#ao no kokagami

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Annon-Guy: What are your thoughts on Rachel Alucard and Mei Amanohokosaka as characters?

I'm asking because Tsundere type characters being devisive, with Harsh Tsunderes being hated for being "abusive" girls that deserve to die for attacking physically and/or verbally.(whether they're in love or not)

It's apparent that we Western Fans (no offense to you) don't view them the way Japanese Fans do.

It is interesting how widely JP and Western tastes differ! I have a buddy who is really into studying fandom culture, and we’ve talked about the wildly different reactions to tsundere between the cultures! I wonder if I should call her in sometime to discuss why that is…

Anyways, personally I have no problem with the archetype. Sometimes they can annoy me, especially if they feel ‘forced’ into their archetype; if the character seems mean for “absolutely no reason,” to the point where it breaks my immersion, then I tend to dislike them.

I’ve never had this issue with BlazBlue, though. I really, really like BlazBlue’s character writing. I’d still say that if I ever met these girls in real life, I probably wouldn’t want to go drinking with them… but as characters in their stories, and as believable products of their environments, I adore them!!

- - - - RACHEL = ALUCARD

Rachel is SUCH a tragic fucking character. You can like or dislike how she’s coping with it, but if you engage with her character on any meaningful level, you have to acknowledge that her cruel, jaded behavior is a believable response to the situation she’s in. It’s not nice, it’s not pretty- neither is the life she’s trapped in. In what world has trauma or helplessness ever made us prettier, cleaner people?

She’s cold, distant, unempathetic- because if she lets herself remember how much she cares, the weight of it all might break her. She’s incredibly sensitive under that cold porcelain shell; she snaps into aggression very quickly when under pressure. Specifically when confronted things that she hasn’t been able to distance herself from, things she cares too much about to feign distant superiority.

- - - - MEI = AMANOHOKOSAKA

Powerlessness is something of a through-line among the tsundere characters in BB. Mei is also a character struggling with powerlessness, pain, and fear; and she responds to her situation n a lot of the same ways Rachel does.

To avoid feeling weak or trapped, she falls back on her lineage, seeking escape in her sense of pride. She’d rather tell everyone (including herself) that she’s separate and above everything around her. The alternative would require her to face the horrible truth that if she did try to seek comfort or companionship under her employment (servitude, extortion, etc.) to Unomaru, she would be denied it.

Her fear turns to aggression when backed into a corner, when her mask of aloof superiority can no longer protect her. In these cases, she can be explosively emotional; which isn’t at all surprising, considering how much she’s bottling up all the time.

Thinking about it a little, Rachel and Mei share a few more parallels, don’t they??? They both get very quiet when they let down their walls, reflecting the exhaustion they suffer from. They’re both in a uniquely knowledgeable position, with access to information about the world that most people don’t have, which further serves to alienate them- and creates this sort of “being the world’s protector” feeling I’d argue they both express.

They both lost their parents incredibly young, inheriting positions of nobility, leadership, and responsibility they were certainly not prepared for. They both keep going in the hope that a specific man in their lives will one day be able to have a future.

Their designs share several elements too. A delicate, doll-like feel to their features. Long straight hair that veils them from the world (despite Rachel tying hers up) and, in JP media, often symbolizes spiritualism and divinity. They both wear lolita fashion, with many layers that could also be argued to ‘shield’ them from the rest of the world, providing a form of mental armor and obscuring how small and fragile they are under it all.

I doubt these similarities are coincidence.

#mei amanohokosaka #rachel alucard #blazblue #xblaze #bb meta #ao no kokagami

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

My fit for Hazama birthday!!

#meant to do my nails but procrastinated #I like the cute hairchain thing I did #bb merch #ao no kokagami #nox nyctores #nol intelligence #hazama #novus orbis librarium

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Was watching the BBCF epilogue again today.

What on earth could all these titles be...

And that 'Next' section, listing the letter alpha and the title "Awakening The Chaos."

There's straight up no way that could mean anything other than the fact that she was intended to be coming next, right???

#bb meta #ao no kokagami #blazblue #blazblue central fiction #alpha 1 #prime field device #FUUUUUUCK #what happens now since the series is on ice #god I want this story so bad but I'm really REALLY worried about Mori no longer being involved #how the fuck does this work out #WE WERE LITERALLY THAT FUCKING CLOSE TO HER???

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Favorite and least favorite Blazblue characters?

Yay~ finally getting to this ask. I’ve got a lot of really cool asks (thank you everyone so much) that I’ve been wanting to get to, but my health is Rather Poor, and when I do answer these things, I want to be able to put a lot of energy and attention into them.

