SO YOU FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE?

Wonderland is only a place that you heard about in your dreams, in the stories. Yet here you are, in a world that is mad beyond belief. The land is strange, and the world likes to play tricks on your eyes, mind, and heart. But there’s a reason that you were pulled from your own world and brought here.

Do you play along with the games of this new world? Or do you go about your own style? Will you stay hopelessly lost, continuously falling down the rabbit hole? Or will you join the madness that makes Wonderland?

Wonderland Hearts is a 20+ Discord multi-fandom role play group with an emphasis on fating of all kinds where your character is taken from their original world. Here they keep their powers, but they’re strangely altered to keep things fun, to keep the Mirror’s game going. Together they’ll live with other strangers and begin their new life here

:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  Welcoming environment! :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  20+ community! :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  Accepting characters from anime, comics, video games, and other animated/drawn mediums! :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  Events every 2/3 months :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  Self-assignable colors! :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧  IC movie nights every month!

HOME. || PREMISE. || RULES. || MASTERLIST. || INVITE.

ᴺᵒᵗᵉ: ᴰᵘᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴰᶦˢᶜᵒʳᵈ ˡᶦᵐᶦᵗᶦⁿᵍ ˢᵉʳᵛᵉʳ ᶦⁿᵛᶦᵗᵉ ˡᶦⁿᵏˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵒˡˡᵒʷᶦⁿᵍ ˡᶦⁿᵏ ᵐᵃʸ ᵇᵉ ᵉˣᵖᶦʳᵉᵈ: ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᶜʰᵉᶜᵏ ᵒᵘʳ ᵇˡᵒᵍ ᵒʳ ᵒᵘʳ ᵖᶦⁿⁿᵉᵈ ᵐᵉˢˢᵃᵍᵉ ᵗᵒ ᶠᶦⁿᵈ ᵃⁿ ᵘᵖ⁻ᵗᵒ⁻ᵈᵃᵗᵉ ˡᶦⁿᵏ

Propaganda:

The Sandman: The gist of the game is basically "look at this little freak". The protagonist of the game is tempted to turn to look at you and say "look at this little freak doing his little freak things" (at least it feels that way to me). Lack of sleep will do that to someone. I know he's not well known, but that he be included already means a lot to me.

Ijin Yu: Can kill you, and everyone else, but will probably prefer eating convenience store kimbap. until you threaten anyone he cares about. Also has trauma from being a child mercenary for 5 years and multiple people interested in him since he’s sweet and protective

“I wish CrispToby was popular…” CrispToby content if they were popular:

blog intro! let's be moots!

I've had this blog for a while, but I realized I've never made an introduction and I love doing that. So here we go.

name: sparx

gender & pronouns: bigender/nonbinary, they/[any]

ethnicity: mixed-race latino

languages: english, spanish

age: 22

blog type: multifandom

interests: video games, anime, movies, tv, webcomics/comics, etc.

video games

• genres: RPGs, JRPGs, visual novels, platformers

• favorites: kingdom hearts, the world ends with you, devil may cry, mortal kombat, our life, mystic messenger, rakuen, ori and the blind forest, final fantasy, persona

anime

• blue exorcist, erased, tokyo revengers, jojo's bizarre adventure, attack on titan, ouran high school host club, free!, hell girl, to your eternity, death note, tanaka-kun is always listless, afro samurai, devil may cry (2007), from me to you, etc.

movies

• genres: animation, comedy, romance, romcom, fantasy, action, adventure, horror, martial arts

• favorites: scott pilgrim vs. the world, inception, studio ghibli films, gkids films, lord of the rings, knives out, the mummy, fantastic beasts and where to find them, the matrix, encanto, old 2D disney movies, insidious, old dreamworks movies, fantastic beasts and where to find them, etc.

tv

• genres: animation, fantasy, sci-fi, action, adventure

• favorites: invincible, over the garden wall, the legend of vox machina, avatar: the last airbender, twin peaks, our flag means death, clone high, etc.

