your life; morals; and priorities are STRONGLY centered around Keeping Up the Appearance of a Perfect Model Family#it's totally possible to consider a friend a part of your immediate family; coparent with them#and take custody of their kid in their absence!#but boy howdy those context cues#like i know it's worn out to go THE EVIL SOCIETY IS HOMOPHOBIC AND TRANSPHOBIC BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL#but if nothing else i very much believe that the problems the mogs are facing#and the inhumane; dehumanizing cruelty of how the cult addresses this kind of thing#means they would consider relationships that are definitely not gonna lead to children to be a no-no#how that interacts with their transphobia or lack of it is up in the air#although i will say there is a lot of very strong 'clocked someone as transfem before they knew it themself' energy going on#with A Lot of adam's interactions with the cult. especially with dr. anu. the scene where he's put in the machine REALLY stands out there#anyway a) queer or not the general sucks shit. fck him#b) i have never needed to see bolog onscreen once to know he and andrakkus make out with tongue#queerphobia mention cw#homophobia mention cw#transphobia mention cw
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thinking about how people who watch the emperor's new groove and somehow come out of it shipping pacha and kuzco, or thinking yzma only became evil when kuzco fired her and that she would've been a better ruler than him, are both so wrong in so many different ways and are also missing one of the things that i absolutely love about the movie. which is that, the way i see it, pacha and yzma are counterparts. as parental figures to kuzco.
like, just to get this out of the way first, yzma was a dismissive asshole to a peasant whose family was starving. and yeah, if kuzco had been in her place he definitely would've also done that, which... is why she would not be a better ruler than him. she'd just be the same because they're both horrible people in the exact same ways. her reaction to being fired is to plot murder, and as soon as his funeral is over she sets everyone to work on replacing paintings of kuzco with paintings of herself and covering the palace with imagery that makes it clear that it's all about her now. i'm not even sure why this is a discussion tbh.
and also, kuzco is literally a teenager. he's barely 18 years old. source: in the movie, yzma says at his funeral that kuzco was "taken from us so tragically on the very eve of his eighteenth birthday." she also claims in the movie to have "practically raised" him, to which kronk replies "yeah, you'd think he would've turned out better". and sure, she could be exaggerating, but what evidence do we have that she is? we learn absolutely nothing of his parents, who are never mentioned even once in the movie, or of anyone else who could've raised him, and she's his advisor who for some reason sees no problem with attending to royal duties in his place. most likely because she's his regent. also, i'm not exactly a fan of the sequel tv series "the emperor's new school" but it does have something that backs up my point: kuzco is revealed to be an orphan and just before his father went and got lost at sea, he asked yzma (who was also his advisor) to take care of kuzco if anything happened to him. so, yeah, the writers who worked on the series clearly thought that yzma genuinely did raise kuzco, and nothing in the movie contradicts this.
and i find the idea of her being his only parental figure for pretty much his whole childhood incredibly interesting because, and this also goes back into why she wouldn't be a better ruler than him--she mirrors him as a reflection of what would've become of him if he'd never met pacha. they're both incredibly arrogant, power-hungry, selfish, and cruel, with a tendency to blame their problems on everyone but themselves. yzma was even originally going to have her own reprise of kuzco's theme song "perfect world", which i really wish had been kept:
[ID: Lyrics that read:
I'Il be the sovereign queen of the nation
And the chicest chick in creation
I'm the cat with all the cream and ooh-la-la
This deadly concentration
Will put an end to my frustration
Now this perfect world begins and ends with moi
What's my name?
Yzma, Yzma, Yzma
Yzma (what's my name?)
Yzma, Yzma (What'd you say?)
Yzma (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!) Yzma.
End ID]
(this song can be fully heard in "the sweatbox", the documentary about the making of the movie, and is also on youtube btw)
anyway, i'm sure yzma would not exactly have been the most nurturing or hands-on guardian, especially given that she and kuzco don't exactly treat each other like family. but it makes a lot of sense to think that her behavior influened kuzco's throughout the years. and for the entire movie, she remains determined to kill him. when he tries to reason with her and admits that he should've been nicer, she says the same thing to him that he originally said when he fired her. she never grows or changes and in the end, she hurts the one person who was willing to stand by her (and even then, kronk had never fully been on board with her plan) and he ends up trying to crush her with a chandelier. kuzco on the other hand is able to realize the error of his ways, come to regret who he was in the past, and start taking steps toward being a better person. his theme song gets a reprise where it's changed from a song about one person being the center of the world to a Power Of Friendship song. why? because, as i've already mentioned, he has pacha.
pacha, who similarly to both yzma and kuzco is in a position of authority as the leader of the village but unlike either of them is gentle and humble. who isn't afraid to stand up to kuzco and be honest with him even though he's the emperor, who agrees to take him back to the palace but has no obligation to be so helpful, kind, and caring toward him--and just about every reason not to be--and still chooses to be anyway. pacha who is 45 years old (also stated in the sweatbox documentary) and can see that kuzco is practically still a kid, not a single day over 18, who has time to grow and change. pacha, who already has a wife and two kids with another on the way, but practically treats kuzco like one of his own. who acknowledges that if kuzco dies all his problems will be gone and then still worries about him and goes out of his way to rescue him after he wanders into the jungle. who sees kuzco shivering at night and covers him with his poncho, who carries him when he's genuinely too weak to keep walking, who refuses to give up on him even after repeatedly being betrayed by him because he believes there's good in everyone.