Now, getting to the ask! I had a lot to say, and it all came out messy... and somehow, I only ended up talking about one character, Nu 13. Who fits as both one of my favorite and one of my least favorite characters, for reasons detailed below. To not make this an entire fucking novel, I'll cut the post off here and consider it an early birthday post for her.

That said, here's a quick run down of some other stuff I didn't get to talk about, relevant to your question.

My other Hated Fave is Nine/Konoe. One of those “I love the character but if we were stuck in a room together I’d maul her” situations. I consider her to be a misandrist, and I have a very charged history of like, generational reactive sexism in my family, so her generational reactive sexism (relationship with her father coloring her relationship with men overall) enrages me. On the other hand, it’s so well written, SHE’S so well written, she’s an incredible character and I adore her as an art piece. She is like a cathedral to me. The most beautiful symphony in a key you hate.

Touched on briefly in the post below, my all time absolute favorite is Terumi/Susano'o. That's a story for another day. I like him in a very particular way where he's like, the best character ever, but also he's constantly on probation. Or reverse probation? I need to see him try to kill/maim/ruin someone once a month or he's at risk of being evicted. Being the champion is a title you have to defend, y'know?

I think the character I study the most and talk about the most is Noel, although to my tastes, she's very middle of the road. I feel neutral about her. I just use her as a guinea pig for all my BB related project. You know Dangan Ronpa? How they used Sayaka and Leon as a starting point/beta test for everything? It's kind of like that, except I haven't gotten so sick of her yet that I'm killing her off or anything.

With all of that covered, allow me to get into the actual post! Thank you for your patience!

Off the top of my head at least, I can’t honestly think of BlazBlue characters I dislike. Every character that comes to mind shares something that makes me hesitant to actually claim I dislike them. That is, the characters I like the least are the characters I understand the least. Spinner Superior and the entire Bloodedge Experience cast make the list… but I haven’t read BE. Valkenhayn makes the cut- another character I really don’t pay attention to. Bullet, Hibiki, maybe Amane- all characters I really just… haven’t paid much attention to yet.

I don’t really want to claim I dislike them at this point, because when I really think about it, I’m like 99% sure that I lack interest in them BECAUSE I haven’t taken the time to look at them.

One of my hobby/goal/things in my free time is working on these BB character documents, analyzing everything I can about each character in the series for my own personal work. I have a feeling that when I get to really analyzing and writing about these characters, I’ll find things I like about them.

Here's a quick look at my files, to see what I'm talking about. Have mercy, it's very WIP.

There are two characters that stand out to me in an… almost “love to hate” way, but not quite. I have a lot to say about these characters, but I’m still tired, and this post is going to be LONG as is, so I’ll try to keep it brief.

Author's Note: I fail to keep it brief.

Before BBDW, my least favorite character was DEFINITELY Nu13. Ironic, because she almost got me into BB back in the Continuum Shift days. I saw her and some of her crazy behavior and thought... well, not much, just kind of an error message in my head going “hot woman spotted.” So I looked into her, and her story!

And got bored immediately. At first I was intrigued- I love violent characters that could arguably be described as “rabid” or “feral,” but upon further inspection, she had one of the few character flaws I just can’t look past. She was absolutely static. Immutable. The only character she was willing to interact with was Ragna, and even when interacting with him, she couldn’t hear a thing he said. In my interpretation, at the time, this made her a character that couldn’t connect with the outside world in any way. To me, she was an island. Absolutely remote. And completely useless to my interests.

A fear years later, a few months before the launch of Chronophantasma Extend, I ended up getting into BlazBlue anyway powered by sheer Terumi thirst. Are you guys starting to get a picture of my type yet? From then on, BB has remained my all time favorite series, and Terumi/Susano’o continues to be in my top three favorite characters, usually comfortably wearing the “#1 all time fave” crown. I suppose that answers the other half of your question.

Throughout this time, Nu still didn’t appeal to me at all. Locked in as my least favorite, definitely. Eventually, I got my college roommates into BB. One of the girls fell in absolute love with Nu. I couldn’t understand it at all. In hindsight, she’s right on every point about Nu that she likes, and I really appreciate those traits now too- but I couldn’t see it at the time. She was able to see Nu as an incredibly tragic character for the same reasons I saw her as inert. In the C-Series, Nu is alone, horribly alone, locked in her pain and her delusion. I saw that and ultimately felt she was beyond saving, but my associate felt that made her into a beautiful tragedy, a princess more worth saving than any other. Maybe I’m getting a little abstract out of nowhere here, but I now feel that’s the best way to look at Nu’s story- she’s locked away in this fairy tale delusion. Ugh, I have more to say on it, but look at how long this has gotten already!

