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aliceramblez · 3 months

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Dating The BB League Elite Four + Kieran 💕

Tags: GN! Reader, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Teal Mask & Indigo Disk Spoilers!

A/N: After finally getting dragged into the Pokémon rabbit hole, I honestly couldn't resist in doing one of these for my babies! Scarlet/Violet is my very first Pokémon experience, so hopefully I did these characters justice ^^

Feel free to follow my main @taruchinator & leave a request for future HCs!

Crispin 🔥

He's such a dork and incredibly quirky but don't you worry, he'll definitely be the one to ask you out first, no matter how many attempts it takes. Not like you'd say no to begin with.

As a partner, he's the kind of guy who would always try to cheer you up and have you in a happy mood, because when you're happy, he's happy! Anything from compliments, to jokes, to just giving you lots of affection.

Which brings us to the fact that he's huge on PDA. And the funny thing is he doesn't even realize he's doing it—he'll lean on you when you're showing him something in your Rotom Phone, rubbing circles on your palm when you're talking about your day, placing his chin on your shoulder while talking to the other club members—this man is all over you.

During your stay at Blueberry Academy, don't you dare spend your precious money on the cafeteria, he's got you covered. He'll ask you and learn about your tastes, creating new recipes and concoctions just for you, hoping to surprise you with something better and nutritious every day!

If you had a long day of training and doing BBQs, Crispin always comes by and makes sure you had a meal. And you better not be lying to him.

“Man, you've been out all day! Did you even have lunch?”

“.... I had a granola bar.”

“HOW ARE YOU STILL STANDING?”

It's safe to say that Koraidon/Miraidon adores him, and even makes you question whether it's you or your Pokémon who's dating him.

After you started going out, Crispin now makes sure to carry sandwiches with him at all times. Mostly for your oversized lizard boy, but also for you in case you need a quick snack to recharge. The legendary Pokémon is quick to thank him with licks and constant slobbering which always leaves the red-head a mess, but he tries to not let it bother him for your sake.

Whenever you guys aren't training, you'll be in your dorm rooms cooking and having laughs with your Pokémon over how clumsy they can be in the kitchen.

Overall, a sweet and supportive goofball who'll make sure you're always smiling and never have an empty stomach!

Amarys 👓

Obviously Amarys isn't the best at conveying her emotions. It doesn't mean she doesn't care, she just has a hard time figuring them out sometimes! Which is why it's incredibly strange to her when she starts having these weird sensations whenever she's around you.

She feels happier, her stomach gets all jumbled when you compliment her, and her minds always finds a way to drift back to you no matter what she's doing.

She ends up asking Carmine about it, who immediately gets all giddy and explains to her that she might have a crush. Amarys is surprised, but not against the idea. It makes sense in retrospect—cue bestie Carmine giving her pointers and ideas to try and confess to you.

Unfortunately it's all a bit too convoluted or cheesy for the Steel-Type user's liking, so she ends up doing it her own way.

One day after club activities are over, she asks if you can stay a bit longer to talk. “After much deliberation, it would seem that I have caught romantic feelings for you. I propose a casual outing so we can discuss these in further detail. Do you agree?”

It doesn't take long for you two to start going out.

Amarys shows affection through small gestures that may not seem like a lot to others, but you know they're huge steps for her. Sharing her food when you're hungry, giving you advice on how to raise your Pokémon properly, helping you study subjects you aren't that good at—the list goes on.

PDA isn't her strong suit at all. Physical affection in general isn't something she's used to, and she's forever grateful that you don't push her to do things out of her comfort zone. She tries though, and will do things like brush her hand against yours or even give you a hug whenever she's feeling bold.

To an outsider you're both an unconventional couple, but manage to make it work with trust and constant communication. Give her some time and she'll warm up to you.

Lacey 🧚‍♀️

A sweet cutie who doesn't really change her attitude towards you even after you start dating, since she's always loved having you around. The two of you also confess at the same time, which leaves you as a pair of giggling messes at the irony of it.

Is your number one cheerleader when it comes to school academics. You may not be an official Blueberry student, but that doesn't mean you should be slacking in your classes! If you don't understand the material, don't you worry, she's already prepared a slideshow presentation going over it point by point. Will also reward you with kisses if you pay attention!

Lacey isn't huge on PDA either since she thinks it's unnecessary, but when it's just the two of you, she will never let go. You have successfully replaced Granbull as her favorite pillow of choice, since whenever you two have time off and she's tired, you'll probably take a snooze under a tree in the Coastal Biome.

When you get to meet her father, she's actually a bit nervous since she's never thought of dating before finishing school, but you try and be brave and reassure her that you'll try your best to give a good impression. He thinks you're alright, but gives you the good old father talk to make sure you won't hurt his little girl.

Will find ways to dot your Legendary lizard ride with gifts and affection since she thinks he's just too darn stinking cute, but don't worry, she still thinks you're the cutest!

Since Lacey's constantly worrying about things getting done around the League Club, it's your duty as her partner to get her to relax from time to time. You'll do your best by offering to share responsibilities and reminding her that breaks are very much needed.

“Sweetie it's nighttime, you can finish in the morning. I'm tired and need cuddleeeess.”

“Just one more page and I'll be done—”

“Please Ms. Lacey! I need your cuteness to have a good night's sleep!”

“F-Fine, I'm coming! Flattering me to get what you want is just not right, ya know?”

Truly an iconic duo.

Drayton 🐉

Let's get one thing straight: this man doesn't confess—heck, he doesn't even ask you out! One day he just has his arms around you and plants a kiss on your cheek claiming that he'll follow your every command, all with a cheeky grin on his face. You're more than welcome to punch him for it and he'll still come crawling back.

Like most things in his life, Drayton takes your relationship slow and steady, not really wanting to push your boundaries (unless he wants to tease you) and having no rush to progress things. He's just a chill guy who wants to claim you before anyone else does.

Don't be mistaken though, this doesn't mean he doesn't care. You'd be surprised how much he looks out for you, almost borderline overprotective in some cases. After everything that happened with Terapagos in Area Zero, he's constantly making sure you have strong Pokémon, supplies, and good company to survive the crazy adventures you get mixed up in.

You guys' ideal date is spending time together in the dorms after school hours, kicking back and relaxing with a movie or just talking about stuff that happened during the day. He's surprisingly a very good listener.

It's from these laid back conversations that he gets ideas for random gifts to get you. Did you need a new pair of gloves cause the old ones ripped? Some are waiting in the club room. You're running low on potions? A box full of them appears on your doorstep. Want to visit your friends in Paldea but can't find the time? Turns out Drayton took over your assignments for the day so you're free to go!

You're also the only person he'll allow himself to be tutored by. Will literally not listen to anyone unless it's you. Which is why you try to make sure the material is easy for him to digest + it's not boring typical schoolwork, but something he'll actually enjoy.

“Okay! Today we're going over math! Let's have a battle in the Polar Biome so you can see how probability applies in critical hits and such.”

“Aww, my honey is catering to my needs? Aren't you the sweetest thing?”

“No kisses until we're done, Drayton.”

“Alright, aye aye boss!”

He's an idiot, but he's your idiot.

Kieran 🍎

This boy has had a crush on you ever since you first met in Kitakami, but never had the courage to say anything since he was so shy. Now however, he doesn't say anything because he feels like he doesn't have the right to.

After everything he's put you through—from accusing you of stealing Ogerpon, to fighting you in an all out battle, to straight up putting you and everyone else in danger just because he wanted a chance at getting a Legendary Pokémon—Kieran doesn't think he deserves to be your friend, let alone your partner.

Carmine is there as his wingwoman though, cheering him on and telling him how much you appreciate him and clearly return his feelings.

And so, mustering as much courage as he can, he asks if you'll trade Pokémon with him. When you agree, he brings out an Applin, which immediately leaves you blushing but also spreads a huge smile on your face. The two of you officially start dating.

Kieran does is absolute best to try and be the boyfriend you deserve, even though it's his first relationship and he has no idea what he's doing half the time. The members of the League Club are surprised at first, but ultimately support you guys all the way!

You spend time together sharing battle strategies and having your Pokémon playing to try and get along. Turns out Ogerpon and Hydrapple become fast friends by the end of a particular play date, much to your delight.

He's not good at PDA, like, at all. He's still that shy and timid kid from Kitakami underneath it all, so he struggles with initiating affection even when it's just the two of you. You're the one who has to start the hugs and kisses, leaving him like a puddle of goo under your grasp.

Nightmares still plague him occasionally, mostly revolving the journey to Area Zero and how it all could've turned out for the worst if by some chance Terapagos decided to attack someone else. Maybe even you. If you're with him when they happen, you'll hold him tight and whisper sweet nothings into his ear until he calms down, or if he calls you to make sure you're okay, you'll stay on the phone with him until he falls asleep again.

“I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...”

“It's okay Kieran. We're both okay, and that's all that matters.”

You two are the power couple that Blueberry Academy never expected, but deep down, you're just a pair of dorks who fawn over each other on a daily basis.

#Pokémon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon scarlet #pokemon violet #the teal mask #the indigo disk #pokemon reader inserts #crispin x reader #amarys x reader #lacey x reader #drayton x reader #kieran x reader #crispin pokemon #amarys pokemon #lacey pokemon #drayton pokemon #kieran pokemon

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genshin-scenarios · 7 months

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the skip of a heart (lyney x reader)

Summary: Where you were picked as the volunteer of the magic show where things went Completely Wrong, Lyney is barely keeping it together during his trial. Thankfully, you return to the court safe and sound by the end.

Content warnings: Major spoilers for Fontaine's archon quest, Act 1. Do not read further if you don't want to get spoiled, this fic heavily references the main plot relating to Lyney. Angst, reader is fine but characters are going through it, thinking you might be dead.

Wordcount: 1733

Once upon a time, when Lyney was still telling himself that he simply wanted to befriend you, he’d invited you onstage during one of his magic shows and slipped a card into your pocket. You only noticed it after returning to your seat.

He made the card seem important enough that you’d stayed back to return it to him. Sly as Lyney was, he thanked you for being so vigilant before twirling said playing card between his fingers, only to turn into a Rainbow Rose.

You left the theater one rose richer and with butterflies in your stomach, not daring to touch your hair in case the flower he’d tucked behind your ear would fall out. You wonder what you looked like to Lyney in that moment, eyes wide and cheeks burning as he bore his gaze into you, watching for your reaction.

He had the audacity to let his fingers linger against your face, hesitate, and then finally fall back to his side. He could tell himself that this was just a fleeting adoration, but deep down he knew his sister’s musings were right; he was a puppet that did not know how to attach his strings loosely.

If he were to pick another that could move his heart, mind, or soul, it would be through meetings that made him smile like a fool until it was too late - tangled and inexplicably bound to an affection that was addictive as much as it was suffocating, after Lyney realized the extent of how much he’d grown to look forward to the next time he’d see you. If he went without it for too long, he might just forget how to breathe.

Breathe. He wills his hands from shaking, then crosses his arms when it doesn’t work. Lyney is trying his best to answer the officer’s questions, but the image of the water tank crashing onto the stage is seared into his mind.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Their body wasn’t found. They aren’t dead.

If it wasn’t for Lynette grabbing onto him as soon as they were escorted for the investigation, Lyney thinks he might’ve been petrified even longer on the spot. Then their enemies - whoever plotted to sabotage and frame them - would see him. See the fear in his eyes. See him go from a capable, untouchable magician to a child lost on a dark, dark night.

He thinks he might’ve gone numb; a delayed reaction with denial and a racing heart, and something like fear but worse tightening around his chest. No one can tell except for Lynette, who covers for him. Who holds his hand between them so they don’t tremble. Who tells him not to jump to conclusions because he is not in control of everything, and this is not his fault.

The officer thinks it's about the show. Some others might know you were acquainted with Lyney. Only his family knows that he’s in love.

