Dealing with Trauma while being King Dedede

Bonus:

Dealing with Trauma while being Taranza

The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois

It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality, which is exactly what Disco Elysium is doing with the RPG!

It goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.

One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.

ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID

The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.

But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.

Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.

Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.

It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!

By subverting our RPG expectations, it forces us to become more aware that these expectations even exist and how they fall short of reality. Yet, despite this subversion, the world of Disco Elysium feels so much realer to us.

ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID

Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.

A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.

The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.

Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.

If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.

It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.

As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”

In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control.

But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.

> BORZOI: READ HOMESTUCK LIKE ITS 2011 (PART 4)

(4225) Oh yeah it's all coming together now. This panel fucks so hard.

Jakeroxy is probably one of my fave relationships to think about they're so silly together! They have a really great relationship full of whimsy. They call out each others good points are generally incredibly supportive of each other, and they just feel like they click so easily together.

I could muse it comes down to their both shared aspect of void. While hope rings true in Jakes story, clear as a fucking bell, I have reason to suspect his secondary aspect may be void, due to how reluctant he is to open up to others, his ability to distance and generally keep off radar, and his own ignorance, not to mention his literal sort of secondary awareness he has for larger things hidden in the dark. Like seriously, where is he getting this information? Yet his own ignorance gets the better of him most times, leaving him paralyzed. This stirs up rage in others, his inverse.

As for how I approach classpects, well I like to see them sort of like a triad. Humans are multifaceted with multiple problems, so you should read up on your classpects. I started with Dana, and while I agree with some points, i don't really agree with all points, however Opacificas Classpect Meta is two essays that are a must read for any classpector.

Back to the point of the triad. You have your main classpect, which defines you and your main problem / struggle. You should carry to some extent of course traits of your inverse aspect. As a Prince of Void, I naturally ghost and carry traits of light, of extrapolating at length while I destroy void. I'm insightful and observant, yet more often than not I struggle with ignorance. My secondary is a Knight of Blood, due to how well I work with interpersonal relationships among others, pointing out what people are ignorant of helps me gain more knowledge of them as they toss their woes into the void that I naturally present. My bonds are strong however my natural gravitation towards void, towards being unknowable, etc, makes it difficult. My ignorance has been my downside on multiple occasions and while i've had difficulty with blood (hence why its secondary) my primary link is void.

So to sum up. Your main classpect should ring true to your main struggle and how you approach it, but also some of the inverse. They're two sides of the same coin after all. Class is your head, and how you use it. Aspect is your core, and what your nature is. Your secondary classpect is also necessary to help shit process. I don't know, you come up with a better allegory.

Maybe it'd help with how I classpected my boyfriend? I started off with looking at this post with a list of classes and aspects, and I listed off which felt like they fitted for my boyfriend:

Classes:

Witch

Thief

Mage

Aspect:

Doom

Space

Time

Heart

Having that, I started looking at classpects. Tossing at the walland seeing what would fit. But see that post I mentioned earlier doesn't really cut it. My boyfriend, personality wise according to that post, acts very much like a thief but he's not a thief at all, so we can cross that off the list. Thieves are about relocation which he certainly didn't do.

Then I took a look at aspects. If you're doing it right, go read these. Having read them, I figured out it was less problems with self and more about what needs to be done, and he wasn't as martyr like or acceptant of Doom as doom players often are, which left me with Space and Time. My boyfriend is very talented with the arts, and struggles with the same immaterial things space players do, but his mindset leant to time. I won't go into too much detail on it there, but like I said, take a read of Opacifica. Those essays are godsends. At the end of it we realised he was a knight of time. And oh boy was there a reaction.

Look NOTHING against davekat BUT WE ARE NOT DAVEKAT WE CANT DO THIS. (Hence my posts yesterday about it being so, so unbelievably over). But the shoe fit and it wouldn't come off.

So anyways final tip on classpecting, is if you have an alt account where you vent, go look at what you vent about. Or ask your friends for the reoccurring theme that your vents usually spiral into. Those help. But god I got offtopic, back to homestuck

Jake you speaking facts boy. Also is it just me or is the new Apple AR glasses reminding me of something.. I mean slap in some flashing colours on that puppy and you'd be set.

</3 :(

The frustration that sits in JaneRoxy is so often overlooked. Like shit man...it's a frustration that's so deeply rooted that it only comes out when she's drunk. I think realistically it'd come out at some point, perhaps at a party when they're older. Roxy getting upset that Jane didn't believe her, didn't see her as important as Roxy saw her. Accusing her of being unable to change. One that Jane will have to apologise over and over and even then it won't be fixed entirely. There is such tragedy and adversity that the Alpha kids have to tackle to keep their bonds strong.

Here's Jake being Jake. Just snaps right to the fucking chase! Well aware buddy! Most of his hesitant guesses and assumptions are usually facts that ring true and it's later in the story that they become more muddled but his assumption it's true never CHANGES and AUGH.

And then there's Roxy, with that subtle passive aggression that the alpha kids just HAVE going for them and facepalming as they type it out with gritted teeth. Roxy wants to be in something!! So sick of being relegated to the side to cling on.

4227

Boy watch out boy.

4228 I knew that panel looked familiar! Awesome! Except the thing is a million times BIGGER. Haha thats so awesome!

4230

You do the thing where you fly through the air shooting two guns at once. That thing isn't even that big of a deal for you. You do that thing practically every day on hellmurder island.

Jake English you are so admirable leaping out to shoot at a big monster I LOVE YOU.

4232

JAKE WATCH OUT- OH NO FUCK!!!! JAKE YOU HSOT TINKERBULL! YEAARGH!! AGGH! Haha the way he says AH HA. GOT YOU YOU SON OF A, SHIT, WAIT. is so funny.

4234

I really wanna redraw Jake panels later hes so endearing in all of them. (excepting a few..) Darling dearest.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THIS SHMUCK LETS CHECK ON JANE!

4242

This could be some primary body horror if I was good enough for it.

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST YOU JUST WATCHED HIM CRAWL OUT OF YOUR DEAD POPPOPS NECK HOLE AND YOU RESPOND BY CALLING HIM A TROUBLE MAKER?

4247

Majestic. Spectacular. Superb.

4249 spectacular. magnificent. Spiffy. spectacular.

4253

Jake is so small compared to so much life that is happening on the island good fucking GRIEF. And he doesn't even break a sweat he's just like "Ah botherations! Shit."

I'm out of images again. Welp.

A rvb dnd au where Tex was originally supposed to be the BBG of the campaign but Church’s character rolled a nat20 in seduction leaving the DM scrambling to:

a) find a way to give her personality

b) salvage the plot with the fact that Tex is not only a PC’S girlfriend but and old flame (thanks a lot York)

c) Figure out how to act out said personality and said plot changes

D) not murder Wyoming about how much he’s laughing

(‘shut up i let York keep his character as a ghost because he died to a series of unfortunate nat1s from the group as a whole during the first session. Not because he was sulking’)

It all comes to fruition as the following:

• Carolina tried to kill off Tex a couple of sessions in. She wasn’t prepared to do more than a simple NPC and monologues as a DM and felt that her stilted characterization was not something she wanted to ruin the campaign

• explained that Tex had made a pack with a strange God to become a warlock so they could obtain their goal

• established that Lopez was an enchanted suit of armor that was cursed to speak Spanish. York decided possess said armor

• Wyoming (who was playing Sarge btw) got written in as a villain because his“don’t act like it’s that hard to fix a campaign! Just write in a secret boss that we never could’ve predicted being such a thorn in the side when we were so focused on Tex!” Speech was not taken as well as he hoped

• Carolina brought back Tex bc she actually missed being able to interact with the others in game

• North fucked up a side quest by picking up a cursed blade! (guess who he played). He was aware that the quest was to guide crunchbite to the artifact! He knew he shouldn’t touch the glowing sword! He was going to take it for the lols. Now he has earned his consequences!

(Too bad he adores Junior with all his heart, made him a custom figure and everything)

• Connie and South very much are Simmons and Grif respectfully and the fact that the irl pinning is so severe that they have accidentally made their characters act like a married couple

•Tex’s betrayal marks the end of the first campaign where they take a break so Carolina could make a new campaign for they characters

•mean time they played two shot Out of Mind, and Recovery One in which they see some very familiar characters

•PLOT TWIST TURNS OUT THESE WEAK GODS ARE ACTUALLY JUST PARTS OF THIS ONE YOUNG GOD! THAT HE WAS TRICKED INTO STRIPPING AWAY PEICES FROM HIMSELF BECAUSE THE TOWN THAT WORSHIPED HIM WAS UNDER SEIGE AND AT THE TIME HE THOUGHT IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE!

bound to a relic that was hidden away He would give these smaller beings of ‘himself’ to do his will and help his people he would give them to the Director, the man he based his human visage after, not realizing that the siege was won and that the Director was now using these fragments to Gain more power as a ruler. He gives them to his strongest knights.

• Washington joins the campaign! He as new to DND, having tested the waters in the two shot and just just added himself but as a moody badass.

•Church is a god!

•The meta is still a thing and Maine, (who was very tickled to be the big bad) had been playing Lopez but took a break to play meta

•Church’s sacrifice is the end of another campaign!

•we tune back in on the new campaign! And Washington had a request for Carolina between stories

•even Maine was shocked when is was revealed by breaking Lopez’s sigil mid session that Sir Washington was a villain for this campaign, all except Florida

• Florida was heartbroken when he realized that two characters was too much for him at the moment and he had to choose between his characters. He eventually mentioned this to Wash who hinted that he could fix the issue

•he did not tell Florida beforehand the plan but he can’t complain bc it definitely solved the problem and the fact that he was able to save Doughnut’s life while giving Doc the spotlight was really great all around.

• with the artifact being saved Church is reborn as epsilon

Okay, so a few people said they would like my warriors meta so here it is:

He has a reputation as something of a flamboyant persona. A narcissist certainly (and that's not a bad thing!), a bit dramatic, the pretty boy. And all this would give the assumption that he a proud guy. But he is humble.

To be fair, he didn't start out this way.

He grew up in a poor household. Being a knight didn't exactly pay his father well, and his mother had to work a job to help the family of three keep their small apartment. As a child, Warriors never WANTED for anything. Sure his clothes were always a little threadbare. His toys were simple and often second hand. But he was loved. It's only as he got older that he started to recognize the nights when his parents went hungry for his sake. That he noticed the way his clothes were always worn (that he and his family were treated as lesser by the uperclass). That he started to dream of some day being able to make things better for his family. And maybe, just maybe, harbor a bit of resentment for everyone that ever looked down on his family. They weren't less then the wealthy just because they had less means. And so starts his pride.

With only a few options open to him, he joined the military like his dad. And he quickly began to rise through the ranks. He was good. Better certainly then his father had been, and a Captains pay is much better then that of a guard. And the dream of fixing his family's problems was looking more and more possible. And now, that pride of his had something more tangible to hold onto them just his knowledge that his family was good. By the time of the war, Warriors was more or less riding the high of being BETTER then those other soldiers that came from wealthier families.

Once he got the master sword, those dreams and pride of his latched onto the power the sword offered. And a part of him (a very young part of him. Like a child thinking the world is so simple) honestly believed that with the sword in his hands, he COULD fix all the problems.

And as we know, he learned the VERY hard way that power and desire isn't enough. He almost died. He had to learn the lesson that Ganon and Demise never would: Power and vision alone cannot do anything.

He wasn't a humble man before. But he is now. And you can bet your ass that it wasn't lost on him just how close he came to falling into the same trap as —and just how much he has in common with— Ganon/Demise.

And with that last update, we have Jojo canon corroboration of how aware Warriors is that his pride done made him fuck up!

(I did so many excited happy flaps and lip trills, and was vibrating so hard when I saw this panel!!!!! Like yes!!! HC meta VALIDATED)

about Ishigami, his growth and Miko's role

most people, myself included, thought at some point that Tsubame's rejection (or acceptance) could wrap up Ishigami's arc and even his past's flashbacks neatly, but Osaragi's arc suddenly revealing there was more to his relationship with Miko made me reflect more and think nah...if anything we're halfway there. It also showed glimpses of him already struggling to find his place in the world by quitting his clubs, even though he was successful at them and there was no Ootomo incident yet to undermine his self-image.

It seemed odd that despite everything he went through he still has his "hair=shield/averting eyes" theme going strong, but it makes sense if you consider even though Tsubame helped him see the way to be more accepting of people and cleared his name, his self-esteem still is super low. I spoke of this in my "sutera" meta, but to Ishigami, his life still has been a sucession of failures and almosts. At his core, he still hasn't fully opened up to people or learned to use his vulnerabilities to his advantage.

If I have grabbed your interest thus far, keep reading for more considerations!

Tsubame is kind to anyone and attempted to do good for him, but ultimately he was never fully himself around her, nor she tried/he alllowed her reaching out to the deepest parts of his insecurities. She doesn't show her own flaws to him either and to this day we get the feeling we don't know her well, just the best parts that Ishigami wanted to see. Kaguya, Miyuki and Chika contribute a lot in a sibling-like way, but there's a limit to how much Kaguya in particular can inspire him. Miko however, has scratched a little beneath the surface and has expressed an interest in helping him with that, even if he himself is still avoiding the topic. She's also more relatable to him in the sense that the rest of the stuco has a history of successes in their lives, while he was able to watch Miko's hardships and failures closely. Their panic attacks even look similar and they're always watching the other to provide backup (in a very roundabout way, at least before) when they happen.

While their personalities are fundamentally different, his arc and struggles remind me a lot of Miyamura from Horimiya and today, as I was musing on what is so different about them as of now, I believe it's how Miyamura didn't have a single *traumatic* mistake to get over, so he goes down his development road much faster. Putting it another way, it's ultimately that Ishigami hasn't yet learned to be kind to himself like Miyamura has through Hori. Like Shirogane and Kaguya are through themselves. In Miyamura's case, sympathizing with how Hori despite her strong exterior can be very fragile inside but still support him (fight for him, defend him, accept his true self, not judge him, hear him, make him feel good enough) made him feel compelled to grow stronger to protect her back.

Miko as she was at the beggining of the story couldn't provide Ishigami this sort of stability (and that's where Osaragi's "prettier story"/"you weren't there for him" reasoning fails) even if deep down she wanted to, but now after making many mistakes, learning from them and becoming more flexible, she absolutely can. Both Ishigami and Miko have deeply rooted issues that took them more than just each other to flesh out and develop, but they're very much the missing puzzle piece the other needs.

Miko still very much has room for growth as well, mainly concerning finding a middle ground between her "bad girl" and "good girl" personas that Ishigami can easily see through, as demonstrated by the consolation chapter. She tried being "bad", she attempted lying but was still saying half-truths, because her love of justice isn't just out of parental abandonment issues or loneliness - she does believe them sincerely. The moment Ishigami headpated her and shared genuine, spot-on words of concern and admiration (thus a hint of fondness), it was all over for her trying to keep up the love-warfare upper hand.

That's not actually new - Ishigami has always demonstrated he was able to see glimpses of her true self, be it teasing how she's an otaku or a closet pervert and such, he never fully bought the strait-laced image she aspired to make real. But it did take him being around her more to see she could be sweet to him and as he puts it, that smiling more is not a bad look on her. Miko says to Osaragi your true self only comes through interacting with others, so given how lonely she has always been (and how the one person close to her - Osaragi - was actually keeping things between them superficial because of her own problems), it's no surprise she's only finding out now who she is. Ishigami can help Miko find a better compromise of good/bad after both not following any rules at all for so long and recently learning that hard work can pay off. Miko immersing herself in his hobby will clash with her rigid study schedule sooner or later, and he'll know how to help her with that better than anyone else.

On the other hand, Ishigami's moral compass, romanticism (love for flowers, planing dates etc) and idealism aren't things he is proud of...yet. He protects himself with layers of cynism, especially in his first appearances, but he is always being contradictory and letting it slip how idealistic/pure he is at heart. He also is only now learning to like his outward image with things like fitness/studying and finding out it's not like he never cared about it - it's just that he was scared shitless of failure, thus never even tried hard in the first place to avoid being hurt. And as I have advocated for in the Sutera post, I expect Miko in some level to help him come to terms with seeing good in himself. Heck, even being able to game with her now and showing off how good he is and having her appreciate it is gonna do wonders to make him feel more "adequate". Tsubame's arc had a lot of him changing himself to become "better", but Miko on the other hand is trying to put herself in HIS shoes to maybe go "hey, I like you as you are. I'm trying to understand you more and put effort in for you".

Ishigami and Miko start out watching out for each other behind their backs - which instead of helping their relationship, drives them further apart because they think the other side is showing no appreciation. As the story progresses, they're slowly learning to make each other more aware of their support, and it is making them open up more in general.