webcomics/webtoons/manhwa/manga

• omniscient reader, blue hearts, surviving romance, let's play, i'm the queen in this life, blue exorcist, death is the only ending for the villainess, i love yoo, my deepest secret, the guy upstairs, kiss him not me, age matters, batman: wayne family adventures, lost and found, comedown machine, etc.

other

• music, hello kitty, books, poetry/lyrics, liminal space, glowwave, backrooms, reality shifting (don't judge my escapism tactics aaa), language learning, stand-up comedy etc.

dni list

• homophobes, xenophobes/racists, transphobes, and any type of bigot I guess lmao

• i'd prefer to interact with 18+ users instead of minors, but I'm not super strict

And that's pretty much it! I'll likely be continuously updating the list of interests over time. By the way, this is my secondary blog. If we become moots, I'll follow you from my primary (@eightb-all) that I don't use much. Tumblr sucks at secondary blog capabilities :,)

Nice to meet you all!

REALITY QUEST

A bullied highschooler dies due to an unhealthy lifestyle but time travels back a week later where he now has an rpg-like system that helps him to grow stronger and helps him to defeat not just his bullies but full grown gangsters. 

Other titles: Real life quest; IRL quest; Hyeonsil quest

whats crafting mechanics in the isekai. like the way the world works or like minecraft crafting recipes.

many isekai (most of them nowadays, really) have RPG logic engrained into the universe, the exploitation of which usually ending up to be the pin holding the protagonist up as the Most Powerful Dude.

for example, in the (bland) manhwa i'm currently reading (technically in manhwa it's not called isekai, the genre is called transmigration i think) called "Astral Pet Store" he, essentially, runs a pokemon center/daycare/pokemart. a lot of the stories main goals are like. upgrading incubators and finding rare materials. and i like that stuff! it's enjoyable to see Guy Get Stronger Like Video Game.

in other stories there are different kinds of progression and crafting systems. like in Slime Reincarnation, theres a lot of time in the early story dedicated to what is basically RPG settlement building.

Expectations ⤴️

Reality ⤵️

Okokok, but wait! jamkkan! jamkkan!

Is that actually commissioned fanart or is it from an RPG?! Because if it’s for a game or manhwa or a web novel or something, whhhyyyyy does it really look like what TT and DD would look like in some fantasy AU?

Down to how stupidly pretty they are and everything?! 😭😂😭😂

hello hello hello!

𓇼 Call me Py! (As in Cleffa’s Japanese name) Any C-name is acceptable too

𓇼 If the content on this blog is not your vibe, no worries!! I implore you to visit @comfied-chriterature instead <33

𓇼 I write, simp, and am generally incoherent and occasionally poetic! And I may draw... sometimes...

𓇼 My interest in tickling is solely innocent. I love the fun and intimacy and bonding and kicking feet giggling of it all. // //

𓇼 Anyone is welcome! Engagement is always appreciated; just don't be creepy or hateful. Apologies if I struggle to communicate, I may have social anxiety. I tend to lurk and am always late to the party, but I really wanted to partake in this community bc it seems wholesome!

𓇼 Open for asks, requests, and tag games!! Check if your asks/requests have been replied to at this tag ➸ (farmboy wesley voice) as you wish 💌

𓇼 I enjoy musicals, vocaloid (hmu if you wanna talk about HarumakiGohan), cartoons/anime and manga/manhwa, pixel art games, rpg horror, books, emoticons, indie everything!!

𓇼 PINK PINK PINK 💞

𓇼 I also love hamsters and cookies and oceans and hearts <3

𓇼 Multishipping fanatic! I’m mostly open-minded but there are some ships (and characters) I dislike passionately and irrationally LOL

𓇼 Big fan of infp characters bc I am an infp and they're always such disasters lol!! ...What does that say about me

𓇼 Fandom list time!!

bocchi the rock, lycoris recoil, skip and loafer, toilet-bound hanako-kun, shy, nana, bungo stray dogs, buddy daddies, genshin impact, project sekai, six of crows, the disastrous life of saiki k

others: kimetsu no yaiba, pokémon, alien stage, tgcf and svsss, avatar the last airbender, the owl house, she-ra princesses of power, mascot horror, spider-man + mcu

𓇼 My tags જ⁀♡➴

py is turning pink 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 my writing tag

py plates shortcakes 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 my hcs, future ideas, and wips tag

py’s snack stash 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 my tk reblogs tag

a+ for art I liek :)) 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 my non-tk art/other reblog tag

𖦹 Roman/Rory

𖦹 he/they

𖦹 Adult!