also, while yzma ends up repeating kuzco's harsh words of dismissal as she tells him of her plans to kill him, kuzco had previously repeated pacha's words that "nobody's that heartless" after he saved pacha's life. and as the movie progresses kuzco and pacha's relationship becomes more and more equal and is constantly contrasted by moments of yzma being cruel and unappreciative of kronk's kindness. a good example of this is how kronk is constantly being forced to carry yzma everywhere on his back while yzma literally walks all over him and steps on his hands when she gets down, whereas when pacha briefly carries kuzco after the latter collapses he tells him he'll have to walk the rest of the way later and kuzco doesn't even protest.
idk if i'm even explaining well what i'm trying to say here. but basically, if yzma actually raised kuzco and contributed to his current behavior, then she and pacha both are figures who guided him and helped him grow. only yzma helped him become the tyrant that he was at the start of the movie, who was selfish and callous and saw everyone else as beneath him. whereas pacha helped him see the value in being selfless and considerate of others. and in the end, yzma is stuck as a cat and nobody is concerned about her. kronk has found a new job that makes him genuinely happy, while kuzco has decided to build a hut on the hill next to pacha's and effectively joined his family. in the sweatbox documentary it's even mentioned that chicha and the kids were at risk of being removed from the film, but it was decided that they needed to be there because having just pacha as a single guy who lived alone wasn't interesting enough--kuzco needed to go from having basically an empty world where he had nobody to being able to come together with pacha's whole family. and i just think that's incredibly satisfying and beautiful. it also leads up to one of the few things i really do enjoy about the emperor's new school, which is the fact that during the show kuzco moves in with pacha and chicha and pretty explicitly thinks of them as basically his parents while he's like a son to them.
idk. i feel like my mind went in a million different directions while i was writing all this. but i guess i just think that for all of the praise the emperor's new groove gets for its comedy and for how hilarious yzma and kronk in particular are as a duo, the movie also has a lot of genuine heart that gets overlooked. kuzco's character growth and his unique dynamic with pacha is, for me, really what elevates the movie from just a funny movie that i like to one of my favorite disney movies. and i wish more people appreciated that aspect of it and saw it as a found family story in the same way that treasure planet, brother bear, and lilo and stitch are all found family stories.
#disney#the emperor's new groove#help i wrote a whole essay about this movie#and i didn't even mention how much i love the way kuzco's home life is contrasted with pacha's#ugh. they have one of the most interesting and unique dynamics ever in a disney movie. i love them#love how kuzco gets away from yzma's toxic influence by way of accidentally being adopted#by the guy whose village he almost destroyed for a theme park#they're ENEMIES to FOUND FAMILY.... sobs#kuzco#pacha#yzma#kronk
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Hey hey hey, remember how Drew (and Lacy) was mentioned as going to the same school as Sadie in The Serpent's Shadow? So it's like. Implied the two of them are a similar age, especially since they clearly interact plenty, with Sadie knowing her full name and such? I dunno about you, but I never interacted much with kids out of my age range at school, so it's basically implied they're close in age — when Sadie is thirteen (Lacy being said to be a year younger than her).
So, like. What if Drew's. Younger than Piper, actually? By like. A year or so, so she'd be fourteen, rather than the popularly accepted 16/17. I know The Lost Hero tries to say the oldest demigod at the cabin automatically becomes counselor unless challenged by someone who's been on more quests, but Annabeth was counselor at twelve, so I call bullshit and accept the demigod-that's-been-at-camp-the-longest rule as the one automatically takes the role when needed (also, there's nothing saying fourteen wouldn't be the oldest in the cabin post-war, anyways). So Drew could easily not be the oldest in the cabin, and still have to deal with suddenly being head of her family, on top of her older sister being revealed as a traitor, the grief of losing several siblings and friends, and the PTSD that comes with being a soldier.
I just think that'd be very fun for her <3
(And then just. Imagine Piper realizing that maybe she's the oldest, and her younger siblings took part in a war (that was arguably worse than the Giant War Piper was a part of), and maybe that's why Drew's a bit too much of a bitch sometimes, rather than just Girly Girls being automatically evil.)
#pjo#rick riordan#hoo#pjo hoo toa#pjo fandom#pjo series#pjoverse#pjo spoilers#drew tanaka#piper mclean#aphrodite cabin#uncle Rick give us better Aphrodite cabin rep challenge: impossible#cabin ten
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Something I really like about Rose Quartz's characterization is how dedicated the writers were to making what she did morally grey. Idk it would have been really easy for the twist to be she was Just Evil, especially learning she was related to the main villains, but no they created this very vague character who even in her appearances feels mysterious. If anything Rose is the one thing that is less clear to me after my rewatch, because now seeing the nuance in her character pulls me out of a black-ane-white view of her and into one that is just... foggy.
But a vibe I do get from Rose, is that despite clearly being incredibly compassionate, she's someone who lacks empathy in the case of the ability to fully realize others' autonomy and thought processes. There's just a lot of decisions she makes that feel aloof in an odd way, and when combined with how childish she can be it can give the impression she sees everything as a game. But it's still clear that she cares and is genuinely moved by the Earth, and when her entire truth is revealed you can see how ideologically honest she was. Even if it feels like her beliefs are just so she can have fun, but that is part of freedom, the freedom to vibe and explore and do silly things she couldn't.
