#i could give some for more specific characters if youd like

[myafterlifeisbetterthenyours]

Honestly how do you think the sexually active characters like Angel Dust, Verosika, Valentino, Stolas would react to their lover not really caring about the sex they have but rather their relationship as lovers (Also I love your work and im not saying that to be nice your work speaks for itself, good job you earned those thousand followers)

Their reaction to an S/O that cares more about romance then Sex

Angel Dust

He was... kind of unnerved.

The idea of you wanting to be with him just for him, was kinda terrifying.

What If you got past all the glitz and glamour, All the manicured furr and fluff, and sex appeal and found... someone you didn't love.

And took a long, long time to get through that insecurity. Angel taking a lot of comforting and assurance that you, in fact, loved him for him. Not just for what he could do in the bedroom.

Honestly, when he realised as much. That you truly loved him for him and not his sexual prowess. He'd Probably break down crying.

I imagine the spider clinging to you, just bawling his eyes out. The spider clinging to you, desperately not wanting you to leave him.

He would become very protective of you, the spider finally finding someone who genuinely loved him, and was determined to keep you.

So if another bitch so much as looked at you, hed be in there face. Making sure everyone in a three block radius knows you belong to him.

Angel would tell he could be honest with you. The spider exposing his more sensitive side, allowing himself to be vulnerable with you.

The spider confided in you, able to trust you with his secrets and traumas, and there were many.

And while your relationship was not based around sex, something that made Angel smile every time he thought about it. Angel still very much enjoyed Sex.

He was a very physical person, and knowing that you didn't just love his physicality, well, that only made him more physical, specifically with you.

And every time you asked if he really wanted to do it, or if he was enjoying it, it only made him live you more, the spider feeling safe when with you.

Verosika

Verosika was, well, she is, A sex demon.

The woman was a Succubus. The most lustful, lewd and perverted beings in hell, only rivalled by Incubus and Asmodeus, obviously.

So being in a relationship with someone who wasn't really interested in sex, it was strange.

Alien really. At least for her.

She'd never met anyone who wasn't interested in her for her body. I mean, sure she'd met a lot of gay dudes and straight women, although women were a lot like spaghetti around her.

Straight until wet.

She loved that joke, and initially, when you'd asked her out, taking her to a fairly nice restaurant, she was expecting more of the same.

But out on the date and well, you spoke.

Not chit-chat, or make small talk, you actually spoke to one and other.

You told stories, spoke about your week and had a genuine conversation. It was odd for her, as the most sophisticated conversation she'd usually have was with her entourage, either about her latest escapade, or her next performance.

But she found herself actually speaking to you, telling you about things shed never really told anyone about, mostly because no one had ever asked.

Youd have a lovely meal, still chatting, before you'd walk her home. And well, you just give her a kiss, promising to do it again some time.

That had left a weird feeling in her gut, as on one hand she had really wanted to sleep with you. But on the other, she really loved that you didn't just fuck on the first date.

And you would go on another date, the two of you seeing a movie.

It was a simple rom-com, the theatre practically empty, the two of you quickly getting bored, and when Verosika asked if maybe, you'd like to "have a little fun" *Wink Wink*

Youd just politely refused, instead asking about her week. The girl once again, was taken off guard, but happily ranted about her week, the two of you having another lovely conversation.

Youd again walked her home, but this time she'd invite you in for coffee.

She had intended on seducing you, but ended up just spending your time talking again, it getting so late, she offered for you to stay over.

And while she had slunk into bed, intent on doing dirty things, she would end up dozing off curled into your side.

Youd continue on a very romantic relationship, the woman pleasantly surprised by your rather seamless relationship, the woman feeling like what you had was real.

It wasn't just a sex filled fling. It was a tender, loving and intimate romance something she admittedly took some time to get used to, but it wasn't long until she loved you as much as she knew you loved her, the woman surprisingly happy not having to have sex to keep your relationship alive.

Thats not to say you didn't have sex, because you absolutely did.

Valentino

Youd meet in a club, the two of you striking up a conversation.

He was honestly caught up by your rather charming conversational skills. You were quite the conversationalist, the Overlord quite intrigued by you, finding himself wanting to speak to you further.

Eventually he'd invite you up to his place, you happily joining him.

Youd go up to his penthouse, the Overlord proudly giving you a tour of his fancy penthouse.

You'd end up in the kitchen, the Overlord genuinely stumped at how he ended up with a cup of coffee in his hand, the two of you talking at his table.

He was surprised at how comfortable he was with you. The Overlord telling you about his day to day, ranting about all the shit he has to deal with on a daily bases with surprising ease, the man finding himself very comfortable with you.

He'd eventually ask you out, you happily accepting.

He'd take you out to a fine meal at only the finest of restaurants, the two of you having a wonderful night out.

You would talk, eat delicious food and drink even finer spirits. Afterwards you would go back to his place, and well, you'd make sweet, sweet love.

You continue seeing each other for the next few months, going out on several more dates, your relationship getting closer and closer, the man amazed at how little sex you had.

It wasn't so much the absence of sex, hed dated flinty of fridget bitched, but his reaction. He didn't mind it. Not one bit.

The man found himself loving your relationship, even though he usually despised serious relationship, instead preferring it loose and fast, bit with you, he loved your relationship.

The man felt as though your relationship actually meant something, you never all to Interested in his glamorous lifestyle.

In fact, you spent almost all time together... he dare say, being traditionally romantic and shit.

Youd go on simple, but romantic dates, and you spent great lengths just speaking, the man shocked to find how much he just needed to say shit, venting about his day.

And of course, he'd spoil you, treating you to every luxury at his disposal.

But he didn't need to. And that's what he loved about you. You enjoyed your time together just... by being together.

Stolas

Stolas was the apology of a lovable owl.

Your first meeting was very fumbly. You'd be at a royal gathering, you managing to stumble your way in, ending up at a table enjoying the free wine.

That's when you'd see the owl, the man just sitting there, staring at his drink.

Seeing him like that, you'd strike up a conversation. And while initially taken aback, the man would quickly engage in conversation, the man happily chatting with you, especially when you seemed to genuinely engage with him.

Youd talk, laugh, exchange stories and just generally enjoyed the conversation. The owl finding himself genuinely caught up in your conversation, greatly enjoying your company.

But, as they tend to do, all good things come to an end. The two of you prepared to go your separate ways as the party began to disperse.

But on an impulse decision, Stolas would ask if he could see you again. You, a little caught off guard, agreed, telling him a time and place, the owl eagerly agreeing.

It'd be a few days later when you had your first 'date', the two of you meeting up at a coffee shop, the two of you finding a booth and before chatting.

Youd had a very genuine back and forth, you asking about life as an Goetia. And of course he put up a brave face, you could tell he was putting up a brave face, it not taking a lot of pushing before he broke down a little, telling you how difficult and stressful his life was.

All the petty BS he went through every day before lunch. It could get so bad, he felt like tearing his hair out.

Hearing this, and wanting to help the poor man, you'd decide he needed to unwind.

And you would unwind by taking him out clubbing. Now your first step was a change of clothes, you getting a mismatch of what he so humbly called "peasant garb", the owl almost unrecognisable in a mismatch outfit.

Youd go to a club. You'd drink, you'd dance, Stolas being absolutely free to be himself. And he would go ape.

By the end of the night, the Owl would be totally exhausted, and loved it. The owl grabbing you and giving you a big kiss, the man thanking you.

Youd welcome the man, before kissing him back, the two of you spending the night together.

That would mark the beginning of your relationship. And a romantic relationship it was.

Your relationship was very much based on romance, you and your owl absolutely loving each other.

Youd meet up a few times a week, usually at a bar or Cafe, the two of you spending hours upon hours just speaking.

Youd listen as he ranted about his day, or lamented on an aspect of his life. You happy to listen or give advice, explaining it from your perspective.

And while these conversations were all good, your bonding time really came when you went out.

Now granted, you had to be subtle about it, but you'd often go out together, usually with Stolas in more "peasant garb". Not wanting to get attention in his royal garb.

You went to parks, to movies, Stolas especially like bargain shopping. Going through used and obviously stolen goods, you'd often have contests on who could find the weirdest things, Stolas somehow winning most of the time. The man usually keeping the strange item as a memento.

You had such a romantic relationship, the two of you opening up on a very intimate level.

The man found a confidant in you, the man venting, opening up to you about his deepest darkest secrets.

The man confiding in you about his forced marriage, or his abysmal relationship with his father, big shocker from a noble I know. Or how Octavia was the only truly good thing in his life.

If Stolas prayed to anyone, you'd be the answer to those prays.

Youd be exactly what the man needed, allowing him some much needed intimacy, the man absolutely adoring his time with you.

And of course, you'd have sex. But your sex was always tender, loving and deeply intimate.

Youd truly, make love.

#helluva boss #headcanon #x reader #helluva boss headcanon #hazbin hotel #helluva boss x reader #hazbin hotel headcanon #hazbin hotel x reader #stolas #helluva boss stolas x reader #helluva boss stolas #stolas ars goetia #verosika #verosika x reader #helluva boss verosika #hazbin hotel valentino #valentino x reader #valentino #hazbin hotel angel dust x reader #hazbin hotel angel dust #angel dust #angel dust x reader

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: tack-tick

today's interviewee is tack-tick, a pioneer of the "phistin" ship and DSMP fan since before the first election! below is a transcript of the interview.

Q: What was your overall time in MCYTblr like?

A: I'd say my overall time in Mcytblr could be described as finding diamonds in the rough. This fandom is defined by finding your group, sticking to them and if you're smart not really looking beyond that. I did look beyond that and saw a lot of discourse and such. I had a good time with my friends but I did get negatively affected by the discourse at times. It was kind of a toxic shithole but by God mcytblr was our shithole lol

Q: Do you remember any specific discourse that affected you, or was it just the overall culture around you?

A: As a Technoblade main, it was the discourse surrounding his character that messed with me. At the time, I was mutuals (none in the phistin palace dw guys) with some people who hated his character. I, as an anxious teenager, was very worried it would cause drama if I unfollowed them and my dash became a lot of those long negative essays about how he was an awful person and yknow the drill. It was mainly my own fault and my dash became signfigantly better once I realized no one would be offended of I unfollowed, blocked a bunch of tags, started up my own discord server and focused more on writing fanfic instead of doomscrolling. A good lesson in curating your dash of anything else. (Btw those former mutuals are fine people, we just had radically different tastes in what we liked and disliked about the Dream SMP)

Q: You mentioned the "phistin palace"-- before we get into that, would you like to explain the "phistin" rarepair itself?

A: Now we are cooking! So, Phistin is the ship of Kristin and Philza. It's main focus was on the scraps of lore that we had about their relationship which was Kristin was the immortal goddess of Death and they couldn't really see each other often but loved each other very much. I'd say it's main appeal was being one of the few ships that was just really stable in the Dream SMP compared to the Karlnapity polycule and whatever youd call Quackbur. Fun fact, I can't find the post now but if i remember correctly me and tumblr user Demonadelem helped name the pair Phistin. Although, that was ages ago so I could be misremebering

Q: Was the ship entirely within the SMP, or was it just the general ship name for the real-life couple?

A: It was both. Since Kristin didn't really stream on the dream smp, a lot of her personality had to be based on what Phil said about her and her other streams. Basically, lore about the ship was pulled from the SMP but the dynamics and personality was from both. You could play around with the dynamic if you focused on Kristin being a goddess

Q: With that basic information laid out-- what was the "phistin palace"?

A: The Phistin Palace was a discord server I founded in August of 2022. Phistin was a ship that was basically a side thing I did in fandom because my main focus was Technoblade and emerald duo stuff. I think if you're a Technoblade fan you're legally obligated to be a Philza fan and vice versa. I don't make the rules. So Phistin was something I did when I wanted a break from Technoblade as a way to practice romantic shipping.

Then Technoblade passed away and I didn't want to do anything with his character for a while so I focused completely on Phistin. However, when I tried to find any fics they were either a background ship with only one line or Kristin was already dead from a tragic disease who's main symptoms were lying daintily in bed. While I was writing my own long form Phistin focused fic, Two Birds if anyone read it, I got a comment that complimented me for "giving her an actual charatcer" and maaaan that is a very low bar to be praised for. So, I started the palace as a way to find other Phistin fans who actually cared about them beyond Kristin being angst fodder for SBI.

Q: Do you have any fond memories in specific of the "Phistin Palace" discord server?

A: Oh so many. During the Syndicate finale, three of us all liveblogged and freaked the fuck out when Kristin showed up for the first time in a minecraft skin on the server. I made on of those AI chatbot things that was popular for a bit and the bot was supposed to be the Kristin character. I asked if she had a pet and she said she has a gecko named Tim. The entire server instantly decided they would die for Tim and he's now an emote. The general chat is also named Tim Time Fucker. A mermaid AU that was made that the majority of the server contributed a lot of lore to we named it the Communist Mermaid AU because the server collectively owns it now. Many good moments there

Q: Beyond the Phistin Palace, are there any large community events that you remember/took part in, or did you mostly stick to your friend group?

A: I remember The Penis SMP of course. I never really took part in large community events but I did watch them happen. I read the Passerine chapter where Tommy died becasue my dash flipped out when that dropped. I'd also try to watch Sad-ist animatics live when I could. At most, Id make a meme during a stream that would rack up a couple hundred notes or one thousand if I was lucky A thousand was like once or twice I think

Q: You mentioned that you were also a Technoblade fan before you became more focused on Phistin-- was your experience in that side of the fandom any different?

A: It certainly had more content than Phistin did lol. I was never really in any Technoblade discords or anything but back in the day it was focused on emerald duo and being funny. or angsty. Nowadays, it's way less lively unfortunately. It's not as bad as in 2022 but Technoblade fancontent seems to be less foucsed on the character and more on memorials/remembrance. At some point, you run out of things to say and not a lot of people wanted to stay in a fandom that just felt weighed down by it all. I did leave so things could perk up someday but I don't think that's likely

Q: We've talked about the fandom and how it responds to content-- let's talk about the content itself. What were some of your favorite moments from the Dream SMP as a whole?