Anyways, then BBDW came out, and Mori gave us a glimpse of what he intended to be the next step in Nu’s story. Juusan, XIII, Thirteen. And hooooooooooooly shit my guys, I absolutely love Nu, XIII, and her arc now. It’s her fucking healing arc! It’s her fucking growing arc! She’s finally able to start becoming a person, fleshing out, interacting with the world!

I’m not the type who really needs or even WANTS redemption arcs for characters, but Nu DESPERATELY needed this chapter. My biggest gripe with her, as mentioned, was that it seemed impossible for her to have any kind of relationship with ANYONE. I guess I was a little close minded- I needed to see evidence that Nu could be reached, that she could wake up from her fairy tale slumber and start really living. And we have that now, in XIII.

Looking back on the writing from the earlier games, when I hated Nu so much, I see those scenes in an entirely different light. Her first fucking scene in every route is waking up, our sleeping beauty. But she wakes up to the same dream every time. She’s put right back into her coffin, death, to dream and dream and wake and be killed again. Isn’t that kind of beautiful??? Her CT story mode IS a dream, it’s a desperate dream, the one she holds most dearly but doesn’t even understand- Nu is a character who THINKS what she wants more than anything is a romantic love with her prince charming, but we see in her story mode there, and in the relationships that finally save her, that what she really wanted was a full relationship as a real person. Platonic relationships, with no expectations, just someone seeing her and maybe offering her a smile. She craved, needed, the ability to connect with others, but that was a dream so far out of reach she couldn’t understand it. I KNOW I’M RAVING AT THIS POINT, I DIDN’T MEAN TO, BUT C’MON IT’S BEAUTIFUL.

And, and!!! As I mentioned, the relationships that finally save her, finally wake her up from the dream the same way the BB world is being woken up from ITS looping dream (WHICH IS ANOTHER AWESOME CONNECTION AND GREAT WRITING, THE WAY NU AS A CHARACTER CAN BE SEEN TO EMBODY THE LOOPING WORLD, NEW AND BROKEN AND UNABLE TO CHANGE WITH NO HOPE OF TOMORROW)

Ahem, ahem-- It’s familial connections. She so badly wants that romance with Ragna, but it isn’t the love of a prince that saves her- it’s when he accepts her as his sister. It’s when he accepts her as a victim and her own person and not a bastardization of Saya, and comes to save this lonely girl. An echo of his little sister he couldn’t save. HIS ENTIRE JOURNEY WAS TO SAVE HIS SISTER AND HE FINALLY DOES. IN SO MANY WAYS, INCLUDING IN THAT MOMENT OF REACHING OUT TO NU.

And then it’s Noel. And Lamba. Her sisters. Again, people who once saw her as a disgusting representation of what they feared the most, a replacement or a copy- when they let that go, see past it, and really face her, they take Nu in as their little sister. And its their patient love that heals her. Just like Ragna, when they first met Nu, her connection to Saya and themselves terrified them, infuriated them, but now they look directly at that connection and don’t see it as a threat. It fills them with compassion. It can be a lovely thing, to share something so fundamental as your creation with someone else. There’s love in that. They see it now and are able to offer it to her.

This answer has been very messy and very long, but hey, let’s pretend it isn’t that bad. Give me some mercy, I’m on so much cough syrup.

#ao no kokagami #nu 13 #juusan #konoe a mercury #yuuki terumi #noel vermillion #ragna the bloodedge #lambda 11 #bb meta #prime field device #boundary interface prime field device #murakumo unit

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Random character song associations from my Spotify;

Gunfight - Sick Puppies = Jin Kisaragi (his feelings toward the NOL, obedience, Bang and the Ikarugan rebels)

Die Trying - New Medicine = Makoto Nanaya

I already mentioned Avicii's Hey Brother for Ragna, but Savior and Satellite by Rise Against also make me think of him

The Lonely - Christina Perri = Trinity Glassfille

#ao no kokagami #jin kisaragi #makoto nanaya #ragna the bloodedge #trinity glassfille

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Remember this old thing???

I'm taking a crack at translating it myself.

But I'm already stuck on the first line...

"フ°ロシトです"!???! Mori, please stop using katakana out of nowhere...

#ao no kokagami #furoto what the fuck is furoto #float??? but that's now how people usually write it.... #and I always get tripped up by “desu” somehow #you would think I would recognize it but it gets me every time #he seems to be presenting this as just a random passing thought he had and not a real official plan for any upcoming story #maybe this is just a sort of self fanart/fanfic thing for him idk

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Did we ever get a fan translation of the Wheel of Fortune drama CD or no???