He hates it. He hates it. He tries not to think about you because if he did, his mind is only going to spiral, and that wouldn’t help with finding you. He’s not allowed to partake in the investigation because he’s a suspect. He can only rely on the Traveler to figure it out.

Lyney wishes it was him instead of you. An unreasonable part of himself just wants to set the theater ablaze. He hates always being the one that’s left in the end, the room losing its audience members. Why is it always everyone else that’s taken instead of him? Why does he always chase after the trails left by villains with the weight of the world on his back, praying he can rescue his loved ones before it’s too late?

When you finally come to, you realize you’re in an attic above the stage.

After entering the box and having water fall on you, you were understandably panicked and made a noise loud enough to alert Lyney’s assistant. As the story goes, you put up a fight and managed to knock Cowell out by hitting an item against his head. And just as you managed to shove him back inside the box to make sure he didn’t come and attack you again, you were searching for a way out before touching something in the room that teleported you to a foreign space; dark and dusty and cramped, before a wave of nausea from the teleportation device hit you all of a sudden. The next thing you recall upon waking up is hearing voices from the floor underneath you, quiet and tense.

“Can anyone hear me?” You try calling out for the tenth time, knocking against the wooden ground in hopes that it could be audible by whoever’s on the other side. The most you managed to find in the darkness was a door on the ground, the bolts and handle rusted shut with age. There are some pamphlets of performances from very long ago and many cobwebs, meaning that this place had probably been abandoned years ago.

If it’s between your life or your dignity, you’d much rather live to see another day. Bracing yourself, you start shouting at the top of your lungs, occasionally knocking on the ground in hopes the ruckus will alert anyone.

The voices of two men start to float to your ears, to which you desperately pause and rush closer to the bolted door.

“I could’ve sworn I heard something here.”

“It couldn’t be a hidden assassin, could it?”

“Hello?! I’m trapped up here!” You call out, feeling lightheaded from all the shouting. Your body is starting to give into the exhaustion of fighting off Cowell and finding yourself up here, but you pray the adrenaline lasts just long enough for you to be rescued. “I’m the volunteer from the stage! Cowell’s in the box, isn’t he? He was acting really suspicious earlier!”

A shuffle can be heard from below, closer now. With your heart in your throat, you continue so that they can follow your voice. “There’s a doorway here that’s been rusted shut. I can’t open it from my side!”

Finally, just below you, the male voices yell back. “...Found it! They’re here!”

“Please move away from the door! We’ll try to force it open. Demoiselle, please cover your ears.”

“Are you… Oh, be careful!”

With four resounding blasts, you can see the metal ridges of the door bend against the bullets’ force. Then, with a resounding kick, a claymore flies from below and stabs through the wood, followed by the glow of geo that demolishes it into nothing.

Greeted by the sight of Navia and her attendants, you’ve never felt more glad to see another person.

In hindsight, you’re sure the sudden sounds of gunfire from the back of the theater must’ve been a shock to those overseeing Lyney and Lynette’s trial. But honestly, with all that they’ve been falsely accused of, you can only hope they find some entertainment value in your dramatic entrance.

Though Navia was doing most of the talking, you explained what happened and the mysterious trinket that might’ve been an old and forgotten device (or escape route for Cowell, you had no clue) - all the while trying not to glance over at Lyney too much in case the court would take that as bias.

When the proceedings finally end and you’re reeling in the post-trial emotions of how it went, what you didn’t expect was for Lyney to practically barrel into you once the officials were out of sight, arms wrapped around your shoulders and clutching onto you so tightly, it was as if he was afraid you might disappear again.

The moment you feel his warmth embrace you, the strong front you put up finally melts away as your legs weaken and exhaustion hits the both of you. Hiding in each other’s arms, you squeeze Lyney back just as tightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Lyney can’t seem to stop repeating those words, hugging you even tighter. You run your fingers through his hair to calm him down. “I thought you were gone.”

“And leave you with a criminal crawling in your midst?” You reply softly, a weak smile on your lips as you pull away to look Lyney in the eyes. “I was more worried about what Cowell might be up to. It’s a good thing I wasn’t Fontaine-born, huh?”

“Don’t even joke about that.” He takes your hands in his, then reaches out to run them over your shoulders, and arms, lightly turning you around so that he could check over you. “Are you feeling okay? Do you have a headache? Fever?”

“You might be the one with the fever.” You place your hand on his forehead, watching him melt against you. It’s a little hotter than it should be, even with his pyro vision. “I’ll walk you and Lynette back, okay?” You plan to take care of them too, though Lynette might just appreciate a quiet teatime while her brother might be properly sick from worry. You haven’t seen him this disoriented before, too distracted for any semblance of his usual grandeur.

Though… From what you remember, you like this side of Lyney just as much, if not a little bit more. The side of him that’s just Lyney, behind the magic and charms worn on his sleeve.

You make sure to be within Lyney’s line of sight while you’re at their home. While he doesn’t say it, you know it’s the next closest thing (other than physical contact) that reassures him you’re safe. So you and Lynette keep the door open while you prepare tea. And after Lyney’s recovered a little from sleeping, you spend the rest of the day just chatting and lounging around.

Perhaps it’s because of the incident, but Lyney is a little clingier than usual. Within the safety of his own room, he tucks his head into the crook of your neck, arms hugging you from behind. You’re reading a book together, kind of. It’s your turn to grow sleepy after the long day with a human heater pressed against you, and Lyney’s more than happy to place a blanket over the both of you as you nap the evening away.

You’ll be lucky if you can escape his arms the morning after. Lyney’s never been easy to wake up in the morning, especially if it’s to keep you in bed.

#lyney x reader #lyney x you #genshin impact lyney #genshin x reader #genshin reader insert #genshin impact imagines #genshin x you #traveler wishes #genshin requests #lyney x y/n

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earlgarden-archived · 9 months

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I haven't seen much of this, but what about Danganronpa x Ranpo!reader (from bsd). Like, everyone in the trial is trying to figure out the murderer, and the reader is just standing there, already knowing the identity of the killer-

Personally I would prefer if the reader was in Danganronpa V3, mostly because I enjoy the cast more. But that does mean that the reader can't be the ultimate detective, so you can make the reader be in Danganronpa 2 if you want :)

Extra comment:

"all's well that's well for me!"

ft. Danganronpa V3 Cast, Ranpo!reader

synopsis. You find yourself trapped in a school, with 16 other students and forced into a killing game! But don't worry, you're the ultimate Private Investigator!

warnings. Spoiler to the Danganronpa V3 game, mentions of death, kinda short

This was fun to make :) I had to rewatch BSD though, I feel like I haven't watched it in a while 😅

·˚✎ straight off the bat, you would annoy the hell out of Maki

·˚✎ you are just plain rude sometimes, and you seem like you don't take things seriously at all, which is just a huge red flag for Maki

·˚✎ like calling everyone stupid, or not helping with investigations and just simply snacking in your room

·˚✎ in some way, you're kinda like Kokichi

·˚✎ speaking of Kokichi, he would take an interest in you. You're just... So carefree. Just like him.

·˚✎ but he could tell for sure that you were not what you seemed. I can imagine you and Kokichi having a small competition to who's smarter.

·˚✎ Kaito thought you were low-key creepy. Because you just didn't seem to be bothered. You only looked slightly shocked when Monokuma announced the killing game, but after a while you returned to your calm face.

·˚✎ Kaede kinda liked your carefree attitude. But she also found you a bit rude, which didn't cause her to be very close with you

·˚✎ Shuichi was always caught off guard when with you, so he didn't really become friends with you until after the first trial. When he began to realise your intelligence.

·˚✎ speaking of the first trial (haha amazing transition), you didn't really do much to help. During the investigation, you just went back to your room. So everyone thought you were being lazy and selfish.

·˚✎ but then when everyone was driven to a corner, you stepped in and helped everyone.

·˚✎ literally no one expected you, who didn't even help with the investigations, to have figured everything out. But that's when you pulled a "I'll let the main character do everything" move. (Flashback to "tell them Naegi")

·˚✎ like, you'd be the Kyoko Kirigiri of Danganronpa V3, just more annoying and more lazy.

·˚✎ although, when it came to Kaede not being the actual killer, that was probably the one thing you accidentally overlooked. And it was only until later that you realized that Kaede might not actually be the killer of Rantaro. Or maybe you were already killed before you figured it out

·˚✎ slowly, everyone took a liking for your personality, because you were pretty trustworthy

#danganronpa x reader #danganronpa v3 #shuichi x reader #kaede x reader #kaito x reader #maki x reader #kokichi x reader #shuichi saihara x reader #kaede akamatsu x reader #kaito mamota x reader #maki harukawa x reader #kokichi ouma x reader #ranpo edogawa

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genericpuff · 3 months

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Lore Olympus Episode 265 Betrays the Series' Own Messages of Consent

I've been keeping it on the down low lately with new episodes of LO, both for the sake of my mental health and because LO itself has just become so... pointless and boring. There's only so much to say when nothing is happening, and in that regard, I will preface this with a "congratulations" towards Rachel, because she's finally found a way to best the "haters" - make the comic so boring that there's nothing worth talking about to begin with.

At first glance I thought this was going to be another one of those episodes. Good job, Rachel, you managed to pad out another episode with pointless fluff to get you closer to that looming end date. Just keep dragging, just keep dragging, just keep dragging-

But the longer I sat on it, and read the comments and posts about it in discussion circles, the more I've realized that this episode in particular has a load of issues that I don't feel good just sitting on and not talking about. Primarily because, over the course of about 90% of this episode's length, we see Lore Olympus - and Rachel - slyly undo everything that ever mattered in its subtext about consent, healthy relationships, and strong communication.

Granted, Lore Olympus has never exactly been the poster child for those things, but it's trying to be, so we're going to dissect it with an equal amount of scrutiny. It wants to be taken seriously, so I'm going to take it seriously and criticize it seriously.

CONTENT WARNING: EPISODE 265 SPOILERS AHEAD, AS WELL AS DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, MENTAL HEALTH, GROOMING, AND SYMPTOMS OF MANIA, PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Episode 265 opens with an attempt at plot progression, returning to Morpheus who, last we checked, had been targeted by Kronos as the cliffhanger for Episode 259 before being shoved aside entirely for multiple episodes worth of Demophoon, pool-fucking, and a vision from Hera.

Honestly, I won't waste my 30 image limit on the episode's opening sequence because it accomplishes absolutely nothing. And by the time it starts to try and state what that goal is, it transitions away, because Rachel has the attention span of a squirrel on meth and having Morpheus state what her plan is would just be too much dedicated writing for her at this point, she needs another week at least to figure it out.

So instead we get exactly what was promised in the FastPass previews - the entire episode is spent, yet again, on Hades and Persephone, with the exact same topics, conclusions, and terrible sex as the pool scene.

Seriously, this might be a nitpick, but I'm so tired of Persephone not being allowed to swear. We've seen other characters swear. We've even had Kronos call her a "dumb fucking bitch". But this "girlboss" character who we're supposed to believe has "agency" can't be allowed to swear even when they're in an ACTUALLY STRESSFUL SITUATION? You know purity culture isn't exclusive to sex, right, Rachel? If you're gonna deconstruct it, maybe don't have the poster child of that deconstruction be relegated to a church girl? She's literally the Queen of the Underworld - adjacent to the ruler of Hell - let her fucking swear LMAO

Anyways, we see very quickly that Persephone is still feeling the ill effects of her anxiety that she was feeling in the last episode. Anxiety that, by the way, caused her to pass out. Please keep that in mind, don't let it escape.

And what is she stressing over? The genocide? The fact that they still don't have an actual solution to the ongoing "plague"?

Nah. The sleep dive. She's stressing over her husband doing the sleep dive again and - like last time - turning into a dad-possessed monster.

As always, the fear and anxiety is in no way linked to the actual devastation happening outside - it's just concern for the main male lead, because that's all Persephone's character and thoughts and opinions and "agency" can revolve around.