𖦹 Eng, PL + a bit of Norwegian

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

𖦹 It's a pg 13 blog please be mindful of what you're saying.

𖦹 This blog includes shipping. If it's not your cup of tea but you wish to follow for the non-shipping stuff, block/mute the ship tags

𖦹 Mostly this blog is about MCYT (Jimmy Solidarity specifically), but I do dibble a bit into other fandoms, like Isekai + Transmigrator Manhwas, Anime, Light Novels and RPG Games

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

𖦹 Asks are open

𖦹 I do not take commissions

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

𖦹 AU's you might be interested in:

𖦹 #Dogwards Canary: In 3rd Life, Jimmy quickly got down to his Red Life, and his husband mistreating him did not help. Despite rejecting Martyn's earlier offer to team up, Jimmy now finds himself seeking help from Martyn and by extension Dogwards. Ren, recognizing Jimmy's distress, intervenes and takes him in, despite Martyn's lingering resentment over rejection, but even he can't shake off the feeling that something ain't right with his old friend.

𖦹 #Switcharoo (AU shared with lovely Piper, go check them out): Tango is a sheriff, essentially making him the town's emperor. Despite his authority, he struggles to earn the respect of others, especially the other Emperor's. One of them being Goblin fWhip who would not stop bothering him. However, over time, Tango and fWhip gradually got closer then expected.

Meanwhile, Jimmy thrives in his role at the citadel, happily leading the hermits through challenging dungeons and by extension their own death. He gladly laugh's at their misfortunes and rejects their attempts to bargain for more rewards. At the same time he forms a strong connection with Zed, and their friendship evolves into something deeper and unexpected.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Master list of Jim Playlist (Still work-in-progress)

𖦹 30 Day Hardcore SMP S1 𖦹 30 Days Hardcore SMP S2 𖦹 Rats SMP 𖦹 Minecraft Manhunt 𖦹 Ultimate Life Series 𖦹 Minecraft BCG 𖦹 New Life SMP 𖦹 Crazy Christmas 𖦹 Empires SMP S2 𖦹 Minecraft SOS

not to be a hater on main but good god is the sweet home drama bad. I'm probably not even going to be able to finish season 2 because it's just been so fucking boring and just nothing. an hour per episode and they've somehow managed to make it feel like absolutely nothing and far too much happens in each of them. and I just hate so many of the changes they made to the manhwa in season 1. I just don't like yi-kyung as a character; eun-yu and sang-wook function as just entirely separate characters— the thing is, I think eun-yu getting more focus and being more of a foil to hyun-su could've been a really good decision if they hadn't dropped the ball so hard. changing sang-wook how they did was such a boring and obvious decision, though, and I will stand by that; they completely gutted ji-su and hyun-su's relationship which undeniably made the show worse, thematically; they removed maria from the sky, which seems like a minor nitpick but that in turn hurts both hyun-su and eun-hyeok's relationship and their individual characterization. they're loser nerds. please for the love of god let them be loser nerds; they removed hyun-su's snark. he could be fucking MEAN sometimes, and just had a base level of pricklyness throughout the whole thing. it was endearing; they completely changed eun-hyeok's personality. I didn't put him with eun-yu and sang-wook because he still fulfills a lot of the same roles in the narrative in the drama as he did in the manhwa, unlike them, but I still feel like it hurts his character. where's his snark. where's his loser nerd interests. where's his rpg references while explaining his battle strategies. he was a troll and a cheerfully enigmatic bastard. he was like half of the comic relief (which feels a lot like it was a conscious decision he made, in-universe) he's so serious now. it's boring. also they made him older, which also seems like a minor nitpick, but him being a literal high schooler adds such a level to him choosing to step up as the leader, as the person who makes the hard decisions no one else wants to make, and these grown adults just letting him; I don't like that they added more romance to the drama. this is actually a problem I also have with the manhwa, though to a much lesser extent. I really, really liked the fact that ji-su and hyun-su's relationship was platonic, I felt (and still do) that it was much more meaningful than them being romantic, and the romance also felt really shoehorned in at the last minute besides. but the drama was shoving it in your face from their first meeting that hyun-su and eun-yu were romantic and they just really did not sell me on it; THEY CHANGED HYUN-SU'S MONSTER FORM. still so pissed about this. he was a knight!! because he was hanging onto just enough of his consciousness to be able to protect ji-su!!! they care about each other the most out of all of what remains of this unfair world!!!! the knife arm, one-winged angel-imagery bullshit in the drama was so boring and had no symbolic significance. objectively a downgrade. literally one of the only changes that I liked was what they did with jae-heon's backstory, that actually added so much to his character