They have a strong belief the other wants to be rescued and there is truth in that. Both want help and to be recognized for their efforts, but won't cry out for it. In the unplugged earbuds chapter Ishigami takes it upon himself to protect Miko's reputation in spite of himself, the election arc has him actually putting effort into the campaign just for the sake of protecting her and at first posing as a rival of hers to Shirogane only to reveal he's trying to "make Miko smile", he is constantly fending off men from interacting with her as protection (while also sounding jealous), he was way more protective of her when she was wearing that cast than needed and is now being able to openly headpat her and sounds almost like her "soothing sounds" from the days of yore lol Sure Tsubame seems like his start to becoming "a better man", but all the way back on the election, it was for Miko's sake that we first SEE him putting effort into *anything* without being coerced by anyone to take action.

And while it's more discreet compared to Ishigami's "white knight" attitude, Miko also tries hard to protect him - cheering him on during the sports festival race and wanting to console him before the stuco intervened, telling him he should study (but he thinks it's just nagging), christmas (which I'll elaborate bellow), making sure he was able to graduate middle school by actually confronting school staff and, of course, their very first meeting as recently revealed.

Many people hated the entirety of Osaragi's arc, but 232 gave very juicy info indeed. Ishigami's reason for supporting Miko from the shadows comes from admiration AND part gratitude for her attempting to talk to him and listen to what troubles him, and seeing they actually had a "falling out" argument was game changing.

He looks sad and troubled to have shut her down there, not simply angry, and so does she (there's tears in her eyes when her face is shown in the next page) - despite her black and white sense of justice at this point of the story, she still wanted to listen to him. And even after that outburst she still believed the rumors weren't real, unlike Osaragi sees it - otherwise she wouldn't have made the effort for him to be able to move on to high school. Why would she care, if she truly hated him and thought he was in the wrong?

If any further proof was needed at all that this info is important, I'm happy to say we have more. I noticed the Christmas stairs scene mirrors this exact falling out moment: "Go away"/"Suit yourself"

But this time Miko had already decided to change, had already seen the mess their relationship became the last time she did not reach out to him and thus already had their previous falling out in mind - meaning she decides to chase after him.

I don't like how the scanlations handled this scene because reading the japanese raws, my interpretation was that Miko was sounding "annoying" because she was still kinda drunk/unfiltered and freaking out when talking to Ishigami, not outright berating him like the Jaimini's box translation made it look like. She also sounds too angry after the fall, so I generally thought Viz's version (the panel shown above) was closer to the original.

"I always have to take care of you! You keep putting youself in danger. You can't make it on your own." is a better translation than Jaimini's, and also parallels better what Ishigami is often telling Miko as well (That she keeps putting herself in danger and that he has to be around to keep her in check). But with 232 in mind, I think it misses a nuance of the original line: "ほんとあんたは 私が居ないと危なっかしく駄目ね" - "Honto anta wa watashi ga inaito abunakkashiku dame ne" - while I'm a novice at japanese studies, gathering from what I can read and trying to get a feel of the whole sentence, it's closer to "So it really is dangerous to you if I'm not there/ It's no good if I'm not around you". You can take that as her being full of herself, which is the route Jaimini's goes ("You'd be screwed without me") but that's too hostile - Viz's got the spirit of wanting to protect him better, but the original has an implication that she has "tested not being there"/failed being there before (due to not fully siding with him in middle school) that's absent elsewhere.

IMO the reason Ishigami's "closed his eyes" arc is not over yet is because he hasn't accepted or gotten over or fully learned from his past yet, he simply shut it down. That's why briefly during the sports festival his eyes are in plain view, then go back to their usual for the balloon gag. I'm not sure if Ootomo herself will make a comeback, may or may not - regrets are regrets and sometimes the only solution to them is letting them stay in the past. But the topic of how he saw Miko in middle school and the letter certainly are being set up to still show up in the story.

If I compare him to Miyamura again, he'd still be at the point before Miyamura's haircut - not wanting to face the parts of himself he doesn't like, not quite ready to change. Not quite ready to patch up his own wounds yet and instead silencing everything from his past.

In this sense, Miko does wonders to make him feel more confident even if he hasn't realized it yet, and she's always dropping little hints she'd like him to worry about his future not in a naggy way, but because she genuinely prays for his success. He unconsciously wants Miko to think well of him and it fills him with confidence and a more prideful image of himself he doesn't really display to anyone else, not even Tsubame - like his usages of "ore" (a more manly/confident way of addressing himself) around her (AND HER ALONE):

( I don't like the available translations to the staircase scene either, lol. Zaibatsu has conveyed the tone of the second scene up there perfectly. For the staircase line, I've seen "I'll be there to catch you" and "I'll save you" which are contextually correct, but to me the original "俺が絶対守る" - "I (ore) will absolutely protect you" carries a much more romantic nuance or ambiguity, regardless of him realizing it at that point. It's like, the title to one of the most romantic moments/songs in the CCS Clear card anime ost, for instance. OF COURSE MIKO LOVES HIM. The narrator doesn't overexplain or take apart Ishimiko's interactions like for Prezguya, but all the evidence needed is there. And I gotta add the very next chapter to the staircase one is the "eternal love" x "real love" I'm super fond of that says fate is irrelevant and to find real love you must use your head to realize/understand things, so makes the romantic subtext even greater.)

This whole affair is also making me open my eyes that I should try to study japanese more...of course I'm happy to have translations and scanlators working hard, but there is something inherently lost in adaptations because it robs you of connecting with the author's intentions unless it was the author who wrote the translation in the first place

Thinking back on Ishigami's early "i wanna die/i'm going home/don't look at me" role, it seems unbelievable we're at the point he's now able to directly confront a "stranger" (lololol) or make serious promises with so much confidence.

PLEASE DON'T END SO SOON MANGA, I NEED MORE.

( off-topic kind of, but i'm lazy to make a separate post just for it: Since I mentioned things lost in translation, I saw something on Discord about Ishigami having an unreliable narrator moment in the "compliments" chapter/Iino Miko cannot love part 4 and holy molly, it is true. He first says something akin to "You're just too beautiful" out of context, Miko HEARS IT - and that's why she looks so shocked before asking for clarification - and he DID SAY IT in the speech bubble, but after she's nice to him and he thinks back to what he said he adds a "Your handwriting is just too beautiful" to his flashback. I'm ONTO HIM. ONTO HIM I SAY. It is what he meant, but it's like his mouth betrayed him. Whether it's unconscious or denial...it totally is something. The scanlation completely skips this and had the same line both times it's mentioned.)

"Eheheheh ... hehehehe ... ahahahaha!" Magolor couldn’t stop laughing. "My plan was a huge success! I'm a genius!" Even when he looked behind him, there was no pursuer to be found. He stopped and looked up at the sky.

The skies of the Town of Wind were always hazy with smoke emitted from factories and steam locomotives, but in that smoky sky, there was a beautiful dream-like ship floating so high up it was invisible from the ground.

"Please wait, Lor ... " Magolor murmured. The Lor Starcutter, a mysterious ship made from ancient technology.

Although the truth was hazy due to various legends surrounding it, it was said that if the pilot’s heart was true, they could cross over to a different world. 

But the Lor was broken. It could not move because some of its parts were missing. Magolor had long sought parts to move the Lor, but the ship was made from the power of an ancient civilization and thus could not be repaired with ordinary parts. It needed gears from that ancient civilization. Such precious items, how would someone obtain them?

Magolor, at a loss, heard a rumor. A millionaire in Diamond Town was secretly looking for someone who could read ancient characters. Apparently, an ancient machine had been found in the mines and was currently being investigated.

 ...  Maybe, there would be parts for the Lor there.

Thinking so, Magolor rushed to Diamond Town. The ancient machine was more powerful than he had imagined. If he could find the extracted gears, his dream would surely come true. He would be able to move the ship of dreams, Lor. Thus, Magolor began to come up with a plan to gather the gears.

First, he needed to find their locations. Recalling a story that Kirby, an airplane pilot, had received the Star Compass, Magolor decided to use him. Once the locations were known, next, he had to choose someone who was likely to get the three gears. If Magolor left it to Kirby alone, he might gather the gears in the blink of an eye and deliver them to Mr. Fugo immediately, so he decided to split up the information between several people. 

Magolor chose President Dedede, next. Although President Dedede had lost many times in a row to Kirby in the races, he still seemed to have good skill as an airplane pilot. He would be perfect for finding the gear on the clock tower.

And finally, there was Meta Knight in the Town of Light. It was unusual for an aristocrat to be so adventurous, so he should have an interest in the ancient machine.

Magolor’s operation was a great success. All three of them got the gears beautifully. He worried when Meta Knight had deciphered the description of the ancient machine, but in the end it wasn't a problem. No, that, in fact, was why everyone got together, and why the three gears aligned in the box he now held. It was rather convenient for him.

Now, all that had to be done was for the gears to be delivered to the Lor. If it took in the ancient power of the gears, the Lor would finally be able to wake from its long slumber and move again.

Before that, though, he had to first escape the town before he was found by his pursuers.

Magolor had started running again on the road leading to the town gate when several men suddenly appeared and blocked his path. He stopped quickly. The men dressed in black and wore matching badges. Fugo's subordinates, Magolor immediately knew. He winced. He couldn’t afford to let the gears he had be taken away. Somehow, he had to deceive and dodge them. Magolor waved one hand and laughed amiably.  

"Wow, Mr. Fugo’s men! Did you all come to meet me~? I’m glad, thank you!"

" …………… " 

The men were expressionless and silent. They gradually approached Magolor. Then, from behind the men, someone began to emerge—it was Mr. Fugo.

"There you are, Professor Magolor. Where are you going in such a hurry?" he said with a smile. Magolor looked at Mr. Fugo's face. That gentle smile ... he could not tell what Fugo was thinking.

(—I fooled you, are you aware ... Have you not noticed yet ... I wonder?) 

Magolor did not know. Now, it was all or nothing. He mustered all of his might and spoke in a cute voice.

"Ah, Mr. Fugo! I got the gears! I was just about to deliver them to you ... " However, at that moment, a big net dropped from above and enveloped him immediately.

"WAHHH!?" Suspended by the net, Magolor was trapped.

"W-w-what are you doing!?"

Mr. Fugo gazed at the suspended Magolor with a cold smile. "I never trusted you from the beginning. I knew you were strange and kept an eye on you. After all, my eyes were right." 

" …………… " 

"Trying to escape with the gears. You have good courage, plenty, I’ll have you know. Now, hand them over."

Magolor looked up at the sky. The lie had been exposed from the beginning ... Mr. Fugo had been examining him too closely. It was too late, but—when Mr. Fugo's men tried to remove the net, a bright red sports car came rushing in at incredible speeds. It screeched to a halt. Mr. Fugo’s subordinates jumped out of the way.

Of course, the one driving the sports car was Meta Knight, and in the passenger’s seat was Daroach. Daroach jumped from the car and lifted Magolor up, still wrapped in the net. 

"Oh, Mr. Fugo, he’s caught the guy before us. Thanks, that saves us a lot of trouble." Daroach threw Magolor into the back seat of the car and jumped back into the passenger seat. 

"See you!" The car tried to start suddenly, but Mr. Fugo came back to his senses. 

"Oh, you guys! Don’t be ridiculous! Take the gears!" he shouted. Mr. Fugo’s subordinates quickly surrounded the car. One person threw knives at the car’s tires. They were flattened instantly. Meta Knight raised his voice in anger.

"What are you doing! What if you scratch my car! And my tires! Those were custom-made products that had intensive research put into them to produce the fastest speed in the world!"

"Hey, hey. This isn’t the place to get angry," Daroach said. "Fugo's minions are vicious. We need to take them seriously!" The men in black suddenly attacked. Daroach swiftly put on his top hat and cloak, then grabbed his cane.

"Silk, red top hat and cloak ... You! You're the thief who snuck into my mansion and stole the material on the ancient machine ...! " Mr. Fugo shouted.

"I’m not just any thief. I am the great thief, Daroach! Remember it!" Daroach brandished his cane. A fierce cold wind and a wave of ice were expelled from its tip. Mr. Fugo's subordinates faltered, but they weren’t going to stand around to get done in. 

"Don't flinch! There are only two thieves!" 

"Catch them!" They attacked, yelling. One of the men jumped from behind Daroach. Meta Knight quickly picked up the rose in his chest pocket and threw it.

"Augh!" The rose hit the enemy's hand. He winced and stepped back.  

Daroach sighed in relief. "I was saved. That rose, isn’t it just a decoration!?" he shouted.

"It's not a decoration. It's a gentleman's grace." Then, Meta Knight pulled out the feathers attached to his top hat and threw them.

"Ugh!" Weapons fell from the enemy's hands. Daroach whistled.

"You're the best! You should scout for the Squeak Squad!" However, the number of enemies became overwhelming. Like the heads of a hydra—even when you defeated one, it was as if two more took their place. They came one after another. The tires of the car had been flattened; they could not leave. The pair were gradually cornered and began to be put at the disadvantage.

"This is bad ... at this rate ...! " It was when Daroach yelled out—there was a roaring sound and a strong wind blew. Daroach, Meta Knight, and Mr. Fugo's men were all staggered by the intense gale. Flying overhead was the Warp Star!

"Kirby!" Meta Knight shouted.

"Have you finally caught up? It's about time!" Daroach said, relieved. Then, the roaring sound was heard again. As if chasing Kirby, the Great King DDD XX appeared. The two planes diverted to the square nearby. Kirby and Waddle Dee jumped from the Warp Star, and President Dedede jumped from the Great King DDD XX. 

"Daroach! Have you caught Magolor!?" President Dedede asked.

"Not quite," Daroach loudly replied. "As you see, we could use some help!" 

"What!?" President Dedede glared at Mr. Fugo's subordinates. "They won’t take the gears! I’ll fight alongside you!" In the hands of the president was an oversized hammer; a weapon that was loaded onto his plane in case of an emergency.

"TAKE THIS—!" President Dedede swung the hammer. The men in black were blown away all at once. "Wahaha! Did you know my true capability!?"

"You bastard!" New subordinates rushed in without delay. They drew their weapons.

"I won't let you do that!" Kirby shouted. He spread both hands and took a deep breath. Kirby’s forte, Inhale!

"Aughhhh!" The men’s weapons were sucked into Kirby's mouth one after another. The odds turned in their favor! 

"W-what are these guys!" 

"Too strong ...! " The subordinates paled and stepped back. President Dedede turned and laughed out loud.  

"Wahaha! Weak, weak! You are no match for this President Dedede!" He swung his hammer around and bashed away the enemies in front of him. It was then—

"WAHHHHH! HELP ME ..! " a scream resounded. Waddle Dee.

Waddle Dee, hidden behind an airplane, was found by the enemy. A man in black held him up with one hand. 

"Look! I've caught your companion!" he shouted in an unfeeling voice. Kirby froze.

"Waddle Dee ...! What are you going to do, you ...! " President Dedede shouted.

"I’m sorry, President ... " Waddle Dee shook as he was gripped by the enemy.

"Stop! Let Waddle Dee go!" Kirby said, but the enemy was unresponsive. Waddle Dee shut his eyes tightly. Mr. Fugo stepped forward with satisfaction. 

"—It seems the game has come to an end." 

Kirby and the others glared at him, but there was nothing they could do. Waddle Dee had been taken hostage. "Drop your weapons," he said with a smile.

The group looked at each other. 

"I told you to drop them, didn't you hear? Then, this will be painful." Mr. Fugo gave a signal to the subordinate holding Waddle Dee.

"STOP!" It was Kirby who shouted. He raised his hands. "We lost. Please, release Waddle Dee!" he said.

"Kirby, you ...! " Meta Knight tried to stop him, but President Dedede dropped his hammer and spoke.

"Your weapons ... drop them. Meta Knight, Daroach."

"What did you say!?"

"I'm sorry. This is all because of my stupid subordinate ... " President Dedede hung his head. Kirby was shocked. He had never seen the president like this before.  

"You’re going to surrender? You're just going to give him the gears!?" Daroach said, frustrated. 

" ... Yeah ... I am ... "  President Dedede said in a weak voice. "Waddle Dee, we can’t abandon him ... " 

"President Dedede!"

" ... I’m sorry! Please!" He couldn’t raise his face. Seeing that, Meta Knight put his red rose back into his chest pocket. Daroach sighed and dropped his cane on the ground as well. Mr. Fugo’s eyes shone.

"Good! Then, let's get the gears!" His subordinates walked over to Magolor and removed the net. Magolor could not resist. Mr. Fugo was then handed the box containing the three gears. He checked the contents and burst into laughter. "Alright! I’ve got them! Now, the ancient machine is at my disposal!"

A black luxury car pulled up. Fugo got in and began giving out orders.