#blazblue #ao no kokagami

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

After seeing the ass post. I personally think Blazblue is actually a bit more tame with it‘s fanservice at least in the main story. Most fanservice takes place in the gag reels if I remember correctly (and in the animation sprites).

Personally I see the fanbase as the most unhinged horny part of Blazblue. ( granted there are the infamous art books so I guess the dev tram is guilty too).

What is your opinion on the male fanservice. Which male characters fit more to the female gaze? I get the feeling that Hibiki and Hazama are usually pretty popular.

Fanservice is such a fascinating topic. Each country and culture has different standards and levels of „shame“ I‘d call it for certain fanservice. Beauty standards also often differ. I mean japanese media has always been more infamous for its more overt fanservice in its media.

This opening is going to sound pedantic, but I PROMISE you, it’s relevant, and- spoiler- it’s going to be used to confirm your theory about Hibiki and Hazama!

The concept of the “female gaze” arguably doesn’t exist, from the same academic standpoint as the male gaze does! The media phenomena we call the “male gaze” is a product of the culture the media is produced in- it is the specific way that female characters are influenced by being produced and consumed in a patriarchal, or heavily male-influenced, culture. By that definition, there in no female gaze, because we just don’t live in a society with such an overwhelming Heterosexual Female influence.

Though on that same point I would present the counterpoint that we DO have a way to see ‘female gaze media’- look at fujoshi/yaoi circles. Yaoi circles are dominated by women, many of whom are attracted to men, and since fujoshi culture has been such a taboo subculture for so many years, it has had to exist on the fringes- in a space with incredibly little influence from male fans or producers. Of course, I’m using generalizations here, you have to to discuss the ‘gaze’ phenomena, but do you see what I mean??? The “boy’s love” or “mlm” genre has historically disgusted male producers and consumers. Their resulting insistence on avoiding or crushing the genre has created an incredibly unique subculture of media.

In a lot of conversations, when people (often men) think about “female gaze” as a general consumer, not really studying it as a media term- they tend to approach the female gaze, and attraction, as a direct counterpart to the male gaze and male attraction. This leads to inaccurate conclusions, trying to categorize a fanservice-y male character by the same metrics as the agreed-upon traits of a fanservice-y female character; things like lots of exposed skin, a sultry air, or exaggerated proportions. With these (inaccurate) qualifiers, we get shirtless guys like Bang or Azrael, or flirty guys like Kagura.

But when you actually look at consumer statistics, fan polls, etc., you find that the most popular characters with women are the characters most popular in yaoi content. The big muscle-y “chad” types actually cater to the male gaze just like characters like Litchi, Bullet, and Nine do, they just address a different fantasy. The big booby women are attractive, a thing male fans/producers see as desirable to have, while the big beefcakes are what they want to be, how they want to be seen. Characters like Bang and Azrael are actually more popular with gay men in the fandom, where they are ADORED, than they are with most women in the fandom, who often ignore them entirely.

Your observation that Hibiki and Hazama are popular with women are spot on! Apparently, Hibiki Kohaku of all characters is the king of the female gaze in BlazBlue. In the west he’s not very popular at all, but in the Japanese fandom he reigns supreme. Hazama is way up there too- remember the bathtub scene from the CS gag reel? Lastly, Jin is also HUGELY popular with women. I’ve seen some fun memes about Sumeragi drawing Jin, and the differences between her work for the official series, vs her personal work for her fellow fujoshi. It’s wild to see it, but I guess this is the effect of the female gaze! This is what it looks like!

I don’t see the appeal personally, but I am a massive Hazama simp, so clearly I’m not as exempt from the “ladies love twinks” theorem as I like to think I am.

Welp, I think this post is long enough. I’m sorry I couldn’t cover every point in your ask- it really got me thinking about a lot of things. I wanted to talk some about the interesting cultural perception and, as you said, shame, of fanservice as a concept in general. But. Like. ~700 words is probably enough words for now. And if I try to cover to many topics in one post, I’ll end up muddying my points.

I used to be massively squicked by yaoi, and I’m still not a member of the fujo community, but over the past few years it’s been fascinating to learn more about this kind of stuff. Though since I am still an outsider, my understanding can’t cover the full picture of this topic. I do have a friend who would be more qualified to speak about this, as she is both a Woman In Fandom and a student of media, art, and culture! If anyone is particularly interested in this discussion, I’d be happy to loop her into the conversation to share more.

#ao no kokagami #bb meta #by sumeragi #jin kisaragi #hibiki kohaku #hazama #bang shishigami #azrael

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

"The environment has changed quite a bit, so practice, practice."