A: The Red Festival Technoblade stream was the first one I ever watched live so that's a good one. The stream where L'manberg getting blown up at the end of The Manberg Arc is iconic for an underrated reason. I don't know how many people remember but Phil was highly speculated to be on the Dream SMP someday. On the day of that stream, he started on his hardcore world, then stopped his stream and did his dramatic switch surprise entrance to enter the Dream SMP for the first time. Also Technoblade escaping the anvil and then killing Quackity with a toothpick was great. I've never liked watching Twitch streams on my Ipad so most of my favorite moments come from YouTube

Q: Were you sad that Phistin wasn't a more popular ship, or did you enjoy the tight-knit community?

A: I was sad Kristin kept friggin dying, the poor woman lol. Sometimes I wish it was a bit more popular but the community was nice. The main issue is Phistin stuff started tanking hard on Ao3 in terms of numbers and tended to get misstagged quite a bit

Q: You've brought up a few times that Kristin was often fridged, disregarded, or replaced (on several notable occasions, by an actual Samsung fridge). How did you feel about it? Do you think there was any particular reason for it?

A: I mean, I really don't like it but I understand it. A lot of people loved that SBI angst but also wanted to write all the SBI. So the obvious solution is to kill off Kristin for free angst and keep all the SBI in the story. Passerine is a fic i respect a lot but it also kickstarted this trend to be honest. Kristin herself also didn't physically show up in the lore a lot so it was really tricky to write her. When I first wrote her, it was intimidating because I didn't have many fics to look at as good examples.

Was it shitty and a bit sexist? Yes but I don't think sexism was the only reason. Kristin's character was in a unique situation compared to the others. I have no problem with Kristin dying in a fic. The main issue is that often came with her personality being reduced to good mom and that's it. I'm not gonna call a bunch of probably first time writers evil sexists when I know what it's like to not know how to write her and being scared you'll get her completely wrong.

Q: Since it's come up, would you mind giving a quick rundown of what exactly the fanfic "Passerine" is? (As well as any memories you have relating to it!)

A: If i'm being honest, I only read the chapter where Tommy got murked. What I know from osmosis is it's an SBI royalty AU that had some kind of meta twist at the end and it was very sad. It also got a sad-ist animatic made out of it which jesus christ I'd give for that. I tried it but the writing style was too wordy for my liking. It's mainly important for Phistin history even though Kristin wasn't in it. No, The Fridge died in it but everyone just kinda assumed it was Kristin for long enough it got the ball rolling. Also I think Niki read it on a stream

Q: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you remember about MCYTblr/the DSMP that you'd like to talk about?

A: The DSMP sure was the minecraft server of all time that is defined as a server that was doomed from the start. Whoever makes a video essay on it is gonna have a hell of a job. 10/10 experience would not recommenced. Hello to the Phistin Palace if any of you read this :D

Mcytblr is getting more chill with shipping from what I've seen. Thank God, keeping making Philza Minecraft kiss those men and his wife.

Also SUBSCRIBE TO TECHNOBLADE

#early mcytblr interviews #Volume 16 #tack-tick

[omi-papus]

The fact that Sams story ultimately ends with the initial asumption that caused Robin to suspect its all bullshit, being compleatly correct, inst in it of itself a problem. Its just that if it wanted to go there, it had to be a much more in depth story than it was willing to be. Like I know they think, they had some plot twist, becaus yhea she did die of negligence but in an attempt to be heroic and we confirm Alterra is evil, but ultimately, we end up where we started. She died in an accident.

You can totally make a very good story out of how Robin feels about that, having to learn that no, the person you idolized was kind of a dumbass. Especially with how in game every compliment she gives Sam is imediatly followed by a self depricating one of herself, or at least pointing out how diferent they where. So it looked like you could spin it further as an “If shes not the genius I thought she was, then where does that leave me?” Since Robin is, lowkey a bit of a nobody. Seemingly intentionally since she prefers to do her own thing. And its specifically because Sam is trying to climb the corporate ladder that she ended up in this mess, so would she think shes… better than her? Or she was full of shit and deep down jelous that she couldnt be a big shot and hid behind pretentions of independence? And how would she take being wrong about her sister but right about Alterra?

See? You can spin this a thousand diferent ways. But heres the thing.

You cant do that with three lines of dialogue from Robin every seven hours.

Like nothing that would make that plot good can be expressed without deep diving into backstory and personal philosophy and the struggle of contradicting feelings, none of which can be done unless you have a fuck ton more dialogue than whats in the game. Youd have to have the player stop and listen her either to herself or to Al-An or Marguerite go on about these things and that would have to take much more than a few seconds per exchange.

And if they dont want to do that, then have a diferent outcome. Just have Robin be entierly in the right and have it so that her sister was just there and she was trying to cure the Karaah and Alterra themselves killed her, or, died of the infection, or the fandom would have loved this, the frozen leviathan is alive, killed her and they noped the fuck out of there but lied about everything. There, you got a much simpler concept that you can maybe get some more gameplay out of and you dont have to sit the characters down to reflect.

But we end up with nither and the game only suffers for it.

#subnautica #subnautica below zero #robin ayou #sam ayou

[krash-and-co]

wdym by the infantilisation of george? genuinely asking as I haven't rlly seen that myself ahah but could you elaborate/give some examples?

note: I edited this ask after posting bc i wasnt done and also didn't say stuff entirely the way I meant lmao. I probably got redundant but idek what I wrote anymore, also there's a tldr at the end.

oh hey !! yeah, something ive seen are karim's (specifically this version) autistic traits and how they were portrayed in his fanon. some people either reduce him to or focus his character heavily on his 'cute' or 'childish' autistic traits, and this kind of becomes his main identity. he's autistic, and his childishness is pounced on and multiplied by fandom, because they want him to be cute like autistics are. he's autistic, and therefore vulnerable and dependent. a baby, not as capable as Lucy and Lockwood, which is nowhere near true. see the problem? /gen not only is it an unrealistic depiction of autism, but it can make people uncomfortable and be harmful.

I will mention this is an unfortunately common thing both in general fandom and irl, not something I expect one post to change. I am just sharing thoughts here :] but anyways lol

yes we as autistics can be childish. yes it may even be cute to you. yes we may feel childish ourselves, comfortably so, and that's totally fine. but it's when our whole being is warped into that one stereotype it becomes a problem. it's when people forget the rest about us, and we're your fandom vessel for angst and fluff where cute tiktok autism is our whole personality and we're not really a person anymore but a little pet people coo over. objecitified. people want to embrace these 'dependant' characters and they mean well, but the treatment of autistic traits can be.... uncomfortable. because, I mean, where does that leave you if you share these same traits? you likely don't want to be treated in such a way; you know you aren't some child to be coddled. but these characters are, and it feels wrong.

in good portrayals of autism and its acceptance, we can have all our autistic traits-- yes even the cute ones you want to baby us over, and yes even the weird and negative ones youd rather ignore, and still be treated as an equal, like george is. we wont be coddled more than a neurotypical, not treated as lesser in maturity or awareness, or shoved in a box. lockwood and co is like that to George, which is wonderful. as is most of the fandom, which is even better.

however I have seen this in fics and hc posts most notably, and it's a glaring contrast compared to the most works, and I do wonder if others have noticed and it leaves them with a funny taste in their mouth too.

not to get all preachy on this fine Wednesday at 2 in the morning, though.

tl;dr: reducing an autistic person to vulnerability and a childish nature, with malevolent intentions or not, is harmful. george is capable and badass !!! and honestly? it makes me as an autistic uncomfortable, seeing people with my traits treated like that over them by fandom, even though they mean well. balance is key. not being a total freak over our cutie patootie autistic faces is also. <- /hj /silly

obligatory end message where I mention again this isn't something horribly common in this fandom around my side of tumblr, at least, but I have seen it and wanted to ask if 1) y'all noticed it with George too and 2) share thoughts lol

ty for the ask, always happy to clarify my posts for y'all !! :]

#actually autistic #Lockwood and co #lockwood and co netflix #George Karim #also I say much of this from experience #unfortunately lol

[suffarustuffaru]

Do you have any advice for writing in the second person pov as well as advice about writing reinhard? I’m trying to write a second person pov fic from his perspective and I’m a bit lost?

yes i can do my best to give you advice!! :o hah im really flattered you thought to ask me on this? but yes i absolutely love both writing in second person (i havent written a whole finished fic in second person, but ive dabbled in it a few times, ive also started writing poetry on the side) and also of course i love reinhard!! im super super interested in the fact that youre doing a SECOND PERSON POV REINHARD FIC like woaaahhh hes definitely a fun character to choose pov wise and combining it with second person is genius. i really like it and would love to read it if you ever wanna share it when youre done <3

and yes quick disclaimer that im no professional writer but yes ill give my two cents!! and another disclaimer is that creative writing is a very individualized thing i think. theres no like one way to do things, and of course you can take any advice or criticism that youd like if you think itd help <3

ill get into second person pov first then talk more specifically about reinhard 👍

yes anyway tips on second person!! i do kinda recommend to like look at various examples of second person pov being used in various written pieces if thats something youd like to do - poetry and song lyrics use second person a LOT. especially songs, bc once you see it you cant really unsee it, i think? of course writing a narrative story is different from poetry and songwriting but it could help you give a frame of reference, or inspiration, or decide what you want to do and what you dont want to do. most importantly you could also look at other second person fics or published stories that are written in second person!!

and alright so - in general, second person is a very personal pov to choose in a way thats different from first person and third person. in first person and third person, theres still a degree of separation between the reader and the character the story is following. second person almost kind of removes that barrier bc of the use of "you" - the reader is being directly put into the character's shoes. as in, "you're" doing this, "you're" thinking this, etc etc. bc its such a personal pov, different readers might have different feelings about this (second person pov in fics is a pet peeve for some people for one reason or another), and youve committed yourself to writing second pov, you might as well go all in!! as a reader, i would be directly in that character's skin, basically, and i think its good to lean into the character youre writing especially with second person. bc theres even less separation between reader and character!! its kind of like the general pov advice of - who is this character, whats their personality like, what are they thinking, why should i care, etc etc. whats their inner world like? what is this telling me about their character?

another thing - you can choose between writing past or present tense of course, and the choice is up to you there, but i think present tense may fit second person pov more. with second person, youre directly addressing the reader for the entire story. theres a difference in urgency between "You gritted your teeth and fought off the attack" and "You grit your teeth and fight off the attack", i think. youre already putting your reader in such a personal position with the pov character - i think present tense might aid in it a lot more. another disclaimer that this is my opinion of course - but yes, i think that it also may be harder for people to suspend their disbelief with second person pov in certain circumstances. if i read past tense second person i might stop for one second and go "no, i did not grit my teeth and fight off some random attack in my past". in present tense i might be more likely to go "huh, yeah ig im fighting off this attack now. oh snap, hows this gonna go?"

of course, this isnt to say that you cant do past tense second person. as a second person pov fan i would absolutely eat up any second person fic regardless of the tense or not so long as your choice of tense stays consistent throughout the entire story (unless of course you have a good reason to change tenses mid-story). but i think that a good amount of second person works are in present tense, maybe for this very reason, unless the second person is combined with first person in like a song or something (basically every time the narrator of a song addresses the "you", like for example something like this sentence: "you broke up with me last summer"). or maybe the character is thinking about something they did in the past, so in reinhard's case it could look like "Remember when you killed your own grandmother all those months ago?" or something like that.

yeah, so - second person pov is a bit of a bold choice. it's inherently very personal and intimate. and i think theres also like the general advice of like - imo, don't use "you" too much. i know that sounds counterintuitive given this is second person pov hah but its kind of similar with something like first person - don't use "I" too much. and that also combines with the general advice of "vary your sentences". it can be awkward if every sentence has the same length and starts off the same way with the same rhythm, like this - "You go to the grocery store. You open the door. You step inside. You walk into the store."

(and quick disclaimer that if youre intending to go for that kind of monotonous sound for a part of/a lot of your story for various reasons, definitely go for it if its on purpose! i myself have done it a bit before to show a character kind of going through the motions, so to speak)

and with second person, absolutely utilize sentences or phrases or what have you that dont use "you" at all!! i think its called "implied" second person - stuff like "Look at that wall" or "Hand over that paper". so you can absolutely highlight second person pov without even using the word "you" at all and its also good to switch things up when youre writing to add a more "dynamic" quality to your work (and itll probably be fun for you to do if thats something youre into!!). so while narrative pronouns like this wont usually grate on your reader (bc we gotta use pronouns all the time for a reason, so using it a lot isnt a problem whatsoever and i highly doubt anyones gonna notice how much theyre used), definitely keep in mind not to overdo it at every turn, if that makes sense. its like the word "said" or "says" - hardly anyone is gonna notice it unless youre using it for Every Single Dialogue Line In A Row, but otherwise use it as much as you want.

getting creative with your sentence structure and the way you tell the story is important of course regardless of the pov youve chosen - and also hah sorry if that sounds really obvious but i do think its really important to remember!! :o second person may be different and less commonly used in narrative stories compared to first or third person, but some of the same rules are still gonna apply in a sense -

i think getting creative with sentences and description is even more important in second person. with first person and third person you can still have all these varying degrees of separation, especially with third person - there's like a "distant" third person that doesn't really go as far into the character's heads as much as "close" third person, where the entire third person narration can vaguely mimic the character's inner thoughts and feelings and worldviews.

second person, i think, from the get go, can mimic thoughts even more sometimes, if thats an angle you want to take - i mean have you ever like, had thoughts that were directed towards yourself or have you ever talked to yourself? or seen others do this? im talking about stuff like telling yourself "good job" or going "look what you did" at yourself in disappointment? theres also the "instructional" angle - a lot of instructions are written in second person, and a second person narrative can sound kinda like that just bc youre directly addressing your reader so much. it could definitely be fun to lean into all of this if you wanted - especially since youre writing reinhard (whos unfortunately brainwashed and conditioned to hell and back in every area of his life :<).

and second person is such a specific pov that i think you have to keep in mind why youre using second person. what is your intent in using this specific pov for this specific story? how is the story aided by your choice of pov? and i think its an extremely interesting choice for reinhard, who, as i said and as you definitely know - dudes got issues surrounding being controlled by the literal government and being pushed around!! hes a dog on a leash!! hes spent almost his whole life being ordered around everywhere, and on like, a human level maybe, hes one of the hardest people to understand.