That attitude clearly just comes from her position as Pink Diamond. It was an oppressive role emotionally, but not as literally oppressive as the lives of those around her. I think her relationship with Pearl is where I find the most of the part of me that sees her as compassionate but unempathetic. Pink can't fathom what it's like to have been born to be an obedient servant and how that would cloud Pearl's judgement. How telling her "I'm going to fight for this world but you dont have to" would mean nothing to her because she is still obsessed with her, how entering a romantic relationship with something while they're still effectively your servant is unhealthy, or how spending her life flirting with other men would probably tear your servant-to-lover-to-ex up inside lmao. With the first she obviously meant to be giving her a choice because she cares about Pearl, but she can't understand how to truly give Pearl freedom of choice she can't treat her like a fully freethinking person. With the second she doesn't understand how her power has an unhealthy impact on her bond with Pearl. And with the last it's not at all that Rose isn't allowed to move on, but I just always found she has a lack of awareness of Pearl's jealousy and misery that's a bit inappropriate. Not that you can't assume she has already let Pearl down easy or cares about her coping, but it's never shown, which feels like a deliberate choice.
I'm working on a more organized theory about Rose's characterization, but it is deeply fascinating. Her and Pearl's relationship is as well, I feel like it's sometimes characterized as just a mean jealous ex situation but like it's way more fucked than that, and is a great exploration of power dynamics, obsession, and grief. Love me some toxic doomed yuri.
#steven universe#pearl#rose quartz#pink diamond#su#shut the heck up#theories and rambling#i need to redo my tagging systems honestly#this is super unorganized but i just wanted to get it out#i reallybreally love characters with low empathy and high compassion so i might be projecting preferences lol
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What's your favourite Resident Evil creature design? Mine is Lisa.
I reviewed almost each and every one in the canon for one Halloween marathon but digging through them to figure out my top favorites probably would take time so my top ones are:
Ivy: absolutely flawless and iconic design, can't believe they scrapped it in the remake. The simple three petals replacing the entire head of a crude humanoid is a beautiful haunting look. I love that you know it's going to do something unpleasant when you notice it has NO fangs or claws, and indeed when it catches you it just swallows your head, and then it STEAMS because it's that acidic and your headless body crumples to the ground. Hilarious.
NAUTILUS: an obscure one, only two of them exist in the sewers of one of the spinoff games and are implied to be a failed experiment that got flushed. In any setting with genetic engineering I always want to see the messed up errors that are barely recognizable. It's hard to even find clear images of Nautilus but it seems to be a big living womb that spits out swimming, exploding embryos. It also has little appendages on it like a roast turkey. Adorably abnormal.
DRAGHIGNAZZO: actually two creatures stuck together who are made out of mutated barnacles, with two different heads that dangle off the back. Visually it's such a confusing design and so difficult to follow, which is clearly intentional. When I finally figured out its anatomy, I drew a quick little cartoon explanation:
They stick together with the left one's big arm dangling! And they have those big "breathing holes" on their "necks" that seem to represent a bivalve siphon. There's some distinct aspects of geoduck in their design, too.
CHIMERA: a top favorite from the very first game. They seem brundlefly-inspired, but maybe with spider in there originally (later games explicitly called them flies), and so messed up that the original design features a mouth in their chests. I love that they appear in only a single laboratory hallway near the end of the game and aren't even an especially threatening encounter. They just threw in this extra little weirdo to show you how far the experiments were going, and to maybe shake things up last-minute with one last new enemy you don't see coming.
GLOBSTER: I love the globster "phenomenon" in "cryptozoology," even if they're never anything but dead whales and sharks. The idea of a weird blob washing ashore and freaking people out is just really fun, so then Resident Evil Revelations 2 opens with a beach full of unidentifiable lumps and when you get too close they show they have a big old goofy mouth! They're so ghastly and so cute, just big sleepy lazy piles with silly teeth! Oh and yeah they used to be people or something I guess that's pretty messed up.
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Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi
reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!
ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.
ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.
kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.
the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).
one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.
and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.
but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.
of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.
it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.
this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.
but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.
next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.
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I'm so curious about Kagha, because she's so different from Halsin. She and Halsin are both wood elves, and I get the sense that Kagha is probably not ~young~ but she's not nearly as old as Halsin. When you deal with the Shadow Druids, she's very quick to defer to him and treat him like a teacher she's disappointed. He probably mentored her, if he's chosen her as his second in command - though, I would bet it's in more of a general thing in the way that the First Druid is everyone's mentor, rather than the clearly more direct and specific mentorship he has with Nettie as a healer.
Canonically, Halsin isn't an exceptionally good leader. He's not bad at it, and he has good instincts. He correctly surmises that after the dust-up with Kagha and the tieflings, the Emerald Grove needs an outsider to step in and lead without being tied to any particular grudges or politics. That's savvy enough that I think Halsin was a good First Druid, he just wasn't especially good or great at it and clearly didn't like the position. At worst, I think he let some situations fester because of his focus on the Shadow Curse.