"To the mine! Head to the discovery site of the ancient machine! Take the hostage, too." He looked to his subordinate who held Waddle Dee. He nodded, and got into the car with him in hand. 

"Release Waddle Dee!" Kirby said.

"I’ll release him once the ancient machine is activated. Until then, he’s coming with me." 

"That’s ... so underhanded!" 

"Mmhmhmhm ... " Mr. Fugo then ordered the driver to start the car.  

"I'll chase you!" President Dedede yelled. He jumped into his plane. Daroach quickly followed him.

"Give me a ride, President. Meta Knight’s car had its tires punctured." 

"Alright, get in." The Great King DDD XX carried the two and soared high into the sky. "By the way, Daroach. What’s with that outfit?" President Dedede asked as he watched Mr. Fugo's car traveling below.

"Hm?"

"That red, silk top hat and cloak—I’ve never seen it before. What happened? Is it to match with Meta Knight?" President Dedede didn't know what Daroach was yet. Daroach put a hand on his hat and laughed.

"Well, I just wanted a bit of a change. When all this is over, I'll return to my café manager self." 

" ... Hmm. I don’t really get it," President Dedede said and shook his head.

    At the same time, Meta Knight and Magolor were on board Kirby's Warp Star. 

"Thank you, Meta Knight. For putting down your weapon for Waddle Dee," Kirby said as he flew the plane.

"In that situation, I wouldn’t have done anything else. And, Kirby—" 

"It’s okay, Kirby!"

"Kirby. Is there a strategy?" 

"Huh? Strategy?" 

"’I feel like if we get the gears, there will be some kind of big change.’ That’s what you were thinking, right?"

"Ehh!?" Kirby was surprised. "Amazing! How did you know what I was thinking, Meta Knight?" 

"I wonder how, too. With you, I don't feel like this is the first time we’ve met."

"Really? I do too. It's mysterious."

"Me too!" Magolor, sitting alongside Meta Knight in the back seat, shouted. "Kirby and Meta Knight, it’s as if you’re old friends. Strange!"

" ... And you ... " Meta Knight looked disgusted. He tried to say something, but Magolor quickly continued. 

"I pretended to trick you and run away with the gears to lure Fugo, and hey! It worked! "

" ... Lies." 

"It’s not a lie. I put on that act because I wanted to help everyone." But Meta Knight didn't seem to trust him at all. He turned away from Magolor and looked up at the sky.

"Airplanes are much faster than cars. They’re quite good ... Maybe I'll buy some ... " he murmured.

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part of having written carver since like. 2013/14 is that i can never remember which topics i’ve posted meta on but i’m pretty sure i haven’t discussed his banter with fenris in-depth on this blog yet.

i think something that rubs me the wrong way about the way carver and fenris often interact in fan work is that there tends to be an underlying and fundamental misunderstanding about why carver approaches fenris in the manner he does. i’ve seen a lot of carver talking out of his ass to fenris for no reason other than a ) he thinks he knows better, and/or b ) his overly critical eye wants to fault-find. + he’s annoying or smth to that effect. 🙄

these interpretations tend to neglect the actual driving force behind carver interacting with fenris in the first place, and that’s that carver has had little exposure to other warriors. apart from his time in king cailin’s army, he was peerless ( literally ) in his field, and only interacted with his fellow swordspeople when they passed through town via the imperial highway. 

now, there is aveline, of course, but the writing makes it clear that aveline takes on the role of yet another older sibling ( or family of a similar, authoritative position ) in his life, and as such, doesn’t quite qualify as a peer in the traditional sense.

this likely isn’t the most flattering way of phrasing it, but carver wants friends. people who he can relate to, who share his interests and background, who find him as compelling as he finds them. carver may seem prickly or sullen in act i ( and he certainly is at times ), but he’s also experiencing two-prongs of isolation:

     1 ) cultural, as a fereldan refugee in a city-state that doesn’t try to hide its hatred of foreign asylum-seekers, and      2 ) mundane, as a displaced young man who has never quite fit in at home nor in any village they've settled in, and who has recently lost the family member closest to him, and who watches his surviving sibling pick up new companions left and right as if it’s not at all difficult.

cut to fenris, who is a consummate swordsman. and while carver is initially on edge because he's under the impression fenris could pose a threat to hawke, once the tension is dispelled, he's far from opposed to fenris's presence. if anything, carver is eager for his approval. fenris is, aside from aveline, the only warrior carver gets to spend any considerable amount of time with, and he's singular in his skill and ability. it's plain to see why someone like carver, starved for peers, would want to establish some kind of rapport with someone as exemplary as fenris.

the problem is, naturally, that carver — nineteen and having never learned to read socialize properly, due in equal parts to growing up sheltered as well as having poor self-confidence — cannot stop himself from saying shit that is so mind-blowingly stupid, that it is a wonder fenris was as forbearing as he was. i'm talking about:

Carver: So... this master of yours wants your markings back? Skin and all? Fenris: So his hunters told me. Unwillingly. Carver: So why not cover them up? Wouldn't that make you harder to find? Fenris: Let them come. I am not one to hide. Carver: Still, if it were me— Fenris: It's not. ─────── Carver: So you've really never thought of hiding from those hunters? Fenris: To what end? Carver: So you could, I don't know, have a life? Fenris: What life do you have? There are no hunters after you at all.

i feel like it should be obvious why these banters are in bad taste, so i won’t go into detail to lambaste carver over his blatant ignorance. the dialogue is proof itself, especially considering how little of fenris’s experience carver ( or anyone else for that matter ) can truly comprehend. 

what i will do, true to form, is explain that no, carver did not just pull that suggestion, careless as it was, out of his ass. while hawke may or may not do their best to lay low as an apostate, potentially choosing to engage then-knight-captain cullen over the unjust treatment of mages depending on player discretion, carver has internalized how malcolm guided the family. his father taught them to keep their heads down and be prepared to hit the road in case the circle caught scent of them? then that must be the best way to approach it. emotional neglect unfortunately primed carver to idealize and adopt malcolm's choices and general philosophy. this carries over even to legacy, where, regardless of carver's current character arc, carver will agree that malcolm was correct to keep secrets.

so there's fenris, right, who carver believes is in a position similar to that which the hawkes have been in. carver, attempting to help ( as he is wont to do ), wants to share what had worked for them in attaining a semblance of normalcy, not realizing or considering that that is not fenris's foremost goal. hiding is not a one-size fix-all solution, but carver hasn't expanded his horizons well enough to grasp that fully yet.

then there's largest contributors to my secondhand embarrassment in da2:

Carver: You're very different from other elves. Fenris: Oh? You know them all? Carver: No. I just... you look different. There's no denying that. Fenris: It is what I am. And unlike the problems you claim to have, I really did have no choice. Carver: Do we know anyone who isn't brooding every hour of the day? Fenris: Like attracts like, it seems. ─────── Carver: You know, Fenris, I have a tattoo. Fenris: You have a what? Carver: A tattoo. A lot of us got them before Ostagar. It's a Mabari. For strength. Fenris: Does it curse you with the ability to reach into a man and tear out his insides? Carver: Uh. I can make it bark. Fenris: Please don't.

i’ll start with the second one first. at its heart, the tattoo banter hearkens back to the fact carver wants to feel like he has something in common with someone. yes, it is cringe. but it’s also misguidedly sweet, and on top of that, it’s something carver also tries to do with merrill, who carver arguably has the friendliest dynamic with out of hawke’s crew. 

Carver: Your people came a long way Merrill, but I like to think that we have Ferelden in common. Merrill: I never saw Lothering. Did you walk as much as we did? Probably more, you didn't start with halla. Our ship stunk. Carver: Your ship? Merrill: There was something foul in the hold. I can still smell it. Carver: Oh, well, that must have been unpleasant. Merrill: It was. Did I miss something dirty again? Carver: No.

speaking of parallels, the “you’re very different from other elves” dialogue mirrors this one with merrill:

Carver: So, you're not like a lot of other girls. Merrill: No, I'm an elf. Carver: Right. Alright then. Merrill: Oh, did I miss something dirty? Carver: What? No! It wasn't dirty. It wasn't anything.

yes, i took 42069 points of psychic damage from reading that too. but the main takeaway from this is that carver is trying, poorly, to make the two people he thinks he could be friends with feel like they’re special. ( you know, like how carver wishes he was. lol. ) to disastrous results. but i think it’s more than worth mentioning that the intent behind his conversation-making is never once condescending. 

and it’s not like carver lacks self-awareness, either. after he becomes a warden and returns to the party for mark of the assassin, he admits he lacked polish.

Aveline: I'm glad you found a place with the Wardens. Carver: Well, it's not the city guard, but it'll do. Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you. Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I?

Carver: So, we're lost. Varric: Just like old times. Carver: Maker, I hope not. I was an ass. Varric: (laughs) Fair comment, Junior. All right, let's get this done.

and specifically to fenris:

Carver: Orlesians. Can't build a hallway without turning it into a maze. Fenris: Keep going. I'm sure your training will kick in any moment. Carver: Still don't like me? I've tried to change. Fenris: You have. Now you're dangerous. Let's move.

i don’t know how to end this nearly 1.5k meta, so tl;dr i guess

Sorting Persona 4

Here again with another Sorting Hat Chats post! This one’s for Persona 4. Full disclaimer; this is based just on the game, not the anime. Also it’s behind a cut cause it is LONG. And has spoilers.

The system I’m using is explained here by @wisteria-lodge.

The Persona 4 MC, whose name is either Souji Seta or Yu Narukami depending on which supplemental materials you go by, is a really REALLY loud Badger secondary. His power is based on making Social Links with NPCs and shifting to become whatever they need-and also on patiently grinding to level up his attributes. And because he lives so much in this secondary-plus the fact that on a meta level he’s kind of a stand-in for the player-his Primary is hard to see.

But where it gets revealed in the end is the decisive moment when the ending you’re going to get is decided. The Investigation Team have discovered that Namatame’s been putting people into the TV, and thus are assuming he’s the murderer-and it’s become horribly personal, because one of the people he did that to was Nanako, and even though she’s been rescued, she’s deathly ill thanks to the TV World’s poison.

And now you-and the MC-have a choice. The IT are baying for Namatame’s blood, ready to kill. One Badger Primary method would be to appeal to the fact that he’s a person, you can’t just kill people….but nobody’s listening. Another would be to dehumanise him and say, he’s a murderer, he needs to die for the sake of everyone-going along with all the fury of the group. A Lion would lash out too-less because everyone’s doing it and more from their own gut feeling, but that would still lead to dead Namatame. A Snake might kill Namatame because he hurt Nanako...or, in the Golden remake, if they’ve done Adachi’s social link, they might cover for him. Either way, they’d be prioritising an inner circle member.

And all of those get you bad endings. Especially the Snake choice to cover for Adachi.

What gets the good ending, the happy ending where the MC is fulfilled and at peace, is to ignore all the emotion that’s running so high, and order everyone to step back and take time to think about whether the theory of Namatame being the killer makes sense. Pounce on the niggling little detail that doesn’t fit, and realise that the assumption everyone is labouring under isn’t true. And then prioritise the actual truth over personal loyalties or emotional reactions.

Bird Primary.

Because of course. This is a detective story. Your party are called both the Investigation Team and the Seekers of Truth. Even the title song hints at it; find the truth (Bird) by getting together with others (Badger).

Yosuke Hanamura’s a young, immature Snake Primary at game start, with the selfishness typical to that. His Shadow throws that back in his face, and he realises he doesn’t like being an asshole whose secret gut reaction to murders happening is ‘well at least I’m not bored anymore now something is happening in this dead-end town’.

So he does two things pretty much at the same time; he widens his inner circle to let in first Souji and then the rest of the IT, and he adds a model on top to let him care about things outside that circle. I think it’s a Lion model-a young Lion, just like his Snake, that edges into Glory Hound, but keeps hold of the idea that you should do certain things because they’re just right.

(It’s not based on the MC, though the MC is undoubtedly his most important person, who he even calls his partner. But then, as I said, the MC’s Bird is very quiet, so it’d be hard for Yosuke to perceive it well enough to mimic it. I think it’s actually based on Chie, who is after all the inner circle member he has known longest!)

And his secondary? Yosuke’s a support guy. He lifts his friends up. His family run Junes, and he leverages that connection to create a base location for the IT and secure a portal into the TV world that’s big enough to be usable. When Teddie comes to the human world, it’s Yosuke who gives him a place to stay. He’s a Badger secondary, and again, this makes perfect sense. The Lover sorting. No wonder so much of the fandom ships him with the MC.

Chie Satonaka is LOUD and BRASH and if you are a jerk she will KICK YOU IN THE FACE. She is so goddamn Lion Secondary, and utterly unapologetic about it.

Her primary, I think, is Lion again. The reason she has gotten possessive of Yukiko (as her Shadow calls her out on) isn’t that she wants Yukiko to be just hers-it’s that she wants to be Yukiko’s knight. Saving the princess is actually a textbook Lion cause. It lets her feel heroic and brave.

But that’s not good for either of them. Damsel in distress is a shitty role, one that doesn’t allow Yukiko to be strong and capable herself, and Chie pushing Yukiko into that role is really straining their relationship. It’s also something that Chie herself knows is wrong-that’s why her Shadow accuses her of it. (“I am a Shadow, the true self...”)

So instead Chie changes gears, because oh look a new Cause just popped up! Find the killer and bring them to justice! And on top of that, there’s always sexist prats to kick.

Yukiko Amagi models Badger Primary, because it’s expected of her. Running an inn is a really Badger kind of job. She also models Badger Secondary, for the same reasons. She feels this is who she’s meant to be; sweet, gentle, socially adept, community-focused and hard-working. The traditional Japanese ideal of womanhood.

But it chafes. The weight of societal expectations feels crushing. She doesn’t want to do stuff just because she’s meant to, because people think she should. She’s an Internal Primary, and needs to follow the voice of her own heart.

And where that heart leads her...is back to the Amagi Inn, except now she’s decided that she’s doing this for herself. She needed to feel that she could actually choose to not inherit the inn, before she could realise that she wanted to run it. She’s a Snake Primary, and the inn is important to her because it’s hers.

Her secondary...actually I get the feeling she’s like Toph Beifong of Avatar, a Snake who likes to spend most of her time in neutral. She is delightfully quirky and weird, and owns that, but she doesn’t charge like a Lion and she’s comfy with wearing masks when the situation calls for it.

Kanji Tatsumi panics at the idea that he might be gay, and caretakes like a boss, and that might look at first sight like a Double Badger who’s scared that he might be one of the people he’s used to dehumanising. His Shadow screams that it wants to be accepted...but what calms it is when Kanji himself accepts it, and says that this resolution is about being true to himself. Kanji’s a Double Lion who burnt his primary because being given shit for the feminine, queer-coded parts of himself made him lose faith in his internal compass, worrying that it was leading him somewhere that he viewed as bad. Internalised homophobia’s a bitch of a thing.

Accepting his Shadow is the start of Kanji healing his primary-letting go of shame for being an oddball and telling the world to go fuck itself if it thinks it can make him conform. He does model Badger Secondary-as I said, he caretakes like a boss-but that’s more a thing he does as a gift to others. When it comes to solving problems, he charges in swinging, ready to beat up anyone from biker gangs to otherworldly monsters.

Rise Kujikawa is a cheerful, shameless Snake Primary, loving and ambitious. She became an idol to make friends, and enjoys the fame it gets her. And when she needs to take a break for the sake of her mental health, she has no compunctions about doing so.

But she needed that break because the idol life was stressing her out-unsurprisingly, it’s a really intense life. And the particular problem she had was to do with the conflicting expectations the public has of celebrities. Perfection is demanded...but so is authenticity.

Rise realised that she was face-shifting as an integral part of her career, and this knowledge sent her into a tailspin. The fans don’t like the real Rise Kujikawa-they like Risette. But who is the real Rise Kujikawa? She doesn’t know! It’s frightening! What if she’s just made of smoke and mirrors? How does she find out what’s underneath?

And the answer she comes to is that there is no real Rise Kujikawa...which is the same as saying that there is no false one. Rise is Risette is Rise, it’s all just her, adapting to the context as she needs to. She’s a Badger Secondary, and the act of performance is the true self.

And for her, that’s a good answer-it brings her peace. But now we need to talk about Teddie.

Because just hearing Rise say ‘there’s no real me’ sends Teddie into a Shadow crisis right there.

He completely fucking loses it. He’s a denizen of the TV world-he’s been immune to it all this time, never manifesting a Shadow, but this is what breaks him. And that just screams Bird Lion. It’s his Buzz Lightyear moment-or rather his first Buzz Lightyear moment, because there are two. This is the first, and he survives it by retreating into his Secondary. It allows him to bring Shadow Teddie under control...but this isn’t sustainable. He’s realised something terrible and can’t avoid that knowledge indefinitely.