bc yknow - reinhards dps of course give him this really unique perspective of the world. as we know, hes the FURTHEST thing for normal bc of his powers and they affect everything about his life - his relationships with other people of course but also how he perceives the world. hes perfect at Everything, he can do a whole long list of things that almost no one else can, he gets new powers every time he needs one for a given situation, he cant even fuck up telling salt from sugar, he cant lose any board game, etc etc dudes just powerless in Every Other Area of his life except for the long list of powers.

and yknow, bc of this and also trauma hes detached from others no matter how hard he tries to bridge that gap between him and other people. its why he wants to be normal so bad!! he wants friends and he likely wants freedom (why follow FELT of all royal candidates… he's 100% staked his family's redemption on her especially when you remember rom and the astrea's connection to the demihuman war, heinkel being rumored to kidnap a royal family member, reid, etc) but yknow. he cant get freedom so easily :(

which im sure you already knew all of this hah, tumblr user whygodwhy (amazing url btw) (im also saying this bc you seem like a big astrea fan as well and youve been around on rz tumblr from what i can see <3), but definitely great to keep in mind for your writing purposes bc a second person fic with (one of) THE most “inhuman” (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks here) character in rezero??? thats absolutely DIABOLICAL (complimentary) i love it. its an absolutely genius idea - we're really being pushed into understanding reinhard's perspective of having powers that make you kind of like a god. and then it makes everyone around you think youre a monster :(((

but yes like - reinhards character sets up the perfect foundation for a second person pov fic. like you can really get creative with how he experiences the world in ALL SORTS of extremely extremely off putting ways and therefore how we the reader experience REINHARD'S experiences. its super cool!!!

and i definitely think that its up to you on how you want to interpret reinhard - i think that generally even with fic authors who try to stick as closely to canon characterization as possible theres still a bit of variance you know? :o which i think is really fascinating!! especially when you take into account writing styles and all that, and especially when you take into account reinhard as a character.

atm he hasnt had a moment in rezero canon where we actually read from his pov and iirc its bc tappei said that reinhard just kinda knows Spoilery stuff? correct me if im wrong on that of course. and also iirc tappei also said that reinhard is Generally honest about what he says, so the way i see people (including myself...) write reinhard's pov matches pretty similarly with his outward self most of the time? but apart from that yknow interpret reinhard how youd like and if youre writing some sort of au or having him develop in a certain way (that isnt seen in canon), definitely go for it!! theres of course a fine balance between developing a character vs changing them to the point where it doesnt feel like the same character, but once you get to know that Base Characterization you can figure out how to go about developing them while still making them feel like themselves if thats something youre interested in!!

and for example, i think you could get creative with how using his powers looks like from his pov!! (some of which he just. doesnt think about in the sense that it just Happens - like that one dp he has where he just Knows where the exits of the building hes in are or that other dp where things thrown at him just automatically misses him.) or you know depending on what the plot for your fic is - how do you think he sees people like heinkel, wilhelm, subaru, etc, based on how he outwardly acts towards them? bc we havent seen reinhards exact pov yet in canon its kind of free real estate rn HAH and even then its fanfic, you can do what you want.

but yknow if you want to stick closer to canon, theres def the high probability that reinhard is usually honest about what he says (so his thoughts on things likely match up with what he says out loud about that exact thing). and in general if youre willing to and havent done so already i think you could check out more reinhards side stories and reinhards qnas from tappei. of course stuff like qnas you might have to take with a grain of salt (since its word of god and not always in the text yet) but you may see details that youd like to keep in mind or even use in your fic!!

and i think its good in general to make your own interpretation and know how you want to write reinhard based on that interpretation. i also recommend if you want to to maybe check out other reinhard pov fics to maybe find some inspiration or note how youd also want to interpret reinhards pov. you could note stuff like "hey, i like how this author describes how reinhards dp of empathy works" or "i like how matter of fact reinhards internal dialogue sounds here" - that sort of thing. but i definitely do think that if you want to be in character, definitely try to come to your own conclusions as well based on canon!!

as for other general advice, rereading or rewatching reinhard scenes may help you as well. i definitely recommend taking mental or physical (whether youre typing it up or writing it down physically) notes or something if that would help you. something that personally helps me (and you can do this if you want) is that every time im trying to learn a characters dialogue and how they usually speak is that i go to reread/rewatch a scene theyre in. i usually choose english dub if i can since im writing in english and then i just note down stuff like what kind of words they use, what reoccurring words or phrases do they use a lot, etc etc. so if youre struggling with dialogue or something, this is something you could try!!

reinhard does speak a little professionally/formally, with a little emotional distance, if that makes sense (i think the most obvious example is him Sounding too composed after dying and coming back in arc 5?). like the dude sounds like hes in customer service mode Near Constantly, if that also makes sense (....well he IS the sword saint HAH), even if hes actually upset about something. i think one of the biggest cracks in his customer service facade though is when hes either quietly depressed in front of his family or when he gets upset about the arc 3 julisuba duel (like he actually RAISES HIS VOICE A BIT and is obviously upset when talking to subaru after the duel. literally insane). also ofc when hes in serious "damn i guess you gotta die" mode :(

but yes i think that reinhard speaks formally but he tries to be way more casual about it yknow? julius is the one whos more flowery, that pretentious prick!!! (affectionate) (read this line in a subaru voice). reinhard will be like "hello, it's nice to meet you :) oh, please, call me reinhard :)))) no need for honorifics, we are friends here :)))) (pls treat me like a normal person ahahahah im begging you) (we're friends right? pls be my friend. pretty pls. im begging -)" and julius will be like "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." bc hes flowery <33 a slight purple prose thats as purple as his hair (affectionate)

and yep as for internal dialogue, again, you can interpret how reinhard would think in a lot of different ways and its up to you on how you want to explore him and what we know of him from canon so far!!

and you know, a lot of writing is just a lot of practice, and i guarantee you that the more you write a character the more comfortable youll get!! speaking as someone who has done so much writing in private to get comfortable with writing dialogue for people like otto or reinhard or subaru (and even then i still try really hard to adjust if i feel theyre getting out of character hah, theyre still hard to write fr :<). so yeah i def recommend to you know just give your best go at it and have fun while you do!! you can always go back and edit and if you need a betareader or smth you can def ask around. i would be down if you needed one!!

also i did write a small little blurb if you want an example of combining how to write second pov and how to write reinhard :O !! i do think that every writer is different of course but i just wanted to leave an example just in case itd help you!! i Think this is well written enough for example purposes hah:

Remember when you killed your grandmother all those months ago? Fist through her chest, familial blood splattering all over your only family. As her body falls limp, Grandfather catches her right when she’s gasping out her last words and turning to dust like the ash left in the wake of when you first killed her years ago.

The only difference is that it was a necessary evil this time.

yep so - in conclusion, fuck around (research various things if you need to) and find out (practice and have fun) <333 i hope this helps and feel free to reach out if you ever wanna ask more stuff :o !!

#rezero #re:zero #ahhh yes i hope this all makes sense - ty for sending me this ask and best of luck on ur fic!!! again feel free to share if youd like #id really love to see it and im sure other people would enjoy it too <3 #reinhard van astrea #ask

[viralvava]

OK. idk whether the last ask sent just without links, or it didnt send at all, so im gonna retype it. if you got it feel free to ignore this lol. links are at the end IF you want to listen to these to see what the hell in talking about, but absolutely no requirement/expectation/pressure to listen, its just for ease of access in the case you do

so basically for arikado’s whole arc for this story its him becoming his father, right? ill revisit that thought later

so first of all, alucard has a theme. we already have a basis of characters which sort of turn against everything they once stood for for one reason (possessed by evil wizard) or another, having motifs of their main theme sort of used in a way that almost bastardizes the main theme, so i think for phase 1 of the fight, that would work rlly well for arikado. his main theme is dracula’s castle, and his secondary is tragic prince, so we would take that and sort of bastardize it, make it sound unnerving and uncomfortable to the listener on a subconscious level. so lets look at how to do that in the first place.

with richter’s theme, divine bloodlines, the main motif is taken from that and put against a backdrop of much more unnerving music. blood relations, which keeps parts of divine bloodlines, sounds much darker, because it takes the piece and puts it in a very unusual signature that has less of a sense of innate balance to the listener (5/4) to kind of throw you off and make you feel wrong-footed. it also uses the percussion to sort of drive this unnatural beat a bit, so already it sounds sort of… wrong. on top of that, you transcribe the motifs used to a minor key, transforming it from a more heroic, triumphant piece, to one of more of a… sad and upsetting feeling. almost like a hero disgraced. it also changes the instrumentation a bit to more eerie sounding instruments, or instruments that can purvey the eerier sound better. It changes some of the chords slightly to add discord, and adds some quick and staccato harmonies, which utilize chords that, if all notes were played at once, would sound very uncomfortable. some of the scale (for lack of a better term) sequences are also used to build tension and add to the pervading sense of wrongness, ending in a way that doesn’t quite Sound right or complete

theres also other ways of making songs that sound uncomfortable or unnerving, as are utilized in songs like pagoda of the misty moon, which, yes, still utilizes the discordant chords of course, but it also utilizes the very, very deep piano part to add to the atmosphere, and utilizes what sounds to be runs with accidentals, as well as the timpani, and the tremolo on the violins, as well as, while being in what sounds like 3/4, uses percussion to make it SOUND like an abnormal time signature. so there are a lot of different ways to go about creating that type of atmosphere, and what youd utilize depends on the vibe youre going for, plus also the personality of the character themselves. for example, the deep piano part i think COULD work very well for arikado personally, but its up to debate.

(theres also the underlying theme of boss themes in general having weird time signatures, specifically BECAUSE while you subconsciously seek out cues from music, its much harder to do that with weird time signatures. 5/4 with richter, and, with other franchises, 13/7 or something like that for ganondorf from oot, and for marx in kirby’s games, the time signature changes every measure. thats not SUPER important, i just think its very neat :) )

so effectively, in writing an arrangement of this, you might utilize some of those ideas (and maybe do further research on other themes in music that make the viewer uncomfortable). THAT would be the best way to create a bastardization of the song.

there might be other aspects to consider, to give the song a feeling of repetition, as if repeating the past, but not SO repetitious that it bores the listener. this being a boss battle song already lends itself to repetition as that is the nature of boss battle themes, so ill skip that.

this may be difficult to do bc, as is the nature of boss battles being that you can transition to the 2nd phase at any time, BUT i do think itd be VERY interesting to have a very seamless transition into the 2nd phase theme, which would be dance of illusions, which. as you may or may not know. is draculas main and most iconic boss battle theme :) . id probably give it 4 repeats instead of the 2 that tends(?) to be more typical with that song, to add to the building tension and sense of dread, ESPECIALLY for those that recognize the song, either consciously or subconsciously, as they realize what song is playing. theres a few versions of that song but most likely itd take a lot more inspiration from the sotn & dos versions more than anything. of course it would utilize the more uneven sound of the intro, which would then lead into the much more balanced, march-like time signature the majority of the song is in. this theme combined with the song of the previous phase, which would utilize the more unnatural rhythm of a time signature like 5/4, COULD also kind of give the impression of like, the turbulence arikado initially feels as he sort of realizes hes becoming his father, transitioning to him accepting and embracing that role, or even more of SOMAS pov of this whole thing, of the discord btw how THEY view arikado vs who he rlly is, with the 2nd phase be more soma accepting who arikado truly is/has become, but thats more of a choose-how-to-interpret-it thing that would be more up to the listener, and would depend more on how you want to develop the story and arikado’s feelings regarding everything. more importantly the use of doi, ESP an arrangement more similar to the sotn doi, symbolizes how much arikado HAS become his father at this point.

these next 2 sections are more… optional.

first would be the prelude, the part that plays during the dialogue leading up to the boss fight. for this i would say it would be best to have a music of slower tempo, with an air of uncertainty, and yet weight and inevitability. not a song from the cv series, but there are two parts of sealed vessel that do this in different ways; first is thw first few seconds of the song, as you have long, tremolo notes held, building up into a chord as you slowly prepare for the actual fight itself. theres also latter half of sealed vessel (2:16-4:34) is a very good example of this. it opens with a slow section where there are two parts playing in a minor chord, playing a very melancholy harmony, which then adds the long, legato, meandering violin run, which repeats itself, slowly adding instruments in a way that makes it sound almost like the piece is slowing down, until it begins a run DOWN the scale into the last either one of these make a good example of how you could build up the emotion to the fight, but that would depend on whether that would be included at all or not.

the second optional part would be something that COULD play at the end of the piece IF you get the good ending. itd be best if the note that doi ends on on its own were one that feels unfinished, unresolved, which works for both endings; in the bad ending, it IS left unfinished, as the cycle continues anew, and never finds a real sarisfying end, it just keeps. going. but with the GOOD ending, you instead have this section added on to the end. revisiting sealed vessel, the very end (starting at about 4:34), there is an ending to the piece that feels tragic, mournful, but complete, which, if mimicked, could symbolize a few things, but i like the idea that its adrian actually being like. allowing himself to truly mourn his father, and feel remorse for his own actions. i think the best thing for this would be to utilize the original, unbastardized, version of dracula’s castle, but in a much slower and more mournful and weighted rendition, to symbolize both his allowing himself to mourn and his regret, but also him potentionally resolving to attempt to return to who he once was, to the version of himself he forgot?

anyways um. i DO want to write an arrangement of this but well see how much energy i have to do that.