But I'm not ready to say that he didn't realize Kagha was a proverbial snake in the grass ~the whole time~, because I don't think she was. I think she was genuinely and recently radicalized by the Shadow Druids. I think she probably had something of an edge before, maybe she was a hardass or had a mean streak or something. Regardless of how I feel about the quality of the Shadow Druid subplot (which is that I think its pacing is meh and Kagha's face-turn is way too fast and kind of shitty), I think it speaks to the fact that her care for the Grove is genuine. That perhaps Halsin's failure with her wasn't in not realizing she was A Bad Person Actually, but in not tending to her insecurities or noticing that she might be feeling isolated, if she was so effectively shaken by the Shadow Druids' fearmongering.
The recent wave of IRL cults should have taught us all by now that everyone is susceptible to cult tactics if they're sufficiently scared and alone, and BG3 is a game riddled with various cults. You don't have to already be a bad person, or a stupid or weak person, to fall for them. And I think Kagha's story is way less interesting if you just think she's an evil power hungry shrew too stupid to keep herself from being radicalized.
She clearly has a nasty streak, but her apologies and regrets also sound sincere, if you manage to hear them. Even when she isn't "redeemed", she accepts her punishments, even if she does so bitterly and not believing she was wrong. And I have to wonder just how much of that mean streak is self-defensive rather than inherent in her, how much of it is that she struggles to admit failure and learn from it. Or how much is her modeling Halsin's level of single-minded commitment, picking a methodology or an action and throwing all of her weight behind it, even when it may no longer be working.
I wish characters like Kagha got nearly as much love and fandom development and benefit of the doubt as someone like Ketheric. I think she has a ton of potential for that, and way fewer crimes to her name than other fandom favorites who just happen to also be, you know. Men.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#kagha#halsin#bg3 spoilers#bog post#tbh i get more fond of kagha in every playthrough#also i wonder how much of kagha being so high strung#is BECAUSE halsin was obsessed with the shadow curse#i wonder how much of his responsibility as first druid#were already being performed by kagha#saddled with the tasks but not the responsibility#not the ability to make new decisions#THAT will certainly make someone feel unbalanced and insecure#i like the idea that he chose her because of their differences in temperament perhaps#but how much of that was savvy decision-making#and how much of it was saddling her with extra burdens#to make up for halsin's preoccupation and distraction
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TL;DR: multiple people can arrive at the same fanfic idea/premise in different ways, but also, getting inspired by a different fanfic is not stealing, please don't gatekeep!
I joined a new fandom (it's Resident Evil (RE), which I'm mostly mentioning for that one 'nosy' anon because hell yeah I am super nosy as well, so here you go, dropping some names!), and I quickly stumbled upon one fandom-specific plot trope that I thought was both pretty neat but also super obvious (Infected!Character fic, which, in a world with zombies and viruses that cause zombies is a very logical trope).
Anyway, there was not quite as much body horror as I thought there would be, although I'm still looking, but that's not why I'm writing to you, that's just the (un)necessary background.
There was this one fic that I opened, which in its Author's Note clearly stated that the author set this fanfiction in another author's AU, because they loved the world created by this first author. The first fanfiction author basically came up with their own Infected!Character design and backstory (including fanart), and the second fanfiction author liked it so much they were now writing this fic based on/in that AU. Obviously not quoting the AN directly, but this second author was very complimentary and explicitly mentioned where they got the idea from, gushing about the first author.
In the AN for chapter two, the second author stated that they weren't aware that that first fanfiction author didn't allow others to write about the Infected!Character AU they'd made, that that first author in fact only allowed a very limited number of people they publicly approved of to write about their AU, and nobody else was allowed to touch the Infected!Character AU. This second author was now apologising in the AN for not knowing this, plus mentioning that they changed chapter one to switch up the backstory & design to not be too close to that of the first fanficton author's AU.
That made me sad, honestly. I've seen this attitude a couple of times, where fanfiction authors are super protective of their ideas that they won't allow any other fanfiction author to write about them, and it's always struck me as a little bit hypocritical, given the whole deal of fanfiction. Especially when the original/first fanfiction author is credited and the inspired work is clearly done because the second author loved the first fanfiction so much. If it's a highly developed/specific and original AU (so not just any common trope), and you don't even mention the fanfic you were inspired by, then I find that rude, but just flat out not allowing people to even touch 'your' thing? C'mon!
This partially ties into my other gripe about a specific type of comments I occasionally get, which are along the lines of 'huh interesting idea where did you get it? bc/btw there is this other fic with the same idea (posted before you)'; idk if I got the tone right, but they never seem to be actually genuinely asking how I got the idea (and I always delight in telling them, not sarcastically, I genuinely love talking about this stuff, bc I get inspired by the most random things and I love love writing 'original'/new things!! I love tropes as much as anybody, I read a shitton of them, but i when I write I love coming up with new shit/plot! it's so fun!!). They just vanish after my explanation, even when I try to invite further conversation. It always feels to me like they're 'checking' that I didn't steal the idea, and it feels a bit lousy.
I mean in (larger) fandoms, it is not surprising at all that two or three or even more people arrive at the same idea, maybe even inspired by the same thing, same reading of canon, or not, varied experiences--and just because the works are similar doesn't mean that they were inspired by one another, but if they are, that's not a sin! I just want people to not take everything in bad faith, and also, to not 'disallow' others from getting inspired, especially when they do it in a very polite manner!
It's because of comments like these that I sometimes, very privately, worry that before I'll manage to post the long fic I spent months writing--because I'm one of those who wants the thing finished before I start posting--somebody else will have a similar idea, post their thing first, and then I'll look like I'm lying about not reading/stealing their idea, or just jumping on the bandwagon, which again, it's not a bad thing, actually.