But uh. Remember that scene where Hades got possessed by Kronos and literally strangled her? Remember that scene I just asked you to keep in your brain about her panic attacks getting so bad she's been passing out?

Hello? No? Okay. Next.

I hate, I loathe, I detest this dialogue. Not because it's cliche as fuck - it is - but because the whole "I trust you, it's just xyz I don't trust" shit has been overplayed and debunked as a plausible response in relationship communication for years now.

We talked about this back during our discussion of Leuce - how it shouldn't matter if Persephone doesn't trust Leuce because ultimately Leuce can't do anything to her or Hades' relationship if it's built on as much "trust" as she claims it is, trusting Hades is all that should matter full stop - and it repeats itself here, albeit with Hades' dad instead of his canon first wife. This is a copout. Relationships actually built on trust can definitely still be worried about the issues posed by other people, but if you trust your partner, if you truly trust your partner, that's it. That's where the sentence ends. No shit you don't trust Kronos, we've been over this song and dance multiple times before and while he's definitely a bigger real threat than Leuce, your distrust for Kronos has nothing to do with how you're communicating with your partner who knows there's likely no other way and a solution has to be found. Nothing's being accomplished at this point from Persephone moping around and having sex with her husband, and he's showing 10x more initiative in actually finding a solution - even if it means putting his own safety at risk - than Persephone.

I didn't edit any of that, those are the legit real panels. Literally what the fuck is this dialogue, my tinfoil hat theory about LO being written by ChatGPT is becoming more and more plausible and I hate that, my crackpot theories shouldn't actually become reality.

Is there an owl in here?

LO is just spinning its wheels over the exact same conversation and points that have already been made. Nothing is being accomplished here, it's just more moping and going over the same problems - the centre of which being "what about H x P's relationship?? :(((("

All of that repetitive meandering and moping for "okay fine but if anything feels weird, get out" "okay". It, again, accomplishes nothing that couldn't have been accomplished during the pool scene.

And now we get this line. "I experienced greed in that way, and you do not possess it." Don't be alarmed if you were confused, I was confused too, as were many people in the discussion circles. Thanks to the ULO Discord, I realized she was talking about Apollo. She's literally comparing him to Apollo.

"After all this time, I can't comprehend you causing me harm. I've been at the receiving end of harm so I would know" is literally all she's trying to say. And even with it translated... I don't really like the implications of it at all. This has been a problem since S1, but there's always been this subtext in LO that because Hades didn't rape her, that somehow makes him less abusive or a better partner for Persephone than Apollo, that's all the SA has really been trying to achieve.

But Hades is abusive. He's intentionally pursued women who are in a crisis. He's trapped women in financial dependency. He's sabotaged women from having power and status on the same level as him.

And now, we're about to see actual abuse from Hades - the subtle kind that demands co-dependency, but is still abuse, full stop - but it's being framed as "romantic".

"Being an Originals creator was my big chance to prove myself, and I flopped"- wait sorry I misread. We're talking about Persephone failing at being Queen. Yeah, she definitely flopped. And it goes to show her true intentions in wanting to be Queen, now that she's hit rock bottom and isn't putting on a brave PR face - she wanted to become Queen not to make the Underworld a better place, not to be an example of being a better ruler among a gallery of scumbags, but to "prove" that she could belong and be one of the big guys, that she could be more than just a cereal box mascot.

Don't get me wrong, I can absolutely get wanting to rise above the odds and "prove" to everyone that you can be more than people's perceptions of you, but becoming the literal ruler of a realm that you then go on to destroy due to your own hubris, just to whine and cry about it and have your husband and your colleagues and your friends carry the burden of that destruction on your behalf... therapy would have been a better first step to overcoming those insecurities, not taking control over the lives of innocent people.

Especially when Persephone DID have status and power before becoming Queen, it just wasn't the specific kind of status and power she wanted. She was only a trust fund child with a huge net worth, a full-ride scholarship, and everything she could ever need provided to her with little struggle to get it - but she didn't have control over other people so it just wasn't good enough.

This is the perspective and attitude of a 19 year old who never matured. Who never could mature because she transitioned from her mother's control into Hades'. There were far better ways to prove herself, ways that we had seen her try to do, only to drop so she could pursue her co-dependent relationship with Hades - she gave up her schooling, gave up her apartment (which we only see her use maybe 2-3 times), gave up so many of her connections and support so she could be with Hades.

This is the result of 5 years of real-time grooming that we're seeing play out.

No, you are just saying them because she's your wife. You'd be saying it to Minthe, or Leuce, or Hera, or any other woman in Persephone's position because it's not about taking accountability, it's about keeping these women in a position of submissiveness and co-dependency, by giving them reassurance that nothing they ever do is wrong and that he's the only one that can give them that freedom from consequences.

And then we get the reinforcement.

I'm gonna spare you all the cringe of the actual sex scene (and yes, they do straight up go into having onscreen sex and it's... not hot at all), but here's some of the dialogue spoken by Hades during the entire sequence:

Again, let's remember the actual situation that led up to this and the position Persephone is currently in. For the third time Persephone has "accidentally" killed thousands of people. Over the past few episodes we've seen her try to realize how so many of these problems have been her fault and she clearly doesn't know how to make things right (and Rachel has made it obvious how much she doesn't want you to agree with this kind of self-awareness because much of it is being said through the mouthpiece of a rapist). And now we have Hades, reinforcing the thought patterns that would prevent her from growing and learning and changing. In this, a comic that's supposed to be "feminist", a comic that's trying to preach the importance of consent, a comic that's trying to make us believe this is a healthy, consenting relationship with strong communication skills.

These are literally grooming tactics. Hades is reinforcing the same thought patterns that will prevent Persephone from acknowledging her errors and mistakes. People are dying and Hades is telling her that if anyone has anything to say about it, they deserve to die anyways. The same man who literally rewarded her with sex for vandalizing a nymph's home is now telling her that she's not cruel, but kind:

Hades might not be Apollo, but he literally choked her out less than a week ago while possessed by his dad, and for the last SEVERAL episodes he's had the starry skin making him resemble who? Oh yeah, his dad.

Hades is literally holding Persephone in the same position Kronos did, while she's experiencing a literal meltdown that she's trying to stuff deep down - in fact, exhibiting a LOT of symptoms of mania - and initiating sex.

Doesn't this feel a little familiar?

Oh right, but he asks her if she's "still okay" mid sex only AFTER initiating chokehold sex with her without her consent and love-bombing her, so it's fine, clearly.

I remember being 17 years old and reading Fifty Shades of Grey for the first time, and even then understanding fully how toxic their relationship was. I can only hope the teenagers in Rachel's comment section can realize that as well, but judging by the comment section, I'm not holding out hope. This is literally "fifty shades of fucked up" material, and what's worse is that I can't tell if Rachel genuinely thinks this is healthy, or just doesn't realize how unhealthy it's coming across as. Even beyond how "cringe" this sequence is, it enters into the realm of being deeply uncomfortable and unsettling, and it needs to be talked about, Rachel can't be let off the hook for this especially when this is supposed to be, again, a comic that's intending to "deconstruct purity culture" and teach young girls about consent and boundaries.

And that's it, that's the end of the episode. It reads like the manifesto of a villain in the making at the hands of a predator, like Anakin being manipulated by Palpatine - "so long as you're with me, you'll have all the power, all the glory, and everyone else will be crushed underneath your heel."

Is that really the message we really want to come away from LO from? That it's fine for husbands to initiate sex with their wives through trauma-bonding and reinforcement of toxic thought patterns rooted in grooming because... they're married? That being a "girlboss" means sabotaging and abusing anyone who you perceive as a threat?

Is Hades really that much different from Apollo? Because so far, the line between his actions and Apollo's are seriously starting to blur. The parallels between Persephone and his past partners - Minthe and Hera - have always been clear, but they've never been quite so loud as last night's episode.

This is Hades' play, the play of a groomer and an abuser who depends on making their victims dependent on them - taking advantage of women while they're in a crisis.

For Minthe, it was financial - she had lost her job, blamed it on him, and he found a way to "solve her problem" that strategically put her into a position where she had to continue to financially depend on him for what's assumed to at least be a year or longer, through her apartment, her bills, and her job.

For Hera, it was emotional - she had chosen Zeus over him, and instead of addressing her marital concerns within the marriage, she participated in an affair with Hades in an attempt to have what she could have had if she had chosen Hades instead, a man who resembles her own abuser. Not only did this put her into a much more vulnerable position than him - if the affair was found out, Hera would have suffered the consequences far more than Hades - but it's also manifested itself into Persephone, who Hera has been using as a stand-in for herself, even going so far as to manipulate Persephone's image and how she goes about her decision-making, from intentionally pulling the strings to get Persephone a job with Hades so she could get closer to him as a "test" for Hades, to forcing Persephone to wear a wedding dress she wanted her to wear over the one Persephone had actually picked out herself.

And now there's Persephone, the newest addition to the cycle of abuse and untreated trauma, the true culmination of Hades' years trapping and manipulating women - financially dependent on him, emotionally dependent on him, and only where she is because she's made her entire identity revolve around him.

I'm not going to psychoanalyze Rachel in any way, I don't want anyone to think that this is permission to do so because Rachel's personal life is her own and I want to examine the material rather than the person. But so much of LO gives me such a gross impression that Rachel herself never matured past middle school, that she never grew beyond the mindset of being a 13 year old girl who felt like the entire world was against her and that no one could understand her, that she never gained the perspective most adults do by the time they're 25 at minimum after they've entered the "real world" and had the lived experiences that make you realize "wow, that girl I hated in high school for stealing my crush from me probably wasn't as bad as I thought she was and we were all just teenagers trying to navigate the hellscape that is adolescence."

And instead of actually analyzing those thought patterns and mindsets, Rachel is instead reinforcing it in her own audience of 13 year old girls and teenagers who will only hopefully maybe outgrow it and not just repeat the cycle themselves.

And this isn't entirely on Rachel's shoulders. It's on the shoulders of E.L. James, of Stephanie Meyer, of Colleen Hoover, of every "young adult" romance author who's peddled this strictly heteronormative "submission culture but not like the 1950's kind I swear" crap, that women should only aspire to find the richest man they can bag in their pursuit for power and after that everything in the world is owed to them and any problem they have can be solved by riding dick. Trauma? Solved. Genocide? Solved. The very real consequences of your own actions that affect others to such a degree that it will be felt for decades? Solved. Just ride that dick and get that money, girlboss.

Just like 50 Shades of Grey, if Lore Olympus was any other story, it would be a tragedy. It would be a masterclass in understanding and showcasing the signs of emotional abuse, financial abuse, grooming, trauma-bonding, love-bombing, and enforcing co-dependent habits for the sake of trapping people. It would be a precautionary tale to young girls to stay alert and be wary of older men, that men like Hades are depending on girls to fall for their tricks, their praise, their affirmations that they're so mature for their age, that they're not like other girls, that they would just be so set for life if they spent all their time and attention with them, so that they can "have it all".

I can only hope that even a third of the young girls who read LO naturally grow up, gain perspective, and learn that LO isn't the pillar of healthy relationships and consent that it tries to be. It's certainly a common thing to see these days, for people to join the UnpopularLoreOlympus / #antiloreolympus community with sentiments that they started reading it at age 14 and then (thankfully) learned that what LO was preaching wasn't healthy.

But for every other girl who doesn't realize this, it's reinforcement of the same cycles - the cycle of women being only objects for sex, pitting themselves against one another, confusing gender empowerment with abuse towards others, and making their entire identity revolve around a man and justifying it as healthy so long as it makes them rich and powerful.

Even if Rachel some day gets her own head out of her ass and realizes what damage she's causing in her audience, like Persephone committing genocide, no amount of self-awareness will undo the consequences. She'll still have the awards, the money, the accolades, everything she's gained off the backs of Greek myth, feminism, and good faith from an immature audience who doesn't know any better and isn't being given the tools to understand.