Mori has posted a new drawing on his Twitter.

Naturally, people are already talking about how this character looks like Ragne. The eye, the earing, the, well, everything.

I don’t want to assume anything, personally. I'm a fan of a few other series where the creators love to reuse and/or remix designs for different projects, so that is always a possibility.

Taking a second look at this image, the text on it doesn't give us any hints, it's just Mori's signature.

However... The symbol on the shoulder of the coat, seen constantly in BlazBlue, is kind of 'the last straw' for me. I still don't want to bet on anything, but I am inclined to count this as evidence for Mori continuing to be involved with the BB series. I've been worried that, since he's out of the company, he may no longer have the legal right to create for his life's work.

Only time will tell, but for me, this is an exciting development!

#blazblue #ao no kokagami #by toshimichi mori #maybe at a later date I'll pile up all the evidence for and against this being Ragna #I wanted to now but I'm too busy #mystery ragnaface

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Sometimes I fall down this rabbit hole of trying to understand the Tenjo Gender Paradox, like; Why do Bang, Kagura, even Homura call her a man throughout the games when surely they would have know otherwise? People say she was passed off as a man after her death in Ikaruga to help hide the fact that it was the Imperator Herself leading the 'rebel' faction, but how would her closest companions, her own family, not know the truth? If Bang was really her direct disciple, if she trained him, there's no way he wouldn't know, right??? They'd have to have met??? This makes no sense...

I need to remember that this whole paradox only exists because of localization error. In the original text, no gendered language is used for Tenjo in the main series. The male pronouns, and the confusion they cause in the fandom, were only introduced in localization as the singular 'they' had not been adopted in mainstream media at the time. So the whole 'paradox' just doesn't exist in the world of the games themselves; it's an issue unique to our world.

If I'm not mistaken, 'Tenjo of Ikaruga' being described as a 'big scary man with a scar' was still a rumor passed around during and after the war as an NOL misinformation campaign, but that doesn't cause the same narrative issues. It makes sense that characters like Bang and Kagura wouldn't bother to directly refute the rumors. They were valuable to keeping the truth of the war a secret for both parties.

Besides, speaking of Tenjo directly as a woman, even as her subordinates, may have been seen as disrespectful. The Imperator is meant to be a divine figure, and in several cultures this divinity can be reflected by avoiding gendering a person, classifying the position they hold as something 'above' gender. But now I'm just musing about a fictional society's cultural practices.

Homura would probably be an exception to this, able to refer to Tenjo as their 'mother' (contradicting the use of "father" they use in CP) but considering Homura is also never gendered, they may also avoid such terms, possibly as a sign of respect for the station they've inherited. Thinking about that, I went to find the scene in Japanese to figure out what Homura says... and heard them use "chichi," which I believe generally means 'father'???

I have heard some people talking in such a way as to suggest that masculine language can be interpreted as gender neutral within certain contexts in Japanese; for example, "兄弟" can be used to mean brother or any sibling, and would be the word used when asking someone if they have any siblings.

Assuming that's true, this use of "chichi" may be the same; used to refer to either gender of parent. I actually have seen it used in this way on some websites! But I can't be sure if this is entirely correct, as I don't actually speak Japanese. Hmmm...

#ao no kokagami #tenjo amanohokosaka #ikaruga civil war #novus orbis librarium #homura amanohokosaka #bb meta #bang shishigami #kagura mutsuki #bb trivia

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

@ramix-the-red;

Right!? Considering who she was married to, just the fact that they were together brings up a whole mystery. Like you, I find it extremely hard to believe that it was just a normal relationship- I don't see Relius as someone who just falls in love and marries. Some villains do lend themselves to this image of "they're a crazy villain most of the time but have an exceedingly normal personal life," but that's just... not Relius.

For my own personal theory/read on the situation, I definitely think you're on to something with the idea that it was some kind of strategic 'marriage of convenience.' Looking at who Ada and Carl became, and looking at what Relius values, I imagine Ignis must have had an incredibly 'notable soul.' Whether that meant she had a very strong soul, or just a very interesting one (think Relius' interest in Meifang) that Relius felt would be 'good material' for him to work with Relius Trying To Propose: "I would love to study you" or what, I don't know. Perhaps, as you mentioned, he was already looking for a soul to use as a core for his Detonator project- or perhaps he just found her fascinating, and having her as a research specimen and an available resource was part of what pushed him into creating the Detonator line.