Blue Lock Is Well Written, Actually (Part 1)

All Blue Lock fans know that this series is over the top, ridiculous, and completely unrealistic--we don't need to be told that. In fact, for me at least, the stupidly cringy dialogue, the extreme situations, the over exaggeration of it all is what makes this silly little series so enjoyable and fun. But I'm here to tell you that yeah, BLLK is good because it's cringe and dramatic, but it's also a well written series in multiple key aspects, the most important of which are its pacing/story structure, theming, and of course, character writing.

Warning: This is going to be long and is also text heavy. This is part one, covering pacing/story structure. Also, this is my opinion haha so you don't have to 100% agree. Spoilers ahead!

Let's begin with the pacing of the story! One thing I admire writers of all good stories for, from "trashy" isekai to million word philosophical novels, is the ability to identify the goal of the story and pace it accordingly.

Take Solo Leveling vs. Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, two action manhwa that both use an RPG-themed setting and have a very strong main character:

Solo Leveling's goal is the be an exciting and hype action power fantasy about an underdog who grows to become grossly overpowered.

Knowing this, the story is extremely fast paced, going from one major battle and victory to the next with little to no downtime. This helps to deliver the energy needed for a series that lives and dies on its hype. 

In contrast, ORV looks more to tell a thematically potent story through complex characters. To do so, it chooses a slow burn pace and gives plenty of time for less frantic moments to aid development. Switch these two paces around and both stories would be far worse off.

Let’s bring this point back to BLLK. Its goal is an exciting story full of hype, but also one that provides some thematic lessons and builds strong characters, a sort of middle ground between the two previously mentioned series. Thus, it’s face paced, yet also has much down time–a choice that is vital to its enjoyment.

Down time provides two key things to the series:

A break from the action. Too much action can lead to almost a feeling of burnout in the reader, where they feel overwhelmed by the constant high stakes and tension. I personally have had to drop multiple series for long periods of time due to this type of stress/exhaustion. The break helps to build excitement between high points, the rising action after the fall. A recent example in BLLK would be the couple of chapters in between the end of the Manshine City vs. Bastard Munchen match and the beginning of the one against Ubers.

Exploration of characters. Exploring how characters act in more mundane situations helps build who they are and adds to their humanity. Small choices like their choice of dress, what they like to do in their free time, and other such details are imperative to creating compelling characters. Down time is also the perfect time for flashbacks, as seen often in BLLK (ex. Rin and Sae’s backstory in the middle of the U20 game, Hiyori’s right before the Ubers game). 

All in all, though readers might think getting straight back into the action would be their preferred structure, down time is a kinda “you’ll thank me later” type addition that enhances the action by both preparing readers for more excitement and helping to make readers more invested through character development.

It’s a bit of an obvious addition, but one that BLLK actually uses very well. None of the down time ever feels wasted or out of nowhere. Every flashback is implied to be needed based on previous moments. Rin and Sae’s isn’t dropped right after Rin is introduced or even after Isagi gets closer to Rin. Instead, it’s inserted when it's most important to the story so its existence can be justified. Hiyori’s flashback has much less leading up to its reveal, but Hiyori’s commentary on Isagi reveals some of his character that gets followed up on in his flashback; the flashback also gives some excitement for what Hiyori might do in the future. 