Even if she realizes that, that's something she's going to have to live with for the rest of her career.

And it's a fucking tragedy.

#lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #antiloreolympus

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facets-and-rainbows · 4 months

Text

In honor of Blue Exorcist season 3, I need everyone to appreciate the

ABSOLUTE

UNMITIGATED

FURIGANA

NONSENSE

that is going on in its pv.

Like, background info: in Japanese they have both phonetic characters (kana) and characters with both a sound AND a meaning (kanji). Sometimes they put little kana above/next to the kanji to tell you how to pronounce them - these are called furigana and they're mostly used for obscure kanji that most people don't know, or in things aimed at young readers who might not know that many kanji in general yet.

But sometimes people get...creative with furigana. Especially in manga and light novels and the like.

See, at some point people figured out that you can totally create words with double meanings, or say one thing and mean another, by using furigana that don't actually match the kanji they're with. Some examples:

In Blue Exorcist, Rin's "flame" is spelled 炎（ちから）- the kanji says "flame(s)" but the furigana is the word "power." Rin's power, aka flames. Two words for the price of one!

Things with names in foreign languages will often have kanji that show the word's meaning in Japanese with furigana that spell out the pronunciation, like the "exorcist" in Blue Exorcist being spelled 祓魔師（エクソシスト). Those kanji mean exorcise-demon-professional, roughly, and they'd normally be pronounced futsumashi. But the furigana say "ekusoshisuto" - the English word "exorcist."

@29rynoah has a great post [here] (Blue Exorcist manga spoilers!) about a time when Rin said "you" but actually meant "me," and spelled it 俺（おまえ）with the kanji for "me" and furigana spelling out "you."

And then there's the EGREGIOUS FURIGANA SHENANIGANS happening up there in the season 3 pv. Where they take the kanji for darkness 闇 and tell us to pronounce it as THE WHOLE OTHER COMPLETELY OPPOSITE KANJI 光 (LIGHT) and vice versa.

闇（光）を斬り、光（闇）を祓え

Meaning something like:

Slash through the darkness light and dispel the light darkness

Presumably because the dark forces threatening the main characters this arc are actually quite bright, as we shall see.

Clever! But also RIDICULOUS GUYS COME ON

#blue exorcist #ao no exorcist #hype train to shimane #furigana shenanigans #闇 doesn't want to be in that small a font it needs a bigger enclosure this is cruelty to kanji

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everlasting-rainfall · 7 months

Note

I'm imaging a platonic version of your pages au with Whitebeard...

Maybe the book is about found family with a "larger than life" pirate who adopts the MC and Whitebeard reads it during his medical appointments and believes it's about him and his "new daughter", so he tracks down the author and abducts her so she can join her new family.

Any thoughts? 👀

OH MY GOD, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I ADORE PLATONIC YANDERE’S LIKE THEY MAKE ME 🎆🎇🎆!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!

Thank you so much for sending this ask in, dearie!! I’ll make sure that it’s a lot of fun to read!! And for any of you reading this, feel free to send in some more stuff about platonic yandere’s especially if it’s Familial Yandere’s!

God, I love it so much!! It’s so freaking cute!!

Anyways before I start exploding like fireworks sprayed with a flamethrower, let’s get into it! Shall we?

I hope this is what you want! Also keep in mind that there’s no romance here, it’s all Platonic!!

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

Delusions, Kidnapping, Getting Heavily Babied, Character Death, Spoilers for Marineford, No Chance of Escape, Trapped Forever

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

Okay so let’s say that the books are still about romance like there’s still the Pirate versus Marine love story but you decided to take a break from writing about that story to focus on something else like maybe you wrote a new book in the series

And this book entirely focuses on the main character getting separated from the love interests like maybe there was an accident at sea that made the MC fall overboard and they wind up being found by like this other group

This group takes them in and they’re kinda hostile at first but they become more trusting and caring over time eventually deciding to basically adopt the MC into the group as like the youngest sibling to the parent of the group

It doesn’t last forever though as at the end of the book, there’s a tearful goodbye between the main character as they’ve been found by the pirate and the marine so they have to return to their old life, a promise is made to not forget them and the group even helps the main character and their friends escape some pursuing enemies

End on a note of the parental figure of the group watching as the main character vanishes into the distance with their love interests and quietly saying “May you always find happiness, my dear son/daughter” or something to that extent

So with enough time, this book eventually lands in the hands of Whitebeard like let’s say that Marco got it for him to keep him from getting bored during his medical appointments and he appreciates the gift from his son so I’d say that he reads it

Like he’s sitting there getting a check up for his health and at first, he’s a little bored especially as he has no clue what’s going on due to this being a book later on in the series but he does know that he doesn’t like the Pirate or the Marine as they both seem annoying to him

He was about to put the book down and never touch it again but figured that he had about an hour left on the appointment so he might as well keep reading so he does getting to the part where the MC meets the group and gets taken in

Now he’s getting a bit interested and so he keeps reading getting more and more interested, he’s actually smiling quite a bit when the Main Character gets adopted into the group as the youngest sibling but when he finally reaches the end of the book and finds out that the Main Character leaves with the two characters that he finds annoying

God, you practically see the despair in his eyes…

His hopes perk up a little when he reads that the group arrives to save the Main Character and the two annoying ones (his words, not mine) from an enemy as he thinks that the leader of the group might take the MC back telling the two of them to get lost

But instead, the MC sails off into the distance and Whitebeard is left staring at the final sentence of the book alongside the illustration of the leader of the group looking off into the sunset

He can’t stand the idea of this and when he finds out this is a series of books, he remains somewhat hopeful that maybe the MC will go back to the group to be part of their family again so he asks Marco to buy the other books in the series when they reach a new island

Marco does of course and gives them to Whitebeard so now anytime that he’s bored or getting a medical appointment, he picks up one of the books and starts reading in hopes that what he wants will happen but alas… No such thing happens…

Throughout the books, there is brief mention of the group but they never appear again as maybe that book didn’t do too well with the audience that primarily reads your books or you just didn’t wanna include them again

The MC never goes back to the group, it’s enough to make this poor old man’s heartbreak and when he sees who the MC wound up with in the end it’s just about enough to make him want to get rid of these books

He almost does too like he was this close to ripping them up but instead he sees one last thing that makes him stop, he looks at the back of the book and sees your picture thanking your readers for the support along with telling them that you’re going to move onto other things but he doesn’t care much for that as he keeps staring at the picture

Is it just him or do you look just like how he envisioned the Main Character to look?

And now that he really thinks about it too… Is it just him or did the group seem eerily similar to the Whitebeard Pirates?

I mean the right hand man is a bird and the group leader is described as being as big as a whale plus a gun slinging cross dresser, a cook with a pompadour, and a narcoleptic with fire powers? There’s no way

He goes back and reads the book that introduced to the series and he sees even more similarities however whether they’re actually there or not is up to you but lord knows that it’s unintentional if it’s true

With this, Whitebeard basically has a lightbulb go off in his head as it’s clear to him now that you’re the youngest member of their family and he needs to go find you as clearly you’re in an unhappy relationship and just want to come home to Pops and your brothers

Well don’t worry as Pops is coming and he’s bringing the family who with some brief convincing have wound up just as deluded as Whitebeard is as they all really think that you’re some kind of lost member of their family

It’s gonna take a while to find you like I’d give it about a week at the least but a month at the most, he’s coming for you and it’s not like anyone can stop him as no matter what island you’re living on and no matter who it belongs to, he’s still coming

When he finds where you are, prepare to be almost immediately hauled off back to the ship with your screams and thrashes being shushes like you’re some kind of child throwing a temper tantrum

“We’re here to help you, stop thrashing!!” “Don’t you recognize us, *MC’s Name*?! We’re your family!!” “Quit screaming already, we’re taking you home!!”

Literally no matter what you do, there’s no chance once they’ve found you as you’ll be hauled back to the ship like you’re some kind of treasure then once they’re done on the island they’ll be sailing out into open waters so even if there was a chance now there’s -10000% chance of escape

Chances are that a big party is going to be held on the ship in celebration of you finally being back with them even though you were never here in the first place, everyone’s having the time of their lives though and no one is listening when you try to ask to be set free

You attempt to jump overboard and swim to safety while no one looks but I’d like to see you try as you’ll likely be found before you can even get close to the edge and if you do make it then you’ll be pulled up within seconds

You’re going absolutely nowhere and the only thing that you can convince them of is to at least use your real name when they talk to you

Honestly as well, something in me says that you should prepare to be babied as you’re the youngest sibling and you can’t even fight plus they haven’t seen you in so long like Whitebeard claims you were like that big when he last saw you

Like imagine going from a life of independence and doing things on your own to never being left alone and having people do a lot for you like you aren’t even allowed near the stove as you might burn yourself according to Thatch

You should just let them take care of everything for you now, they’ll take good care of you and someday when they deem that you can get married then they’ll help you find a suitable person that they approve of and who treats you right

You’re allowed to do some things for yourself like bathroom stuff and getting changed but other than that, it’s honestly a wonder to you that they don’t also have you wearing footie pajamas with a pacifier in your mouth considering the way that they treat you

Even if you attempt to bring up your problems with this to Pops and request to leave, Whitebeard will simply say that he’ll think about it but always he’ll get back to you under an hour and tell you no as you’re staying like this plus you’re not going anywhere

Why would you want to go anywhere anyways? They can give you everything that you’ve ever wanted or needed right here on the Moby Dick, you should be really grateful that they’re doing this for you as they found you and rescued you after all this time

I wouldn’t recommend trying to raise a big stink about wanting to leave either as it’ll likely just be seen as a temper tantrum by the Whitebeard Pirates which will just get you an early nap time like imagine being scooped up in this man’s hand and forced to take a long nap on his chest because clearly you’re fussy from sleepiness

Now you might think that you have a chance of getting away when you hear that Whitebeard dies and the Whitebeard Pirates get scattered by Blackbeard like you definitely feel sympathy for them but this could also be your chance at freedom

Yeah, no sorry… Marco is definitely not letting you go ever after what happened like you’re on such a short leash that it’s practically non-existent like hell, I can see him legitimately child leashing you in public…

Also dating and getting married someday is completely out the window now like if someone takes even the slightest interest in you, Marco is going to scare them off so there’s no chance for you to ever escape

Your fate was sealed the exact moment that Whitebeard picked up one of your books, you’re his youngest child and you’re not leaving your family ever even when he’s gone…

The family will be together forever even if they have to put you on a child leash…

#minors dni #yandere #yandere one piece #the rain talks back #reader insert #pages au #read the trigger warnings #one piece #yandere male #platonic yandere #Familial Yandere #Yandere Whitebeard #Platonic Yandere Whitebeard #Platonic Yandere Whitebeard Pirates

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ratlesshonret · 5 months

Text

Song Analysis - Children of the City

Part 0 - My Ramblings, or Whatever

Hello everyone, my name is Honret, and today I am going to be doing the long-awaited Children of the City analysis that I have been teasing for far too long.

Of course, this isn't my first rodeo with song analysis. I've analyzed quite a lot of mili songs on r/mili, over on Reddit. So why am I doing this on tumblr? Partially for reach/exposure (r/mili is tiny,) and partially because I'm liking using Reddit less and less every day.

If people like this post, I might do more, or even repost my old analysis pieces on r/mili over here so they can be archived in a neater way.

Anyway, let us get on to the actual song. This analysis will contain spoilers for Library of Ruina.

Part 1 - Analysis of the Lyrics

This song is arguably rather short in terms of number of lyrics for a mili song, so let's get right into it.

Also, to get this out of the way immediately, this is a Character Song for Yan Vismok from Library of Ruina. If you're reading this, you probably already know that, but if not then it is very important information to know.