And it shouldn't be like that! I shouldn't worry, and people should also be more willing to accept that authors can arrive at the same idea at (roughly) the same time & accept that explanation without side-eyeing the author, and that if an author is inspired by a different fanfic, that's not a sin either (in fact, for me it would be an honour).
None of this is new either, but that RE stuff reminded me of it again.
Oh man, this is way longer than I thought it would be. Apologies. I'm going to add a TLDR at the start.
Anyway, I'm going to finish writing an Infected!Catboy!Leon fic now and be very unsurprised if I find out that somebody else has had the same idea long before me (aside from one or two reader fic inserts with that topic that I stumbled upon on tumblr, bc that's just not my thing at all (reader insert, I mean)).
--
In college, friends of mine had a falling out over one of them "stealing" the other's fic idea.
Space pirates.
Not specific space pirates. Not a way of integrating the concept that was fandom-specific. No, just the general idea of space pirates in the same fandom.
Never have I facepalmed so hard.
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Good day Raven! Could you please write Resident Evil's villainess's reacting to their SO calling them cute?
Just because they're murderers and stuff doesn't mean that I don't do this constantly.
Mother Miranda, Donna Beneviento, Daniela Dimitrescu, Cassandra Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Alex Wesker, and Alcina Dimitrescu reacting to their s/o calling them cute.
(Gender neutral).
Warnings: brief reference to sex.
Masterlists here!
Mother Miranda
You are not only the only person to consider Mother Miranda cute of all things, but also the only person comfortable enough with her to say it to her face.
When the words first leave your lips, you make her pause what she's doing.
It takes her a moment to fully process what you said. Then, she slowly turns her head to look at you and hits you with a >:^ face.
You're lucky that you're cute and Miranda loves you. Otherwise, a comment like that would make her kill you where you stand <3
She seems genuinely offended that you would regard her in such a way. Have you forgotten who she is? The things she’s done? What’s she capable of? How could you—
(Alright, maybe there’s a very, very small part of Miranda that’s... amused? Clearly, she’s too soft with you).
(Not that she’s going to do anything about it).
“I am most certainly not ‘cute’,” she tells you flatly before returning to her work.
Donna Beneviento
Uh oh! Seems that you've rendered Donna unable to form a coherent sentence!
Or thought, for that matter.
The remark instantly flusters her. Her brain is just going agdadjshkjakall.
She bows her head down slightly.
Although she has her veil on, she brings her hands up to cover her cheeks, which you’ve managed to make flush red.
I hope that you plan on paying Angie the same compliment because she’ll be upset and offended if you don’t.
And she’ll probably bite your ankle. Or whatever gets closest to her mouth first. She isn’t picky.
Daniela Dimitrescu
Daniela is super fucking cute and she knows it. A cute lil' 6'3" murderous fly woman <3
And she loves hearing you call her cute. It’s one of her favorite compliments to receive.
You say the word and Dani just...
Gives you a big ol’ (often bloody) grin. Starts full on cheesing.
You get to hear a giggle from her as well.
She tells you that you are too, and then she gives you a quick kiss.
Cassandra Dimitrescu
Cassandra immediately bristles and gives you an offended look.
Cute? Cute??? Never before has a mortal dared to say that to her.
...You know, when she thinks about it, you’ve dared to do a whole lot around her that most other mortals don’t.
That’s the thing that drew Cass to you in the first place.
"And?" she eventually says.
Upon reflection, surprisingly, she doesn't mind being called cute. By you and you alone, that is.
...As long as you also call her fearsome or hot right after.
"And also so very terrifying."
Oh! If you're going to go around saying it, it better be in private. She will be genuinely upset if others are around. Especially her sisters. She would never hear the end of it.
Bela Dimitrescu
Bela is quiet for a moment.
“No <3.”
“No?” you echo.
In her eyes, you are mistaken. Wrong. Factually incorrect!
You see, that is a word Bela sometimes uses to describe you, but it simply is not applicable to her.
Don’t even try to argue with her. After all the time that Bela has spent around her sisters, she’s gotten very good at winning arguments. You will lose.
Alex Wesker
At first, Alex doesn't even realize that you're talking to her.
She does hear you, though, and wonders what the hell has you using that loving tone you reserve just for her.
When Alex turns to you and finds your gaze on her, she is not very amused.
Cute is not a descriptor she’s going to let you use for her.
Alex will let you get away with it just this once. But do that again and she'll take you to the bedroom to punish you. Then you'll see just how "cute" she is.
...Well, I guess that might be an incentive for you to keep saying it...
Alcina Dimitrescu
Many words have been used to describe Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and cute is not one of them.
When you call her that, it fully takes her aback.
You can't help it, though. This woman can be so ridiculously soft with you, and when she gives you a blatantly pouty look? Right after you push back her request to cuddle a few minutes so that you can finish what you're doing? It's cute.
Alcina straightens up and by the expression on her face, you'd think that you just said the most insulting thing possible.
She lets out a scoff.
The scoff is then followed by her going on an impressively long rant about the reasons why you’re wrong.