Again, this feels like an obvious requirement for writing flashbacks but oh boy is it sometimes completely disregarded (and in two very popular series that I shall not name but both essentially contain a long flashback about a side character’s history that is not set up very clearly beforehand, leaving them feeling awkwardly placed and accidentally pointing out the author’s hand).

The other way BLLK uses down time is character exploration, the clearest example of which are the day out chapters following the U20 match. Did we absolutely need to see the cast’s shenanigans at karaoke and bowling? No. Did it add much to the story to love? Absolutely. 

This was actually a very vital time to place some silly team bonding, as a ton of new characters were introduced in the arc, but only through their playstyles. Giving them time out in the city as regular teenagers helps to cement their characters and add some quirky habits and traits that are more relatable or down to earth. Karasu, for example, is now characterized as the mature and responsible one in the group and not just “the assassin one I guess.”

On top of the fun stuff, we also do get some character introspection during the days out for Isagi and Rin. Isagi meets up with Tada and reflects on what’s happened so far plus goes into a bit of theming while Rin contemplates the U20 match, and narratively, his further growth in the story is set up. Clearly, the author knows that down time is not exclusively for sweet fluff. 

That’s basically all I got on down time writing. Finally, to wrap up this post on pacing and structure, let’s talk about stakes and promises for the future. 

Stakes in stories need to keep increasing or at least remain generally equivalent to the previous situation’s stakes in order to keep interest. In BLLK, the stakes in stages 1, 2, and 3 were essentially equivalent as they were all just normal tests; however, the U20 match is a large jump in stakes as a loss means the total dissolution of the facility, but a win would give them the U20 spots. 

If the series had returned to regular tests after the match, it would not have felt as interesting as before the match because now the readers have been encouraged to dream beyond the facility. However, the author knows this and chooses to go with the Neo Egoist league, bringing out world class strikers and foreign players. Sure, losing a match won’t cause the entire story to end now, but the difficulty and excitement of the current arc is about the same as the U20 arc.  

On top of the current arc, the author also makes sure to state what the future plans of the story are: the world U20 tournament. By showing the audience what the path to something vague is, the plot is tightened and you can feel comforted by the fact that the series knows where it's going. “Becoming the best striker in the world” seems unrealistic at first, but now the steps to reach that position have been revealed. Together, this retains audience investment.

To summarize, Blue Lock keeps a fast pace, strategically interspersed by points of down time that prevent tension burnout and add more character details. Additionally, the stakes and future plan of the series are consistently building and clear to help ground its vague goal. Though these aspects may seem obvious or simple, the difficulty of their execution is not so. It requires planning and effort to keep a series on a smooth ramp up and going at a quick but not blazing speed. Many, many, many series can only dream of the quality of Blue Lock’s steady pacing that almost never feels too slow or too fast, especially when read all at once rather than week to week. 

Pacing and structure are some of the aspects of writing that are at their best when you can barely notice their presence at all: only a series that struggles with them will remind readers of their existence and importance. Blue Lock succeeds at keeping both under the radar.

Bottom of the barrel isekai review #2

Today's title: I was reborn as his highness the prince’s little evil dragon. 

The understanding of cringe is an abstraction of the same feelings of those in Salem dragging literate women to a lovely communal barbeque where they will be served. Is that an exaggeration? Yes, am I making a ham-fisted reference to a sci-fi short story? Also yes, very clever you are, go get yourself a cookie. I will wait. 

Anyways that is to segway to the idea that sometimes our ability to consider a story bad is based on the ideas it presents. Sometimes these ideas are weird, that weirdness becomes correlated with the cultural idea of cringe. 