Sleep for a total of eight-hundred hours per day And drink a liter of milk Warm-up before you go play

Immediately, this beginning part seems to be almost satirizing the nature of the Prescripts. Obviously, sleeping for 800 hours in a day isn't possible, and drinking an entire liter of milk is uncomfortable for most, but they feel like things a Prescript would order someone to do. After all, they frequently demand impossible and seemingly random actions from the recipient.

Only eat or write Or pull the trigger with your right hand Only thing that's left Is to work on following commands

This next section seems to be referencing the suppression of left-handed people in the past, and relating that to the oppressive nature of the Prescripts. They order you to do uncomfortable things you might not be skilled at, just like a left-handed person may have been ordered to eat or write with their right hand.

The second half ties it back into the main theme by making it about following commands. The people who follow the Prescripts are, in a way, constantly being commanded to do things, with the fear of death if they don't follow. In that way, they're constantly being trained to unquestioningly obey a higher power, just as left-handed people were made to obey the command to be right-handed.

(This part also makes me headcanon Yan as a leftie)

By the time you realize You'll be restrained to a desk And with your dreams on the floor, you comply Eyes chained to the test Find a groom or bride, bonus if brunette In ninety hours, spill their insides Paint your room picturesque

This section is long, so like the last part, I'll split it into two halves.

The first part seems to broadly reference life in The City itself. By the time you've realized you're being trained to follow random commands, you're already figuratively tied to a desk, your only option to comply further with the commands due to having already given up so much.

Yan himself seems to have given up a lot to the Prescripts. Its heavily implied he's killed loved ones, and done other horrible things just for the Prescripts, with his only reward being to become the Messenger who delivers Prescripts to others just like him.

With his dreams figuratively on the floor due to the Prescripts, all he can do is comply.

The next lines seem to continue to drive in the ludicrous nature of the Prescripts. Finding someone to marry within ninety hours is a tall order, especially if you're encouraged to focus on just brunettes. And of course, the typically-violent nature of the Prescripts is also brought up, with the next command in this sequence being to kill the very person you just married. Its also a massive tonal shift in the song.

Now it's time for another vendetta Going through the shelves, picking out my pre-written persona Children of the city sees only the neon stars Reflected upon the murky gutter sky Don't ask me why I desperately wish to be included in The City's night

The first line here might be referencing how Yan has picked up a lot of vendettas in his time delivering the Prescripts. Or at the very least, he feels like people hate him for delivering their Prescripts, just as he hates the Prescripts themselves. After that, the part about a pre-written persona seems to imply that Yan is never being his true self. All he can do to avoid the pain of what the Prescripts demand is to pretend to be someone else, a persona.

This next part is likely a metaphor, and one that I've still had trouble parsing. It could be implying that the "children of the city," which is likely those who work under the Index, or more broadly those who follow what The City desires, only see the bright neon stars, and not the dark murky gutters they're reflected in.

Finally, Yan says that he wishes to be included in The City's night, but he doesn't know why. This, to me, says that he has a secret desire to follow what The City wants of him, so that he may finally be included, rather than feel the same exclusion he's felt his entire life as a Messenger of the Index.

In four-hundred thousand meters, turn right

A nice little metaphor, comparing the Prescripts to a car's GPS system.

Pick up a knife and stab a familiar warm body Learned to fight before I knew love or bitterness of coffee Snippy scissors cut down the strings, I set myself free Only to figure out everything I chose was by proxy

The beginning of the second half of the song here seems to be implying that Yan has definitely killed people close to him before, almost definitely because the Prescripts ordered it. Furthermore, he has been doing this from a young age, as it was "before I knew love or coffee," which very much seems to be telling me he was young.

The next part of the song seems to focus on the events that led Yan to Distort. He forged Prescripts to cut himself free and establish his own free will, but everything he chose was "by proxy," as the real Prescripts told people to follow Yan's fake Prescripts. His betrayal was forseen and intended all along, and his will was never his own.

As we suckled upon the nine-millimeter pacifier Swallowing the fact that other than to expand, we had no purpose As my ever-burning will to stay afloat backfires I now know I must be comfortable Being who I considered worthless

I think the part at the start of this verse seems to be implying that suicide is a common thing among people in the Index. After all, when your will isn't your own for long enough, you may consider doing something drastic to get it back, or even just to rebel, such as committing suicide. There's also probably people who have been ordered to kill themselves by the Prescripts.

The next part is more about Yan in particular. His desire to stay afloat backfired, in the sense that the very act of clinging to his free will made it hurt him even more when he realized that his actions were all just controlled by the Prescripts, and by extension, The City. So in the end, the very people who he considered worthless, those who just follow orders like sheep without caring where they're from, are in fact just the same as him, even if he didn't realize.

Follow the city's ribbon To a heart nobody seems to listen It takes my heart being broken and broken again (Broken and broken again) To know that I am the reason why (The reason why) The sufferings never end

Yet again, let's take this from the top.

The first lines are probably referring to Yan finding the "God of The City" responsible for producing the Prescripts. After all, he was following a Prescript that led him straight there, and its a place that almost nobody else knows about.

The rest of this verse seems to be Yan talking about the pain he's felt delivering Prescripts. After all, he seems to blame himself for all the pain caused by people following the Prescripts he delivers as a Messenger, which is probably why he says that its partially his fault that the suffering in The City doesn't end.

It could also be referring to his own suffering. His internal struggle for free will, to prove that his actions are his own. Every time its disproven, his heart gets broken again. But in saying his will is his own, he's also saying that him delivering Prescripts that hurt people is his own decision.

This probably ties into why he's so willing to follow the voice telling him to Distort. Once he finally has confirmation that his will is just the will of the City, that its all determined by the Prescripts from the start, he can finally remove all the blame and pain that he's been pushing onto himself and just mindlessly follow the Prescripts.

The only part of this chorus that is different from the first chorus is the final line. It seems to be saying that Yan wants The City to notice him, that he wants it to see his actions. Maybe he feels the The City noticing him would make all of his struggling worth it, or that it'd give his life some meaning.

Do not go home until you finish reading the value of e 2.71 8281 8284 5904 5235 3602 8747 1352 6624 9775 7247 0936 9995 9574 9669 6762

This part is referencing Euler's Number, which is an irrational number, meaning it never ends. The value of this number can never be read in its entirety.

He's never going home.

Part 2 - Summary

Children of the City seems to describe Yan's thoughts and struggles in his life, as he's followed the Prescripts to both his own detriment and the detriment of those around him.

Yan wants his own free will, wants his actions and destiny to be his own. But at the same time, this desire is constantly at odds with Yan's desire to not be at fault for all the pain and suffering he feels like he's caused as a Messenger of the Index, delivering the same painful Prescripts to people that he's been following his entire life.

In short, Yan is in pain. And when he finally gets confirmation that he has no will of his own, that its all the work of the random generations of The City, he finally Distorts into a form that mindlessly follows the Prescripts, feeling no guilt or pain over anything he does.

Part 3 - More of My Ramblings

I hope this analysis makes sense, and that I'm not just hallucinating these meanings to these lines. Yan is one of my favorite new characters in LoR, and I wanted to do him justice by analyzing his Character Song to prove that I am the true Yan Scholar.

If you do have feedback, I'd love to hear it. I want to fully understand this song, and by extension, Yan Vismok himself.

#library of ruina #project mili #mili #children of the city #yan vismok

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huginsmemory · 1 year

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Trigun and Christianity

In lieu of trigun Stampedes choice to make Wolfwood an undertaker instead of a priest (to, well, my disappointment), I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the Christian themes in Trigun, and then also look at why they might have decided to choose for Wolfwood to be a undertaker then a preist, and a potential reason to why Trigun has these Christian themes. Also, btw, this is chock full of manga spoilers so, beware!

To start it off... trigun is actually... pretty heavy on Christian themes. Fuck man, the main character is basically an angel, and in one of the first volumes they literally describe the plants as something divine (although they are later declared to be something humans made... But nevertheless the very clear imagery is there). Also what features very strongly is pacifism and the themes of unconditional love; Vash's refusal to kill coming from believing that going forward, anyone can change, even when he is literally being harmed or attempted to be killed by others. These themes of pacifism and unconditional love are very Christian, and Vash's actions very much centre him as a Jesus-like character. In fact, even the way that he (and knives) was born, a virgin birth, also could be seen as an allusion, as well as the way that he holds a physical form as a human while being more than human- Jesus being considered a 'son of man' while also being the son of God; ie, something in-between, something both divine and human. Knives as well is written in that angelic and divine light, although he is done so in a dark opposite of Vash, with an emphasis on his 'divinity' for imagery as he is obsessed with it. Interestingly, contrast to Knives, Vash, who goes around as a human, is multiple times called a Devil for his reputation, although he is the one that actually is virtuous... This in a way also alludes to him as a Jesus-like figure, as that Jesus was ultimately sought after by the authorities and in some places hated and even driven away by people.

12 disciples

As well, Nightow is pretty blatant that the gung ho guns, of which there are 12, is a allusion to the 12 disciples; hell, Wolfwood calls them straight up disciples when he is at Jeneora Rock. One might argue that then whether that posits Knives as a Jesus figure as that they follow Knives directions, or if one would consider Vash to be the Jesus figure, as the 12 literally seek out, and 'follow' Vash, and of which one of them literally betrays (although, technically, Wolfwoods betrayal goes both ways). However, I don't think that argument is really one that matters, as it's more of the aesthetic of Christianity that Nightow likes in this matter, not the philosophical implications.

As well, as mentioned above, Wolfwood is very Judas-coded; he gets close to Vash, only to inevitably betray him and deliver him up to his fate, while clearly being torn up about it. Vash is not surprised at all when Wolfwood tells him that he was one of the gung ho guns, and you get the sense that he knew about it all along, and knew exactly what he was walking into. Yet he still loves and forgives Wolfwood for all of it. Which... is exactly the same thing that occurs between Judas and Jesus, Jesus willingly going with Judas even though he knew what lay before him.

Wolfwood

As well, quite obviously adding to the heavy Christian themes of trigun, is that Wolfwood calls himself a priest. Although indeed it's part of his front, it's clear Wolfwood in the manga is religious, challenging and calling upon God in response to seeing the Knives born, and his response to the fifth moon incidence where he questions if it was the hand of God (which, actually, is caused by Vash's hand... again alluding to the 'divinity' of Vash and Knives). This clear religious affiliation continues through the series, such as when he is rescuing Vash from Knives, and even praying while he is on the ship with the people that helped vash.

Wolfwood also throughout the series is very clearly is morally wraught with guilt over his choices and sins... Something that's very Catholic/Christian. Hell, the fact that the punisher, the insignia of his murderous profession, is a literal heavy cross that Wolfwood carries with him, is poetic irony; he's literally carrying around the embodiment of his sins and his guilt from his profession and choices, which weighs both heavily on his physical body but also him emotionally. Wolfwood's guilt over his sins and choices comes to its climax when he's about to die when rescuing Vash from Knives, after betraying him; where he questions whether he can be forgiven for what he has done and whether he was wrong, and in response Vash saves him, declaring that he is not wrong; not wrong to go against orders, leaving his vocation of being a murderer behind, in trying to save Vash and moving forward. In declaring Wolfwood that he was not wrong, what Vash (heavily implied divine, Jesus-like character) is declaring is that Wolfwood can be forgiven for his sins, is already forgiven for his betrayal (unconditional love, anyone?), and that Wolfwood can change, that his past doesn't define him, because his future is also a blank ticket.

As well, this is followed up later by Wolfwoods confession to Vash that he hates killing:

The confession and the way he phrases it- seeing all humans as his brethren (although, in this sense he may be speaking tangentially about Livio) is something that also has Christian overtones. (Also, the way that they mention Vash sees the whole of humans as his relatives, also ties into that; except personally I'd argue that's more of a Indigenous view then a Christian, but theres plenty of things that overlap with other theologies and philosophies within the manga that aren't just characteristics of Christianity).