also absolutely no expectation of you to listen to All Of These but here are the links if youre curious and want to listen :)

dc: https://youtu.be/cyWTgLf-piE?si=i1yGDRVDe8xuddhe

ttp: https://youtu.be/hGUJcqxbRLo?si=dO_EGAw_ALrxejcR

db: https://youtu.be/XoGCokTDSyA?si=dAUfT1AGm9NgDhGU

br: https://youtu.be/PZZfQoxxeD0?si=B3ZyxOv47QEqjvUq

potmm: https://youtu.be/0v8nlnmT6Hw?si=ZB5YIYu0jKQBKEHU

doi sotn vers: https://youtu.be/_PPEZxVEgjk?si=pOrUR1PJIQiqhl49

doi dos vers jic you want to hear how that ones different: https://youtu.be/8cda69EXFRs?si=vV0oXvm6KQ2Kk1uI

sv from hk: https://youtu.be/ze0Rk-m0w2A?si=1FfwQKwBaHFoh53U (2:16-4:34) (4:34-end)

okay fair warning i dont have much to add because i dont know much about music and also youve laid everything out very nicely already but this is very interesting and i am paying lots of attention! dance of illusions isnt my favourite dracula theme but as the one thats most iconic and also the one that tends to appear most, it would be a bit silly if it wasnt used even though id also love to be able to jam dracula appears from loi into things somewhere just for the thrill of things, especially if the end goal is to emphasise a transition between alucard and dracula similar to the one that was already kind of happening in the background

i know even less about how any of it would actually function in practice, but some other themes ive also been hemming and hawing about are the alucard battle theme from legends (a deep cut, but hey) and encounter or big battle from cviii: one because itd be a nasty twist on things (new game new alucard yada yada but also im just a passionate cviii stan in general) and the other because its chronologically speaking sort of the first dracula battle theme and i think that. fits. as i said though, dance of illusions is iconic, so not really replaceable.

im writing this in a bit of a rush (busy but i passed out for 8 hours and feel bad leaving you waiting too long) but i think an important part of all this would be having soma slap some sense into him, seeing as soma is both the one who keeps trying to break draculas own cycle, is the one arikado has arguably used the most, and is also arikados theoretical foil -- personally i feel like soma and arikado are more acquaintances than anything before this, and getting alucard to talk about anything ever was like pulling teeth and im sure arikado is far worse so i couldnt see them really bonding at that point, but in a situation like this maybe it would be more feasible for them to form an actual connection? which ties into the idea of arikado, too, finally letting go of the cycle slash dracula and whatnot.

in the good ending, anyway

that said, julius and yoko are also obviously important, julius for what are probably pretty obvious reasons and yoko as both The Belnades (which is actually detrimental considering, their roles as the belmont and the belnades inherently force them to sort of 'adhere' to the cycular nature of this mess), but also as the one person who, throughout the games, arikado is shown to have the closest relationship with. she knows his identity before anyone else, they may or may not have been cooperating in aos, shes the first to defend his character to soma, etc etc, he even goes and visits her shop to give her the hot gossip in dos lmao. so bring them too ofc

#akumajou dracula #genya arikado #im sooo regular about this says girl who has thought about it hourly for a year straight #im really glad youre getting apparent mileage out of it lmao

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

Hey,

I just wanted to make sure: have you been in the ofmd fandom during s1 coming out? I'm very interested in meta from that time (I'm not asking for any links, I can search myself, don't want to bother you, unless you would like to recommend something, that would be great of course)

(Forgive any spelling errors for now, im in bed on my phone lol)

Hello! Yes I have! I started watching the show a few days after s1ep7&8 came out, and watched eps 9&10 the moment they came out!

During the early days of fandom meta, you had a lot of straight up show analysis. Songs, motifs, symbols and explaining characters actions and the like. Back then I don't think I ever posted, just reblogged some stuff relating to Ed/Stede.

For that, I'd recommend looking up the topics I listed from lighthouse symbolism, music in certain scenes. Bare bones, but fun stuff! The tags 'ofmd meta' 'Edward Teach meta' or character + meta. That or ofmd symbolism, ofmd mental health, Ed's heart(referencing the red cloth), Oranges, Oluwande's earing.

My biggest draw here is I just love characters and analyzing character arcs in stories. So I have always been on the more meta sides of fandom.

I started posting light meta for Ed and Izzy maybe around June ish of 2022? Maybe? Nothing big, but from then on I focused mainly in the Izzy spaces. FOR ME: I was more intrigued by the meta on the cycles of abuse, classism, refrences to historical piracy, and just sheer angst and heart and emotional honesty of the Meta on this side of the fandom. I grew up and still live in a very red very rural US state and cant safely be visibly queer, so i latched onto Izzy's caution around visable queerness/vulnerability and habit to cling onto the established norm vs. Stede and Ed's story on 'The Love Shack' Carribean eddition. (and the fact Izzy's side treated Ed and Stede like characters that COULD still make mistakes.)

Some fans prefer the romance of ofmd while others prefer the story of family/acceptance/angst. We as a fandom split pretty quickly after ep 10. Trust me.

I sadly can't recommend you anyone specific due to essentially texting this post rn (and if any fans at the time comment down below any notable meta writers they can remember, I'd appreciate it-im drawing a blank besides my mutuals-hell give yourself a shout out if youd like). What i can give you are the disagreements that split meta writing in the fandom during the hiatus. Hell some of these even have trickle-down effects to this day as to how the fandom portrays these characters TO THIS DAY. This is where I see the clear line between what ofmd fandom will call the Izzy 'canyon' of meta vs general fan posting.

1.) Did Izzy influence/order Ed to become the Kraken? [Ed meta: (to be a bit uncharitable) Ed felt like he was alone and he'd only be able to keep Izzy in his life is if he became the Kraken (or Izzy is somehow abusing Ed to make that choice to become the monster he feared)] [izzy meta: izzy wanted blackbeard back, his friend and captain, not the Kraken. He cares about Ed being safe, and for them, that means hiding behind the blackbeard shield. Even if it keeps them both stagnant]

2.) Does Ed want to kill? How does he frame killing? How does he moralize it? How does this trauma affect him as a character? How does he value the lives of his crew ('they're pirates, that's their job' s1ep4 vs his dad or the ship he lit on fire for example)

3.) Is izzy homophobic/racist/a colonist/more of a piece of shit beyond just being an antagonist(if i were you I'd also just stick away from a post if it seems like the writer is framing all of Ed's actions like Izzy is his 'puppet master controlling the strings'.)

4.) Why do Stede and Ed seem to struggle to care about anyone else in their lives beyond each other? (Not really popular outside of Izzy spaces unless discussing ADHD/AUTISM. Honestly I don't know how you'd look for this in a Tumblr search bar, but it's some good stuff)

5.) Edward Teach has Adhd/BPD/Depression or the cycle of abuse, Stede Bonnet has Autism/Adhd/emotional childhood neglect including some amazing meta on masking. I think I even wrote something about Izzy and autism actually....

If I were you this is where I'd start. The mental health discussions in this Fandom are intriguing. S2 did basically confirm the ADHD 100% for anyone who was doubting, and healed Ed's btd with stedes dick, but other than that. There's some really good stuff in there. An easy way to find some good writers!

>) ALSO: Does piracy represent masculinity?? (S1 says maybe, it depends. S2 throws that whole meta out the window, but it was fun to talk about equating Izzy and Ed's leather daddy ship and more masculinity presentations of queerness to traditional masc gender roles)

6.) Do you define Ed and his actions as his own or as that under labels? This one is super frustrating to me personally. It does nothing for me to look at s2ep1 and say 'see that's the Kraken, that's a mask, that's not Ed'. But a lot of the general wider fandom do see Ed masking as somehow putting on a role, like in a play, and carrying out his evil actions under a pseudonym. These people usually will also believe the 'Izzy is manipulating a mentally ill man' stuff. As if Izzy isn't also SUPER fucked up.

THIS lack of character direction affected our fandoms fanfic and fanart too. I look at Ed and see a man who is and has fucked up. But hell, go back to S1 fic and you can read a fic where izzy slaughters puppies and Ed stands by with 'sexy cow eyes' unable to stop him. Then the next read 'Ed/Stede slowburn post s1 where Izzy goes to get Stede and learns to be apart of the crew' in 40k words.

7.) Jim's religious trauma, what is up with Buttons, Lucius/Izzy and Polyamory dynamics, or other topics with side characters that are brushed off. I bet right now if you look at people writing S2 Frenchie trauma Meta, they wrote stuff for s1

8.) Also- was izzy turned on by the toe thing/getting slammed into a wall. Yes. This is still debated. As a con oneill fan, those are not his 'I'm hot for this' faces. But No. You will still see that interpretation today that he wanted Ed to do something to him only because he got off on it. Even after s2. (Izzy being a masochist however? Fan theory that was embraced and made into a refrence in s2 which was fun)

I've just rebloged a post with some meta from a writer I enjoy and I will tag you!! But yeah! OFMD mutuals if you can recommend any meta writers, don't be afraid to!! Thanks for the ask!!! ❤️(I will likely add to this post when I think of more lol)

#ofmd meta #ofmd meta meta #lol #izzy hands #ofmd s2 #thanks for the ask! #god...am i a meta writer now? shit... #weird to think about #you read 1 meta about Izzys microexpressions and BAM here we are #ofmd #ofmd s1 meta

[chesthighwater]

Asking you about a character! And it's gonna be... the Outsider!! Yippee!!!

LA CREATURA!!!

First impression: Who's This Douchebag. why are your arms crossed and why do you feel the need to share facts about my life with me i already know all that. oh you're branding me? to give me supernatural powers???? okay. so that has. Undertones.

Impression now: oh, that's tough. i mean he's a very interesting character- i know some people who would have VERY insightful things to say about him- but i feel like i don't rotate him in my head nearly enough to achieve that level of knowledge. i mean i know some people who swirl this man around in their mind at mach speeds. my meagre opinions couldn't begin to compare. i like the potential chaos he can cause- just his existence by itself sometimes puts a spanner in the works. and the void is also a FASCINATING concept to me. i think he's tough to get right in general- there's a reason why i don't write outsider dialogue even when i think having him show up to taunt people would be cool and fun. mayhaps i should rotate him in my head more

Favorite moment: im gonna be real with you chief so many of my most memorable moments with the outsider is me wanting to strangle his smug ass. especially since my first playthroughs of dh were very influenced by like. me feeling like no matter what i do, i can't possibly do anything right. and him showing to be like "MY DEAR CORVO YOU SURE FUCKED UP AGAIN BIG TIME" didn't exactly help. but one thing off the top of my head- his little speech about lady boyle. i found it very intriguing because it was the first time (if i recall correctly) that we were shown him giving a more specific prediction of the future (beyond like, Ah Yes My Dear Corvo You Will Change The World Or Whatever). it made me really curious about the extent of his "clairvoyance".

Idea for a story: i'd love to hear some takes on the Other marked. like not the known marked i want you all to make shit up. give me insight into his psyche via the people he chooses to bind himself to. also, i'm always down for explorations of weird void shit and how any of that works. what does he even do all day? how does the way he "sees" the marked/the world manifest? what are whales? please let me know.

Unpopular opinion: now i know some outsider scholars debate his morality a lot. like, is he "evil"? does he even have anything resembling a moral compass at this point? i don't think this is an unpopular opinion at all, but to me he is just creature. sort of blue and orange morality i think. its not about good or evil or whatever he just does things. i find it quite difficult to imagine that he is trying to provoke a "net positive" change in the world. he is just doing stuff

Favorite relationship: hmmm corvosider? again i don't rotate them in my head nearly as much as i should, but it definitely has the uh. well certain Characteristics and trope potential that i could very much get into LMAO.... those who know me (and probably those who dont i think im very obvious) could easily pick out a few i imagine

Favorite headcanon: this isnt even a headcanon but dont you think it would be fun to see your own reflection in his eyes. theyre like a phone screen when you shut it off accidentally and have to see your own face. like would you not get distracted by that. hed be telling you some important shit about the future and your failures in life and youd be like fighting the urge to wave/pull a face just to see what it looks like

ask me about a character <3

#ask #don1t1red #thank you so much for asking!! <3 #i love these ask games this has been so fun. #im learning im even more opinionated than i originally thought. #(and there are more character asks where this came from! stay tuned LMAOOO)

[unlimitedhorsepower]

been rotating t&b2 cour2 in my mind like a 5D object...

i wanted to write more comprehensive post to air some of my grievances, and of course finally releasing my exclusive statement on my special beast ryan goldsmith.

however when i started to write this i realized i have a shitton of thoughts and could rewrite the entire cour if i really thought about it, so i actually mention most characters in this self-indulgent essay of mine and you can just skim through if you were interested in my thoughts.

i talk a lot of yuri here even if i went into this thinking that ive already talked about him enough, because he fascinates me...

anyhow, here they are, my more comprehensive thoughts under the cut because theyre not spoiler free:

this is unbearably long: ive bolded some key sentences that build up to something if youd like to skim it instead of reading it. i also suggest you using Ctrl+F to find mentions of characters you care about because ive literally mentioned every single character in this in some way and it genuinely is incredibly long and convoluted.

i talk about some characters way more because i wrote those parts earlier and felt more full of energy. i also talk a lot about ryan. perhaps even more than he deserves! but he is my favourite character, youve been warned. i didnt even mean to make him seem so important because hes not, lmfao.

ill say, it can definitely be a bit confusing if its not being read it order but like, meh... i guess it was also more important for me to get my thoughts out so that i can have other thoughts again.

this entire thing got away from me and at many points devolved to me not only ragging on t&b2 but extensively discussing my alternatives which couldve imo built the entire thing into something more worthwhile...

ive added like three screencaps to make it a little more exciting to scroll through, and if i have energy left im gonna add more images to make it less like a huge wall of text, which it is. but right now i just wanna post it because i genuinely spent 10 hours straight writing this and then woke up today and spent another 10 hours writing it.

i think this is my therapy over yuris arc, because that genuinely made me sick. maybe im unreasonable and just pissed off about that specifically, but who knows. not me!

so, to begin... t&b2 cour2.

hmm.

i initially called it “good” and said i enjoyed it besides yuris arc, but that feeling was born from the sheer emotional turmoil yuris death gave me. in comparison, everything else in the cour was fine- great, even!

there can be missteps and flaws that diminish your enjoyment but that are easy enough to fix in your mind, and then theres a misstep of the sort of a character dying after the narrative spends a lot of time giving me what i can only describe as trauma porn.

i already wrote about that here, so ill skip some of the things related to yuri (i just cant get over it... i keep circling back to him throughout this document because hes such a central figure to what we got and what i thought we would get).

cour2 had such a solid basic understanding of characters, but there was just way too much going on at the same time and way too many loose plot threads. cour2 was like building a house of cards on top of a solid brick foundation and expecting it to hold water.

cour1 isnt perfect, but it was pretty good in introducing us to new concepts, new characters (three new heroes to our ensemble cast, one returning talent from the rising who needs less establishing, and the new villains, and more) and the new plot threads, but i also feel that misogyny unfortunately played a great role in who got arcs and what sort of arcs.