I don't believe Relius was actively looking for a wife to produce offspring. Some 'evil scientist' characters do actively spouse-hunt for the purpose of creating a certain kind of offspring, a little dalliance in eugenics, but I don't interpret Relius as the type to be interested in that. I think his 'scientific curiosity' is a lot more impulsive. He finds something that catches his eye, he obsesses over it, pokes it with a few sticks, and sees what he can make it into.

But back to Ignis. I imagine her as someone with some kind of notable soul to capture Relius' interest, and if I'm allowed to get a little creative given we have nothing to go off of, possibly a personality type that he favored too. We see that he doesn't like the 'bleeding heart' type like Litchi, but he gets very fixated on women with strong convictions, like Makoto. I could see also see her having a high Ars Magus Aptitude that contributed to her children's abilities, alongside Relius' talents with magic.

I'm also inclined to believe that she was from a noble family. Rereading Pupeteers, we see that the Clover family lived in a sizable estate, and there seems to be implication that they may have had at least some level of staffing in their house. That kind of status could easily come from Relius' position in the NOL, but for the sake of Trying To Find Clues About Ignis, I'm inclined to attribute at least some of that to her. Also, if Relius went directly into the NOL upon reaching this time period, it would make be reasonable for the people he meets to be mostly other NOL affiliates- he's already very antisocial, it's not like he's going out to parties to meet people. For anyone to catch Relius' eye, they'd have to come to him first.

(tangent) Though in the same short story, we also get to meet Ignis' sibling and their spouse. Francis notably answers the door himself and Rosanne prepares Carl's room personally, suggesting that if they have any staff, it's a small enough amount that they wouldn't be working at night. Although they are noted to have a big enough house that a whole extra bedroom is present to be given to Carl in the first place despite the couple having no kids of their own, and it's possible they have more than one extra room, as when they try to separate Nirvana from Carl, they tell him she'll sleep in a different room- if there wasn't another extra bedroom to give her, I would expect Carl to argue against her 'sleeping' in the living room or something. I... could very easily go off on another tangent, theorizing the size of the household, positions employed, and where in a social hierarchy that would place the family- but I'll save that for another post maybe. I'm already all over the place.

Back to my point, that I believe Ignis was a member of the nobility. Considering what we know about the culture of the BlazBlue world at this point in time, the people most likely to be highly skilled or to have talents with Ars Magus/Seithr/Magic/Etc are the nobility, where we see a lot of focused training from a young age and political/eugenics-esque marriages.

This is further supported by the way Carl and Ada act in their youth. We see them dressed well but modest, acting polite, and we see them being educated under a set of standards that match up with high society values- chess, manners, violin, etc. I can't imagine Relius alone was making all the choices about what direction to go in with raising them, or we would see a more hands-off approach and a lot more stress on engineering, combat, and his scientific interests. I find it more believable that Ignis was raised in a similar environment as part of the nobility, and intended to raise her children in line with those ideals.

I don't think Ignis' family would be from the high nobility like the Duodecim, their branch families, or anything in their circle. They have a much more rigid and notably distinct (often Japanese) culture. I would place Ignis' familial status more in line with the Vermillions, though a few rungs higher up the ladder as her family hasn't been disgraced. If anything, marrying Relius, a prominent military figure, would have raised her status a little. The Vermillions also seem to have a similar aesthetic- compare Ada's clothing to what Noel wears as a child. This could further support the idea that Ignis was a low-ranking noble.

I'll wrap this up here because, wow, I did not intend to go on and on that much. Thanks for commenting and inspiring me to write this out in the first place- these are some Ignis Characterization thoughts I've had for a while, but I haven't put them into words until now.

#relius clover #ignis clover #ao no imakagami #bb meta #bb headcanons #automaton #whoops this is a long one #bb theory #novus orbis librarium #carl clover #ada clover #ao no kokagami #bb setting #nobility and a caste system sort of thing are HUGE parts of the culture of the blazblue world #in the games it's almost always treated sort of as set dressing to support certain plot points #but it's important to remember for theorhycrafting that looks at the blazblue setting as a fully coherent and interconnected world #ps I think this is an uncommon opinion in the fandom but I actually don't see relius as asexual AT ALL #like I see him as a very detached person with no interest in connection but I don't read him as lacking sexuality #I guess I just think “sex drive/sexual interest” and “interest in actively pursuing sex” are very different things #by my interpretation relius would lack the second but not the first #another controversial take but I actually could see Terumi as more aspec #to me his vulgarity/sexual commentary always feels a lot more like a threat or a weapon than anything he personally connects with #will reread this to edit it later I have to get it posted or I'm gonna run out of mother's day time to make my OTHER posts

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Annon-Guy: If XBLAZE got a Remaster, who would you like to do an English Dub for each character?