#x reader#resident evil x reader#mother miranda x reader#donna beneviento x reader#daniela dimitrescu x reader#cassandra dimitrescu x reader#bela dimitrescu x reader#alex wesker x reader#alcina dimitrescu x reader#mother miranda#donna beneviento#daniela dimitrescu#cassandra dimitrescu#bela dimitrescu#alex wesker#alcina dimitrescu#gender neutral insert#resident evil revelations 2#resident evil village#resident evil 8
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Do you think Crowley is mean to Muriel? My gf says he is a little mean but tbh I don't see it. He wants everyone gone so he can have alone time with Aziraphale, and Muriel is not a friend. They're sweet and all, but they were happy to spy on Crowley and Aziraphale and rat them out to Heaven, and they adore the Metatron quite obviously. Muriel isn't evil, just incredibly naive and as caught in the manipulative system just like Aziraphale is, in a way, but they work for that system and they seem to do it happily. They did help Crowley in Heaven, but that doesn't make them friends especially since as I said Muriel is clearly pro Metatron or too naive to be against him. If I were Crowley, I'd want them gone as fast as possible, too 😅 And they don't get the hint the first time with Crowley talking about "us time" so he just gets a little more direct, but that's about as direct as he can get with Aziraphale, too, and as he is with Maggie and Nina, and it's never mean or rude, yk? Just grumpy, in his lovable way. That's how I always read it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it 😁
* fogot to add: it's nothing personal, Muriel's just doing their job and Crowley knows it, they even helped him (more or less willingly) but they're still working for Heaven.
Hey there, really interesting question! or I'd say two questions: A) Is Crowley mean to Muriel, and B) is that justified?
imo, Crowley & Muriel can basically be summed up by this moment:
"Yay, bully for you." *turns away to go back to cursing heaven*
Crowley, well... he is mean to Muriel. But it's in the way you are when you recognize it's not the person's fault you personally find them annoying, and you don't want to actually make them feel bad. He knows! He knows it's not their fault they're such a neon sign of everything he hates about heaven, that they're so brainwashed and ignorant, and cheerful about it.
But the fact is, Crowley manipulates the heck out of Muriel! And he's downright disrespectful about it, doesn't ever bother to give them a good story, he just says confident nonsense, knowing Muriel has no choice but to take his word for it. He takes advantage of their naivete and uses them for his own ends. That's not exactly nice!
^ tell me that's not condescending as hell lmao
But on the other hand... Yeah, Muriel is a spy for heaven! Not only that, but they've been sent here knowing absolutely nothing about earth. Their very presence is an insult! Crowley and Aziraphale have been here for 6000 years, and heaven still thinks that just the baseline of 'being an angel' makes someone good enough to outmaneuver them? Rude af. So, it's not all that out of line for Crowley to give heaven the same level of respect they showed his side.
But that still leaves Muriel stuck in the middle, getting used by both sides.
I think Crowley is intentionally only seeing Muriel as a tool—one of Heaven, but one that he can use to their advantage. He doesn't want to be sympathetic to them—they are a danger, and Crowley's also got his personal issues around how he seems to have only let himself get attached to one other being.
Yet, there's this moment where he seems to sympathize with them, despite himself:
and another one, when Saraqael shows up and it seems like he's gotten Muriel in trouble, he starts to jump in to defend them. That seems kind.
"shh, don't say anything without a lawyer present."
That final bookshop scene is what you seem to be focusing on though, so let's get there.
Crowley has been hyped up on manic energy all night, all week really, and finally all of this is almost but not quite over, he just wants so badly to finally be alone with Aziraphale and re-establish their status quo. He barely has the patience to even be fake-polite to Muriel (especially now they're being bubbly about the Metatron, who's already on Crowley's shit list and just you wait buddy), he wants them to go away. Maybe it also isn't any fun to manipulate them anymore now he's sympathized with them that little bit.
The pretense is paper thin, but Muriel doesn't get it until he drops it entirely:
This is the first time Muriel's fully cottoned on to the fact that Crowley isn't being Nice anymore. And it's possible Crowley feels bad about it, because when Muriel still tries to stay in the bookshop, he gets dramatic about it, but still reigns himself back in for his next attempt.
The really interesting moment comes when Muriel actually asks for something. Asks to take an earth thing with them, asks to learn. That finally gets Crowley's attention, it's the first time he looks away from the window (Aziraphale) for a reason that isn't telling Muriel to shoo. Long enough to not only look at them properly, but give them enough personal thought that he recommends them a book.
Listen, I love Crowley, but he's kind of an asshole! He's impatient and condescending and manipulative... and yet, when it comes down to it, he cares. All of that can be true.
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Hcs about Sirius? Thanks
Let's see how many people come screaming in my inbox for these
Tall. Taller than James, definitely taller than Remus (ya know, like the text implies).
Tall and conventionally handsome. Not the skinny/androgynous/emo kind. I don't hate those hcs, they're just not how I picture him. He's very very conventionally handsome in quite a masculine way although I can see him not sporting a beard until after Hogwarts, maybe even after his escape from Azkaban.
You can have your makeup wearing, skirt sporting, femme Sirius but it's just not for me.
Also. Also. Also. Can I just say? Wizards wear robes. They all wear skirts.
Prefers animals to people (and animals prefer him).
Can fly a broom, and can do so very well, most likely since before he ever got to Hogwarts, but he wasn't on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He maybe played once or twice if someone was injured and James was begging him, and only exclusively against Slytherin to spite his Seeker brother. I can see him being in the Duelling Club, though.
Practice duels against the Slytherins got vicious.