season1 isnt perfect either, of course, but one could imagine a sequel follows up tonally with its predecessor and also improves upon it, especially because this has been explicitly suggested by the creators (like improving on nathans portrayal, for example!).

cour2 majorly failed to follow up on the promises of cour1 and the overall promises of what t&b is like in tone and content. there were too many plot threads and too many characters. i wouldve entirely cut out aurora and large parts of yuris/lunatics “arc”. the latter i wouldve tied into LL audun and a greater plotline of mr.legend and heroism.

speaking of mr.legend, yuris hallucinations of him were excessive and felt extremely cheap. i know i said i wouldnt focus on yuri, but i feel like i have to... mr.legends force ghost saying anything will never amount to any healing or retributive action from the man himself, but i felt like i was supposed to feel it was “good” he knew those things.

i felt that the narrative was telling me that indeed, yuri had loved his father once, and he had positive qualities, but i already knew that. i also never doubted that both of his parents had once loved him- its just that those things dont take away from how poorly they treated yuri in the end.

im willing to extend some sympathy to yuris mother, but to mr.legend, never. in one of the mangas mr.legend in the past asks young maverick to wipe his memories of him ever having powers (even though the memories will return to him in due time since thats a major thing to change) so that he can be free of the guilt he feels.

even without that, i already knew that the real mr.legend most likely felt some sense of guilt over his actions, not just the mr.legend force ghost/yuris hallucination.

i know: i simply dont care! he may have been put into a shitty situation and suffered, but it was his choice to hurt others. it was him who used his status to fix fights and beat his wife and child. he was in a position of power, and he took advantage of it to make himself feel better.

side note, alcoholism keeps being equated to evil by it being explicitly referenced with mr.legend and gregory sunshine even if by itself its a taxing addiction and addicts are people who are suffering, not caricaturish evildoers. antonios drinking habits have been equally worrisome sometimes -if you look at his schedule in KOW the rising, he is very much using alcohol to drown his sorrows- and this briefly comes up in cour1.

in cour2, its played up for jokes: antonio took ivan drinking and ivan drank way too much and did funny things while he was drunk (more on this later). antonios just different actually, because hes fundamentally good.

it was shown to us that mr.legend was very active in the match fixing himself... i think it wouldve been more fitting to show child yuri spying on his fathers discussion with maverick trying to suggest it to test the waters of seeing how easy it would be to manipulate mr.legend into it, perhaps about to offer him coffee to signify hes about to change memories if he needs to, and mr.legend jumping on the offer instead of declining it and shattering yuris high opinion of his father.

maverick not being included just reminds me how yuri is somehow a secret child nobody knows about. we remain in the dark on how yuri ended up taking care of his own mother and what he did to attain the position of a judge.

we still dont know the details of who covered up mr.legends death and why and how. it wouldve only made sense it was maverick, but how the hell did he then not know that yuri must be the one with the powerful NEXT power?.. how did he in general not recognize yuri once he became a judge? was he not distrustful?

more importantly, why did he not try to manipulate yuri? wouldnt it have been a huge boon for him to find a vulnerable child who is mr.legends son no less, and to raise him into a tool like he eventually raised barnaby?

i could see that yuris mother olga (i think its officially translated as origa, but its definitely olga) actually protected him back then. after all, he was the only remaining family she had left, even if she too grew to resent yuri at some point for some reason (and somewhat understandable, given how she was portrayed in s1 accepting mr.legends treatment: she had submitted to her fate and become traumatized).

however, olga has calmed down from her potrayal of throwing plates at yuri in s1 and the change happened without explanation but an acknowledgment from the caregiver, and she is never given any depth as to why she could blame yuri so deeply and fervently in some of her more lucid (?) moments.

in cour2, she becomes just a vessel for inflicting more trauma on yuri, and its her only purpose: shes not her own character. shes a woman, specifically a mother, and thats all we need to know about her.

i know that my tinfoil hat theory of gregory sunshine being yuris biological father is implausible at this point after all that talk about hero blood in yuris veins, but it wouldve genuinely given olga much more depth to give her a reason (not a justification) on why shes been so aggressive towards yuri and blames him specifically, if yuri had been an illegitimate child or somesuch. but i wrote about that already in the linked post and its replies.

back to parental figures, i think laras mother zamira was a great character in cour1. shes not a morally good character, no, but i think her portrayal was strong? it was very clear to me that shes treating lara as an extension of herself instead of her own person. she controls her and her life, and she reprimands lara for having thoughts and feelings beyond her control.

it is her who has set lara on this path to heroism, and it is for her benefit. lara is a vessel for her to life through, and this could be easily contrasted with yuri and his burden about being mr.legends son.

however, in cour2 the entire premise is undermined when zamira is proven to “actually care” about lara. if i dont remember wrong, paolin even says that “she reminds her of her own mother”, which i was meant to understand in a positive way. this is presented in tandem with mr.legend(s ghost) somehow “really caring about yuri” in that odd scene they had together.

its also proven that zamira wasnt an unreliable narrator about her prior tennis partner pamela, because we see pamela easily blame NEXT for existing in the news as proof that she is cruel. i get the sense were supposed to think zamira was just sad and trying her best to raise lara and make sure nobody takes advantage of her like she was taken advantage of.

i frankly dont care! she had, undoubtedly, treated lara the way she treats her in cour1 for laras entire life: shes 14. it leaves a lasting mark she can never take back. “im sorry” doesnt even begin to fix it.

i wrote about yuri adopting lara here, so i wont delve into some very specific AU, but it wouldve felt much more reasonable and realistic for lara to be freed from her mother, not even necessarily in the way my pipeline dream describes, in a way that couldve emphasized yuri and his good qualities.

t&b has never been free of misogyny and other issues, but i feel like this cour really brought a lot of those issues to the surface instead of improving on them... instead of a nuanced portrayal of a fractured mother-daughter relationship, we were given something that just felt like underlining the fact that zamira is a mother, of course she cares about lara in more ways than for her own benefit.

zamira is a mother like olga, and thats what we “needed” to know about them in addition to knowing that they experienced trauma that just made them forget about their motherhood for a moment, but we learn that olga cared too, she even made those cookies. their mother-son relationship is similarly glossed over.

lara -like yuri- is done a great disservice in the process of redeeming abusive parents. shes a kid who killed a villain on accident in self-defense in cour1, and it felt significant. cour2 doesnt bring this up as a plot point in any way.

i was imagining her getting a much bigger arc that couldve overall easily tied into revealing mr.legend as a horrible parent instead of being its own distinctly separate arc.

speaking of mr.legend being exposed, it was ridiculous that yuri revealed mr.legends awfulness to kotetsu and barnaby and it fell fully flat due to kotetsus and barnabys reactions, or rather due to their lack of reactions, which was strange for them both.

its realistic enough to have yuri do something like that, even if it was sudden: it feels like he was under a lot of duress and clearly seeking help in any way he could, justifying it to himself in some “logical” reasoning for it because i dont think he would consciously realize he needs and wants someone to believe him.

before i get into that and how i think they shouldve reacted with far more compassion, i want to say that to me its clear that kotetsus career in heroism has led him to neglect kaede, especially in the past when kaede didnt know that her father was a hero. this is brought up a bit in cour1, and for example is prominent in the beginnings additional scene where kaede begs for her father to show up at the ice rink just this once.

the series shows their father-daughter relationship mostly from kotetsus side, so that we know hes trying his best and really wants to be involved in kaedes life but hes genuinely busy, but if you think about it from kaedes perspective, kotetsu hasnt always been a good father to her and kotetsus business doesnt take away from his failings.

misogyny plays a role in this portrayal, and that i cant blame kotetsu for as a fictional character, but the fact that some of his actions are played for jokes and the fact that he continues doing them bother me, like pretending hes doing yoga like kaede suggested and instead of actually doing it. i wish he was more honest with her, even about those little things!

narratively in the rising, again, kaede is forced to adopt a tomoe-like role in encouraging her own father to continue his hero work, which isnt cute to me at all. its extremely emotionally taxing to have to be more responsible than your own parent and give them advice.. in cour2 she is again protecting her father from the truth that his mother is bedridden (nothing, afaik, comes out of that by the way?).

why is kaede protecting kotetsu, and why does she feel the need to do that? shes a child! she should be able to depend on his father, not feel like she has to protect him just because hes a hero.

those things frustrate me about kotetsu and the narrative around him and kaede, because i think this moment especially couldve used to do something about this dynamic and parenting. however, every parenting-related thing in cour2 was atrocious.

kotetsu has flaws and i think he has done wrong despite trying his best (sometimes your best isnt enough!), but he isnt cruel and genuinely does care about kaede, and he cares about others even if theyre not his family (he is a busybody, after all). he is a single father and a widower whose late wife pushed him into hero work, and his old mother supports him greatly, as does his brother.

despite family being so important to kotetsu, he ends up not reacting much to yuris admission that mr.legend beat his wife and child. doesnt that seem like something he wouldve focused on? good-hearted as he is, wouldnt he have been utterly shocked to hear that someone who “saved” him couldve been so thoroughly rotten?

it shouldve shocked him more than match-fixing and clinging to the identity of a hero: imagining himself becoming a cruel parent (and a husband).

i think he shouldve admitted that his own hero career has caused him to neglect kaede, and that he didnt even properly realize until as of late how much it had affected her- that he has flaws too and cant claim to be special or that mr.legend was an outlier, and that he cant imagine how hard it mustve been for yuri to go through that.

it wouldve been far more compassionate of him, and he really has a lot of compassion for others! i refuse to watch that scene again right now so maybe i remember some part wrong, but still: in my opinion he was a dick to yuri, and very defensive about himself. he didnt try to console him, it felt like he wanted to set himself apart as a better person than mr.legend.

i dont understand why he didnt at least try to find yuri after hes stormed off and hes realized that he said stuff yuri probably didnt want to hear? thats a thing kotetsu does all the time: he meddles. he gets things wrong, sure, but he meddles, and pulls people aside to have a chat with them and to try to help (like he later on does with barnaby).

kotetsu believes in heroism and his ideals of heroes, and its also very personal and family-related to him, so for him to be more shocked by mr.legend clinging to his hero image than the abuse part explicitly was a weird narrative choice to inflict more pain on yuri. i dont think yuri felt understood at all.

i think kotetsu wouldve been able to discern the most important part of this: that mr.legend was a bad father and husband, and he shouldve extended compassion to yuri (even if yuri didnt ask for any). thats what he did with barnaby in s1 as well!

just like kotetsus nonreaction to what really mattered in what yuri told the two of them, barnaby didnt have much to say which made the entire scene feel more callous.

its a deliberate choice, and its as odd as kotetsus reaction.

barnaby saw his parents dead in front of his eyes and was taken in by maverick and regarded him as a parental figure he could depend on up until the moment it was explicitly revealed to him that maverick had killed his parents and used him like a tool.

i could understand kotetsu initially being defensive (hearing someone he was “saved” by being thoroughly awful is not easy!) if barnaby had chimed in and snapped kotetsu out of it, which wouldve also played into the idea that people need others to support them and also to “steer them on the right path” so that kotetsu manages to focus on the most important but also the most painful part even if it also hurts him to think about, including admitting to his own failures as a father.

i think barnaby shouldve immediately been sympathetic towards yuri, and it couldve also signified how far he has come from his first appearance in s1 where he explicitly had closed himself off from others, and perhaps even realized that yuri is acting like he once did and is deeply lonely.

his sudden admittance to being mr.legends son is an urgent cry for help!

canonically, the moment started and ended and neither kotetsu or barnaby cared enough to say anything nice or follow after him. i think it was out-of-character, and they were forced to act like that to make sure yuris downwards spiral would continue. it was cruel.

the plot often felt explicitly manufactured towards a certain endpoint instead of feeling natural and in-character, going so far the narrative took explicit steps to prevent certain things from happening.

the “prevention of things” was especially obvious with ryan.

this is going to be long because not only is he my favourite character, but ever since his introduction in the rising he has occupied a specific niche that couldve played into the theme of questioning who really is a hero and why, and what makes a hero.

because karina forms blue golden with ryan, i dont think i can discuss ryans lack of any real arc without bringing her up, especially because karina and ryan have both been positioned as being more of “main characters” than the rest of the supporting hero ensemble, which is why i especially expected more out of them.

karina has been central ever since the pilot of t&b, in which she is featured: she has a lot of connections to kotetsu including her childish crush, and out of all heroes, it is her who kaede calls when she wants to plan something, and ryan was introduced as a main character in the rising and embodies traits from both kotetsu and barnaby, including visually.

to begin with, ryans themes from the rising arent contradicted by cour1 setting him up as having very personal beef with gregory sunshine, the most prominent antagonist because the heroes never properly meet rosicky and LL audun is a last-minute addition (who wouldve deserved more screen time, more on him later).

in cour1, we come to know that gregory caused ryan collapse a building on himself and nobody helped him, his fellow heroes laughing at him before they leave him bleeding underneath rubble. in cour2, we see more of it and that he didnt only get buried underneath large amounts of rubble, but that he majorly injured (or worse) a large amount of civilians as well.

again, im not sure because im not going to rewatch, but i understood it was supposed to be the same instance as the one where his fellow heroes laugh at him, unless its just a nightmare he has that civilians were injured as well.

regardless, he was personally affected by gregory, and he wants gregory to not to run free, and its a fact that hes actually very emotional and acts impulsively under duress, like trying to leave sternbild the moment he thought karina was going to ditch him as a buddy (because he, like yuri, is actually lonely and wants people to understand him but gives up way too quickly).

he also breaks the door into gregorys apartment without a second thought (this is breaking&entering!), and later on we see him yelling and gesturing at blue goldens manager in a quick background scene about their new contracts.

however, his reaction to mattia allegedly ratting them out to gregory is “slightly miffed” at best, even if gregory was so close to being caught by him. it feels unbelievable to me, especially because i think his loud and genuine emotions are his strength but also his potential flaw.

i think he shouldve acted way more unreasonably emotional about it, instead of only bringing up how anyone can betray you at any time. to take a detour to karina for a bit, it was also ridiculous that karina had nothing significant to say to that.

she has difficulties speaking up sometimes, but karina shouldve been allowed to feel personally slighted by ryan after all the buddy hero arcs being about trusting each other.