Anyways that is a segway from a segway to talk about omegaverse. That is a concept that exists, where did it start? Im staring down a deep and scary rabbit hole that i'm simply not prepared to delve down into. So let's skip that and get into the basics. ABO or Alpha Beta Omega is a setting in which the genders are changed as thus: alphas are sexually and socially dominant, male and female may share the same genitalia for the concept of sex. Betas are either normal humans or hyper submissive socially and sexually, male and females usually share the same genitalia in this instance as well. In some fictions the omega may take the spot of the beta and the beta will become the average human within the setting. Beta and omegas emit a pheromone that can set people into estrus and attract alphas, alphas can bite the base of a beta or omegas neck to mark them as theirs. 

That's the bare bones basics and also a segway of a segway from a segway into the story we are talking about today. 

The titular title is a manhwa, if you are a rock dweller that's a korean manhwa. Don't let the country jump fool you, we are still dealing with the normal rules of an isekai so let's keep moving. 

We start by examining the main character, shown to us to be the ubermensch of gamers. The true pinnacle of mankind, tall, strong, powerful, athletic, mewing like his god damn life depends on it to ensure that his jawline is capable of splitting atoms, causing mass destruction to the immediate area. 

He gets shanked at a gaming event by im assuming a rival gamer who went insane and thought that he was irl stream sniping. 

He bites the dust and awakens as the shell of an egg breaks around him, staring up into the soft eyes of the main romantic interest, the crown prince. Oh, he's a little dragon now and also still a 18-19 year old man stuck in the body of a lil baby dragon. The two cavort around jovially, well one acts in a jovial manner, the other is trying to figure out what the fuck is happening and why hes stuck on a leash instead of cranking sick 90s in fortnite.

They then remember what game they are in. The game is apparently a visual novel/rpg in which the crown prince raises a dragon that turns evil and he must slay it with the power of friendship and the god nuke spear he found in a cave. Cool, he decides to not be an evil dragon that gets hit with the god nuke spear. A wise choice. 

We get some more exposition before the world decides to run a fucking truck into my head by haveing a possible pre-pubescent child introduce the idea that this is infact omega verse. The wicked step brother pops in shouting “omegas lives are easy”.  

Which hit me with an absurd level of whiplash but ok, let's try to keep moving. 

The story meanders around a bit more, we are introduced to the wicked step mother who is an alpha which yeah feminism, the queen pegs the king. 

She does the wicked stepmother bit and leaves and we are treated to a few too many shots of this toddler-esque character cuddling up to this baby dragon which if I must drill into the soft gray matter hidden away within your domed ivories is a full grown man who plays video games for a living. 

I am unfortunately well acquainted with the trope of Middle aged japanese business man in the body of a baby because god damn if freud did not hit a societal nerve, and I would never dream of being so crass as to say that this is equally creepy but I hope you can forgive me if I inch this close to the same rung. 

Gamer god decides to start speed running the game, assuming that if he gets to a certain event within the game in which the main character helps a goddess and gets a wish, deciding to yoink that wish for himself and get back to begging markiplier to do a nude calendar with him, bro just a quick twelve picks, its for charity bro, come on, tasteful buns out for charity bro. 

Anyways more meandering, quick break to have one more bed scene where gamer god in baby dragon form sniffs again this kids pheromones because hell is real and the only torture is the one we inflict upon the world with our thoughts and ideas. 

They get the fuck out of the castle and go to the spooky woods where they meet the princes arranged fiancee, an alpha who is drawn as a full grown man. 

Anyways he is utterly nothing to the story and serves to explain why they are able to beat the random cabal of cultists in the middle of the spooky woods who have the goddess trapped. 

They free her, she hands out some random shit and then fucks off. The paladin, prince and dragon then decided to go on magical adventures for a bit where we learn that the dragon's gift turns him back into a facsimile of his human form which carries around the prince again. Cue badly drawn fight scene with with trolls, cue yet another mention of the princes pheromones because the author has decided that I need to be shot a few more times and let's be honest, im asking for it, tying myself up on the shooting range like i am, drawing an assortment of red dots on myself, beckoning any wayward bullet to find purchase in all the soft supple flesh they can burrow in. 