An absolute prodigy in Transfiguration (he and James were Minerva's favourite students), also excels in Charms, DADA, and (what a shocker) Astronomy. He's very good in school in general though, and has very high grades. Considering how much time James must have ‘wasted’ being Quidditch Captain - time that Sirius probably spent studying in his last two years of school - he was probably the best, academically speaking, of the Marauders. He was also probably the most powerful wizard of the four.
Took Muggle Studies to annoy his family (he was mildly interested, but he wasn't passionate about the subject), and dropped it after his O.W.L.S. to better concentrate on the ‘important’ classes, especially since there was a war out there by 1978. Definitely got into a slight quarrel with Lily about this - more and more people were dropping out of Muggle Studies out of fear at this point and to her, it was about making a statement. Sirius's reply was ‘I think a curse right between the eyes is a better statement against the Death Eaters - I can only do that if I train’.
But Sirius- I've said this before, but I'm much more interested in all the ways Sirius is like his family than the ways he isn't. Definitely had to unlearn many of his biases.
Amongst which: his classism. Which he does display in the books, especially in the case of Snape.
I'm sure he would get into arguments with Remus (who was clearly hurt by some of these - which is precisely what prompted Sirius to reexamine some of his views more consciously), where Remus would say ‘But not all werewolves are like that, Sirius!’ when talking about, say, whether or not they should be allowed in certain jobs or whatever, and Sirius saying ‘well, yes, Remus but what if they do attack someone’ (Wolfsbane isn't a thing at this point in the canon).
I've said this before and I'll say it again: Remus was Sirius' exception, much like Lily's was Snape's. And this goes for many things.
Gradually, he unlearns many of his beliefs, especially when he goes back home as a teenager and sees his points of view reflected in the mouths of people like Rodolphus Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy - which disgusts him.
Sirius, in the books, has very famous lines (“The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters...”) but he very famously does not live by that morality. He's a person, to me, with an extremely black-and-white view of the world. He can hex and curse students for fun and it's fine because he isn't using Dark Magic. On the other hand, most Slytherins suck because they are all racist evil gits who will end up as Death Eaters anyway.
He did not have Slytherin friends, that's probably one of my least favourite headcanons ever. He knew these people because he was a Black, which is why he can list them off to Harry in GoF, but he definitely did not hang out with them or like them in any way. Also, who were the Slytherins in his year and above/below anyways? Avery and Mulciber who played cruel (and maybe slightly illegal) jokes on Mary MacDonald? Evan Rosier (to me he actually wasn't, in my headcanons he's 4 years older than Bellatrix, which makes him about 13 years older than Sirius, but for the sake of argument) who was a Dark Wizard TM and blasted off half of Mad Eye's nose? Barty Voldemort Fanboy Crouch? Regulus??? Snape?????
Good at Potions, never top of the class (those were Lily and Snape)
Tactless at times, but not as much as James.
An asshole. A complete and utter arrogant toerag, and definitely more than a little immature. He was popular, like James, and I can see him having other friends outside the Marauders, but never establishing deep and meaningful relationships with them. He was definitely more unapproachable than James, much more intimidating.
(Definitely meaner jokes, too.)
James was the love of his life (platonically, but I can get behind them as a ship). He was loyal to James, first and foremost (which is also why he and Moony grew apart and suspicious of each other in the First War). Also, both of them were James' friends first. The Marauders were James' friend group.
He was definitely jealous when James first got together with Lily because she was stealing his best friend, his second, better brother. He liked Lily, but he was obsessed with James, who definitely grew up before Sirius did.
I've always headcanoned Sirius as straight/bi and Regulus as gay. But the point is more that while I can see Sirius experimenting a bit in Hogwarts (after all, he was full of girls who probably liked him) I can't really see him as either an arrogant/douchebag playboy. I also don't think he ever had a serious relationship. Ever. Especially in his Hogwarts days. If you're not worthy of his time, he won't look at you twice let alone give you a chance.
Any partner of Sirius' would have to be quite exceptional anyways (brilliant, intelligent, talented, funny - he was all of these things after all - and maybe even a bit mean). I can't see why a girl like that would put up with Sirius' arrogance.
Loved McGonagall, lowkey hated Slughorn. He was definitely invited to the Slug Club and I can see him turning down meetings. That particular brand of cunning weaselling cowardice is quite literally the opposite of what Sirius was and it drove him up the wall.
My boy Sirius never worked a day in his life, especially after Uncle Alphard left him gold.
Also: it's very likely that given his nature (he doesn't open up to strangers easily), his vaguely intimidating aura, his less-than-perfect track record in school (I know this fandom likes to ignore that he cursed students for fun, but. like. he did.), the fact that he probably didn't have a job and spent his post-Hogwarts years in secret missions for the Order, and general ruthlessness- people knew him mostly as just another Black. It wasn't that unthinkable then that he might have been seen as Voldemort's number two.
(This enrages Bellatrix by the way lol)
And speaking of Bella. Sirius likes to go around saying Andromeda was his favourite cousin. Nu-uh. He wishes that was truly the case. These two have history, and I find it hilarious that what they hate in the other is precisely what they love in themselves (their respective loyalties).
Saw each other/could hear each other in Azkaban. Bellatrix's taunts of ‘See? We were right. You betrayed our family for these traitors and this is how they repaid you’ made the whole stay that much worse.
More likely than not had promised each other that they would be the ones to kill the other.