it seems that she can only be given arcs that revolve around men and not, for example, her feelings about herself and being able to take pride in being a very hard-working hero, idol, and now a friend too, especially when the new manga shows her reoccurring troubles in trying to balance different aspects of her life like studying and being a hero.

it wouldve stung to hear ryan say that like he was brushing her off: did ryan learn nothing, and was he just saying all that stuff earlier to put her at ease instead of being genuine? it also ties into ryans issue of always being genuine but his eccentric personality making him seem fake/suspicious, like in the rising.

his personality felt utterly stagnant in cour2 with smug quips, however, and he was just positioned as “morally good” instead of the narrative allowing him to reasonably continue his arc and meaning for the narrative by going after gregory as a hero even when its against the law.

some of the themes of ryans character pair off with yuris and any arc he couldve been given with gregory wouldve been perfect to compliment an arc with yuri/lunatic, the truth about mr.legend, how LL audun couldve tied into that.

yuri is positioned as a vigilante, even a villain, but hes shown to save kotetsu on-screen, and he follows his code of justice very strictly. we know his reasons to act the way he does, and he is sympathetic. ryan, on the other hand, is positioned as a hero, but he can be kind of a prick and his idea of justice is remarkably lax in some ways. we can make a good guess why he acts like that, and like yuri, he is sympathetic.

they both are characters kotetsu and barnaby know well, and theyre both more severe than the titular protagonists. kotetsu has bent the rules on occasion to act according to his idea of heroism, but in my opinion ryan is set up as someone who would explicitly break rules for his idea of heroism (or lack thereof).

ryan is a good person and very much a hero, but he isnt the flawed but idealistic hero full of passion like wild tiger, or the humble and pure-hearted storybook hero like sky high, hes the egotistical heracles clad in the golden pelt of the slain nemean lion who knows just how good he is (and thats all he has going on for him, that ego of his).

its obvious that he can be a bit selfish: in the rising he uses his gravity dome to not only to save the building, but he traps all the other heroes in it, including pulling sky high from the air. from the movie commentary track ive gotten the idea that he did it on purpose since he can control the height of the dome he creates.

he also stretches out his dome later, so it begs the question if it was ever necessary to get any of the other heroes trapped in it to begin with.

he does save that building and the civilians within and causes no significant harm because he really is good at being a hero and hes not evil, but the narrative shows that he doesnt treat heroism like the heroes of sternbild do: he lacks the same sense of honorable justice our sternbild heroes have.

being a hero is first and foremost his career, which is why he brings up that “the money is good”, and because hes positioned as an experienced hero, he mustve started out as a child, given that he is younger than barnaby (even if in my opinion is not so much younger than he is).

the rising is strongly themed around justice day and the myth, and its also about him seeing the heroes of sternbild care about each other and their bonds with each other, instead of them all regarding each other as competition like hes used to people treating him, given how unbothered he is by figuring out barnaby didnt only distrust him but outright suspected him of being a villain.

due to seeing the bonds of the heroes of sternbild, he starts to “carry a heart of justice” as per the myth. barnaby suspected that he is a villain and the goddess of the story even if he ended up being more like the people cast aside by the goddess for their selfishness.

in the end he makes a choice: he can stay and keep the central bond between kotetsu and barnaby broken, or he can leave and mend the bond his hiring caused and bring the two of them back together as a duo. in the last shot, the winged lion of apollon media faces away from the camera like the way ryan leaves, while the justice tower smiles.

justice was enacted and she approves of it, and funnily ryan never thought that he could be a part of these bonds which is why he wholly leaves sternbild. in his KOW the rising schedule he meets up with a lot of people but theyre all just acquantaices, and he talks with his iguana. he moves around a lot, its in his title of the “wandering gravity prince”.

he lacks bonds like yuri lacks them, but by giving him a buddy partner in t&b2, he becomes more of a part of sternbild heroes, but its not just going to change who he has grown into overnight.

its intentional that ryan has wings on his hero suit like the ones the goddess is portrayed with, and the rest of his imagery plays into the this theming of the goddess/the sun while echoing kotetsus “tiger”.

lions are associated with the sun, even the zodiac sign leo is ruled by the sun. royals and gods have been linked to the sun in many places, so his old hero suit and title play into it. gold, similarly, echoes this sentiment.

in the opening, ryan “sun” is composed of the streets of the city and missing its center where the sponsor is displayed, but knowing the legend, its where the city was caved in, and it uses the same colours as the illustrated parts of the legend of justice day (in which the sun is displayed similarly, and yes, if you disagree on it looking like the sun, you could be right, perhaps that part is a coincidence.)

yuri is shown in the opening of the rising as well, his slide after ryans and his red moon the central piece of his background and juxtaposed with ryans hollow sun.

and i want to be clear, ryans background changes into a sky full of stars before yuris slide is displayed, which also makes sense for ryan because the heroes of sternbild are portrayed as stars more than once (and its funny for ryan to be the sun because the sun is just a star, its just closer to earth. hes not special, hes just loud about it).

its also significant to me that all heroes are portrayed with slides with a side-view of buildings in the background whenever applicable, even keith who can literally fly: it is ryan who has a momentary birds-eye view.

its the opposite of yuris, in which the lines around his red moon are buildings as if someone was looking upwards from the ground and also somewhat echoes the parts, including colour-wise, where the people are trapped in the cave by the goddess.

lunatic features prominently in the rising once yuri figures whats going on, and kotetsu gets to talk to him about how hes trying to save virgil/andrew from the burden of having killed and whatnot. the entire movie is themed around a holiday called justice day and showing mercy and who deserves mercy and why?

i genuinely thought that ryan being brought back indicates that tiger&bunny continues to question what being a hero really means, by giving the titular protagonists and the narrative someone to contrast with lunatic while ensuring kotetsu and barnaby can stay on the side of “good”/heroes for the sake of them being the main characters.

it wouldve been a purpose fulfilled for ryan to go against the law and becoming a vigilante because of how badly he wants to catch gregory: he has a huge personal reason to do so.

instead of the narrative following the logical conclusion of ryan going rogue due to how badly he wants to see gregory out of the streets, we get a scene specifically to explain why ryan cant follow through with the logical next step of his arc?

what a waste of everyones time, and i get the sense that the writers understand how strongly ryan feels about it (the foundation is there!) because it required both the company owner and manager to hang karinas fate over his head to ensure he doesnt just go on his merry way.

(i dont, by the way, understand that scene, and i cant bear to look at t&b2 scenes again... if you can explain it to me, then please do lol. like i specifically dont understand why ryan doing anything would cause harm to karinas privacy.)

not only wouldve it been meaningful for the entire narrative and ryan, this couldve so easily been used to give karina a satisfying arc that also shows that she is just as capable and deserving of an arc as the guy heroes of the cast, especially as the most prominent woman hero. now, instead, she ends up being a plot device to make ryan feel one way or another.

even if blue goldens buddy arc included ryan realizing that he doesnt need to protect karina, it was immediately undermined by “protecting karina” being his only reason to not go rogue to find gregory?

instead of letting ryan go rogue and giving karina agency in going after him by his own choice, we get that. what was the point?

one buddy pair explicitly going against the (unjust!) law couldve served to put lunatic in a different light and interrogate the hero system as a whole, and it wouldve make sense for it to be blue golden due to their proximity to the titular main characters.

realistically i imagine ryan would have enough respect for karina to tell her beforehand what hes about to do, but unaccustomed to working together with people, he would imply that hes going alone and karina puts her foot down about it: shes not going to stop him, but shes not letting him go alone, because shes going with him.

it is her decision, and it gives her agency and an active role.

they cant have a character essentially say “yeah misogyny and gender roles and that shit is kinda fucked up” and then follow it up with Absolutely Nothing and also give karina an another arc about her crush on a man.

karinas potential as a character is squandered time and time again. in s1 its incredibly easy to miss that shes almost always the 2nd on the hero leaderboard because more attention is paid to her funny moments like her “cutie escape” and general fanservice which is awful by the way, considering that for the most part of it she is a child.

its also realistic for the idol industry, and at times the show comes close to making some sort of commentary out of it but it never quite manages, in no small part because karina is never allowed to really shine.

either way, shelving the heroes couldve been more impactful for muddying the waters about the hero industry. the cartoonishly evil interference from the cops only serves to promote the view that the heroes are acting Morally Good because theyre being hindered by not the hero system and the law but the individually selfish police chief and ouroboros interference, and serves to imply lunatic is definitely Morally Bad for acting outside of the law.

it is eventually agnes who “gets everyone to break the law, together!”, and it undermines any reasonable narrative meaning for the entire thing and makes it feel like our heroes couldnt be heroes for a bit for the sake of a meaningless and boring shock twist included for some shock value because nothing really comes out of it.

having blue golden go rogue and the police going after them wouldve forced their hands into actually fighting against non-heroes and the law, not just being on the run while they try to find gregory. ryan and karina could cause significant infrastructure damage very easily to make sure the police dont catch up, and it wouldve been easy to summarise it as collapsed roads frozen over.

while i wouldve in this hypothetical scenario loved an extensive focus on this because ryan is my favourite, i think the whole “going rogue” part couldve been conveyed without taking up an absurd amount of screentime, and couldve easily been condensed for time by having the other heroes watching a news segment about it which wouldnt have felt an out-of-place gimmick given that heroTV exists as a central thing and the fact that this has happened more than once in t&b...

kotetsu and barnaby, and the rest of the heroes could be watching a live feed, and surprised to spot ryan and karina on the run because its unlike they wouldve announced thi. our hero ensemble, especially the protagonist pair, would know that theyre not evil and that they definitely havent turned against the people of sternbild, no matter that theyve now been labeled dangerous NEXT vigilantes.

they couldve been compared to lunatic, which is a very overt way to make the hero ensemble question lunatics status as a vigilante both loved, hated and feared by the general public.

it would be ridiculously easy to play up ryans “evilness” by including a reporter from that introductory press event in the rising where he just randomly used his power on all people in the room to introduce himself (why did he do that. hes so quirky and random.), and then another shot from the rising where he traps all heroes in the gravity dome and thats feels like proof enough? they couldve also recycled the animation.

the narrative couldve made a statement on positioning medias reaction to the beloved idol blue rose on the run as “ryans bad influence” instead of granting her agency, and maybe some of the heroes couldve thought that as well, leaving it to someone else (most likely kotetsu because he is our main character!) to remark that karinas not the type of person to let ryan talk her into this sort of thing and that she mustve instead agreed with him.

having ryan on the hunt for gregory feels natural, but it couldve also been meaningful for karina.

another established thing about gregory is that hes a fucking creep. and karina has dealt with creeps her entire life due to being objectified idol. in cour1, we see that guy trying to hug karina “just this once!”, and it wasnt made into as much of a big deal as it shouldve been because we focused on ryans feelings instead.

that wouldve been fine if it was brought up again, and its utterly wild to me that it feels like they perfectly paved the way for karina to have some sort of arc with gregory herself with ryan bringing up “hug the gregory”, but then the show entirely bailed on it? why the hug theme, then?

it couldve been plot-relevant for karina and the narrative to question what being a hero means for her when her career in heroism has notably led her achievements being belittled in favor of “cutie escape" -moments and even now the media thinks shes out here because of “ryans influence” and not her own choice.

frustrated karina affirming the media somehow that shes doing this for her sense of justice, not because of ryan when some civilian fan of hers tries to save her, the poor little girl, from this vigilante escapade: what wouldve yuri thought of that?

to give karina cool moments wouldve been more impactful and couldve been plot-relevant instead of the disjointed ~girlboss moments~ of rosicky telling gregory to stop being a creep which equated to so little when rosicky is also killed by gregory.

capturing gregory couldve meant something, not been a footnote, and by showing us that fight with blue golden and gregory, they couldve showed us what they half-heartedly tried to show with the quick LL audun fight scene, with karina being the one who ends up protecting ryan after he was knocked out first?

ryan doesnt even need to have his skull caved in like that, all they wouldve had to do is to give ryan a reason to use his power and not be able to let go by having to continue holding something down with his gravity, calling back to barnaby accidentally letting him get knocked unconscious because he wanted to save schneider, except karina actually saves him.

in the process of capturing/pursuing gregory, karina wouldve had a reason to give us some sort of opinion on what she thinks about creeps without it being shoehorned in and how she has to tolerate them because theres so many loopholes in the law but finally, gregory is the one she can fight back against and its because now other people agree that hes evil!

also i genuinely think ryan wouldve loved to not only capture him but to beat the shit out of gregory because he really is different than our heroes from sternbild (and i think he wouldve been justified to do so too, lol).

to exemplify the themes of bonds, karina couldve stopped him but remarked that she feels like gregory wouldve deserved it, and she couldve vocally acknowledged shes having doubts on whether lunatic is so wrong or not, because has anyone or the hero industry itself ever really protected karina from creeps? no!

lunatic is actually making some sort of point when he kills a guy who is a serial killer of women? a bit drastic but hey. it works. that guy cant kill anyone ever again.

it would mean so much for karina to acknowledge that there indeed is something wrong with the hero industry as it exists now and heroes and heroism isnt just “morally good” by default, which also begs the question whether vigilantes etc are ontologically evil by default.

and personally, i dont think ryan would disagree with her? he is well-traveled and has seen so much more than just sternbild: im sure he has met corrupt heroes and heroes who arent even nice or “good”. im sure some places have very fucked up hero systems?..

they couldve made both ryans and karinas arcs mean something by having them face off against gregory (ive been talking of capturing, but they wouldnt even had to been successful and instead gotten captured by the police themselves or been forced to retreat), and it feels so obvious to me?

both members of blue golden wouldve gained something out of it, the overall plotline wouldve gained something out of it, and the setup of the plot wouldve benefited?

the viewer would also know that gregory deserves anything coming for him regardless of the media/public opinion because he is a freak, and the heroes too could explicitly acknowledge that maybe theyve been too harsh on lunatic by not trying to understand him like how blue golden is now misrepresented by the media without any grace? is lunatic just a killer, or... he does keep talking about that justice, after all.

both ryan and karina have interacted plenty with our protagonist pair, so it wouldve served well to draw kotetsus and barnabys attention to it. continuing to question lunatics “evilness” feels so central!