Redemption via acts

There's also a theme of redemption via acts, which both Wolfwood and Vash lean into heavily as a result of guilt from their 'sins', something that is very... Well, again, Christian, especially Catholic. Vash, from being unable to stop Knives and having obliterated July and just his and knives general existence, and Wolfwood from his profession, and so they both struggle with immense feelings of guilt. As a result both are very self-sacrificing; Vash very obviously so throughout the series, and Wolfwood in a quieter way, in choosing to continue to work to protect the orphanage, even though he desperately wants to escape the life he leads and hates killing people. They both don't believe they deserve to be loved because of the weight of their sins, and so they redeem themselves the only way they know how by self-sacrifice; this literally causing Wolfwoods death as he didn't reach our to Vash for help, and is evident in the way Legato looks at Vash at the end and realizes he sees a man that only sees himself as a tool and hates himself. This belief of Vash's that he doesn't deserve love/nice things is something that is also interesting, because he so aggressively pushes the 'blank ticket of the future', ie, unconditional love, while clearly being unable to apply it to himself.

Tldr: the point is, Trigun is very heavily Christian themed, both in aesthetic and philosophy, and the characterization of both Vash and Wolfwood reflect that. The show is rampant with such Christian philosophical themes as unconditional love, sin and guilt, confessions, forgiveness and redemption through self-sacrifice; for aesthetic ones, well, literal 'angels' as main characters, Wolfwood being a priest and carrying a cross, the 12 gung ho guns as 12 disciples.

Wolfwood as an Undertaker

Since Trigun is so heavily Christian themed, it makes it... well, a bit of a strange choice to pull the fact that Wolfwood is a preist out, since him as a preist further emphasizes the moral quandries within the story and the themes of sins/guilt/forgiveness and unconditional love. However, as one other post here on tumblr mentioned, stampede as an iteration of trigun is more directed towards a more modern and Japanese audience, some of which can be seen with the revamp of the character designs to make them more relatable, and I think they mentioned some specific character traits with Meryl. This re-vamping, especially one specifically for a Japanese audience might explain why Wolfwood becomes a undertaker instead of being a Christian priest. Nightow in the back panels in the manga is clearly is very enthralled with American culture- and his knowledge and love of the American genres shows pretty strongly in the themes and the setting for Trigun. In fact, the 1998 anime was better recieved in the west then in Japan, and a possible likelihood for it's higher popularity within the Americas is going to be directly because of the western audience being more familiar with the Western genre, as well as specifically, the Christian themes within the show (since western countries cultures are Christian based, even if one wasn't raised religious). As well, compared to the other typical gunslinging space western anime, Cowboy bebop, Trigun contains more Christian themes, which would make it less relatable, and less popular to the Japanese audience (of course there are many other differences in the shows, so I would be reluctant to chalk it up to just the religious themes in trigun- hell, Cowboy Bebop makes some great criticisms of capitalism that is not present in Trigun). Circling back to them revamping the show, if they are trying to make it more relatable to a Japanese audience, then removing more overly American influences, such as one of the characters literally being a Christian priest, would fit that bill quite well.

Trigun and Christianity... Why?

Also, I personally think that Nightow didn't exactly mean to make a story that is really heavily Christian themed. My sneaking suspicion from reading chapter 0, is the Nightow thought that writing a western with a main character gunslinger that is a pacifist would be a fun and interesting prospect, and then when he began to elaborate on it, he began to pull in more western (both cultural and genre wise) themes and aesthetics into the story, resulting in something that is very heavily Christian themed in the end.

EDIT: it's been raised to my attention by the lovely @trigum, that it says in the wikipedia on Nightow that he was raised buddhist and converted to Catholicism, although there is no source for that information. If so, this would, well, very obviously explain why Trigun is so heavy on Christian themes and negates the paragraph above. I'm not giving him enough credit then, my apologies Nightow!

EDIT 2:

Edit 3 (Feb 3): made a somewhat part 2, specifically looking at the phrase the 'bride of Christ'.

#trigun #trigun spoilers #trigun maximum #trigun anime #trigun 1998 #trigun stampede #wolfwood #nicholas d. wolfwood #vash the stampede #knives millions #feels wierd to write about Christianity #uh. yeah if thjs is incoherent please ignore me hah #also not to say that trigun is a very Christian bit of media but also??? it kinda is?#as ex christian the amount of guilt coming off these characters is so v me in middle school figuring out im queer #also sad about wolfwood not being a preist for both poetic irony but also. let's be honest that poetic irony is hot #also like. nightow best charcter design ever. sorry no one will be able to design a better character then trained assasin priest #who carries a huge cross machine gun and is full of guilt over his sins #and loves children #is this also tangentally vashwood #yes. ignore me #vashwood #if ur like ur writing is rambly sorry! i know a bit of it is repetitive #do i care? nope not any more #nightow slapping both vash and wolfwood: these boys can fit so much christain guilt in them

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reanimatedheart · 23 days

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Hello! Welcome to the official Reanimated Heart Tumblr.

(This Pinned is Under Construction. Still figuring out the tags...)

Reanimated Heart is a character-driven horror romance visual novel about finding love in a mysterious small town. There are three love interests with their own unique personalities and storylines. Play the demo on Itch now!

Content Warning: Reanimated Heart is an 18+ game! It contains dark subject matter such as violence and sexual content. Player discretion is advised.

This blog is ran by Jack, the creator.

Itch | Link Tree | Patreon | Twitter

Guidelines

My policy for fanwork is that anything goes in fiction, but respect my authority and copyright outside it. This means normal fan activity like taking screencaps, posting playthroughs, and making fanart/fanfiction is completely allowed, but selling this game or its assets isn't allowed (selling fanwork of it is fine, though).

Do not use Reanimated Heart for illegal or hateful content.

Also, I expect everyone to respect the Content Warnings on the page. I'm old and do not tolerate fandom wank.

F.A.Q.

Who are the main Love Interests?

Read their character profiles here!!

Who's the team?

Jack (creator, writer, artist), mostly. I closely work with Exodus (main programmer) and Claira (music composer). My husband edits the drafts, and my friend Bonny makes art assets. I've also gotten help from outsiders like Sleepy (prologue music + vfx) and my friend Gumjamin (main menu heart animation).

For VOs, Alex Ross voices Crux, Devin McLaughlin voices Vincenzo, Christian Cruz voices Black, Maganda Marie voices Grete, and Zoe D. Lee voices Missy.

Basically, it's mostly just me & outsourcing stuff to my friends and professionals.

How can I support Reanimated Heart?

You can pay for the game, or join our monthly Patreon! If you don't have any money, just giving it a nice rating and recommending it to a friend is already good enough. :)

Where do the funds go to?

100% gets poured back into the game. More voice acting, more music, more trailers, more art, etc. I also like to give my programmer a monthly tip for helping me.

This game is really my insane passion project, and I want to make it better with community support.

I live in the Philippines and the purchasing power of php is not high, especially since many of the people I outsource to prefer USD. (One time I spent P10k of my own money in one month just to get things.) I'll probably still do that, even if no money comes in, until I'm in danger of getting kicked out the street… but maybe even then? (jk)

What platforms will it be released in?

Itch and then Steam when it's fully finished. Still looking into other options, as I hear both are getting bad.

Will the game be free?

Chapter 1 will be free. The rest will be updated on Patreon exclusively until full release.

Are you doing a mobile version?

Yeah. Just Android for now, but it's in the works.

Where can I listen to the OST?

It is currently up on YouTube, Spotify, and Bandcamp!

Why didn't you answer my ask?

A number of things! Two big ones that keep coming up are Spoilers (as in, you asked something that will be put in an update) or it's already been asked. If you're really dying to know, check the character tags or the meta commentary. You might find what you're looking for there. :)

Tag List for Navigation

Just click the tags to get to where you wanna go!

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stillness-in-green · 6 months

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What Helck Does Right That BNHA Is Doing Wrong

I wrote this out in a spate of frustration a while back, lost it, and then was able to recover it again, so in the interest of conservation, I figure I might as well share. It contains massive spoilers for Helck—details of its ending, its overarching plot, deep world secrets, and so on—so read at your own risk if you're one of the few people following the anime. On the other hand, very few people do seem to be watching Helck, so if you watched the first episode and then dumped it for being too goofy and comedic, this write-up will definitely give you some context for where that story goes.

(More people should read/watch Helck. Please read this and then go read Helck.)

(If you prefer, you can also just skim the Helck bits until you get to me complaining about BNHA’s crappy endgame. Hit the jump, either way!)

Helck: What It Does

For my readers unfamiliar with the series (e.g. probably most of you), Helck’s elevator pitch is, “After the Hero defeats the Demon King, the demons hold a tournament to select the new Demon King. But wait, why is there a human here?!” It’s riffing, obviously, on the foundational JRPG story, and starts out in a high-key goofy comedy mode, which, while representative of its sense of humor, is not actually very reflective of the tonal zone it winds up occupying for most of its run. The darkness and horror elements of the series are foreshadowed by the title character—Helck, the human who showed up to join the Demon King selection tournament—cheerily proclaiming that he hates and wants to destroy all humans. Something is very wrong in the human lands, it seems, and the main character—Vamirio, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the demon empire, sent to oversee the tournament—uncovering and then responding to that wrong forms the bulk of the story.

That said, it takes a good long while for Helck to reveal the true nature of its conflict. While there are some key villainous figures that have been in play for long before that point, the ultimate truth is that the world of Helck contains a disembodied force that contacts people when they’re in their darkest, most despairing moments, providing them an “answer” for why their situations are so miserable and how to go about fixing the world that hurt them so badly, as well as power to help them do so. The answer given by this force, called “The Will of the World,” is twisted and omnicidal, but between a degree of implied mental influence and the timing of the approach, lots of otherwise innocent, hurt people can wind up becoming the figures behind literally world-threatening dangers.

Eventually, we find out that Helck himself was approached by The Will when he was a child in a bad situation. He wasn’t quite ready to give in yet—he had a kid brother to look out for—and so he powered past it, but it’s remained in the back of his head since that day, ever-ready to whisper its apocalyptic solutions to extreme class disparity and abuse. This gives him a degree of empathy for the villains of the series, even as they do extremely awful stuff that he can’t otherwise forgive.

In the epilogue, a new king is crowned and we’re generally assured that things in Helck’s country are going to improve from now on. The demons are developing magical treatment to reverse a once-thought-irreversible transformation from sentient person into mindless monster, preparing groups that will venture forth to find all the affected humans still wandering the countryside so that they can be helped. Helck himself could easily rest on his laurels, either settling in with the human friends he had to go to extreme lengths to save or accepting his demon friends’ invitation to come live with them, the ones who fought at his side and gave him hope when he was so often on the verge of despair.

But he does neither, because he knows that The Will of the World is still out there whispering to other people in pain—it’s a force of nature that will always be out there, until someday it succeeds at finding someone it can use to overturn and restart the world. It can never be killed, only circumvented. However, The Will can’t act on its own, only through those that have fallen under its sway, and those people don’t start out as raving, gleefully evil maniacs! They start out as people experiencing unconscionable suffering, because people suffering to that extent are the only ones who can be convinced to believe that the answer is total annihilation.

Helck knows better than to assume that simply installing one good king in one overall-good country will be enough to save everyone in the world—or even in that one country!—from despair, and he’s intimately familiar with what that despair is like. So, he packs up with one of his besties and they set out on a journey that will, implicitly, never really have an end. Of course, he’ll come visit his friends and loved ones from time to time, but what he’s really dedicating himself to is finding and rescuing other people, other victims, giving them reasons to hope, reasons to believe in the world as it is now, because, as he himself experienced, that’s the only thing that can really stop someone from falling prey to The Will of the World.

Saving those victims is a practical means of preventing all the harm they would have gone on to wreak, yes, but it also means said victims don’t have to be put to the sword when they turn up at the head of an army of monsters or some shit a few decades down the line.