And soon enough he admits it to himself (and to the MC). He is a Shadow, that somehow became self-aware. His Truth was never true. He can’t handle it, he has no idea how to even exist, and he outright tells the MC that he intends to commit suicide.

He recovers, though-and he does so because the MC tells him Nanako survived. That’s the first thing that gives him a glimmer of hope, because his Truth already had some Snakey elements in there about chosen people and ambitions. He comes back from the brink, reshapes his system to centre those Snake principles, and returns to the side of his friends.

Lastly, Naoto Shirogane, our other queer-coded character. (I’m using she pronouns for the sake of canon here-but I’m a firm believer in nonbinary Naoto, for the record.) I think she’s a Bird secondary-the only one of those here, jeez. She’s just so analytical. She’s a rapid-fire Bird too, Detective Prince working on a case, squarely in the middle of her comfort zone. But push her out of it-into a normal teenager social situation, say-and watch her squirm!

She has a Bird Primary performance, too. But performance is the operative word here. She’s trying to look adult and smart and collected, in order to be taken seriously by the police officers she works with. And she is smart, mind you, but that’s not the why of her though it is the how. It’s not Naoto who goes ‘wait, let’s think about this, we need more information’ at the crucial point, but the MC, who really is a Bird Primary. Naoto was the one to suggest doing a little vigilante justice vis-a-vis murdering Namatame.

Her real Primary is Lion. Being a detective is a Cause for her, not a Truth, and she is blazingly certain of her own sense of what’s right-so much so that she doesn’t stop and check it against other people’s. And she inspires people! She doesn’t even mean to, and certainly doesn’t know why, but she is just so cool that people flock to her and admire her. ‘The Detective Prince’ is, when you think about it, a really Lion Bird kind of title!

Her Shadow has two issues with her. First, it harps on the gender angle. Hey, self, there’s that thing about your identity that you’ve been refusing to think about! You need to go poke at it! And then it breaks down into a scared child. Self, your performance is eating you alive. You need to do it, yes, the Cause demands it, but you also need to be able to stop sometimes and let yourself have emotions!

In short:

MC/Souji/Yu: Bird primary, Badger secondary

Yosuke: Snake primary, Badger secondary, models Lion primary

Chie: Lion primary, Lion secondary

Yukiko: Snake primary, Snake secondary, with Badger primary and secondary models that start out pretty unhealthy for her. 

Kanji: Lion primary that starts out burnt and begins to unburn after his Shadow fight, Lion secondary. Models Badger secondary.

Rise: Snake primary, Badger secondary

Teddie: Bird primary, Lion secondary. Falls dramatically and recovers by shaping his system to be more Snakelike.

Naoto: Lion primary, Bird secondary, performs Bird primary

get in we’re pondering / extrapolating some pt lore (there’s a tl;dr paragraph at the very end ;w;)

often musing about the overarching Theme/s in the series where there's like, these axes of, hope vs despair, self sacrifice (often to protect others) vs being protected by others (often to prevent self sacrifice), and i was thinking about how those protective self sacrifices (which often generally contain some aspect of hope And despair, the former in that someone is taking an action in the hopes of protecting someone, the latter in that they don't have any hope of any less (potentially) self destructive course to pursue to achieve that, or else they'd be doing that instead) do succeed at least in part. we don't really know what's going on with tutu in the story besides disappearing / turning into a point of light, but she exists outside of the story too and manifests in ways clearly associated with hope, & i think we can infer that her appearance/disappearance in the story did have this effect for mytho in giving him hope b/c like, how can it be a coincidence that the heart shard of Hope happens to be the one used to let someone become tutu, or that mytho was able to feel hope prior to technically have the capacity for it when thinking about her and then recognize as much in retrospect. and mytho himself sacrifices his own heart to protect everyone from the raven, rue sacrificing herself saves mytho from the raven in turn, and what i'm getting around to is that i was thinking about how sacrifices are never in vain, except for the knight's, but then i was like, well hey, what if because the rules of this story do seem to Always Reward tragic self sacrifices (surely at least in part to Incentivize it from the characters, b/c the sacrifices made wholly out of despair are apparently just people losing their hearts to the raven, f, and characters making sacrifices in the hopes of protecting someone have to actually have that hope at all), maybe the knight's death wasn't really Useless

and maybe it's relevant that the knight presumably wasn't intending to die right then, there's no implication that like, he was pushing the prince out of the way taking a bullet for him, just that the knight meant to attack the raven but didn't even manage to do that and got killed instead. but i think we can suppose that the knight was just always willing to die for the prince and there's this degree of inherent sacrifice in that already, as well as in being so devoted to the prince and protecting him, which the knight must've done plenty of even if, in the moment he was killed, there was no direct achievement in protecting mytho / siegfried / the prince. and i doubt that the way the prince felt about it was actually like "oh my god, useless" rather than that the knight did die For Him, even if mytho wasn't in immediate mortal danger that could've only been thwarted by the knight's death, and even if the knight presumably didn't Know he would die and actually choose that, because of accepting it as his only option to protect mytho. and it's evident throughout the series that characters being Real allows them to act in ways drosselmeyer doesn't predict or hasn't directed them to act or doesn't even necessarily know about, thinking of details like, mytho knowing his name is siegfried doesn't seem to come from any Text of drosselmeyer's in the story, or else people would know the prince has a name besides "the prince," and who knows, maybe drosselmeyer's unwritten hcs are part of the reality of his stories lol, but that's a fun mystery element, and beyond that these characters were all people with full lives and interiority that were not / could not have been written in full detail in the story's text and almost certainly weren't / couldn't have been Thought Out in full by drosselmeyer like that.

and i'm just thinking about how the knight is the only prominent character who outright dies in the unfinished story, aside from various, presumably not individually described/named people in the kingdom being killed by the raven, and possible details not mentioned in the series, like idk, whether or not mytho's parent/s died at some point in the course of the story. tutu's disappearance is too ambiguously magical to really call it a death, although it's a Tragic Fate intended to write her out of the story, and there's no indication of kraehe / the concept of The Raven's Daughter existing in the story, since in the first season kraehe is really fully standing in for the raven as the main villain / antagonist, with the raven not being shown or mentioned by her until the second season, and fakir just directly referring to kraehe as a crow or raven during that first season, and what with the idea in the second season that rue was just some random person the raven stole and presumably made up the concept of there being a [the raven's daughter] role. 

(even though when kraehe appears in season one it's clearly a swan lake / odile thing, and i guess you could conceivably wonder like "hey, is she the daughter of some rothbart equivalent here. like the story raven as the primary antagonist"....that's all Meta beyond the series's metatextual layers and, since idk, characters know of these other classic ballets, i guess it's possible swan lake as a ballet exists too. nobody's mentioning anything though lol. now i'm like.....okay so another tchaikovsky composed ballet was relevant / known in the sleeping beauty episode, where electricity was also a thing people were aware existed, if rare, not sure when this series was set but late 19th century seems plausible enough and swan lake wasn't immediately popular so maybe it exists but is too niche lore for these characters to be familiar with it lmao.....but then i'm like wait hang on. what if it must be after 1892 because the dance of the sugarplum fairy playing when ahiru walks in on mytho practicing seems to be diagetic. and then i'm like, nijinksy was only born in 1890, and didn't perform afternoon of a faun until 1912, and that seems just a little late, although at the same time everyone's existing in a fairy tale town and it could feasibly be any point in time outside of that. this tangent is going on way too long and my Real Conclusion of course is that we're not really meant to match up any timeline with the In Real Life timelines of when ballets premiered and became popular / established as Classics)

back to the point: out of the four main roles, tutu magically and mysteriously disappeared but didn't outright die the way that the human knight was definitely killed, and the duck who is given her powers / role is apparently truly just some random duck who happened to care for mytho (thinking about his apparent affinity for birds and theirs for him), kraehe was probably not a part of the story at all as the daughter of the raven and rue is apparently just some random baby who was kidnapped, mytho didn't die because he's the same self he was from the story, uninterrupted, and the knight did die, and fakir is just some kid but is also apparently identified as the reincarnation of that knight. and, whether or not that's just some coincidence or meant to be true, it's true for all intents and purposes since fakir found mytho and chose to devote himself to protecting him and is aware of / thinks of himself as the knight, and if the raven and drosselmeyer could've picked some random babies and ducks to have roles in the story, it shouldn't actually be a detriment to fakir if he's actually also just some guy who chose to be the knight rather than also actually already that knight reincarnated. the roles of both tutu and lohengrin are supposed to be intrinsically limited by their same roles as written in the story, where clearly drosselmeyer, wanting conflict and drama and peak effective tragedy, and kraehe / the raven as antagonists to these two, expect and want tutu to willingly vanish again and the knight to wield his sword and, at some point here, die. which, in season one, it seems likely enough that although fakir wasn't exactly instantly torn apart by the raven attack that Got him, he would've died if not for edel's intervention altering the story. anyway, assuming the roles comes from Choosing it / being willing to accept it and having some sort of magical artifact access out here, ahiru having a heart shard, rue having...raven blood and the fact that there's also the like, actual ravens out there who are Also magic b/c they're doing evil stuff, and turning into cursed pointe shoes and attacking canaries so the prince might jump out a window to save one, and fakir having magic swords. as well as, you know, the prince, the most magic artifact of all, truly

i'm kind of losing the point there lmfao just getting into details in a tangent. what i was trying to point out is that yeah, the knight's the only one of the four main roles who was clearly, officially, violently killed in the story. and then i was thinking about how, as far as i can think, it kind of comes totally out of nowhere in season two that like, oh hey, also fakir is a descendent of drosselmeyer's and i guess has that same magic writing ability. not that i think these season two framework shifts like That, or like kraehe being the daughter of the raven instead of just directly standing in for the raven as a concept and character, or like "oh right and also i'd poisoned mytho back in the season one finale" weren't possibly in mind the whole time, Or that if they weren't that's a problem, Or that either way, they needed to be foreshadowed / set up Textually in season one or anything, since you do need to change things up for there to Be a season two that doesn't have to retread the conflicts in the same way, and that's what these shifts allow for. it's still just that the effect is like, oh damn, fakir isn't just The Knight from the story reincarnated, he ALSO happens to have drosselmeyer's magic powers b/c they're related??? wow what a coincidence, that's so lucky for him in affording him Magic Powers that don't come from the story b/c if he wields the power of being the knight he Has to inevitably die, and while the power to write reality is clearly dangerous and Could kill him (or others), there's at least a chance, whereas it seems like otherwise, if you're accessing the powers that come with having a role from the story, you either have to accept the same fate as in the story, someone with the power of those who guide the story, e.g. edel, must externally alter its course, or you have to give up the role and its powers, like ahiru ultimately did by giving up the final piece of mytho's heart, and fakir did by no longer trying to be the knight and instead protecting everyone by figuring out how to wield his power to Write.

so then basically my thought was, hey, maybe it's Not *just* a coincidence that fakir's Also drosselmeyer's descendent. in the same way that it's not Just a coincidence that the original tutu, having made this sacrifice in the story, is somehow, in part or in whole, attached to the prince's feeling of hope, and able to manifest even once that piece of the prince's heart has been returned and ahiru no longer "officially" has access to tutu's role and power (whether that power is gone b/c her powers were all about returning the prince's heart shards or because the powers she had were the prince's, because of having a piece of his heart). there's already these parallels between the roles of this tragic princess and the knight, both fated to disappear and die, respectively, and the story rewards these noble sacrifices even as it demands them b/c the author loves tragedy, b/c drosselmeyer's also trying to work within some conventions here to have a cohesive story and to allow enough hope in the story to motivate the characters and give everything enough stakes to really be effectively tragic (although he was also apparently writing characters who'd appear and then forever disappear on the same page, so. all to a degree lol). and yet the story and the people in it can also operate outside of drosselmeyer's Intent and Control and even knowledge of what all is a factor in everything going on, because that's part of his power, the stories and their characters become people who are real in the same way that people not from the story are real, and there's elements of who they were and are and can be that drosselmeyer didn't write. rue wasn't meant to sacrifice herself, edel / uzura wasn't meant to help the characters avoid tragedy, ahiru was meant to be powerless as a duck (and a regular girl), fakir was meant to be powerless or die, tbh mytho was probably meant to prevail in the end but also maybe drosselmeyer wouldn't've minded if the raven won And Also definitely wouldn't've minded if mytho going "well fuck this, i'll take out my heart again, regain it, kill you that time, then also kill myself" had been seen through which would've been decidedly ultimately tragic even if the prince also "won," and/or if the prince just kept getting stuck in these stalemates and having to shatter & regain his heart in an eternal loop (thinking of how mytho sure managed to like, phase Inside the raven magically via giant swan made of light (see: my theory that although that's very [tutu] visuals, tutu is also kinda Hope Embodied in this series, and we don't quite know whether original tutu's magic powers were different from the prince's magic abilities, or how, and i like to believe that mytho Can also manifest as a giant swan made of light) which was apparently only an option after he not only regained the capacity to feel hope but kinda had an actual feeling of hope kickstarted by ahiru, who's been and continues tapping into tutu's power as being so associated with / tied to Hope as a concept in general, so he presumably couldn't've done that move otherwise).

SO we're really meandering around here, by which i mean that i am, but so it goes. my point is!!! with All That in mind, and again reiterating how i opened that last paragraph before getting a little off track as always, i was thinking that it might not be Just A Coincidence that fakir is both the reincarnation of the knight / takes on the role of the knight, AND has drosselmeyer's magic writing powers in this completely separate matter of genealogy. (also, i'm sorry, but total tangent again: i'm not 100% on the timeline of things, but i'm like, okay, the raven comes into the real world, and the prince follows it, and then we know that this real world town had like, these killer raven attacks that could disappear an infant or kill a kid's parents. and i think we can suppose that rue and fakir happen to be pretty much the same age, and rue was kidnapped as a baby, so the raven was definitely around then, and fakir's parents were killed when he was like, a young kid but definitely not a baby or even a toddler, and rue was also running around and able to dance and only knew herself as kraehe until meeting mytho and wanting to give herself another name as just a human. so like....i'm bad at estimating ages but like, what, they're at least 5 when they meet mytho? maybe more like 6 or 7. the point is, so there were raven attacks for actual Years before the prince shattered his heart? and maybe mytho was fighting the raven in that perpetual stalemate for all those years, but probably he would've aged those several years if he existed outside the story's [Paused In Time] situation but still had his heart, since it's presumably his having Lost his heart that means he has no pulse and doesn't age and, you know, has lost his memories and emotions. and if we say it was like, at least 4 years or something, and mytho's like, ambiguously sort of Older Teen, say 16 or 17, idk (he's a baby still ;m; but also a fairytale prince, so) and you supposed he aged while out of the story And that he was out of the story and fighting the raven those several years before giving up his heart, that'd mean that when the book left off, he was locked in this deadly battle for the kingdom with the main villain as like, circa 11 years old or what have you. not outside the realm of fiction or fairytales, but still....but more so than that, idk, you'd think if there was this magic storybook prince around fighting the raven/s for years, full hearted and thus with his memories / sense of self intact, people would've been as aware of his presence as that of these killer ravens, and like, actually know who he is, as siegfried, and prior to there being this guy, mytho, who only fakir and co. and rue, out of anyone else in town, realize is actually this prince from a story that exists as a storybook in their world. which, i Guess it's possible that mytho was around outside the story for years before shattering his heart to seal the raven away, but also, seems like maybe instead it was years before he followed the raven out of the story and then once he did he pretty much immediately sacrificed his heart? not that the All Realities Narrator mentions a gap between the raven escaping the story and the prince chasing after it, but a) they also didn't specifically say that this didn't happen and b) maybe it was just some like, issue of jumping between dimensions basically, i.e. from the perspective of mytho in the story he did follow the raven out immediately, only to find that from the perspective of this other world, the raven had been an issue for years and c) maybe this difference in time was so that mytho would be dropped into more of an equivalent situation as he was in back in the story, where the raven had Also already been a problem for years in that story's universe, before the point where drosselmeyer has died and the story is left off unfinished. so here's mytho now entering this other reality, where even though he himself has just shown up after having battling the raven for years In Story (and then in stasis because the story was not able to progress in its own world), and is having to choose to protect these people who have not Just been introduced to the raven's attacks, but have been dealing with it for years as something that can and has killed people, just as was the case with the townspeople back in the world of the story.)