More magical adventures and they find the magic sage, oops it's actually not the magic sage its the evil sage who after tricking our party tries to use mind control to seduce gamer god which leads me to believe that the author has some straight guy x gay guy fics in the same hard drive i believe should be turned into the police. 

Prince goes ape shit and despite showing little magical affinity suddenly has the skills to summon the god damn grim reaper who saves the dragon. Gamer god passes out and in the meantime the real sage pops up and promises to teach the prince white magic and to train the dragon by chasing and fighting his familiar, a transforming rabbit. 

This is how the dragon meets mushroom fujoshi who does a lore dump and scares everyone in my discord because we were not familiar with Korean and Chinese internet slang and how it gets translated, please see below. 

It's not what it looks like, it means “Couple Pairings' '. Which yes, i know, holy shit why would they translate it like that???

Who the fuck knows. They explain how shits happens. They were the true creators of the world. After playing the game in its entirety, they decided the ending lacked luster so they decided to create an omegaverse fiction in which the prince and dragon Bone Expeditiously. 

Now this either means that god themselves in all of their infinite wisdom and power was placed in their own schrodingers box. Either so enraptured with the true beauty of this fiction or infact so repulsed by its contents that they decided to trap multiple innocent souls along with the stories creator to force it to play out to its logical possibly bloody end.

She also states that the prince must kill the dragon if they wish to escape, but also how the fuck do you know that? Anyways she fucks off. 

We now reach the time skip, where thank the fucking gods everyone is now drawn like a fucking adult and its not only slightly werid when they sniff at each other. 

And nothing happens for ten chapters as these two twinks run around each other playing grab ass until the last three chapters where they introduce the concept of a marriage party, as the paladin broke up. 

Two affronts to decent racial design and orientalism pop up to create a bit more plot, they send the dragon off to be able to be human without a trinket and that's the end of it. 

Is the story anything to write home about? Not entirely. It's very standard BL fair with twinkish men cavorting about and an absurd amount of flowers being drawn around them. The story is very much interested in the slow burn yet sporadically intense budding romance between gamer god and the prince. It seems scared to interact with its own premise of omega verse, only gently playing into the themes or using the fantasy sexism of alphas vs omegas to create shoehorned drama between certain characters or to create societal roadblocks for the character that teach about an inch high. If I must surmise my criticism, it's not cringe enough for me. 

What about art? Its standard, most manhwa you will read will be expertly to competently drawn. The art is serviceable to the story itself, though i will note that the author is fucking deathly allergic to anything that resembles the color brown or drawing anything aside from eurocentric pretty boys that look like they belong onto a old german propaganda poster. 

"Is the underlying story, barring any other concept, good?" 

It is decent, it's fine. It's a standard romance fair, if you are diving into this for something hot, spicy, something you would be loath to be caught reading then my apologies, this is not it. 

"on a sliding scale of min to max, how much is the author using this to explore fetish" 

Low. The author clearly has some fetishes but they only somewhat clash into the main story. Mostly through gamer god pretending he's straight to the author can have the multitude of gay men attempt to coerce him into something “taboo”. 

"How many story crutches does the author use to explore the story" 

I think the story avoids the vast majority of major crutches, though it does rely heavily on the video game trope which allows the dragon to suddenly push the game into a random direction due to knowing how to skip a part of the level or knowing where certain in-game items relevant to the plot are hidden. 

 "Is the author attempting to use the story as a way to explain why he is not weird."

The author is not saying anything, but interestingly I believe they are attempting to pass themselves as being weirder than they actually are. Do with that as you will. 

Do I recommend this? Read on your own time, dont feel bad if you dont wanna read it.

Hi! Do you know any media - either western or eastern - with a character like Griffith in it? Thanks

That's a tough one. There are tons of characters who evoke similar tropes or are directly inspired by Griffith, but it depends on which parts of Griffith you're looking for. So... I'll give names and then just kind of expand on how they are Griffith-esque.

Giorno Giovanna from JoJo's always struck me as a bit of a Griffith Lite. He's idealistic but ruthless, a strategic thinker, has big dreams and does a lot of sus things in pursuit of more positive goals. He's also given to poetic proclamations.