Bellatrix didn't mean to kill him though, I am convinced of this. In the books, she hits him with a Stunner and probably yells because she won the duel. Then, it's only after it's sunk in (after her run from the DoM to the Atrium) and when Voldemort is getting closer that she taunts Harry about it.
Personal headcanon: the last time Sirius saw his cousins was at Narcissa's wedding (nice parallel, because I believe that the last event Andromeda ever attended was Bellatrix's wedding). Now, it happened around his 5th/6th year and guess who was also there? Yup. Snivellus (as Lucius' guest). The two almost got into a brawl. Bellatrix was not happy with them almost spoiling Cissy's big day.
Once tried to beat up Rodolphus during a skirmish in which they had both lost their wands, in the First War. It did not go well for him.
I'll stop this now, but I def have more. Don't even get me started on Walburga and Orion and how this fandom does not understand abuse at all.
#sirius black#remus lupin#james potter#the marauders#bellatrix lestrange#hp headcanons#headcanons#the noble and most ancient house of black#asks#answered
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Looking over Amane and Futa's covers right now and it's so interesting to dissect them together.
Amane cover Instrumental- Animal Instrumental
Futa Cover Instrumental- Salamander Instrumental
Amane's covers sound like they're straight out of a video game. Contrasting with her covers Futa's have been drum heavy as hell. Nothing really that big on their own but when you consider their interactions over the course of Milgram it gets very intriguing.
I found this especially good food for thought. Especially taking the title of Amane's second trial song "Purge March" into account. Along with Futa's first song's lyrics.
"Let’s go! A victory march! Dan-Da-Dan"
"All evil hypocrites should disappear. I won’t stop until you say “sorry”. Now let’s begin to hunt down the liars" / "The “It can’t be helped”, from the scum who can’t be helped. That makes them doubtlessly, clearly, absolutely, unequivocally, beyond any doubt, GUILTY. I disavow you, eyes corrupted must be crushed."
"Fuck it! You won’t be forgiven, it was stupid licking each other’s wounds. Justice assemble! Till the end."/"I don’t need it any more, if you’re going to break your vow. Here and now, it’s my turn to tear you apart. So there is no second time, I’ll give back the judgment that you gave to me."
"If you get off now, you're a traitor."
"You won’t be forgiven, a coward, never!" - "You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already."
I just find it really interesting how possible it is for the two to remind me of the other.
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I think the other HB Take I've grown to dislike the most is
'When Via realizes what her father sacrificed for her, she'll be so thankful / sorry for doubting him!!'
and like, no?? no she shouldn't be?
it was never her decision for her parents to stay together all that time, they made that choice themselves. The kid is not responsible for what the adults are doing. The show pulling a "Stolas got hurt for her sake so she needs to be grateful for that when Stolas is the one who made the choice to do it" is lousy logic, imo. It's blaming Via for being too young to know what was going on and expecting her to answer for her parents' choices & actions
not to mention It's made very clear that all the fighting after Stolas cheated is making her home life miserable. Anyone who's been between two warring parents will tell you how much it sucks
and also like - maybe the show wants to frame it that Stolas gave her a 'normal life' but the show is wrong about that, gonna be blunt
nothing about the Goetia's home life was ever 'normal'. Stella & Stolas never wanted to marry. they never wanted a child together. Everything about their life was artificial from the get-go and doomed to failure, especially since Stella presumably never even put in the effort to playact 'happy families' once Via was born
and like, the show has written Stella to be so comically evil that she threw Still Not Divorced parties in their house, where Via was living, that she advertised in the newspaper. Via would have to be pretty checked out to not notice that Stella and Stolas can't stand one another. Kids aren't dumb about that kind of thing, they will notice. And given Stella does nothing but screech/insult Stolas every time she's onscreen (and it's implied she's physically abused him before), if Stolas actually cared about Via's wellbeing he'd want her far away from Stella. This self-martyring routine of his makes no sense.
On some level a lot of people judge parents irl for staying with abusive partners if they're subjecting a child to that environment, too, and that's with the understanding the parent loved/still loves the abuser on some level. Stolas never loved Stella. Why is he subjecting Via to her, especially when he's the one who's a prince and could easily have her thrown out of the palace?
it makes the shows' determination to never show what the dynamic between Stella and Via is even more frustrating, because if they did get one it would at least lend some credence to Stolas' 'I thought there was some benefit to us staying together for Via's sake' routine. if she has a relationship with her mother then it makes some sense, even if that relationship is strained at times. but the writers are terrified of giving Stella any dimension at all so I'd bet good money we won't even see them exchange a single line of dialogue by the end of s2 (unless it's for Via to be manipulated by her, since she needs to be the world's biggest dummy so Stolas can cry some more)
(also like, sidenote that's just been annoying me personally - why would a Hell noble be so hung up on the notion of having a nuclear family? he's royalty. he can easily afford to raise Via alone. what are the normative values of Hell, exactly?? why would anyone care if Stolas gets a divorce? why can't the show clearly indicate what is and isn't expected of royalty in terms of upkeep of behavior and reputation?)
(also also, if Stolas was written to be deluding himself about what he did being good for Via then this could be interesting. but I doubt they're gonna go there with the creator's pet he's turned into in s2)
She probably will end up running back to Stolas, apologizing and expressing her gratitude for anything. Because that's the kind of show this is and that's the kind of writer Viv is.
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