okay i apologize to the readers and to myself, no more tangents: what if!!!! it's not a fortunate coincidence that fakir has access to the powers of the separate roles of "the knight from the story" and "drosselmeyer's descendent in this world"!!!! What If!!!!!!!!! the knight's death, rather than being truly "useless," actually still counted as a sacrifice made in the hope of protecting others, and was thusly rewarded with some form of success, as other such sacrifices are rewarded both in the story of prinz und rabe, but also in the overall story of this series, aka princess tutu, although clearly in the end the Happy Ending comes from not only these sacrifices but the characters all protecting each other so that these ultimate self sacrifices don't need to be made (thinking of how often characters talk about wanting to protect each other, fakir being motivated to try Writing again after realizing all these other characters are doing their best to protect him, mytho saying he won't Give Up Again to ahiru (also tutu....just standing here staring at the wall like blair witch style that he never seems to have known that the duck was not only the version of tutu he'd been encountering but also ahiru who he was like "hey bestie :)" to in ep 14 before getting ko'd and never knowingly talking to her again haha scream that's just. that's fine!!! anyway rue could tell him but then again like, a little late. UNLESS they can just come back and visit?? i have some sense that there might have once been plans to make a season three for the series if possible way back in the day, yknow, when said series was being released, but i only "remember" this from Maybe someone's post from that 15th anniversary event and maybe, jonathan frakes voice, it never happened) referring to his intent to sacrifice his heart again as being that "giving up"......THE POINT BEING. maybe the knight's death was a sacrifice, and according the role that such sacrifices have, that sacrifice had some positive, helpful, protecting effect, and in this case, it was that the knight's reincarnation had these Other powers as well beyond the knight's role in the story, so that this knight could do more but protect mytho some but ultimately die in the effort with that death Supposedly being for nothing, aka the fact that fakir is related to drosselmeyer is thanks to lohengrin sacrificing himself to protect mytho, even if the circumstances of his death did not appear to, and were not intended by drosselmeyer to, have any direct benefit for anyone. did the knight somehow have conscious influence over his own reincarnation, or was it more like, these superhuman forces Rewarding the sacrifice / affording the knight this new chance at fate? could be either i guess!! (and was fakir born when the raven entered that world, or prior? he was as old as he was when he met mytho, had mytho Just shown up or did he really arrive just after the raven and had been fighting all the time and it's just that, for whatever reason, nobody else knew he was there? or they did, but once the raven was sealed away, maybe other people Forgot what had happened prior too, re: the prince and the Monster Raven anyways? since while people had known about the like, regular bird form ravens who killed people, nobody mentioned the big german abstract expressionism sky blocking raven who ate hearts.....and not like there wasn't people dying back in the story despite the prince's efforts (though that was related as well to like, people Definitely knowing the prince existed, and Despairing b/c he was so epic, actually) i don't know, it could be Either Way, i'm just wondering like, was fakir born prior to a character from The Story entering that world, or after? i feel like Maybe some timeline details might've been mentioned re: when the ravens showed up, but i don't remember. although i guess it's not impossible re: this theory that he was born beforehand but is still definitely the knight, and as i type this, i remember the whole "he's always had the birthmarks that identified him as the reincarnation of the knight" element, so it's Already True that whenever he was born, that was the case, aaand also i'm remembering that lohengrin died before where the story left off, and in that story's universe, idk, maybe years passed....and i Just was talking about how maybe the timelines / passage of time are not parallel and Aligned 1:1 between worlds here, so. point is! however it shakes out, lohengrin died for all intents and purposes Before fakir was born, who Is the knight whether or not he's really lohengrin's reincarnation, which he Could be, because lohengrin Was a human who Did die. so!!!!! (it's 6am....i've been writing this for hours lol. i prommy my thoughts would've been a Little more in order otherwise. possibly)

TL;DR: what if, rather than the knight's death being "useless" and his failing to protect the prince through being killed, it still counted as a sacrifice to protect mytho, and when you consider how this Theme of sacrifice is handled throughout the series, it would be in line with everything else if this sacrifice was rewarded even if the text of prinz und rabe / drosselmeyer did not consider this / recognize this to be a "successful" act of self sacrifice to protect the prince, and that reward was the knight's reincarnation Also being a descendent of drosselmeyer with a power that would allow him to protect people without being held to the knight's fate of being killed, rather than it being a complete unrelated coincidence that fakir is the knight And a person who just so happens to have the ability to write reality, thanks to being in the same family as drosselmeyer. what if lohengrin's sacrifice let him escape his own fate down the line and this time "successfully" protect the prince without having to die before the story finishes! it wouldn't change anything in the story as we know it and i think it'd be Thematically Resonant.

new 52 scarebat ship meme

(I had @heroes-etc​ give me more questions, but for scarebat this time, since we talk about it 24/7 but I never post about it. These are from this ship meme.)

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?

There’s only one feature of Bruce’s appearance that’s scarier when he’s not wearing the batsuit, and that’s his creepy blue eyes. Especially the way Greg Capullo draws them where they’re sickly pale and have ridiculously constricted pupils.

So his eyes would definitely be in the running for Jonathan’s favorite feature, even if seeing them would require Bruce’s mask to be off, which is something New 52 Scarecrow explicitly avoids. Yes, that character trait only exists to justify why Batman’s identity is still secret after Scarecrow mind controls and subsequently institutionalizes him in “Gothtopia,” but I think it’s interesting so I’m going to pretend it’s not shoe-horned in there for meta reasons.

Actually having to see Bruce without the cowl on would definitely permanently break the illusion of Batman as a nightmarish inhuman bat demon, which I’m sure is a large part of the appeal for anyone as obsessed with fear as Jonathan Crane. But Bruce’s creepy eyes would be a serious consolation prize. 

Bruce’s favorite of Jonathan’s physical features is rough, because Jonathan is famously not great re: physical features. I’m going to say his mouth, because a) that’s where the snark comes from, and b) the New 52 establishes that in one of their earlier encounters, Jonathan had sewn his own mouth shut, so it’s one of those things where a bad first impression turned positive later on leads to more fondness than if you’d made a good impression in the first place.

I just looked up the panel where he does it and I DID forget how incredibly gross his lips look here, which makes the fact that I have chosen it as Bruce’s feature seem really funny in retrospect. But I do think that seeing Jonathan’s mouth healed and unmutilated would be a reassuring reminder of how he’s stabilized since their first encounter, at least to the point that he isn’t hurting himself anymore. Also, Bruce buys him a lot of chapstick.

Bonus alternate answer that did not make it into the Google Doc:

9. How open are they with their feelings?

Bruce and Jonathan are both pretty competent deceivers in the New 52; Bruce always, Jonathan depending on how the writer is feeling (though you could argue that Bruce just has a stronger grip on reality, while Jonathan’s skill at obfuscation varies with how lucid he is).

...I was going to use Detective Comics #23.3 as an example of Jonathan being a good liar, but actually upon re-reading I’m realizing that only 1/4 rogues buy his attempt at manipulation. So maybe he’s considerably worse at hiding his intentions than he thinks he is. Regardless, he doesn’t ever attempt to disguise his obsession with Batman.

Whether or not he’d express romantic feelings or try to hide them is debatable. There’s no Masters of Fear equivalent in the New 52 establishing that he was ever mocked or punished for expressing romantic feelings for someone, though there is a flashback panel in his origin emphasizing that he was always lonely in this regard (and coincidentally doesn’t specify that his interest is in women, which is fun).

In Green Lanterns #17 he has some internal monologue about how fear is his romance and he needs Batman to feel it, but it is an INTERNAL monologue, so it’s not clear if this is something he would express to Bruce or keep to himself. Or if he’s even fully processed it himself, given how incredibly out of it he is in this comic. Most of his spoken lines are just kind of screaming incoherently. Bruce gets pretty snippy with a Green Lantern at the end of the issue for suggesting that Jonathan should be punished for his crimes as if he were in control of his actions. 

Bruce is a similarly complicated answer, since for all his deceptions and shadowy mystery he pretty much wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to romance. It’s just that his heart doesn’t express or process emotions the same way as anyone around him, which can create conflict. His (seriously underrated) love interest during Scarecrow’s origin arc, Natalya, spent most of her time dating him thinking that he didn’t care about her for this reason. He was trying to express that he loved her, but he mostly did so through complimenting her skills, which she never took as serious declarations of affection because he wasn’t being straightforward and she was insecure.

Jonathan does not himself seem like someone who would be especially secure in the idea of another person having romantic feelings towards him, so I assume that while Bruce might THINK he’s being open with any romantic feelings he develops, he would in reality just be really confusing.

13. How do they react to being away from each other?

I actually think that in general, Jonathan is one of the few people who would have no issue dealing with Bruce’s tendency to unexpectedly go AWOL for long periods of time, given that he himself has a tendency to fixate on his work to the exclusion of everything else.

But New 52 Jonathan specifically probably has pretty serious abandonment issues due to his father putting him in “the pit” and dying before he could take him out, meaning that Jonathan was waiting for his dad to come back for him for God knows how long, until Jonathan Sr.’s employers finally sent the police to investigate. 

So while in general I think he wouldn’t be very clingy, any impression that Bruce had died or otherwise wasn’t coming back for him would probably be incredibly triggering. If Bruce could assuage this reaction by occasionally sending updates that at least indicated he was still alive, then I doubt Jonathan would have any problems with his absence.

(@heroes-etc​: bruce sending like a checkmark emoji once a day. jonathan hears his phone ping, looks at the screen, and goes hm. good. and doesnt respond.)

Bruce meanwhile has no problem ditching literally any love interest at any time if something crime-related comes up, unless he’s considering quitting the cowl for them (as Joker probably accurately fears will happen with Catwoman in Prelude to the Wedding). But I don’t think he’d stop being Batman for Scarecrow, nor would Jonathan ever want him to — he’s interested in Batman, not necessarily Bruce Wayne.

But even though Bruce wouldn’t have an emotional problem with distance, I think he would get similarly paranoid if they went too long without contact, though for different reasons than Jonathan. Unlike some other villains (*cough* Joker and Riddler), Scarecrow has machinations that don’t require getting Batman’s attention, so if he decided to continue with his less legal experiments, he would not feel compelled to get Bruce involved. While the “World’s Greatest Detective” would probably not have an issue keeping an eye on Jonathan while he’s in Gotham, he’s considerably less capable of that in space. And Jonathan is definitely a rogue he would be obsessed with keeping an eye on, even if he reformed. 

Batman & Robin Eternal established that Dick’s first supervillain conflict AND first mission leaving the country was chasing Scarecrow across the world for an entire summer, which is kind of insane considering how early it was in Batman’s career. Like, he did not have an army of children to watch Gotham for him while he was gone. He had one child, and he took that child WITH him. He left Gotham undefended for months, JUST to catch Scarecrow. Sooo that in of itself implies he wouldn’t be great at keeping his distance.

15. Does their view of themselves differ from their partner’s view?

Well, Jonathan occasionally sees Bruce as a giant bat demon, so yes.

Outside of that very obvious differing view, Jonathan in general sees himself and the rest of the rogue gallery as more vital to Batman’s identity than Bruce considers them; the extent to which he’s right varies depending on your interpretation of Bruce’s character, but it’s definitely not something Bruce would ever consciously think or say. 

This is related to something that’s definitely a misconception of his, though, which is that the majority of Batman’s job revolves around supervillains like him. In Kings of Fear, when Jonathan blackmails Bruce into letting him come on patrol with him (which is a whole thing in of itself), he’s shocked at how boring most of Batman’s work is. Which probably goes along hand in hand with sometimes seeing Bruce as an almost mythologically inhuman figure. 

In his defense, it’s not like he has a lot of context for what the minutiae of Batman’s job is like. He’s either fighting Batman, hiding from Batman, or imprisoned by Batman in Arkham, a place where everyone else also spends all their time fighting or hiding from Batman. Which would really skew your perspective.

Interestingly, Bruce and Jonathan are both people who pride themselves on being extremely self-aware. Both of them probably inaccurately. You can rant about how you have a perfect understanding of your troubled mental state all day long, but if you’re still dressing up like a monster at night to indulge the power fantasies you created as a traumatized child by scaring the hell out of people, there’s probably a level of self-realization you haven’t gotten to yet.

Bruce however is at least self-aware enough to regularly be able to analyze his way out of fear toxin induced hallucinations, which Jonathan is unable to do — when he’s not depicted as having become immune to his fear toxin due to overexposure (as he is in Green Lanterns #17), he can be defeated with the same formulas that Batman regularly manages to resist (like his honestly embarrassing breakdown in Nightwing #50). 

Which ties into the difference between how he sees himself and how Bruce sees him: Jonathan obviously visualizes himself as a “master” of fear. He actually has the same internal monologue about fear and trauma that Bruce does in Batman: The Dark Knight #13: “Make it your own... run to what you fear... stare it in the eye... until it whimpers and backs down.” But Bruce doesn’t see Scarecrow as conquering his fear; he sees him as addicted to it, to the point of his own detriment.

Which is interesting, because Jonathan clearly sees his Scarecrow persona as a way to regain control after being victimized by his father’s fear experiments throughout his childhood. I guess Bruce’s perspective would be that Jonathan’s father instead got him addicted to fear as a child, so his attempts at agency as Scarecrow are just a) reliving his trauma over and over and b) compulsively inflicting his own trauma on others. There’s probably some truth to that, even if overall it’s probably an oversimplification (and coincidentally pretty much EXACTLY what Riddler argues Bruce is doing by “funding” Batman in Batman Annual #4, so there’s that).

20. Did either person change at all, to be with their partner?

The obvious answer here is yes, because Jonathan is a supervillain with no regard for human life while Bruce is a superhero who has dedicated his life to protecting people. So presumably one or both of them would have to make serious compromises to be together. HOWEVER. Scarecrow’s primary motivation is to research, understand and inflict fear, while Batman’s modus operandi is making his enemies afraid of him. So despite their contradiction in morals, they’re uniquely positioned to advance each other’s goals, were they to ever join forces.

Bruce never has a problem using fear toxin on Scarecrow, presumably partially out of an “eye for an eye” sense of poetic justice, but also because Batman is practical and it’s a nonlethal weapon that’s always available to him while fighting Scarecrow. If he could have fear toxin customized for his own use, it’s hard to imagine him being unwilling to use it. In Gothtopia he actually advocates for using what’s leftover from Crane’s new formula on all the inmates at Arkham, which seems about as insanely morally ambiguous as it gets. Arguably, putting fear toxin in his smoke bombs would be considerably less wrong than drugging mental patients out of their mind when they’re supposed to be receiving therapy (this is also the issue where he illegally releases Poison Ivy because she did him a favor, which is both morally questionable and relevant to the current topic).

Jonathan obviously already thinks Batman is the most interesting possible case study in fear; it’s why he keeps coming back to Bruce and Gotham despite being one of the more independent villains in Batman’s rogue gallery in the New 52. So though he would have to give up actively kidnapping people (which would be a huge sacrifice, I’m sure), teaming up with Bruce would give him unrestricted access to his favorite test subject. Unfortunately, it seems very possible that he would fall back to old tricks if he ever felt that he’d gotten everything he could out of a partnership with Bruce. Fortunately, that would probably take a VERY long time.