The classic is Ryo Asuka from Devilman, who is a direct inspiration for Griffith and has a very similar role/dynamic with Akira (the protagonist... you probably know this already but you know) to Griffith's and Guts'... emotionally, but not behaviorally. Like Ryo and Griffith don't act anything alike but they have similar functions. Yeah.

Laurent from the Captive Prince is partially inspired by Griffith - I haven't gotten very far in that book, but Griffith is a stated inspiration.

Chrollo Lucilfer from Hunter x Hunter is kind of a hybrid Griffith/Femto type figure to me. He hits a lot of the same buttons as Griffith but is much more overtly malevolent. Still, the intelligence, strategic thinking, his way of going from adorable to terrifying, and something about the way he... talks... Always reminds me of Griffith. And like Griffith he's quite difficult to read and can instill existential dread in orders without doing very much. Also, books.

Blade of the Phantom Master (Shin Angyo Onshi) has a ... lot of things in it that remind me of Berserk, but when it comes to Griffith, they have two different characters that kind of ring the bells. For Griffith the human, the main one is Hae Mo Su, who is the main character's deceased best friend who appears only in flashbacks once you're past the middle of the series. The other oen is Aji Tae, the main villain - a lot of people compare him to Griffith, but he's more of a Femto, although he sometimes pretends to be a Griffith. Also because of plot things, it's... an interesting comparison.

Artorius from Tales of Berseria has a lot in common with him - mind you I've never actually played the game so take it with a grain of salt. But he's a silver haired idealist who becomes unemotional due to a severe loss and then proceeds to do awful things in the name of benefiting humanity so, there you are.

If you want something MUCH MUCH MORE LIGHTHEARTED than anything else on this list, I'm Stanning the Prince is a romance manhwa webcomic that simultaneously strongly evokes Berserk and turns it into like... a lighthearted romance comic. The younger/crown prince is physically identical to Griffith and has a Griffithy vibe... also his sigil is a blue and white wolf whereas his brother's sigil is a red and black bird, so like.... anyway but again this is romance comic so don't expect it to go too heavy.

Le'Garde from Fear & Hunger (dark RPG) is perhaps the most 1-for-1 comparison I've seen in terms of role and story, though he has some non-Griffith twists to him. He is directly based on Griffith, though. I saw a review call this game "Undertale, but it's Berserk."

All that said, the closest I've ever come to being like, this guy may as well just be Griffith was... Canute from Vinland Saga. When he first appears, this comparison will seem pretty shallow but just hang in there. By the time I paused in my reading (which I need to get back to) I was like, oh this is what Griffith would be like as King, cool cool.

AJR – 100 Bad Days 

I also made a short animatic with this little comic.

Tangential question but given how entangled isekai is with litrpg I think it might be fair.

There's been a lot of discourse around the ways people uncritically reproduce ideas and concepts through reproduction of tolkienesque fantasy.

What ideas and concepts do you think are uncritically reproduced through litrpg settings that are worth discussing?

i've got to be honest i'm not a huge fan of litrpg as a discrete concept but i do have tangential experience with them through litrpg novels that have gotten manhwa/webtoon adaptations

that being said the thing that bothers me about litrpg (as well as isekai that have rpg leveling gimmicks) is the idea that the only way to progress as a person is through violence. it's a similar situation with superhero fiction where individuals are given a monopoly on violence by way of their inherent powers, but somehow more odious because the way you gain power in litrpg settings is generally exclusively through killing creatures that are deemed acceptable targets for violence.

it kind of gets into murky territory when you realize that "bandits" in rpg settings are marked as targets to enact Righteous Extrajudicial Violence upon due to them being marked as acceptable murder targets by government bodies. to me, it kind of feels like people like to go well it's an rpg setting so there's always going to be groups of bandits! but like, if being a bandit means that you are essentially 100% guaranteed to get put down by absurdly powerful god-beings who feel like doing a bit of murder that day, how long until the "bandit" category of future corpses expands to include people who are just hanging out in the woods Robin Hood style?