some of the children already said in the cour1 in that that law class of yuris that they thought lunatic was really protecting them and kotetsu was there to hear it, and then nothing came out of that? are you fucking kidding me? he was just like nope, wrong! its evil, end of story.

its like they were given the perfect foundation to do something interesting and valuable, and they didnt end up do any of that just to punish yuri for daring to exist in the way they forced him to exist since t&b is who made yuri the person who he is... but anyways.

yuri is prominently featured in cour2 for all of the wrong reasons, but his prominence couldve been interesting instead: he couldve been standing there looking over the heroes reacting to two of their friends gone rogue and given a cryptic statement on how it seems theyre no different than lunatic in the eyes of the public now that theyre pursuing their own brand of justice...

and everyone couldve been like alright director petrov:)! but also genuinely considered this while yuri is just there, observing the discussion and wondering how their bonds with the two new vigilantes makes it harder for them to be so sure who is a villain to be stopped and who is not.

unrelated to things i think explicitly realistic or in line of t&bs spirit, if i could choose i wouldve also had ryan and lunatic interact.

i think it wouldve been in-character for lunatic to show up to question what ryans going to do with gregory once he finds the man, with ryan answering genuinely but flippantly while karina is bewildered ryan is just trying to have a casual conversation with an fire arrow dramatically pointed at him.

lunatic questions his end goal, like are you gonna kill that guy maybe, and ryans like i dunno, i didnt think that far. now that you mention it maybe i should lol? and karinas like im sorry what is wrong with you?

we couldve gotten the yuri petrov comedy hes hard to rope into by having ryan act like he usually does with lunatic? you try to be dramatic and brooding when some guy is arguing with his emotional support buddy hero girl? ryans only prior interaction with lunatic is in the rising and saying that he looks creepy: he didnt care about a vigilante showing up because he knew the mecha flying over sternbild was the thing he should stop.

its funny because ryans notable trait is “treating everyone equally”, i dont see why he wouldve acted differently with lunatic, and to imagine karina interacting with lunatic because he showed up and ryan isnt having a normal reaction to it by being concerned. but why would ryan be concerned?.. hes good at insight and im sure he knows lunatics justice is very serious to him, and ryan knows hes not a killer so why would he be concerned right now?

but yes, the barebones idea of using ryan especially as a vessel to force the hero ensemble to reconsider vigilantism and lunatic couldve in my opinion been done without the two of them ever interacting directly, because its about what they stand for in the narrative.

what we needed to see was kotetsu (and barnaby) forming some sort of opinion on this, since we mostly see the hero side through kotetsus eyes: he is the main character, after all. all the narrative had to do was let ryan to go do what he clearly wants to.

my description of this all is very elaborate and keeps the entire thing somehow separate from the other heroes, but i think the idea or something akin to my elaborate view couldve been conveyed in a fairly conservative amount of scenes, because the cour only has limited time!

theres also a huge potential for the other characters to join in on the vigilante shenanigans like what ended up happening in the end in canon with all of them “going rogue”, and ryan and karinas involvement couldve been greater than other heroes but still far more smaller once kotetsu and barnaby get their ball rolling over the matter...

t&b2 has a lot of characters, and i think they couldve made it work, but the scenes wouldve had to been carefully picked without wasting scenes on counteracting things they had already set up?..

i dont feel like i can answer the question of “what narrative purpose did it serve to make sure ryan doesnt try to capture gregory on his own?” without pivoting back to “it had to be like this so that yuri would suffer and die and our heroes would stay morally Good unlike lunatic!”.

like, i LOVE ryan, hes my favourite character! and many of the scenes he was in i couldve lived without, because they didnt really add anything of worth to the overall narrative or plotline save for reminding us that he exists.

the entire thing where blue golden separates from the other heroes to go try to find gregory in the jail itself was similarly needlessly drawn out and condensed all the same?..

i understand it as necessary somehow (for the current plotline) to introduce LL audun, but because ryan and karina dont really have anything to do with the guy, it feels wasteful.

the pacing felt awkward to me overall. i was actually bored in some of the first episodes of the cour! and after that, everything starts happening so fast: the LL audun situation is especially sped through.

in cour1, heroes got progressively taken out until only “the essentials” in completing the arc were left, which was a great idea for the sake of stretching the limited screentime available.

it also had real in-world impact, unlike blue golden getting up a while later even if gregory flaunted that “it was so easy for LL audun to kill heroes”. it served so little purpose and was a waste of everyones time for a cheap “shock” because since it happened off-screen, i easily guessed they wouldnt kill a character off like that.

in cour2, we start knocking out heroes very late to the episodes and its not even semi-permanent. it wouldve been way more sensible to have some of the cast get knocked out somewhat early to let the remaining heroes to shine! they couldve even made to go berserk by gregory, so that we couldve then knocked HIM out and then gotten most of the heroes back for a grand finale of sorts, probably facing off LL audun and accompanied by lunatic.

even in the canon scenario, subaru couldve charged in (his whole thing is that hes hot-headed and a bit stupid even if his heart is in the right place!) and thomas couldve shown up earlier, eliminating many scenes that had little worth and focused on efficiently introducing LL audun.

they couldve had that fight with him and thomas couldve swiftly explained key details about him for exposition and made it natural because we already knew hes a fan. i also think their arcs werent so bad i suppose, but them fighting together was the conclusion to the mr.thomas buddy arc, so getting knocked out for a few episodes because theyre still rookie heroes and a bit silly wouldve made sense...

especially when they already were in the last fight in cour1!

it wouldnt have been a disservice to their arcs and wouldve given others more time to shine, and it wouldve been interesting to have other heroes react that the rookie team is presumed dead? they wouldve been fighting even harder against LL audun!

which leads me to say that the one good thing about cour2 for me was LL auduns character, but his potential wasnt realized. he was so prominent as imagery in cour1, with the twins and thomas both idolizing him.

we also know that mr.legend was a corrupt hero and there probably were others? instead of auroras introduction (it was such a gimmick), and gregory getting so much screentime for being creepy, it wouldve been far more interesting to focus on the fact LL auduns time active in vigilantism overlapped with mr.legends time as a hero.

i keep coming back to this, but LL audun couldve been the perfect setup for mr.legends crimes becoming public? it wouldve added intrique to the viewer too by have mr.thomas presumed dead and LL audun fighting the remaining heroes.

that wouldve made it harder to believe mr.legend really sucked so much by the general public and many heroes! kotetsu and barnaby wouldve felt inclined to share some part of what they learned from yuri earlier?

i feel like this wouldve been such an interesting way to make kotetsu and barnaby realize even more things about mr.legend, the hero system itself, medias part in who gets to be a hero and whos not, and lunatic... in a deeper way than the canon, half-hearted attempt at sympathetizing we got, because i just think its not in-character to have them react like that!

in-show its mentioned that LL audun “started to think hes a true hero around his tenth year in prison” but it felt like pure ouroboros/maverick interference to me (even if the current narrative mightve meant it for real).

wouldnt it have made more sense that LL audun was actually a "true hero” fighting against the establishment of the hero system itself, not because he hates heroes, but because he had figured out it was already rotten to the core becasue of maverick?

his simple nature was refreshing (in the same way i really liked fugan and mugan because they were villains but also funny about it) and kept the scenes with him light-hearted, a quality ive always been fond of in tiger&bunny. i do like intense scenes, but i think tiger&bunny should also be a little bit funny and not hard to watch.

he couldve lost his grip on reality a little bit since he spent decades in solitary confinement and focused very hard on his idea of heroism, or maverick couldve even fucked with his thoughts and made him into a ticking time bomb of wanting to destroy so many random people if he ever got out?

how the hell did maverick, mr.legend and the heroes of that time, realistically defeat LL audun back then? its not explained (again i could misremember) and its not important to the canon as-is, but imagine if the canon had focused on idk, being nicer to yuri and on the angle of mr.legends crimes and what if maverick, with mr.legend in tow, had promised to destroy sternbild if LL audun doesnt let them have their way?

it wouldve been, i feel, very easy to let us catch on that maverick was manufacturing LL auduns crimes and spread them on the media for the benefit of mr.legend and heroTV, and that LL audun couldnt stop maverick because he had been honorable about it, like a “true hero”?

hundred power is extremely versatile since it heightens all senses and weve seen that it can even boost recovery, and he can activate it almost continuously: what was it that stopped him from cracking mr.legends skull like an egg once the man himself had fully lost his power, given the canon itself features mr.legend worried about having to face someone he cant realistically win against?

LL audun outright refusing to kill mr.legend and/or maverick feels like the logical conclusion to the question of why he could be defeated. it would also give kotetsu something to think about, to realize this on the screen as our main character!

mr.legend was the hero who saved kotetsu, and then he learns from yuri that mr.legend was actually an awful person, and then, as i suggest, he sees a buddy hero pair go rogue- and then they all have to go rogue?

and to bring all of that to a satisfying conclusion, he faces off against LL audun, with the man questioning gregorys claims about who the real villains are because theyve all protected each other.

some further exposition later he could learn that mr.legend wouldnt have been able to be so awful if LL audun had just killed him when he had the chance, and that maverick couldnt have manipulated barnaby and been evil overall if LL audun hadnt taken up my suggested deal from maverick to voluntarily get imprisoned to protect sternbild and had gone the lunatic route instead?

kotetsu has always been so against killing people, and i dont think hes wrong to think so (well yes i think he is wrong. i think its morally okay to kill evil people! albeit not without emotional consequences for the person taking up that burden like lunatic. but i think its important for kotetsu to disagree with killing) and he wouldnt have had to abandon that principle of his, but this troubling reveal couldve given the narrative way more depth?..

and when kotetsu talks of the goal in the rising being saving virgil/andrew from himself: couldnt he have recognized the emotional toll lunatics actions take on him, and the emotional toll LL audun has taken due to his inaction?

like a real bit of some gray morality that actually has a purpose!

thinking about it makes me want to break something- i feel like everything was so perfectly set up for something like this, and not even this scenario but the concept of sympathizing with yuri further and helping him heal!

it couldve happened without revealing that lunatic is yuri and letting yuri continue in his position as the director of the heroes after the season has concluded (i wouldve enjoyed this personally so that i can imagine him out there), because i feel that revealing mr.legends crimes wouldve changed yuris position so significantly, and for the better!

kotetsu, as the main chracter, wouldnt have had to reveal judge petrov is mr.legends son either, maybe just lunatic for example! imagine yuri seeing people condemn his father? that wouldve been incredibly cathartic? that people agree that whoever mr.legends family was, they mustve suffered, truly and deeply?

yuri couldve gotten a scene like what kotetsu got at the end of the rising, with heroTV broadcasting random people having various positive opinions on him instead as he stands somewhere, contemplating taking off his mask and killing himself for his sins and his justice and whatnot while kotetsu and barnaby arent able to calm him down?

we couldve had a dramatic scene like that, and one of the manga chapters features that scene where yuri revealed his face to the terminally ill woman who had wanted to know who the man behind the mask is: he couldve even revealed himself to kotetsu and barnaby at least since theyre the main characters and still retained his anonymity by using his fire to shield himself from heroTV.

and on the broadcasted heroTV screen people from across sternbild could thank him for what hes done: could yuri, at that point, deny himself the possibility of being forgiven in some way?

it couldve also given us the hilarious dynamic of kotetsu and barnaby at least (and just for me, as a treat, ideally most if not all heroes) knowing that yuri is lunatic but they have a pact to keep his secret.

lunatic half-bleeds to death before jumping off but he doesnt set himself on fire and we dont see him fully fall but it serves as a momentary death fakeout.

then theres an ending scene of judge petrov opening the door to the hero lounge to give a briefing (returning us to the start of the season with yuri briefing everyone about buddy heroes) and he looks incredibly beat up.

agnes asks what the hell happened to him and he says he “got caught by one of the rampaging NEXT” or something else not unbelievable but ridiculous with a straight face, and none of the heroes contradict him.

like, wouldnt it be on-brand for kotetsu to try to joke about it while barnaby tried to shush him and causing someone like keith to quip that he doesnt really get it, isnt it a secret? and agnes could just scoff because whatever are the heroes talking about now...

my dream scenario is everyone laughing about this with yuri who is also laughing a little in confusion because now he has those bonds he hasnt had before? ngl i dont care i just want to see him happy lmfao<3

anyways see how ive lost the plot of this opinions document? bible-length and ive rambled about various topics, jeez. i also said i wouldnt talk about yuri so much but he just feels like such a central character and i like it- i just wish theyd been gentle with him instead of whatever we got. and yes, im about to talk about yuri again...

its unfortunate that with such a big cast, again, only the titular protagonists are often given scenes to interact with plot-relevant matters personally and with any depth...

of course, kotetsu and barnaby should remain at the centre of it all since theyre the protagonists, but cour2 especially included us seeing tidbits from the perspective of so many random characters, it begs the question why add so many bits from characters when i think its pretty clear the fans are interested in tiger&bunny for the ensemble cast too and want to see more of them?..

sorry to fervent mario the announcer fans or something i suppose, but if cour2 had used its time more wisely, we couldve gotten great moments from various heroes in the same time we didnt get anything done?

wasnt a single writer aware that the fandom adores the titular protagonists but theres also large fandom pockets for the other hero characters AND yuri? didnt anyone think that s2 and its buddy hero premise couldve more effectively been used to give us more lore and funny moments also for the supporting cast?

this makes me, for example, think of the scenes where everyone is deliberating X rampages and gregory things.

youre telling me that weve got all of these characters in a room and youre capable of making them act in-character while interacting with each other, but you chose the most boring ways to do it in pursuit of some sort of unneeded seriousness?

those scenes by themselves couldve been majorly improved by playing into what ive seen as the strength of tiger&bunny, with the way every hero has a distinct personality easy to play up for light-hearted moments without making it unnatural or forced?..

for example, they could be trying to talk of something serious when ryan, kotetsu and subaru get into a nonsensical argument because theyre all so loud and kotetsu and ryan actually get along well, so they couldve argued on purpose to ease the mood, while subaru got really serious about the argument because hes 17 and goofy?

barnaby, karina and thomas are all collectively sighing because of course their buddy partners are acting like this, and this goes on while keith is trying to get a word out on something actually valuable he thought of but hes too polite to interrupt the conversation, so nathan has to raise her voice and be like “boys can we please calm down keith wants to say something<3 you have 30 seconds before i get mad!″

and kotetsu, ryan and subaru are forced to apologetically sit on the floor or something, just to let keith convey an actually good point he came up just now while listening to them argue. expositional scenes dont have to be boring and lifeless?