I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH, but I think rereading The Rise of Kylo Ren all at once, as well as the final issue, plus the Age of Resistance - Supreme Leader Snoke and Age of Resistance - Kylo Ren issues (and a bit of the TLJ novelization), have at least somewhat coalesced this character for me. The burning question with Ben Solo has always been:  Why?  Why did he not tell anyone about Snoke talking to him in this comic?  Why didn’t he go to his mother, whom he knew still loved him?  Why did he embrace the dark side? None of this had ever really been addressed in the canon itself, it was all down to speculation, but nothing I felt I could connect to what we were actually being given with any real solidity in the canon.  And issue #4 definitely still feels a little wobbly to me, but I think it at least strung up some connective tissue for me. In rereading the first issue, I was back to:  Why doesn’t Ben go to his mother?  If he didn’t attack the school (which I’m not sure how clear it is what he did/didn’t have to do with it, if it truly was Snoke who did it, how much Ben was aware of it, how much of a hand he played in all of this, certainly it makes the timing of the destruction of the Temple INCREDIBLY coincidental if it was Snoke’s plan AND it was the night Luke and Ben fought), if he knows his parents love him (which Age of Resistance - Supreme Leader Snoke [x][x] shows that he does, he literally goes into the same cave as Luke did to show him his fears, the only thing in there is what he brought with him and he sees Luke saying he doesn’t want to fight, which means Ben knows this is true even if he doesn’t want to admit it[x], as well as the TLJ novelization has him knowing that his mother still loves him and he’s angry about it, as well as TFA itself has him not at all surprised that Han’s there to help him and bring him home, even in TLJ he’s snarling about how, oh, is Luke here to save his soul, say Luke forgives him?, which shows that he knows that Luke regrets it and cared about him)--anyway, I’m getting distracted, there’s a lot to go over! If he didn’t attack the school, if he didn’t want this, why did he run from Leia as much as anyone?  In rereading the issue, there’s an interesting flashback that’s place right in the middle of the droid asking Ben where he wants to go, where he’s thinking about his mother and he hesitates.  I didn’t really pay attention to the timing the first time because it felt like just a cool dramatic moment to show further flashbacks.  But looking for the trends I know Soule is capable of and so often puts in his writing, it struck me that the flashback was specifically set on Luke yelling, “Ben, no!” and Luke in the ruins of the Temple and Ben saying, “I didn’t want this!”  [x][x][x] Thus, I’m left to conclude that he didn’t go to her because he himself couldn’t face her, couldn’t look at all of this storm inside him and find a way out of it.  And I think that’s the thing--in reading this issue all at once, it really jumped out at me that the central theme of this comic was about the path people choose in their lives.  That there’s an undercurrent of a legacy to live up to, but that that’s just window dressing for a deeper issue--in that Ben Solo doesn’t know what his path is. On one side, he has a huge legacy to live up--the man he was named for, this larger than life great Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, he never even met him, he hates the name he was given, Ben.  He hates the name Solo as well, because it’s a made up name, it’s not real, it’s a lie.  [x][x] This contradiction is fascinating, because he’s named through two different aspects--one, a legacy, and two, a chosen name.  Ben Solo hates the legacy name just as much as he hates the name Han Solo created for himself!  So the idea that he’s creating his real persona for himself, when he stops being a Jedi and goes to Snoke, is directly contradicted by how much he hates the chosen name, that he says it’s a lie.  As if Kylo Ren isn’t a lie he’s hurtling himself towards, too. Neither of these really seem to be the true problem, for all that they’re genuine things that anger Ben.  In the final issue, he does tell Tai, "Even my name isn't a choice.  The dark side and the light side both claimed me for their own the moment I was born.  Do you know how that feels?  Whether it's Luke Skywalker or Snoke, neither one sees me as a person.  I'm just a... legacy.  Just a set of expectations." The thing is, Ben Solo is not a reliable narrator.  He talks one minute about how the light and the dark are warring over him, even Ren comments on how he’s been fighting this every step of the way, you don’t really want to live in the shadow.  “I am the shadow,” Ben replies.[x]  He is trying so hard to shove himself onto some path, any path that he thinks will soothe him. The most emotional part of the issue (or at least one of them) is Tai’s pleading speech to him, the conversation that’s been threaded throughout the entire issue about how you choose your path.  Choice is arguably the most important theme of Star Wars, and we see that very clearly in Tai’s conversations with him.  Even in the previous issue, he tells Ben that he keeps himself locked up too tight, he’s not really being himself.[x]  Ben’s recounting of who Voe is (the other important foil for Ben’s character in this comic) is woven together with how he thinks she never really learned to be herself, rather than measuring herself again him.[x] Ren, in their very first meeting, says, hey, you know there are other paths, right? [x]  On Elphrona, Voe says he must face justice, and Ben shouts back, “You think I’m a murderer, Voe?  Is that what you want me to be!?”[x]  Tai’s big speech to him in the previous episode is all about, be who you are, which is another way of saying, “Find the path you’re supposed to be on.”[x]  Tai’s words to Voe on Elphrona are also, “[Ben] thinks [the Knights of Ren] can help him find his true path.”[x] And of course, all of the above.  Paths and choices and being who you truly are, that Ben Solo couldn’t figure out any of these things for himself.  That he didn’t really want to be a Jedi (and that’s fine, it’s not the path for everyone) and we see, we see that he could have chosen otherwise, that Tai offers him a chance to actually walk away from all of it and just go help people, we see the hesitation there before Ren kills Tai and Ben makes his choice.  Because he may not feel like he had any choices, but Tai showed that he absolutely did. Even when he truly falls into the dark--so completely that a multitude of people feel it, Leia, Snoke, Rey, Palpatine, they all sense it--it’s framed around the idea of, “I’m not anyone special, so I can do what I want.”

All of this coalesced for me into two things, especially once I added in other Ben Solo appearances in canon--this is someone who has no strong sense of self or the path he’s meant to be on, so he just sort of careens wildly from one bad choice to the next, each time hoping that it’ll feel like the right path, rather than doing the really hard work of looking inside himself and not just locking everything up into a little box. And, two, he is further trying to gain that sense of self through others.  Even when he’s not fully aware of it, he keeps walking the same paths they do--like on Dagobah, when he goes into the same cave Luke did, to face his inner fears,  he’s walking the same path his uncle did.[x] When he’s offered a choice, when Tai asks him to come back, if you want, you can absolutely read that glowy red backdrop as being similar to Anakin’s fight with Obi-Wan on Mustafar. And certainly, given that Soule was the one to write Darth Vader bleeding his kyber crystal, we can draw parallels between that and Kylo Ren bleeding his:

And that’s one of the things that the character keeps coming back to--and it’s a huge theme for Ben Solo, that he’s constantly being compared to Vader, by others and by himself.  Sure, part of it is that I assume that’s just how bleeding a kyber crystal goes, but the parallels between Kylo and Vader (and thus between Anakin and Ben) do a lot to highlight the issues between them both, that we see TROKR’s visuals are echoing Dark Lord of the Sith’s scene, as Kylo is very defined by Vader in an out-of-universe meta way. But also within the universe, he keeps comparing himself to Vader and is compared to Vader by others, because that’s kind of the point, that it’s not just too much power in an unstable person (though, that, too) or that they were born evil (no, they weren’t), but that they both couldn’t really look at themselves or the choices set before them, to either actually commit to the path they were on or to find another one.  That they both were still loved even after their fall.  That they both had people pleading with them to make a better choice. "Leave [the mask].  I said leave it!  You cannot hide behind a mask here.  You cannot pretend to be Vader in this place,” Snoke says is Age of Resistance - Supreme Leader Snoke [x] “This is where I will succeed.  ...where Vader failed,” says Kylo Ren in Age of Resistance - Kylo Ren. [x] “There’s too much Vader in him,” Han says in The Force Awakens. “A new Vader. Now I fear... I was mistaken.  Take that ridiculous [mask] off,” Snoke says, not long before Kylo smashes the mask to pieces, in The Last Jedi. It’s contradicted by Kylo’s theme of, “Let the past die.  Kill it, if you have to.” in TLJ, but it’s pretty par for the course with him, where he careens back and forth between one decision one moment and another the next, that he still has no idea what his true path is meant to be. So much of his character was patterned off of Darth Vader, both in universe and out of universe, it seems only fitting that he, like his grandfather before him, has no real sense of self or the willingness to look within himself to find what that path really is, whether it means actually committing to the Jedi path and understanding yourself and working to let go of your fears, or whether it’s finding a path away from the Jedi. And both of them felt like their power must be used for something.  "[We're going to] some planet called Elphrona.  All this way to find some old junk Master Luke will lock away in his temple and never use.  [....]  He's an amazing teacher, very strong.  I've learned so much from him... but he never seems to want to let me use any of it."[x] Ultimately, at the end of it, it seems like Ben Solo was someone who didn’t really know what he wanted out of his life and so he kept looking for the thing that would finally make him feel like it was the right path, except he kept looking to those outside himself to figure that out, whether to reject what he thought they were making him into or to use them as a measuring stick to define himself, and the only sliver of it that he ever seemed to find was when he finally stopped trying to force everything to make sense and focused on someone else for what he could do for them, instead of himself.

The Character As A Tool: Why Your Fave Doesn't Get More Screentime

Please refer to this post

REMINDER THAT ALL VIEWS HERE ARE MERELY MY OWN OPINIONS 

In truth, one of the most common complaints I see within this fandom is the treatment of side characters. Meaning, in short, a fair amount of the fandom are less connected to what’s going on with our main group of Nagisa, Karma, and Kayano, and instead relate to some of the less obvious choices. Now, there’s no problem with doing this. Hey, if you see something you like in a less important character, then absolutely go for it!

What We Do Know

I discovered for myself, whilst making my About Ass Class series posts, that absolutely some characters’ actual canon information is very dry. Matsui gives everyone a few bits here and there in both the Roll Call book and Graduation Album. If you’re lucky, there’s further points you can pick up just from watching/reading.

Now, and this I want to emphasise I’m stating as an opinion, Matsui actually gives us quite a lot to go from. Even if not every character is highly developed, there’s still a genuinely very solid starting block to go from with your own headcanon. Perhaps it can be argued that it’s not the reader’s job to supply that, but I’d counter that it’s actually kind of fun to not be fed every piece of information. Though more facts and a deeper dive into interpersonal relationships would be admittedly nice, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us as a fandom coming up with those ideas on our own, using the pointers Matsui does give us as a starting point. Honestly it would take the fun out a little if there was too much information, and we’d have less possibilities to play with.

Why Certain Characters Exist

I’m sorry to tell you, but one of the first things you’re taught in any kind of writing or literature analysis class is that characters are not people, they’re tools. This may feel a little harsh to say, and I’m aware that many people get attached to characters and have genuine feelings towards them. And that is totally valid! Definitely not on the same scale, but I too enjoy when people have real emotions towards my OCs, so I get it.

(rest under cut) 

To put it plainly: characters exist within a story as either a plot tool, or a message tool. A plot tool is someone who, as it sounds, exists to move the story along. Characters that need to exist in order for the story to happen as it does. Now, don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to have planned this out. You don’t need to specifically introduce Hara, for example, for the sole reason of her upping the stakes in the first Itona/Shiro arc. Characters existing for filler is still, in a way, a plot tool. It’s like… you set up a chess board. Sure, you might use the knight or the queen piece the most, but the pawns are still an important and useful piece, even if you don’t always utilize it for every move, or they don’t always stand out. Message tools are when a character doesn’t really do anything, but they help to assist in the message you want to send with your art/writing. There’s not so many examples of this in ass class, the best I can think of is either Yuuji or Sakura, who don’t do much at all but are beacons for what Matsui wants to say with them (which if you think about it is just ‘don’t do drugs kids’ and ‘stay in school’ :’)).

So free bit of writing advice for you: your character is your chisel. Once you’ve picked them up and started to work at carving out the story you want, then you can start adding all your fancy upgrades and personality points, which is what ultimately makes your character stronger. You grow attached to them when you’re done? Totally fair. Just… don’t go through this process the opposite way.

Without going too in depth with them right now, Nagisa Shiota is a plot tool. He is a plain easy to follow narrator whose observation skills intentionally mean the reader can see things clearly through his eyes. Where he loses relatability is when he displays his talent, but at that point he’s been so clearly introduced that it doesn’t matter as much, we can hear his voice. Him being more plain makes his talent more effective and shocking as it is. Karma Akabane is a plot tool. He exists so we have those somewhat comedic moments, and so we can have these big bad ass mental/physical fight moments. I actually think him not being the protagonist is something that makes Ass Class hugely stronger (and less cliché) as a series. Kayano Kaede is a plot tool. Admittedly, less so, but she has a lot of function as a back up to Nagisa, and then later is the catalyst for Korosensei’s backstory. The story starts to come to its climax due to her arc alone. As an aside I think a lot of criticism for Matsui isn’t that fair within the fandom, but I will openly say his treatment of her post reveal was not the best at all. He kind of lost control of what to do with her.

So, let’s talk about archetypes. I intend to write a whole meta about why Ass Class is predominantly written as a comedy series, but for now just take that statement as my opinion. Honestly, I do think Ass Class, with a few tweaks, could have worked with a bunch of unnamed characters. I’m instantly going to follow that up with: I’m very glad it didn’t. I love that it feels more like a large ensemble with a variety of characters. So instead of just plain filler, Matsui kind of makes good use of archetypes. You know, such as Takebayashi and Fuwa as otakus, Hazama as the dark occult girl etc. etc. All of this for comedic purpose, more than anything, which we really see in something like Koro Q which is more directly comedy. You might argue this is one dimensional, and I’d agree, but in this situation it’s achieving an effect. It’s genuinely better than having nothing. And honestly, they all do stuff. Some characters are far more effective and entertaining as a background character (i.e. Terasaka) than carrying a bunch of weight themselves.

Matsui Actually Does This Comparatively Well

Honestly, try and name another popular series in a classroom setting, with this many characters who all have individual personalities. Genuinely, the only one I can kind of think of is BNHA, and that’s not a fair comparison given the difference in story length. Comparatively to most series, Ass Class actually has really good side characters. If they were completely uncaringly written, nobody would stan them as hard. For the most part, I’d certainly argue everyone is memorable. Given that we’re juggling at least 30 people here (including teachers, Gakushuu etc.), I’d actually argue that’s kind of impressive.

And the thing is, Matsui does care. He cares enough to give everyone designs, hobbies, and personalities. A good portion of them have an entire chapter to themselves, although relative to the story as a whole they might not do so much (example: Kimura). Matsui could have been lazy with it, but he was not. I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings with this, but I do argue here that those who think the opposite might be a little wrapped up in the character they stan. And I can totally understand that rightfully, you want the character you love to have more screen time. However, just because you happened to fall in love with them (figuratively I mean), doesn’t change the purpose they were originally created to fulfil.

It’s an unfair criticism that not giving every single person a huge arc makes Matsui a poor writer. Honestly, if everyone was equal without a few main characters getting a greater amount of the attention, the entire series would be a hot mess. It might be fun to reimagine the series that way, and go ahead in your own time, but as a series from start to finish, as a first time consumer, it would be genuinely very hard to follow. Not without changing the entire structure and many many plot points.

I do intend to write more about this too at a later point (because I will admittedly need to do more research), but in my opinion the biggest issue with Ass Class, and the cause behind the problems I have with it, is the genuine lack of time. It’s a relatively short story, compared to a lot of manga, and thus there isn’t the space to contain everyone’s story in deep way. I’m absolutely certain, had there been 50/100 chapters more, every character would have had a stand out chapter to themselves.

So thus I bring up the fun and stimulation that is headcanon.

The Issue with headcanons

(this point will go much quicker, I promise)

Ass class ended a looong time ago, let’s be fair. Whether you’re newer or older to the fandom, there’s still been quite a while since any kind of new content (Korotan D being the last official piece, Koro Q manga being the last anything, though I could be slightly wrong with that). That means, especially if you’ve cared about this series for a while, that we’ve considered the series to death.

Playing with headcanons is great! It’s fun! But, I do fear that especially when it comes to perhaps the more popular of the minor characters, a lot of us are getting wrapped up. It needs to be kept in mind that whilst these headcanons may have been around for a while, they are not directly correct to the source material. As a quick note, since I have seen people within the fandom getting kind of bothered over opposing opinions to the things they assume as canon. That’s not really anybody’s fault, but it does warrant saying, I think.

A Conclusion

Basically, loving a main character is great. Loving a more background character is great. You’re not a better or worse, more intelligent or more basic person for whoever your fave is. The point is, you see something you like in a character and you relate to them, or else just enjoy them. But as fun as that is, characters are tools. They exist for a specific purpose. Sometimes, that purpose doesn’t warrant them having a huge stand out character arc.

But hey, that’s totally okay because we’re fortunate enough to have such a community (arguably, I’d say a genuinely active one too) where we can dream that up ourselves. We can pretty much endlessly explore these possibilities. So, perhaps instead of negativity complaining about certain narrative issues we find (just putting this here: it’s fair to do this, but I don’t think it should be the FOCUS of conversation), we focus on driving that energy into creation. And there’s a lot to play with and create. And honestly, seeing HC posts and all sorts staring these more minor characters is great, and I’m pretty sure the majority would agree with me on that. I fully realise and accept that I have a platform here, and going forward I personally want to be a part of that. In a constructive way, rather than ‘deconstructing’ (yes, there’s a pretty big different as I see it).

(I realise that this last part comes off a bit call out post like, and I want to ensure that it is not intended to be that. I just have a general sense of some attitudes towards things floating around in a very generalised way right now)

Tell us about your other ocs (not iru 😒🙄) please

GHHGGHHGHJJHHN LOVE THIS ASK!

Ok so I’m gonna talk about Roa in that case!

She’s another Umbramaker (mirror Starcutter), but unlike Iru she isn’t terrible! She’s basically Lor’s mirror counterpart, but not technically because no soul to be reflected and stuff. Due to the nature of Umbramakers basically being bootleg Starcutters, though, Roa is actually 2000 years younger than Lor. Not that that would be super obvious based on how the two act, though; she’s a lot more serious, a bit behind the times, much less outgoing, and others would probably say she’s not as fun. The truth is she just never really figured out how to loosen up until very recently, and even then she’s more of the nerd sort than the memey type. If you get her talking about something she’s interested in, such as Another Dimension and Parallel Dimension (which are different parts of the same place), she could infodump for ages, going on tangent after tangent and yet always bringing it back to the same subject. She would probably get along well with Magolor; science nerd buddies!