Helck’s answer to the problem of recurrent, inevitable suffering is thus threefold:

Improve the system at large by clearing out the corruption on top.

Dedicate active, ongoing efforts to redressing the sins of the previous system and helping its victims, even if they seem too far gone.

Proactively seek out and bring aid to problem areas before the sufferers there metastasize into world-shaking dangers.

Its characters are involved in all three of those stages—the heroic side cast does Point 1, Vamirio and her allies handle Point 2, and Helck takes up the responsibility of Point 3. He goes out into the world to be that extra safety net when the better society he helped put in place inevitably still fails people, in places where his allies can’t reach. To find them—the people who are in such bad situations that apocalypse looks like a reasonable solution—he’s going to have to wade, personally, into the deepest and worst mires he can find, pulling people out of that darkness one hand at a time.

As a series, then, Helck believes in systemic change while also believing that systemic change will never be sufficient on its own to prevent all suffering. However, rather than then simply shrugging and accepting that suffering is inevitable and so the heroes will have no choice but to deal violently with the people who fell through the cracks when they inevitably return as dangerous villains, it sends its hero out to do that ground-level work of saving people. And he himself isn’t enough either, but his actions are still meaningful, because every life he saves is both that one soul saved from darkness, and one more vector cut off that could otherwise spiral into exponential amounts of suffering and death.

BNHA: What It's Not Doing

We can see an echo of the path into darkness which turns victims into villains in BNHA, where the villains are not Born Monsters, but rather become monsters because of the circumstances of their lives. The pain they endure, the discrimination and violence they face, leads them to their extremist reactions to try and repair—or simply destroy—a world they perceive as fundamentally hostile to them. While there’s no overarching Will of the World manipulating them for its own ends—All For One is akin to it in how he operates, but at the end of the day, he’s still just another man, not a literal planetary anima—the end result remains the same: people forged by suffering into enemies so dangerous and resolute that they threaten the entire foundation of the world as it currently exists, as well as all those who are living in peace and happiness in the current world.

So, when faced with the prospect of enemies who are an unavoidable consequence of the endurance of the status quo (because the status quo the heroes have chosen to support is full of discrimination and repression), what exactly is BNHA proposing to do about those enemies arising in the future? How will the heroes’ course of action regarding those enemies be different at the end of the story than it was at the beginning? Well, so far we’ve got:

Shouji functionally telling the heteromorphs at the hospital that all they can do is endure their suffering until the people around them decide on their own to improve.

Even as she’s embraced by a Hero, Toga believing there’s no possible ending in which she can reach a world she wants to live in, and so resigning herself to finding a satisfactory death instead.

The seeming resolution of the subplot concerning the civilians lashing out at the heroes for their failure being for them to collectively agree to support heroes even more, with no explanation of what that would change for the children out of view of a hero, like Tenko was, or being victimized by a hero, like Touya.

I feel like the manga wants us to believe that the future will be better because heroes as a group, inspired by the kids of 1-A and with the corruption of the HPSC purged, are going to be more empathetic towards villains as a group going forward. I don’t believe that, however, thanks to even the students’ (and especially Deku’s) continued willingness to completely ignore the humanity of the villains they don’t have pre-existing bonds with. Their empathy for “their” designated villains is admirable, certainly, and a good start on the necessary change, but it’s not sufficient if it starts and ends with that highly conditional empathy.

What is going to be different on a systemic level to help people like Toga or Spinner? What will change in society at large such that the average person on the street will become willing to help someone off-putting and potentially dangerous like Tenko or Jin? What overhaul of professional heroism can we expect to help prevent situations like Touya’s or assuage the generational grudges behind Mr. Compress or Re-Destro? What new oversight mechanisms will be put in place to prevent more children from being scooped up to be raised as weapons like Lady Nagant and Hawks? What can be done to catch people like Muscular or Moonfish at a younger age and intervene before they grow up into murderers? What better counselling programs in prison could be introduced such that someone like Ending might actually be less suicidal when their prison sentence ends than they were when it began? What social safety nets need to be strengthened such that children like Overhaul and Geten wind up in normal, loving homes with the resources to help them sort through their issues rather than criminal organizations and cults?

After the dust settles on this endgame, what in god’s name is going to change?

Further, even if those changes are enacted, what are the main characters going to do personally for those who still slip through the cracks? As @robotlesbianjavert wrote previously, once everything has been done as best it can for the greater good, what’s the second safety net there to catch those who can’t be saved in the greater good’s first pass?

BNHA vs. Helck's Threefold Answer

Consider again the three points Helck’s ending contained—improve the system, care for the victims that already exist, and proactively seek to prevent the creation of new victims—and contrast them to how things are going in BNHA’s end game.

1: Have the main characters improved the system?

No, not at all. The most concrete change to the system has surely been the death of the HPSC President, but no heroes had no hand in that, much less one of the kids. Clone Re-Destro took her out, one villain to another, so no hero had to sully their hands or risk taking on the very office that grants them their authority. Even with her death, we have no guarantee that whoever takes her position next will be any different than she was.

All Might’s retirement shook the system, but the series is out there as I type this recanonizing All Might and his legacy as wholly beyond reproach.

Endeavor and Hawks were exposed as, respectively, an abuser and a murderer on national TV and absolutely no official consequences befell them.

A heteromorphic mob stormed a hospital and the best a professional hero could muster was a feeble apology for not “realizing sooner,” with not a single word from anyone about being more mindful going forward.

Ujiko was removed from the web of orphanages he was maintaining, but there’s been nothing to address how he managed to get away with cultivating his “seedbeds of hatred and ferocity” right out in the open for decades, either, and so we have no real reason to believe the vulnerable children in those institutions are going to be safe from the next unscrupulous figure with ulterior motives to come along after him.

There’s been no recognition whatsoever of the role quirk counselling played in Toga’s repression, no discussion of making prisons more humane, no intention stated of making the current system even the tiniest bit less regressive via actual changes to the law and government-funded social safety nets. The system shows no signs whatsoever of improving, least of all due to any actions on the part of the main characters.

Neither Deku nor any other student has shown the faintest inclination to push back against the reactionary violence demanded of them by the system they intend to join. While they may act mercifully on their own time, they are wholly unwilling to actually protest against the authority that gives them their orders.

2: Are the main characters making efforts to care for the victims that already exist?

Yes and no. This is about the only one I can give them even partial credit for, but partial credit they do still get.

Ochaco made a world-shaking offer for Toga, one that melted away Toga’s aggression and brought her violence to a dead stop. That’s amazing! Shouto has managed to stop Dabi from killing himself and everyone around him against all odds, and we have every indication that he’ll keep dedicating himself to that for as long as it takes. Deku has concretely changed the paths of Gentle Criminal, La Brava and Lady Nagant,[*] and I have little reason to believe he’ll do any less for Shigaraki, however that turns out to look. Attempts are even being made to help the Noumu, following the reveal of Shirakumo’s lingering presence in Kurogiri.

…But that’s about where it stops.

[*] I hate absolutely everything about the way Lady N reacted to him, mind you, but what’s on the page is on the page.

Shouji never bothered to actually ask Spinner or Scarecrow what drove them to villainy, nor do we have any indication that he’s going to follow up with them now that the riot they were leading has been quelled.

Deku’s compassion begins and ends with people whose motivations he can understand; he has none to spare on those whose desires and goals are alien to him, or he attaches that compassion to stone-hearted ultimatums he has no authority to make.

Tsuyu’s got Ochaco’s back, and Iida has a line that you could interpret as being charitably disposed towards Dabi, but no one else in the class seems to be making any efforts to reach out to villains. Shinsou might have brought Gigantomachia to a place where he could confront AFO, but he damn sure didn’t give him a choice in the matter.

Things are even worse on the professional level. Between the flying coffin and the mass arrests, we’ve had no indication that the Pros are doing or are interested in doing the first damn thing to try and help the victims of their flawed status quo.

The first thing Hawks does when confronted with a risen Twice is scream to kill him again, for god’s sake. That’s as clear an indication as I could possibly ask for that nothing he’s experienced has altered Hawks’s methods or his willingness to use them.

As I said above, the empathy a tiny handful of students have for their villain foils is commendable, but insufficient to serve as tidemarks indicating an improved status quo.

3: Is there any indication that the main characters will proactively seek to prevent the pain that leads to the birth of villains?

No. In fact, under the current system, that isn’t even possible for them. That is simply not what professional heroism is or does. Under the current system, heroes are definitionally reactive; they’re not there as a preventative against suffering so much as they’re a topical ointment for it once it’s already arisen. Because the role of heroes seems on track to remain the same as it ever was, heroes can’t go into the dark places because that’s simply not their job.

Addressing bigotry and discrimination is not a hero’s job unless someone perpetuating it is using their quirk to do so.

Preventing domestic abuse is not a hero’s job even if a quirk is in use because quirk use is legal inside the home; abuse is thus a problem for police and social workers to handle, not heroes.

Dealing with corrupt systems and repressive laws is not a hero’s job because they’re enforcers for systems and laws; they can try to change them through the legal pathways available to all citizens, but they can’t bring their powers to bear without becoming villains themselves.

Heroes cannot walk into the heart of darkness of Hero Society because their job is to exist outside, in the open, in the light. Their only function is to stop villains—people using their quirks illegally—and to help out in disaster situations. That’s it. That’s all they’re there to do. And if the parameters of their jobs don’t change, that’s all they’re ever going to be able to do: try to talk a victim who’s already gone sour out of getting worse.

As it stands, if the 1-A kids are still just running around being Cool Heroes Punching Out Villains in the epilogue, they are failing to act as the second layer of aid Helck represents, but rather still only acting as their society’s last defense against those who have become twisted by pain and unaddressed need. In effect, they will continue to be the sword that puts down a monster rather than the hand that reaches out to a victim before the monster can be born.

Right now, I have seen precious little to convince me that, ten years down the line, they’re going to be anything more than fractionally better heroes than their predecessors were—punching first, asking questions virtually never, standing around in the aftermath congratulating themselves for their victories, posing for cameras as the people they just unthinkingly pummeled get packed into police cars to be dumped into a perfunctory legal system followed by a monstrously inhuman carceral complex.

The Impact of Timing

Is anyone thinking that it's not fair of me to compare stuff in BNHA's endgame to stuff in Helck's epilogue? Couldn't most of my complaints be handwaved in BNHA's epilogue? I mean, I guess, yeah, but with the small problem that such a resolution would be incredibly unsatisfying.

The thing with Helck is, that series doesn’t leave those three points for the epilogue; rather, its epilogue is a natural extension of the choices its characters have been making all along.

Helck leaves his chain of command, his kingdom, even his own species, when he realizes how deep their corruption runs. Helck’s struggle to overcome corrupt authority is the foundation the entire series rests on, from its beginning hook of, “Human hero tries to become the new Demon Lord,” to its climax of fighting against The Will of the World itself. (Point 1: Improve the system.)

Vamirio decides upon getting to know Helck that humans, her enemies, are ultimately victims of the corrupt power manipulating them. She shouts out loud her intention to save them, exulting in the sense of relief it gives her to clear away her uncertainty and come to that decision. Later, she passionately declares that she will disobey orders from her Emperor himself, if those orders are to fight humans with the intent of killing them. She’s a figure of authority amidst her own kind, but she is more than willing to go against that authority—and vocally so—if her morals tell her she must. (Point 2: Dedicate active efforts to helping the victims of the corrupt system, even if they already seem too far gone.)

I’ve already talked about Helck’s decision to wander the earth in the series’s epilogue, and this of all points would seem most likely to be relegated to the aftermath, but no, dedication to preventing future tragedies can be found in the body of the series itself as well. Vamirio’s peer Azudora has history with both humans and the transformations wrought by The Will of the World, and he’s been working on a cure since before the series even began. His efforts bring hope to the series at a critical point and provide a model for Helck’s decision at the series’s end, as both men make the same choice: to devote their lives to the hope of doing something that will better the future, even if it doesn’t change things for those who have already been lost. (Point 3: Proactively work to save today’s victims so that they don’t become tomorrow’s monsters.)