I think Eden Riegel should reprise her role as Es.

Good question!

I'd like to see Eden Riegal appear as Es again, as I really appreciate consistency in casting and, as I dislike the characterization used in Cross Tag, I don't feel I've seen her best work yet- I'd like to see more! I find her delivery in Cross Tag slow and stunted, and not in a way that enhances her roboticism; rather, I feel other VAs performances were also stunted at times in that game. Laura Bailey comes to mind, though she is typically a GREAT Rachel, as does Cristina Valenzuela's Nu, which again I usually love.

Though on the other hand, Ray Chase did a MARVELOUS Susano'o in that game for his debut, and I also really liked Amanda Celine Miller as Nine; so not all of Cross Tag's voice direction fell flat for me.

That said, I'm not sure I can answer this well. I don't have a good ear for tones, and nine times out of ten, I can't recognize a voice actor (I had to look up all the folks I mention above.)

It's a boring answer, but I do like how BlazBlue does voice actor sharing; say, all the Saya-modeled PFDs sharing a voice actress, Homura and Tenjo sharing, etc. In that same vein, I might like to see, say, Makoto's Cindy Robinson try Yuki Himezuru, seeing as the two are supposed to be somewhat similar.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that perhaps Kaiji Tang, from Bungo Stray Dogs fame, could carry that energy into Unomaru?

#ao no kokagami #xblaze #es #yuki himezuru #souichiro unomaru #rachel alucard #nu 13 #nine the phantom #takehaya susanoo #tenjo amanohokosaka #homura amanohokosaka

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Ignis backstory finally revealed

Tags by @proxyedgy. Was gonna straight up reblog, but I didn't want to risk bothering OP.

Anyway apparently in the USA it's both American Family Day AND National Doll Day today. And National Kid's Day. And Sisters' Day.

#bb memes #relius clover #ignis clover #ao no kokagami #if this has been done before I'm going to be real embarrassed #because I AM pretty sure that I've seen this particular relius screenshot used for SOME textpost meme thing #I just can't remember which one...

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

In response to my BBCF Lobby Sprite Edits, @cavewulf added the following;

Did you know the lobby sprites design first appeared in a game called magical beat, which had a collab with blazblue

I actually did not know about that! Though, inspired by your comment, I decided to do some digging. The trailer I found (posted by Arcade Belgium) even teases at the BlazBlue cameos, giving us a brief glance at Carl and Nirvana while previewing the game's Character Select menu, and showing silhouettes of Ragna and Noel toward the end of the video!

Magical Beat was released for the Playstation Vita in 2014, published by Arc System Works, just like BlazBlue. I did notice it as an option on the ArcSys games poll that ended just recently!

Magical Beat was (or is, I guess, one could still play it, though it's certainly faded from the public eye) a combination drop-down puzzle game and rhythm game. A fun thing I noticed was that levels in Magical Beat are comprised of ten stages, just like the Arcade modes in some of the BB games (though I think it was eight in Chronophantasma?)

The world of the game does seem to have some kind of story, taking place after the extinction of humanity. The three human-looking characters that seem to be the face of the game are actually "humanoid cyborgs" from some great war in the past... a character archetype that ArcSys seems to really enjoy using.

In addition to the game's original soundtrack, courtesy of Kikuo-san, the game featured 20 songs from the BlazBlue series, and 15 from XBlaze! The songs were released as DLC in sets of six (on average) that would also unlock an associated cameo character to play as!

The game also featured a small selection of music from the Guilty Gear series, but no Guilty Gear characters were featured.

Another interesting note; while I was working on this post, I noticed the Makoto sprite from Magical Beat looks a lot different than the sprite I used for my edits. Here's a comparison;

Magical Beat Makoto --

Makoto available on the Librarium Wiki, used for my edits --

Note how much more red the Makoto sprite here is! The difference in eye color! The Magical Beat Makoto also features slightly more detail, with a hair shine at the back of her head that our Makoto lacks. What's up with that??? I'm aware that the CF sprites have multiple alternative color palettes people can use, but it seems strange that out of all the sprites uploaded to the wiki, only Makoto's page lacks her original palette.

I decided to boot up my copy of Central Fiction to see figure out whether or not this was her default palette, but I had trouble getting online- I have CF on the Switch, so I have to deal with Nintendo's finickiness.

I reached out to Carl @goofballproximitysurveyor for some help, and it provided the following screenshot of Makoto's CF sprite --

Which is the same as her Magical Beat sprite! Aside from the fact that she's still missing her hair highlight thing. I wonder why that was changed. I haven't noticed it with any of the other CF sprites.

Welp. Moving on from that mystery.