In terms of her actual connection to Lor, as. I said, they aren’t true counterparts. They both had super similar life experiences, and just reacted to them differently. Instead of her mistreatment driving her to become a troublemaker like Lor, she became extremely anxious and servile, because she was constantly fearing for her life but knew if she dedicated herself entirely to Working and Being Useful she would be spared. While Lor didn’t get along with other Starcutters because they found her annoying and thought she got in the way, Roa wasn’t well liked because the other Umbramakers basically thought she was a bootlicker. She was very well liked by her pilots though, because she was So Well Behaved and Always Put Others First and Worked So Hard! Their only complaint would usually just be her lack of confidence. Of course, they never took the time to figure out why she was the way she was, though she wouldn’t have told them she knew what went on behind closed doors anyways.

As I’ve said previously, unlike Overworld Halcandra, Mirror Halcandra could afford to throw out their ships if they weren’t performing to a satisfactory level, and she was very much aware of the recycling going on. However, unlike Lor, who hacked herself her own admin rights, accepted her circumstances, and decided if her life had to suck she was going to cause problems on purpose as revenge, Roa actually started formulating a theoretical escape plan. Because she was technically a newer model than Lor, she couldn’t just hack herself and go nuts with her abilities, so she had to be careful. At least, that would have been the case, were it not for a shortage of pilots after a combination of multiple missions in Parallel Dimension going terribly wrong, and a subsequent wave of quitting until safer conditions were promised. Now, for her whole life, Roa has basically been the poster child of a perfect Umbramaker. Never did anything out of turn, stayed in the lines like a fill tool, and just in general had a long record of Not Doing Anything Unexpected. In other words, she also had a ton of trust built up with basically everyone who worked with her that wasn’t another Umbramaker.

So, they(the government) reasonably thought, with the information available to them, that maybe Roa could function on her own, without a pilot, until pilot numbers returned to how they usually were. She could still get measurements and stuff from Parallel Dimension and be in a fleet and all that, just without someone driving her. So, Roa was given admin permissions over her systems, and things went on as usual because she was too scared to do anything. Haha, yeah, no, that second part was a lie. Literally as soon as the officials left the room she took off; carefully plotted escape was out of the airlock, she could leave Right Now and was fast enough that they couldn’t catch her or stop her from warping somewhere else. She left in such a frantic hurry, though, that uh... well, I’ll just say a few people got hurt, which is pretty expected if you get hit by a giant ship taking off. She still holds that against herself; she never wanted to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately, though, in her frenzy, she forgot one key detail: other Umbramakers. Who had their pilots. Who had communications with the port. So, as she’s fleeing, but before she gets the chance to make a portal to Somewhere Else, three other Umbramakers start trailing her; one to her left, one to her right, and one just behind her. They didn’t really have a choice in what they were doing, but Roa has always assumed they wouldn’t have done anything differently if they did anyways. The one behind her shot holes in her sail, which she still has now, to drastically slow down how long charging her vortex would take were she to switch into her combat mode. The other two kept her from going to either side, closing in until she couldn’t go anywhere but forward. In the end, this leads to the main thing she has in common with Lor; she was cornered and forced to enter a cavern in the side of a volcano, and the entrance was collapsed with her inside. Unlike Lor, though, she was still awake, but didn’t have the space to warp herself out.

That’s where she spent the next 27 thousand or so years, eventually putting herself into a sort of sleep mode to retain power and not be conscious the whole time she was trapped in a pitch black cave. She’d wake up when any noticeable physical events were detected, which could potentially mean freedom, but for the most part she would only wake up because of periodic earthquakes and eruptions that didn’t help her. Until, eventually, something else wakes her up; a mirror Halcandran teen, who had been slowly excavating her in secret, having found records indicating there was an Umbramaker buried in the volcano. He was none other than Magolor’s mirror counterpart, Magoroa, who was planning to do the exact same thing as Magolor. Unlike his Overworld counterpart, though, he was not checking out a ship who had been put in the AI equivalent of a coma. He manages to get inside and vibe in Roa’s library for an hour or two, grabbing some books to translate and read during his journey for domination, before she figures out what’s going on and kicks him out. She was free, and she was not risking anything jeopardizing that, even in the form of a teenager.

She flew off without him, leaving him with just a bag of books on magic and potion brewing. After escaping Mirror Halcandra unnoticed and getting caught up on important Mirror World news, such as that whole Dark Mind situation that happened while she was away, she decided to check out Mirror Popstar because apparently Halcandra stays away from there. That’s where she gets in contact with You Know Who, so now she had him to deal with, great. She eventually visits the Overworld to see if maybe she could hide out there. Stuff happened that I haven’t written yet but plan to, she meets Lor... or rather, Lor heard reports of another Starcutter and went looking for her, found Roa, chased her until she could establish “>MA’AM I’M NOT A THREAT PLEASE I HAVEN’T TALKED TO ANOTHER SHIP IN THOUSANDS OF YEARS”, and they subsequently talk and find out they have a lot in common. Now Roa spends more time outside the Mirror World than in it, but she still stays away from basically anyone who isn’t Lor, Magolor, or a select few of the Star Allies. Meta Knight knows of her but isn’t sure what to really do or what to think. He doesn’t trust her because she has no pilot, but also she is so much more mature than Lor that he’s tempted to just leave her be.

I couldn’t think of a place to plop this in the post, but here’s what she looks like in her combat mode! I haven’t talked about it here but Starcutters and Umbramakers can have elements, kinda like the weapons in Star Allies(which is what inspired this headcanon); Lor is bluster wind element(based on her attacks, could explain what I mean in another post if you’re interested), for example. What element do you think Roa is?

Fire. She’s fire element. Doesn’t look like it, but that is 100% intentional on my part and in-universe!

Anyways, if you read this far I owe you my life and also like 10 minutes of your time back.

Kirby and the Big Race in Dream Land! Chapter 3

Few days later, a spaceship with the TV staff and the filming equipment on board landed on Dream Land that morning. Surrounding it at a distance, Kirby, Waddle Dee, and the inhabitants of Dream Land were watching the spaceship. Burning Leo shouted in excitement.

”Uooohh, I’m so thrilled! I’ll be sure to win!” That sparked the inhabitants, and they all started clamoring. “I’m not losing!” “We’re getting nervous, seeing how this is our first time on TV!” “Let's go to the barber shop before the race!” Having descended in a row from the spaceship, the staff are all wearing matching shirts with the word “Comet TV” on it. Kizario spread both his hands and rushed over to them. “Oh boy, thanks for coming, you splendid staff!” “Young Master......” One of the staff complained with a tedious look. “Just what is the meaning of this, sir? You called us out nowhere......” “Zip it!” Stopping them in a hurry, Kizario berated them in a low voice. “Don’t call me young master here! Call me Kiza-P!” “Kiza-P? What’s with that?” “It’s short for Producer Kizario. Got it? Stop wasting your breath and listen to me.” “Aye, aye. But will it be alright, sir? If the CEO finds out that you planned a program like this on your own......” “Shut it! It’s fine, do as I say!” Leaving the staff, Kizario came before the residents of Dream Land. “The staff will construct the race course from here on. We start tomorrow morning. The meeting place is the plaza at the foot of Mt. Dedede. The participants are to gather on time!” Hearing him, the inhabitants of Dream Land were wide-eyed in shock. “Tomorrow? That’s quite sudden.” “I haven’t finished training yet......” “Doesn't the TV program take more time to prepare?” “Quiet. This is how I do it. Speed is everything for TV!” Kizario scowled at the citizens. “I’ll announce the rules in detail tomorrow. The winner will receive a splendid prize. Give it your best shot, you all!” The residents were hurt by the coercive attitude of Kizario, but cannot stand still once hearing the splendid prize. Everyone let out an exclamation in an instant. “Okey doke! I’ll do my best!” “I’ll be taking the prize!” “It’d be great if there’s a participation prize......” Turning his backs on the citizens in a hubbub, Kizari rushed back to the staff a second time. The staff are carrying out equipment such as cameras, microphones, etc. Turning towards them, he ordered in a low voice. “You’ll set up the courses for them to run all across Dream Land. You are not to leave even the smallest corner unnoticed!” “Young Maste......Kiza-P, Dream Land is ridiculously wide. It’s absurd to hold a race when we can barely even look around in advance......” “It’s fine even if it’s absurd! Do as I say!” Kizario threw a fit once again. The staff are accustomed to his caprice and petulance. Everyone sighed and went to their respective positions.

The following morning: The inhabitants of Dream Land showed up at the square at the foot of Mt. Dedede. The TV cameras are installed as if encircling the inhabitants, where the staff are on standby. The residents all became aware of the cameras and were filled with gusto. Burning Leo spits out some balls of fire and is warming up. Cappy takes off his hat and is shining it. Capsule J2 walks back and forth in front of the camera and is trying to make himself conspicuous. Walky’s voice then reverberates. “Good morning! At long last, it’s the beginning of the much-anticipated ‘Dream Land ✰ Extreme ✰ Heart-Pounding ✰ Big Race!’ Reporting live is me, Walky! The commentator is the No. 1 superhero adorned by the whole universe, Mr. Meta Knight!” “......At your service.” Replied Meta Knight in a discontent voice. “For starters, Mr. Meta Knight, please tell us the highlight of today’s race.” “Hmm......I can’t say for sure. Break a leg, everyone.” “Who do you think will be the front-runner!?” “Well, I’m fine with anyone.” “I see, that was a very helpful commentary! Thank you so much! Now then, let’s interview the participants of the race. To start off......ah, I would like to hear from Kirby doing warm-ups over there!” Walky drew closer to Kirby. “How are you doing, Kirby? Did you get plenty of sleep yesterday?” “Uhh, not at all! I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep for even a minute.” Answered Kirby cheerfully. With ”Ohh......” Walky let out a concerned voice. “So even you couldn’t resist the pressure of the race. I’m worried about your condition.” “No problem! I’m all peppy since I got plenty of sleep!” “But you didn’t get a wink of sleep?” “Uh-huh. When I came to, I kicked away the blanket, flung the pillow, and broke the alarm clock like always. That’s strange. I don’t remember doing that at all!” “That is strange. What do you make of this, Mr. Meta Knight?” “......You were probably only dreaming of how you couldn’t sleep at all.”

“I see! That was a shrewd analysis from Mr. Meta Knight. Well then, who to hear from next......” Right when Walky was about to look around, a figure approached him. It was King Dedede. He is all confident with his favorite hammer in one hand. His skin smoother than usual is probably from taking plenty of baths yesterday. “What are you doing, Walky? You can’t start without hearing from me, can you?” “Ah......uhh......you're right, Player Dedede. How is everything?” “You know it’s great! Going swimmingly is the only word in my dictionary!” “Wouldn’t that dictionary be......a defect......no, never mind. Who would be your toughest adversary in today’s race, Player Dedede?” “Humph, I have no adversary. They’re all just worthless small fries.” “You really are sure of yourself. That’s player Dedede for......” “Hold up. We ain’t letting King Dedede do as he wants!” An inadequate voice resounded out of nowhere. Turning around quickly, Walky let out a exclamation. “What a surprise this is! It’s the Meta Knights!” Axe Knight, Trident Knight, Javelin Knight, and Mace Knight were the ones to show up. They are Meta Knight’s lackeys. As one might expect, they are overwhelmingly stronger and pack a punch in comparison to Dream Land’s laid-back citizens. “You guys are taking part in the race too? So you also want to appear on TV, huh?” “Ha, we’re honorable Meta Knights, don’t lump us in with you.” Answered Axe Knight, holding his axe at the ready. “I don’t even have even the slightest wish to appear on TV! Still, this too is an important duty for Meta Knights.” “It’s because guys like you might pull a foul play. We don’t condone misdemeanors, where we came to keep watch so that the race is held in fairness.” “In no way do I want my mom back in my hometown to see me. I only came to carry out my mission as Meta Knights!” “Please watch us, my lord! We’ll give it our best!” Realizing the TV cameras, the Meta Knights did a fist pump. “......Sure. All the best to you.” Meta Knight encouraged his lackeys in reluctance. Out of excitement, Walky said with his voice trembling. “That’s what we expect from Mr. Meta Knight’s men, such trustworthiness! Well, it’s getting close to the start. Let’s hear the opening address from the producer, Mr. Kizario!” As the residents wowed and clapped, Kizario stepped forward. He too was dressed in an outfit even more sparkling and over the top than usual. In response to the cheers, Kizario raised his one hand and said in a pompous voice. “Ladies and gentlemen! Sorry to keep you waiting. At last, it’s the beginning of ‘Dream Land......uhh......what was it again......‘Something Something Big Race!’” “It’s ‘Dream Land ✰ Extreme ✰ Heart-Pounding ✰ Big Race.’” Corrected Walky in a hurry. Kizario kept his cool and nodded. “That’s what it was. Well, the name doesn’t matter. What’s important is the contents of the race. I will explain the rules of the race from here on.” The participants of the race quieted down and turned their ears to Kizario. “All athletes should pass through the maze arranged by the staff and head to the first checkpoint. All sorts of vehicles are prepared at the checkpoint.” “Vehicles? What vehicles are they?” Asked Walky, and Kizario put on airs and answered. “Prepared by my wonderful staff, they’re nothing but high-performance machines. Look forward to it. The one who reaches the checkpoint can choose the machines they prefer on a first-come-first-served basis. Spare no effort, since what machine you choose will be crucial.” The participants exchanged looks and murmured. “I’ve never drove a vehicle before.” “Me too. Will it be okay?” Kizario raised his voice and continued. “For machine driving, even beginners will be fine once they get the hang of it. Just relax. The athletes will get on the machines and take on the real race. Proceed through the course in accordance to the stop signs. All kinds of obstacles like......‘Superspicy Gourmet Challenge of Terror,’ ‘Soothing Music Challenge,’ ‘Alluring Sweets Challenge,’ and etc. have been arranged along the way. You can’t win unless you clear all the challenges.” The participants are making a commotion once again. “That sounds tough.” “Wouldn’t it be fine to just run?” “That’s such a bother-” “Quiet! A final hurdle awaits the brave one who clears all the challenges. This is the most important.” “What is the final hurdle?” “I'll save that for you to look forward to. I’ll tell you when you guys reach the final checkpoint.” “Huh? Don’t be snooty, tell us now!” Begged Kirby, but Kizario chuckled and shook his head. “A climax is to be set aside until the very end. Do look forward to it, since it'll definitely stir up the race.” “......Hmmm?” “Oh right, just one more thing that’s important.” Kizario looked at the participant’s faces. “Gentlemen, if you notice something strange during the race, let the nearest stop know of it at once.” “What’s the strange thing?” “That’s, well, you know......if a loud sound is heard, or if you feel a tremor......it could be anything, so notify the staff if anything happens. I’m warning you so that the race can proceed safely.” To avoid any more questions, Kizario said loudly. “Now then, let’s begin. I’ll be pulling for you. All athletes, on your positions!” Everyone stood on the start line in haste. Taking out a large cracker, Kizario announced spectacularly. “And now......ready, start!” Simultaneously with Kizario blowing the cracker, the participants made a start. ”Uoooohh!!!” “Out of my way!! I’m the first place!” “I’m not losing!”

Everyone shouted out loud in eagerness. Boarding a small airborne machine for live coverage, Walky went after the athletes. Meta Knight also got on beside Walky. “At last, ‘Dream Land ✰ Extreme ✰ Heart-Pounding ✰ Big Race’ has begun! I will be reporting live, and Mr. Meta Knight will be commentating!” “......Yeah.” “Right off the bat, we can see the first hurdle, a humongous maze! The athletes are rushing into the maze one after another! Oh man, in the lead is Kirby! As expected, he plunges into the maze with such speed!” “It’s my win!” Kirby rushed into the maze with fervor, but paused at once. His speed and power may be unmatched, but it’s a different story with a complex maze. For the maze is made up of white walls, and walls of mirror and glass. Nothing could be used as a landmark. In an instant, Kirby became lost. The exit can’t be seen, even as he keeps moving forward. What is more, he couldn’t even know which direction he is going in. “Huh? I went through here just now......?” As he looks around, the athletes are barging in one by one. Still, everyone were perplexed by the maze of mirror and glass, and ran helter skelter. Waddle Dee’s shouts were heard from somewhere. “Kirby, where are you-!? “Ah, I’m here, Waddle Dee!” While walking along the wall, he went toward where the voice was coming from, where Waddle Dee could then be seen from afar. “Ah, there you are, Waddle Dee~!” “Kirby!” Spreading both their hands, the pair shouted for joy and were about to rush over to each other, but: They didn’t notice the wall of glass between them. The two crashed into the wall at full speed. Toppling over at the same time, they were knocked out. Kirby and Waddle are not the only ones having a hard time against the glass walls. Here or there, people are bumping into the walls and mirrors and falling over one after another. “Owie!!” “An invisible wall in a place like this......! Dang it!!!” The maze is a vortex of screams. Needless to say, King Dedede was the first to lose his temper. “Dang nabbit, what a pain in the butt! This wall has some nerve getting in my way!” Raising his hammer, King Dedede destroyed the wall standing before him in one blow. “Hahaha! I’ll make a beeline to the goal like this!” Walking with long strides, King Dedede was smashing all the walls and mirrors in his way. The athletes are overjoyed. “Ohhh! Now that’s His Highness!” “With this, the maze is nothing to be scared of!” Having boarded the machine for live coverage and looking down, Walky let out a groan. “Holy smokes! There’s no meaning to the maze like this. Shouldn't Player Dedede be disqualified for penalty, Commentator Meta Knight?” “No, there isn’t a rule that says you shouldn't destroy the maze. It doesn't matter what measures you take so long as you reach the goal.” “Is that so......erm, the Meta Knights said that they won’t condone wrongdoings or so a moment ago, but......” Walky gave the Meta Knights a stare. Surrounding Dedede, the Meta Knights are in high glee. “Good, King Dedede! Smash this wall too!” “That hammer has its use sometimes~!” “I’ll help you out! Have a taste of my axe!”