In essence, the entire run of Helck is dedicated to presenting the problem Vamirio and Helck are facing, exploring how and why they come to the decisions they do about how to solve that problem, and then forcing them, over and over, to face down their own doubt and fear, their allies’ hesitancy, and their opponents’ highly dedicated efforts to break them down and defeat them, be it through force of arms or despair. The heroes get the ending they do because they decide on the ending they want and then they spend the rest of the series damn well fighting for it.

BNHA’s epilogue handing the kids the passel of resolutions and changes they so desperately need for their bright futures to be remotely convincing—offscreened, timeskipped victories to battles they haven’t even yet realized the need to fight!—will just cement this rant’s contention that the series and its heroes don’t have half of the clarity of purpose and intellectual integrity of Helck and its lead duo of shounen manga Determinators.

In summary, please read Helck.

Disclaimer at the bottom: I don’t want to utterly oversell Helck here. The way it handles its classism angle is simplistic, even reductive, a bog-standard portrayal of, “All nobles are cartoonishly evil save the one (1) pure-hearted exception who just isn’t for some reason.” Its big change to its corrupt system at the end is simply to replace a “bad king” with a “good king,” which is self-evidently not a change that’s guaranteed-effective beyond the good king’s lifespan. Further, there’s obviously going to be a difference in realism between a story set in a medieval fantasy JRPG world and one set in a modified version of real-life, present-day Japan—BNHA does portray a much more complex, well-articulated society.

Still, even acknowledging that comparing the two series is kind of comparing apples and mandrakes, it’s striking to me how similar the themes are when you strip out the language of their respective genre idioms. Both are interrogating notions of traditional heroism and villainy, examining what drives villains, pushing to recognize the humanity in the traditionally monstrous. In that sense, Helck is just across-the-board better, more honest, and more passionate at portraying those themes, while BNHA consistently gestures at them only to bafflingly write them off again the moment they get a little too challenging to deal with.

#bnha #helck #helck propaganda #bnha critical #stillness has salt #my writing #unrelated note: i was reading helck for the first time as i was also reading frieren for the first time #and let me tell you guys #THAT is a fun compare and contrast exercise #need frieren to be a blowout success so it can get a season two and i can get the golden city arc animated please and thank you #but it'd be nice if helck's very...adequate anime did well enough that they could at least get through the whole thing

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tossawary · 1 year

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I really love your platonic interpretation of lbh and sqh throughout your fics, and in stepping up in particular. it’s really interesting to see lbh as his clingy, sticky self with sqh as hus shizun but not as lovesick compared to svsss lbh to Shen yuan as his shizun. I do wonder what are your thoughts on the difference on LBH his feelings for Shizun!SY and Shizun!SQH?

Thank you! I've been thinking on this question and I still don't think I'm satisfied on the wording of my answer. I wrote some long rambles, but they were kind of directionless, so I'm going to try and squish it down into something more coherent. SPOILERS.

I think Luo Binghe in both "Stepping Up" and SVSSS is a person of very intense and complicated feelings, partially due to his youth, his past, and his position in life. And so... I don't actually think Luo Binghe's feelings are that different for SQH versus SQQ (SY). The relationship is platonic and will never be romantic, but I intentionally wrote Luo Binghe's feelings to be a little ambiguous.

I think it would be out-of-character for Luo Binghe not to have had the thought: "I would treat Shizun so much better than that wicked, ungrateful bully of a demon if he loved me instead." He wants his teacher's attention, approval, and affection. I think Luo Binghe at this stage in his life wants both everything and anything he can get.

Entrance to Cang Qiong is equivalent to saving his life. Poverty kills and Luo Binghe has witnessed this firsthand in the death of his adoptive mother. Cultivation skills potentially guarantee survival forever, even if he gets kicked out of the sect. So, he starts out desperate to impress so that he doesn't lose everything.

There's lot to be said about the quality of life that SQH and SY both offer LBH. In "Stepping Up", I think that LBH has more immediate and greater stability on An Ding, but the introduction of Mobei-Jun and revelation of his demonic heritage brings some desperation and uncertainty back to LBH's life. SQH and SY are both revealed to be imperfect and in need of help and potentially protection.

I think that the main difference here is mostly just that Shang Qinghua has positioned himself as interested in someone else romantically and exclusively sees LBH as a disciple and a son figure. SQH doesn't have the System breathing down his neck like SY did (SY is fighting for his life to show any kind of kindness to LBH at first in SVSSS), so SQH can be a lot more straightforward about exactly why he was interested in LBH (demon kid) and more clearly set the boundaries and expectations of their relationship.

SQH and MBJ are a mess, but they're also arguably already a form of life partners even at their messed-up master-servant stage, and LBH is the intruder on a relationship of nearly 20 years. SQH and MBJ have a lot more life experience in this world and it shows. As LBH adjusts to the rather confusing Moshang relationship, which SQH is clearly intent on maintaining, whatever desperate teenage romantic crush he might have is fading rather than developing, as things start to settle into something better and it becomes clear that there's not one spot in SQH's life to fight over.

Honestly? I think a lot of romantic and platonic affection overlaps. Gestures of affection can be very subjective and context-dependent. Awkward crushes on inappropriate figures happen, especially in a period of sexual development and discovery. I think LBH being able to develop interest in people who aren't Shen Yuan is fun (rarepairs are fun to explore!) and makes Bingqiu more interesting overall.

#chickemz #tossawary svsss #ask tossawary #an ding disciple luo binghe au #luo binghe #shang qinghua #spoilers

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the-trinket-witch · 6 months

Text

PlayfulLand Theories before the event starts!

Everybody's excited for the New Twst Halloween Event coming to the JP servers, right? I am too. These bones been rattlin' since I found out. And my brain has been rotting with theories and predictions. Are they baseless? Likely. I would like to say I've seen enough of a pattern in this game to see a familiar plot coming down the pipe. Call it grasping at straws or pareidolia, but I'm having fun turning this all in my brain. Everybody in the Brainrot Buggie, we're making wild guesses and throwing shit at the wall to see what is right.

(SPOILERS FOR TWST PLAYFULLAND EVENT, TWST CH. 6, BLACK BUTLER: BOOK OF CIRCUS. CW for Child Abuse, manipulation/loss of physical faculties, and general body horror)

Biggest takeaway from this theory dump: Fellow and Gidel aren't the main antagonists of this event.

"But Trinket, they're the face of the event! How are they not the Big Bads?" I hear you wonder. It's because they weren't the Main Antagonists in their own source material. These two were:

Stromboli and The Coachman.

Assuming anyone reading has already watched the 1940 film, will note these two are connected to Honest John and Gideon/The Fox and Cat by their financial dealings. The Coachman in specific pays the Two for them to round up boys to bring to Pleasure Island to meet their fates. In most iterations of Pinnochio, Mangiafuoco/Stromboli and The Coachman are two separate entities. One adaptation, though, combines them. And while I will not delude myself to think it was an inspiration for the potential 'Actual Big Bad', an idea came to mind when thinking of the character from the 1996 The Adventures of Pinnochio, Lorenzini. A couple ideas, actually…

But before I get to that, where else in Toboso-sensei's work have we seen Charismatic Gingers in Circus Settings who are the bait-and-switch 'face' of a story arc?

That's right:

Joker.

I guess not really 'bait and switch', but a lot of emphasis was put on him as a character when Book of Circus first came out. But then he and the rest of the Circus troupe began mentioning a man they called Father. Baron Kelvin.

Before his obsession sparked for Ciel, he was a philanthropist who could have been considered a good man. But in the state we meet him in for the first time in BoC, he's a completely changed man obsessed with becoming physically appealing to Phantomhive, to the detriment of the children who had and would come under his 'care'. Their bones became the ceramic used to give prostheses to the rest of the circus.

What if we're gearing up to have a similar figure 'pulling the strings' in this coming event? An amalgamation of Stromboli/The Coachman/Baron Kelvin…and Monstro the Whale?

"Why Monstro? We already have a reference with Azul's cafe!"

Remember Lorenzini that I mentioned earlier?

He's also a combination of The Puppetmaster, Coachman, and Whale. What if this Combination character… was a Whale merman? A merman looking for a different way to stay human, in a sense 'Become a Real Boy'? What if his transition to humanity has him stuck in one location out of the way? What if this is all a trap to sap the life/magic out of these boys so he can shirk his mer form for permanent legs? While it could be a stretch to say this is the case, lemme see if I can coherently explain…

@thecosmicjackalope posed the notion that the extraneous went characters might in some way be foils/parallels to the Overblot Gang. So far we have Idia getting a parallel with Rollo (two siblings dealing with the grief over the death of their brother), what if this is an event paralleling Azul and his dynamic with The Tweels?

Shady fish men with (possible) varying degrees of disgust with their mer forms

Equally fishy business practices

Employ more physically capable individuals to do his 'legwork'

Plan(ned) on having the student body of NRC under their thumb of servitude

Employ magical tactics to entice and bind those they want into their grasp.

On top of all of this, what if his magic extends to both Fellow and Gidel? What if those two are just a regular fox and cat given sentience to do a whale's dirty work? Would they turn back after being defeated? That would explain the motivation, outside of just 'I'm getting paid handsomely to bring these boys in and not ask questions'. Even if this part is all thrown out the window, the idea that a shady Ringmaster lording over Playfulland just won't leave me. So then, what else can I guess about this event? (NOTE: THESE ARE ALL QUESTIONS AND THEORIES, not posed by much/any evidence)

The costumes/masks might specifically be used to control the boys. In a way similar to The Beast and the trees of Over the Garden Wall, thanks to @squidwen for the notion, maybe the masks progressively creep up on the NRC boys both subduing them, and eventually sapping them of life/magic? What if the incentive for the boys to act 'like jackasses' is how the mask takes root/grows? What if the end result (the host losing their life/stores of magic) their bones turn to wood? What if the park is literally built of the Bones of Fairgoers Past?

Something I already began to theorize about when the announced SSRs came out was: why those three were picked.

Ortho we know shares A LOT of parallels/references to Pinocchio already. It's basically a given that he'd be a part of this. He is naive and fresh, so he could very well follow wanderlust wherever (by whoever) inspires it. But why Kalim and Ace? Ideas for each:

Kalim:

He's a trusting person (played as 'To his own detriment')

A bit of a party animal

One to go with the flow, isn't quick to realize he's in deep shit til it's too late

Ace:

Brutally honest

Brother worked at a theme park. (Possible enticement to bring him in, on the promise of finding him somehow?)

One of the biggest liars of the cast-couple that with his immaturity and quick willingness to shirk responsibility, he's a prime candidate to pick off to someplace that promises leisure and fun away from school.

All three of the SSR boys are technically prime folk to lure off to the equivalent of Pleasure Island. Kalim with his weak will and shortsightedness, Ortho with his lack of experience both as a bot and now as a legit person, and Ace again because he has the most maturing to make for this arc. If anybody becomes a literal donkey in all of this: I can see it most likely being Ace.

Assuming the rest of the Event Cast are only there on the premise of having drawn the short straw and not able to go to the Glorious Masquerade, I don't have any other theories for them. (Though I gotta say I'm digging the much more blatant Mad Hatter Ref in Trey's design.) A gameplay theory I had is that maybe we have to fight them to 'cut them loose', with eventually Ortho, Kalim and Ace being the 'final' bosses of the event, who defend the Puppetmaster in one final stand.

For a TL:DR:

It's Book of Circus 2: Electric Boogaloo if it was written by Neal Shusterman (of Full Tilt fame). A Fishman wants to be a Real Boy, masks are terrifying, and Ace is an immature clown who's gonna get a lotta folks put in danger.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst theory #twst playful land #twst event #fellow honest #twst gidel

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