I never did play Magical Beat myself. This was supposed to be a Magical Beat post, though, before I got sidetracked. If any of you did play the game and have memories of it, please share them!

#blazblue #magical beat #blazblue central fiction #bbcf #bb trivia #ao no kokagami #carl clover #noel vermillion #ragna the bloodedge #deus machina nirvana #ao no imakagami #ada clover #makoto nanaya #Youtube #jin kisaragi #taokaka #touya kagari #es #hinata himezuru #kuon glamred stroheim #rachel alucard #mei amanohokosaka #elise von klagen #arakune #ripper #ringo akagi #ten sages sechs #ten sages drei #ten sages acht #hazama

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Annon-Guy: What's your opinion on the Split Timeline thing introduced in XBLAZE Lost Memories? You know, the idea of the XBLAZE World and the Bloodedge Experience World being seperate from the BlazBlue World and each othe I mean.

This is actually a really fun question, and I’ve been procrastinating on answering it because I have a whole theory related to it but I don’t want to get into it without being able to cite my sources, you know??? Unfortunately today will STILL not be the day I really get into it, because I’ve been in and out of the hospital and still have not found those sources I wanted. Whoops.

But let’s at least get to an initial answer. Usually I hate split timelines in stories; I like consistency and I like making huge conspiracy boards full of connections I’ve noticed. A split timeline is a smart move for writers when a series gets too big; it alleviates the pressure for absolute consistency between different authors. It gives them room to be more creative, to explore more- it also gives them room to make minor mistakes. But like I said, I really really love my concrete consistency. Split timelines kind of take away narrative tension for me, too; I can’t get too excited about what xyz event means for the rest of the series, because it may not have even happened.

Interestingly, I actually really like BB’s split timeline set up. This is a unique case, and I originally didn’t like it, but then I saw a post on… I can’t remember if it was Reddit or Steam or what, I want to find it so I can link back to it and discuss it more in depth. Someone was positing the theory/interpretation that the three separate “timelines” (BB, XBlaze, Bloodedge) actually do occur in one reality.

Remember how at the end of CF, Terumi (and, like, everyone a little bit) was trying to kill Amaterasu to end this world, and create a new one???

Or how Sechs in XBlaze wanted to “return everything to the Seithr,” also ending his world???

In the west, when we hear a story has "multiple timelines" or a "multiverse," we think of stories like Marvel and Homestuck. In these stories, there are infinite worlds operating in their own, separate 'bubbles,' but existing effectively simultaneously.

The post posited that BlazBlue’s setting uses a different interpretation of “multiple timelines/universes,” more rooted in Asian culture. Like concepts of reincarnation or the Hindu Yuga Cycle. In these types of stories, there are many 'worlds'- generally far too many for the human mind to count, but still a finite number. And only one exists at a time. The next is born when the previous dies.

The idea here is that each separate BB-verse setting happens in a linear order, one at a time, going about its own business until the world is ‘ended'- that is, where it dissolves and "returns to the Seithr," the Boundary.

From this, it is recreated and begins again- or the next setting begins. After enough repetitions, certain events may end up drastically different- or someone may manipulate the recreation process to influence the ‘new world.’

This would be Susano'o's plan at the end of CF, and part of the promise that Izanami was selling to everyone during the fight for the Azure.

This would also be what the Origin did to start the C-series, using Amaterasu to influence the world’s next ‘rebirth,’ and then refusing to move on/let anything change.

I wish I could get deeper into this subject, and I hope I do at some point, because it completely changed how I interpret BlazBlue’s setting and several plot points and I really love it. I wish it was a more popular interpretation in the fandom. I’d also like to look deeper into the story to see if I can cite some points that give evidence to this theory.

At some point when I have more energy I'd love to revisit this topic, explaining it better and citing some sources from the BB series that I believe support this interpretation.

For now, what do you all think???

#bb setting #ao no imakagami #ao no kokagami #takehaya susanoo #ten sages sechs #sankishin #the origin #bb theories #bb headcanons

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Both Lust Sin and Bullet Dance seem to have these scattered notes that don't fit in with the melodies. I'll have to listen to more stuff from the OST and see if this remains a constant, or if it's only in certain songs.

Noel's are very faint, and the only reason I noticed was because I'm listening to Bullet Dance on repeat right now. They give me a sort of "scattered raindrops" kind of vibe, but I'm not entirely sure what they represent.

As mentioned in a previous post on Lust Sin, Jin's are way more noticeable.

#bb meta #jin kisaragi #noel vermillion #ao no kokagami #prime field device #novus orbis librarium #duodecim #boundary interface prime field device