Standing ready with each of their weapons, they find themselves destroying any walls they come across. “I repeat, there’s no rule that says that you shouldn’t destroy the maze. My men therefore aren’t making a mistake.” Said Meta Knight. “I see......there’s no problem then. We can see the endpoint of the maze now!” A bright light is shining through the shattered walls. With King Dedede at the front, the athletes are charging towards there. “Wahoo!!! I’m gonna win!” “Nah, this is only the first checkpoint.” “The real fight begins now~!”

Around then, at an extremely ordinary household in an extremely ordinary planet: “Daddy, there’s an interesting TV show!” A small boy called out to his father. Polishing his golf club, his father said with little interest. “Stop watching TV. Do your homework.” “I’ll do homework later. This show looks more fun. A race is said to be held in Dream Land.” “You should do your homework rather than watch TV......” “The residents of Dream Land have all gathered! They said Lord Meta Knight is commentating!” “......What? Meta Knight?” Laying his golf club, his father raised his face. “How unusual. I heard that Meta Knight is a swordsman known all throughout the universe, but hates to stand out. So he wouldn't really appear in front of others. I don’t believe that he would appear on TV.” Opening the newspaper, his father puzzled over it. “Huh......? That program isn’t in the papers. Is that a special tentative program?” “It started broadcasting just now. It looks fun. Let’s watch it together!” “Will do. It’ll be worth watching if Meta Knight is to appear.” The father and his son sat side-by-side in front of the TV.

It wasn’t just this household. Having a similar conversation, all the homes in the whole universe were turning their attention to the special program from Comet TV.

Having come out of the maze, the athletes made their way to the top of a low hill. Several machines of the latest models are lined up in a row. The TV staff explained. “These are called Air Ride Machines. They are super-high-performance for race use. Please choose one machine of your liking.” Whichever they were, the Air Ride Machines were all in good repair and sparkling in full radiance. Burning Leo, Cappy, Mr. Frosty, Capsule J2, and the rest of the athlete’s eyes glittered. “Wow, they all look so cool. I can’t choose!” “Which one should I go with......” To the wavering athletes, King Dedede was the one to shout. “Hang on a sec, you bozos! I’m the one that got out of the maze first. I have the right to pick first!” Swinging his hammer, King Dedede shooed away the other athletes and walked about leisurely while gazing at the machines. “Hmmm......it's so-so. None of the Air Ride Machines really suit me......” The king halted before one of the machines. Compared to the other machines, it is noticeably large and imposing. It was called Rex Wheelie, a bike-type machine. The king seems to be enthralled by it at first sight. Still, out of vanity, he gave himself airs without giving his honest impression. “Humm......would this be fine? I can’t say it suits me, but it’s the least-worse in comparison to the others!” As soon as the king mounted it, the bike started dashing on its own. “A-A-Ahh!? I haven’t done anything yet~!”

Screamed King Dedede, but the bike isn’t stopping. The bike rushed down the hill at breakneck speed. “The Air Ride Machines here are all designed to start running just by mounting on it, so that even beginners could ride it. Everyone here can just focus on managing the handle.” Explained the TV staff. “W-Will it be okay......?” The athletes are all nervous. But this was no place for them to waver. They each selected the machine of their preference. “I’ll go with this! It looks so fast and cool!” Seeing the Machine that Burning Leo chose, said Walky. “Based on the data at hand, what Burning Leo chose is......uhh......Formula Star! It’s a super-high-functionality machine with the top-class speed!” “Haha, I called it! It goes perfectly with me~!” Burning Leo mounted it, where Formula Star hummed at the same time and dashed down the hill. Walky shouted. “But it seems to be difficult to handle. It’s not very good at curving, so be careful when you turn!” “S-S-Say that before I get on it!!”

Burning Leo’s screams could be heard a little. Unable to turn, Formula Star collided with a large tree and toppled over. Having been watching him, the athletes were completely seized with fear. “I-I like the machine that’s easier to handle......” “I’m gonna go with this!” What Cappy hopped on was a beautiful machine shining in silver. Walky explained. “What Cappy chose is Jet Star. The machine is not very fast on land, but it speeds up wonderfully in the air!” True to his words, having boarded Cappy, Jet Star soared high in the sky right away. “So lucky......that jerk picked a good one!” The athletes all looked up at the sky in envy. However, what came down from the sky was a pathetic scream. “S-Stop!! S-Save me!! I-I'm afraid of heights!!”

As they watched, Jet Star became smaller and disappeared to the other side of the clouds. Walky continued commentating. “Cappy looks to have made a crucial mistake in choosing the machines. Best of luck to you all. Please be careful in selecting the machines!” “I’m going with this!” Axe Knight sprange at a machine. Walky busily turned over his document. “What Axe Knight chose is Shadow Star! It has high attack power, and destroying other Machines is its strong suit, making it a very frightening machine. As expected from Axe Knight, he’s taking an offensive strategy!” Axe Knight boarded Shadow Star as he grinned. “This machine’s cool since it’s shaped kinda like Lord Meta Knight’s cape~!”

“Ah, hang on, Axe Knight! I won’t let you steal a march on!” “I want that machine too!” “Let me get in as well~! Mace Knight, Javelin Knight, and Trident Knight jumped in at the same time. Shadow Star started to move slowly. “Get off, you guys. This is a one-seater.” Complained Axe Knight. “I want this too. You get off!” “What!? It’s first come first serve!” With the arguing Meta Knight on board, Shadow Star goes down the hill. Far from an exhilarating start, while sputtering unstably. “It looks like there’s too much weight. I wonder if the Meta Knights will be able to reach the goal safely?” Said Walky. Afterwards, boarding the machine of their choosing, the athletes went down the hill in succession. The machines may be of high-performance, but they are nothing but quirky. The screams of the participants can be heard all around. “Well, everyone is getting fired up. Who will be crowned victor......oh my, there’s an athlete that came late. It’s......Kirby, can you believe it!? Kirby, who was one of the front-runners, has a late start!” Kirby tottered his way to the checkpoint. He is carrying Waddle Dee on his back. Crashing into a glass wall in the maze, the pair were passed out. Kirby may have somehow regained his consciousness, but Waddle Dee is still worn out. Having no choice, Kirby had to carry him on his back. “There are two Machines left. Which will you choose, Kirby?” “Ummm......” Lowering Waddle Dee to the ground, Kirby compared the machines placed in a row. One machine shaped like a star and looked cute. The other machine was of a scooter shape. “I’m gonna go with this.” What Kirby picked was the one shaped like a star. Walky said. “What Kirby chose is Warp Star, an Air Ride Machine. Humm......this machine is quite ordinary and doesn’t have any characteristics. It doesn’t look very fast, where no one picked it.” Before getting on the Warp Star, Kirby spoke to Waddle Dee. “Waddle Dee......hey, are you alright?” With his eyes shut, Waddle Dee answered limply. “Uh......huh......Kirby, go ahead of me. I’ll catch up with you later.” “Really......? I’ll go then, but......sorry, Waddle Dee.” “No sweat! You gave me a piggyback ride all the way here!” Looking at Waddle Dee in worry, Kirby hopped on the Warp Star. Shaped like a yellow star, Warp Star floated up gently and started to move slowly. “It doesn’t seem to be capable of accelerating well. Kirby had a late start in choosing the Machines.” Said Walky. “No, that isn’t it. Have a good look.” Meta Knight pointed out. Just as it boarded Kirby, Warp Star began releasing a mysterious light. “Oh my? Warp Star began to shine. What can this be, Commentator Meta Knight?” “The Machine and the rider have something called a compatibility. Regardless of how outstanding the machine is, the rider with a poor match won’t be able to maneuver it. I guess the Warp Star is a great match for Kirby.” “I see! So Kirby got the machine that's just right for him!” With Kirby on board, Warp Star speeds up little by little as it descends down the hill. What stands in his way matters little, whether it’d be a large tree or a boulder. As if one with the Warp Star, Kirby avoided them effortlessly and put more speed to it.

Walky said in excitement. “What a superb handling technique! Kirby has made up for his late start right away! The anticipation is high in Kirby turning the tables!” Having the small airborne machine take off a second time, Walky and Meta Knight followed after Kirby. Kizario revealed himself at the top of the quietened hill. With the binoculars in his hand, he watched what became of the athletes and said to himself. “It’s a success......up to this point. Next up, I need to locate “that” quickly......before Kurron does......” “Young Master Kizario.” One of the staff approached him. Kizario turned around and said in displeasure. “I said to call me Kiza-P! I’m the producer!” “Yes sir, I’m sorry. The HQ called us just now.” “What?” “It looks like the ratings of this show have skyrocketed, sir.” “Seriously!?” Kizario’s face brightened up. “Yes. Mr. Meta Knight’s appearance must’ve turned into a hot topic. Although we were anxious because we had to shove it in as a tentative program......we might not get rebuked by the CEO if this keeps up.” “Forget rebuking, everyone is now seeing me in a positive light!” “He’s been called good-for-nothing until now. Luck has turned for the young master at last.” “It’s not luck. This is my true skill!” Kizario said with a bright face. “Alrighty, I’m sure everything will be okay from now. Follow me, everyone!” Jumping on the machine for staff, Kizario slid down the hill. Carrying filming equipment like cameras, mikes, and so forth, the machines followed behind him. The one left behind is......Waddle Dee only. Regaining his energy, Waddle Dee got up slowly. “A-Ah......everyone left......” Waddle Dee became disheartened, where he came trudging to the machine left all alone. It was Wheelie Scooter, a small green machine. No matter how you look at it, it seemed slow and the machine wasn’t picked by anyone. “This seems just right for me. I’ll take my time to not get hurt......” Waddle Dee mounted it, and Wheelie Scooter started rattling its way forth. It can’t gather any speed at all. Waddle Dee was at ease “There’s nothing to be afraid with this. I can’t go after Kirby and His Majesty, but it can’t be helped.”

With rattle, rattle......a calm noise resounded from Wheelie Scooter as it descended down the hill with Waddle Dee on board.

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Table of contents

How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices - Attempting to save the Lhazareen victims

I want to devote the beginning of this series of posts specifically for May 19 2020, which marks the one-year anniversary of the death of the queen who inspired so many of us. Even if I don't engage exclusively with the show and its discourse, as a Dany fan, I was also very emotionally affected by what happened. I felt the need to write something for this day, even if not show-related. This meta is a love letter to our brave, compassionate and intelligent queen; it shows the kind of leader she is, the kind of leader the show decided to destroy and the kind of leader that will leave an unfillable void if she also dies in the books. #istandbydaenerys

~

This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn't act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she's facing. I won't include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. The metas will always have four items: in which chapters the events mentioned take place; what advice she receives and from whom; what were her actions; the verdict (whether she followed other people's advice, ignored/rejected them or did both at the same time).

 Chapter (s): 

AGOT Daenerys VII

The advice Dany receives:

Quaro, Irri and Jhogo tell Dany that "the riders do [the lamb girl] honor"; the latter goes as far as to propose to cut her tongue if her cries bother Dany.

Jorah tries to normalize what's happening by saying that it's how it's always been and that the khal's men claim their reward for fighting for him. He praises Dany's actions at first by saying that she is Rhaegar's sister, but soon afterwards reinforces that she can't save everyone. 

 Dany's actions:

Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

~

“I will not have her harmed,” Dany said.

As we can see in these passages, Dany uses the limited authority she has to stop the sexual violence she's witnessing. To make sure that she's successful, she consciously changes her manners to convince him:

Dany told him what she had done, in his own tongue so the khal would understand her better, her words simple and direct.

~

“It pleases me to hold them safe,” Dany said, wondering if she had dared too much. “If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.”

There are multiple factors to consider as to why Dany proposed for the Dothraki men to marry the Lhazareen women they were raping:

She was told by Jorah that Drogo's men feel entitled to rape the Lhazareen women as a reward for fighting for him, so she is aware that she is breaking their social contract, even if righteously so.

She doesn't understand what marital rape is because she still absorbs some of her society's patriarchal values uncritically. Also, she still doesn't realize that this is a systemic issue and that she can't pass these women around from one master to another. This sets up her eventual rebellion against Kraznys's deal and her freeing of the Unsullied. Her failure to protect Eroeh still looms large in her thoughts and is part of Dany's reflections on why should she be a queen in the first place.

She considers Drogo "the shield that kept her safe" even though her marriage was forced, so she might expect that things work out as "well" for the other women as well. This is understandable for a 14-year-old who, despite being mature in many ways, is still naive in others.

Perhaps most importantly, her decision to help the women could have been easily overruled by Drogo. She had to think of a solution that would conciliate her husband's desires and these women's best interests simultaneously.

On the other hand, while Dany needs to act tactfully with Drogo, she doesn't do the same with the other people around her:

“Khaleesi?” The knight sounded perplexed.


“You heard my words,” she said. “Stop them.” She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki. “Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape.”

~

“I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

~

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.”

~

Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. “Does the horse breed with the sheep?”

Something in his tone reminded her of Viserys. Dany turned on him angrily. “The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”

Now that she is both khaleesi and the last known Targaryen, Dany knows that she needs to have people's respect if she wants them to obey her and see her as an authority. She knows she has to be firm at times, and that's what she does.

The last quote is particularly noteworthy because of Viserys's mention. His influence on Dany contextualizes the development of her political skills in key ways.

We know right from her first chapter that Dany had to grow up and mature more quickly than a normal child/teenager: she lived with someone with whom she had to carefully consider her words ("she knew better than to question her brother"), even when she disagreed with him ("she mistrusted Illyrio's sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio") or was critical of him ("His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest"). Because of Viserys, she had to learn to be conciliatory.

It is also because of Viserys (and the Dothraki, who gave Dany the support she needed to stand up to him) that Dany had to learn to be assertive. Although her brother was "stupid and vicious" and "cruel", he could also be strong-minded and resolute, and that's what Dany held on to. The moments where she declares her titles to express her authority (among other usages) are not only contextualized by the pseudofeudal system that she's part of, but also by Viserys's influence on her (which Dany doesn't accept blindly, she learns the best he could've taught her), hence why you see her using phrases that he used as well. (The difference is that she recontextualizes them - "blood of the dragon" is used to give herself strength in moments of fear and remind herself that she needs to control her emotions to be perceived as an authority; "wake the dragon" is used in moments of great distress, such as when she's furious at Robert's attempt to kill her and Rhaego or when she became impatient with Jorah for constantly trying to isolate her from other men; and so on.)

Dany's handling of her interpersonal relationships with Drogo and Viserys need to be analyzed and contextualized to fully grasp not only this particular moment, but also Dany's entire character development and the politically savvy queen she will become in ASOS and ADWD. Some argue that it was "unrealistic" to see her getting to that point, but I would argue it wasn't at all: her entire life, with all its setbacks and hardships, shaped her to be conciliatory, assertive and resilient and develop the political skills that she did. She wouldn't have survived if she hadn't developed them.

(Just to be clear, none of this is to say that these men were responsible for making who Dany is or that their emotional and sexual abuse of Dany was justified in any way. Indeed, neither Viserys nor Drogo ever had the intention of guiding Dany - her development is hers and only hers. Because of her extraordinary courage and strong moral values, she was able to separate the good from the bad in their influences and be resilient and adaptable all the way through.)

People tend to see this moment solely as a failure on Dany's part because her efforts to help these women didn't pay off. However, to look at these scenes only from that perspective means missing out how they serve as a prelude to Dany's rise as a political leader.

 Verdict: 

Dany's decisions were all hers here and she took them despite everyone else's advice (though she also took Jorah's into consideration when she spoke to Drogo).