of course its sweet to have them work together, but giving them light-hearted moments wouldnt have diminished that. theres just so much potential with the cast we have, and while they had a great foundation, the real potential was never really reached.

the way they neglect the strength of their ensemble cast repeats with who interacts with lunatic/yuri. and i know- kotetsu and barnaby are our main characters here, but sometimes i feel like hes in protagonist jail, because there are so many great interactions to pursue with him that could actually add something to the narrative!

nathan was kind of accidentally framed by him in s1, but we dont really get any follow-up on that. and for me, one of yuris greatest moments is in the manga when he saves keith (civilian) from dying while keith is trying to save the two criminals from dying himself, and keith is never none the wiser about it.

but thats more of a self-indulgence than a realistic critique, i imagine. however, from this i can get to talking about the heroes i didnt yet mention, because i can see so many ways to tie the supporting cast into the narrative and not just include scenes for “fanservice”.

the peripheral material has done this and more, why not include some of it in the show?

this is all mostly just a lot of musing on how underutilized everyone was, and how a lot of it felt disjointed and a bit wasteful of the time they had to convey the entire story.

ill start with keith: it was disappointing how he only smiled through the entire cour2, especially when you think about LL audun, who pretty much shares his “simple” worldview on heroism. we didnt even see him fight LL audun at all if my memory serves me right.

he didnt have any reaction to when the heroes get shelved, and keith arguably has pretty much no other life than being a hero, but he never has any sort of thoughts about the matter.

closest we get is firesky reminiscensing on the moments they had respectively gotten their hero suits, and keith remains one of the heroes whose backstory we know absolutely nothing about. i actually thought keith would drop some backstory lore there, but he didnt.

i feel that cour1 did a fantastic job on telling us what sort of guy he is in the episode nathan complains about him to kotetsu and barnaby: he is insecure despite all of his fame and how “perfect” he is without trying by nature, and he still he tries to act even more perfect to make sure other people would like him.

cour2 didnt really give us anything? i was genuinely expecting keith to break down at some point and that he was trying really hard to act unbothered to not make anyone else lose heart, especially after kotetsu remarked in cour1 that its keith and nathan who are really doing most of the advising around here and not himself and barnaby, the real senior buddy hero pair.

it wouldve not only given us a continuation of things from cour1 and given keith some sort of arc for the 2nd cour, but it couldve given us a character-driven moment used to show us why its kotetsu who is the protagonist even if we all know keith is such a picture-perfect hero.

ive always thought that kotetsu is more approachable than keith on purpose: hes a very normal person with normal concerns that are easy for many to relate to, and that is his charm and his strength, and he doesnt particularly stand out or excel, hes in the hero business purely out of his conviction and doing his best.

wild tiger isnt the most popular hero, but he has dedicated fans, okay! hes goofy and easy-going and meddlesome, and hes trying to make the world better, whereas keith could never be the protagonist in the same way kotetsu is because hes just too good, like how nathan found his projected perfection unnerving.

to let kotetsu participate in reassuring keith (since hes the protagonist and a busybody!) besides nathan as his buddy partner couldve served as a plot point to strengthen the idea that kotetsus various flaws are a part of what makes him great, and it couldve been used in tandem to again, interrogate the narrative about what heroism is, who can be a hero, and so on and so forth.

and with regards to my earlier thoughts about LL audun, keith represents the same type of ideal LL audun at least thinks himself to be, and the sort of ideal LL audun couldve embodied if they let me write t&b2, lol.

there couldve been some sort of plot-relevant parallel there that lets kotetsu actually figure out that LL audun is genuinely thinking hes doing the right thing and gregory was taking advantage of him- something to let kotetsu take the initiative in making LL audun question whether he actually is fighting against villains or not, because LL audun randomly questioning it himself was a bit too convenient.

it couldve been a time for kotetsu to shine with what he does best, trying to talk his brand of sense into the people hes fighting against, like how he always has a lot to say when hes facing off lunatic, or how in season1 his entire plan for making people remember who he is includes him showing up in his old hero suit and talking to them.

isnt that part of kotetsus charm as a protagonist?.. and LL audun wouldve been perfect for a discussion, because his personality wouldve lended itself to a very campy “two heroes having a dramatic discussion during a fight”.

i suppose i also personally dont need or want kotetsu be really good at fighting with the most powerful NEXT power, because thats not what makes him a fun protagonist. him goofing off and slipping on a banana peel on his way to an arrest makes him fun, and him talking the socks off of his opponents is just part of his way of being a hero.

kotetsu is into the whole “superhero flair”: heroes need to have secret identities, and heroes need to be a bit campy with thematic outfits and have dramatic discussions while they fight, and thats the spirit of tiger&bunny, isnt it? isnt that what were here for?

i at least never watched tiger&bunny for a yuri petrov suffering arc, when tiger&bunny has had an uplifting message throughout even if it tackles more adult issues due to the adult protagonists?

either way, to return to keith, i just feel like hes overdue for having that sort of very human moment to his character, because his nuance has largely been confined to manga and peripheral materials... it wouldve been nice to see him get a big moment on-screen.

even in cour1, the episode with firesky is largely shown to us from nathans perspective. having keith break down wouldve also been a great way to show how serious the shelving of heroes is and making the situation feel tense because keith especially is always so happy.

it couldve been a tipping point of sorts, where everyone starts to lose heart whether theyll manage to figure out the X rampage issue or not, because despite the boring seriousness of those scenes, i at least never felt a real sense of urgency or huge concern about them not being able to be heroes?

keith confessing that he is having a very hard time with the circumstances and making everyone visibly falter wouldve actually left an impact, and couldve let kotetsu shine as a protagonist by him trying to pick up the pieces.

it couldve also have bit of a callback to that scene where in the beginning movie hes called everyone together and claimed that the heroes and barnaby want to meet each other and everyone gets upset and leaves, one by one, but i guess it couldve been more that everyone leaves buddy pair by buddy pair since the season makes a big deal of pairing them up with them buddy pairs whenever possible.

it wouldve made me sad but not in an utterly desperate way because i know that the heroes will pull through and save the day, it wouldve been a good sort of sad.

this couldve also given nathan more of a spot to shine, because shes keiths buddy hero partner! she wouldve been there for him, but i also dont want to suggest any sort of reduction of nathan to a mammy stereotype-adjacent spot where her main function in the narrative is to take care of others, but more on nathan later.

the scene where nathan offers to hire keith as a secretary especially perplexed me and was left in the forefront of my mind. it was funny and cute, but thinking of keith losing his hero status and not immediately looking into civilian ways to help like finding volunteer organizations to sign himself up for them is so unbelievable to me, sorry...

and because i think cour2 shouldve used their episodes and screentime wisely, any such things with keith couldve been, again, tied to the bigger themes of heroism and such, right on the nose in fact! i dont think its far-fetched to have a moment of hopelessness by having keith break down and then reveal later on that hes signed himself up to ten different volunteer organizations when prompted by kotetsu.

one remark and everyone figures keith is so sad too, but hes still trying so hard to help?

keith is in many ways the best of them, and even if he was so crestfallen and suffering, hes juggling ten volunteer jobs at once even as people have complicated feelings about NEXTs due to the X riots and whatever. hes trying so hard to get people to like him and hes troubled by having NEXT powers and possibly putting people in danger if he lost control somehow (like, is he bad by showing up as keith goodman without admitting first thing he has NEXT powers, and also maybe without admitting hes sky high, as if it was a crime).

it was actually so odd how none of the heroes were ever really concerned about losing control?.. especially the heroes with powers that have the capacity to be really destructive?

and to return to keith, in my opinion he wouldve also suffered with the very human desire to be a hero again: its a huge part of his identity and it occupies almost all of his time! i think he would feel guilty that even if hes helping still in his own way by volunteering, he would specifically want to be reinstated as a hero.

it would feel selfish to him, that he has such a private desire. hes also extremely introspective and he canonically spends a lot of time thinking. he couldve delivered a very neat and conscise but very human monologue on the topic and it wouldve given the other heroes a great character-driven moment to share a bit more about how they feel about the situation?

to have our hero ensemble shelved from hero work and dedicate no scene for them to talk about how they feel about it specifically is such a waste, when it couldve showcased their personas and furthered the plotline by having them remember why theyre heroes in the first place and/or why they want to continue being heroes, etc...

what bothered me with firesky was that they also felt oddly separate from the rest of the cast at times during cour2 and the trailer made their role seem far bigger than it ended up being.

they had a bunch of nice scenes together that very funny and showcased their personalities, but i was very disappointing how those scenes kind of failed to tie into the main plotline so that they were just... there. even though theyve been a part of the main cast since the start:/

they didnt even get a major fighting scene with a big bad because LL audun knocked them out off-screen.

nathan suffers from many of the things keith suffered... she also didnt really have any significant role and well, it wasnt too bad i suppose, it was just oddly disjointed.

the heroes met up at helios energy, i think, but they couldve done so much more with nathans position as the CEO of helios energy.

it has always been a footnote in the show, even if the new manga shows us that nathan is aware of various changes in the hero system before anyone else by getting to participate in the discussions about those changes as her own boss! which is also weird ethically, but i guess its not taken so seriously.

it could have been easy to make nathan more prominent because of her CEO status. what if wed gotten to see the mayor talk to a wider board of people that included the owners of the hero companies etc and nathan was allowed to be there, hearing the talk about shelving heroes and being like wow! that certainly is a suggestion, but!..

this couldve also been used to emphasize that as his buddy partner nathan knows how important keiths job is to him? she couldve even alluded to how some heroes have really dedicated their entire lives to hero work and this is no joking matter!

instead of us getting scenes of the mayor and the assistant or somesuch, we couldve literally had a character there and given her a moment to shine while keeping it plot-relevant?.. she couldve given kotetsu and barnaby some insider knowledge on how to talk with the mayor, too?

i think her being a CEO and a hero is interesting because i dont think “CEO” is a very heroic civilian job, but i dont know if id want the series to ever delve into it overmuch because i dont know how it would be respectful to nathan who has suffered from being reduced to a homophobic/transmisogynistic stereotype before...

not like nathan is the only rich hero either, its just very different to gain income from only from hero work versus being a CEO. the peripheral material sometimes comments something about it like a gag strip making nathan say she wishes the heroes wouldnt go on a strike due to her being one of the shareholders.

what this does remind me of is that i dont think t&b2 really had any significant commentary on how money makes things go around? in s1, it felt kind of prominent. kotetsus old hero company literally went bankrupt and antonio suffers from his unpopularity driving down his sponsors profits.

its why the heroes have to also keep up appearances- its not enough to just be a hero, you have to work to be popular as well. in s1 kotetsu & barnaby cant go to a crime scene because theyre doing an interview and other popularity stuff so their hero alerts were cancelled for the duration.

we get the whole “ouroboros controls everything, actually!..” and a vague allusion to affecting The Economy, but thats it?

anyway, disregarding all of that, i feel like they couldve used nathans CEO status for something. what if she had put her career and status on the line to use her connections and money to reacquire the hero suits of those whose companies had really put them under lock and key...

i also think back to momentarily developing some sort of mega optimism brain rot and thinking that karina couldve had some sort of gay crush plotline with the girl who was trying to pretend shes rampaging and how incredibly sweet it wouldve if the noted LGBT icon of our lineup, nathan, gender-haver extraordinaire, had been able to support karina with that... like yeah ryan wouldve been there for her but... hes ryan. lol

overall, i thought the buddy pairs were fun, but man, i want to see the hero ensemble interact with everyone and not just one assigned "important” character per hero. it also made a lot of scenes a bit disjointed with how buddy pairs were a bit separated, in my opinion... it worked better when it was just kotetsu and barnaby, because theyre the main characters! of course theyll have more plotlines than the others.

one thing i already found a bit strange at the start of cour1 is that nathan didnt talk with antonio almost at all, and we know the new director is a huge antonio fan (which is actually funny to me, and you can see the antonio love shining through).

but.... in prior content nathan has also been regularly paired up with antonio, and i dont mean in a shipping sense (even if that has happened as well but it has only really been to make gags on nathan being creepy because of her poor portrayal before), just that theyve specifically been portrayed as friends before.

so it feels like nathan got sidelined purposefully while making antonio have that entire thing about agnes seep from mainly peripheral content into the main show... (i have a huge brain and am a gay antonio truther, btw.)

it left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth that someone who has some say over the happenings in the show (?) and loves antonio hasnt acknowledged their friendship in any way... and nathans portrayal prior has been unfortunate, so it wouldve meant something to see nathan get to be friends with antonio with the gross sterotypes removed?

its not enough to say things have changed and you want to improve on nathans portrayal: i want to fucking see it!

while their dynamic is funny, the above has made me worry that nathan and keith were paired as a buddy pair because the writers didnt have anything better to do with them and keith is “naive enough” to hang out with nathan without them having to address anything about nathan properly, and cour2 really didnt ease my fear about it.

like one thing nathan has done explicitly in various material is to behave in a specifically “boy crazy” way which i as a lesbian dont really care about, but i think it wouldve meant something to let nathan act in that way without making it weirdly creepy and uncomfortable, and instead let nathan be a whole person of her own.

i am a serial friendzoner of everyone except characters who havent interacted in canon (lmfao) but the purposes of respectfully portraying nathan and proving that the horrible stereotuping is over, i think there couldve been real narrative worth in her being canonically romantically interested in keith and have that relationship develop, to show that nathan is so much more than those creepy stereotypical actions forced on her characterization before.

it wouldnt have to be keith in the case they didnt want to introduce any romance between the hero ensemble, but any romance plotline for nathan couldve been used to show they really did want to improve on nathans portrayal like nathan would deserve.

it couldve easily been used for a scene in which nathan properly brings up their identity because sure, its been discussed some more in peripheral material and the rising improves on what she was given before, but still retains multiple harmful elements... and it just makes me mad to imply youre going to improve on stuff like this and then not do anything with nathan.

as far as i know, her civilian outfit in the rising seems to be inspired by a japanese comedians gag character called “hard gay”, whose ensemble includes a leather bodysuit, and hard gay isnt exactly a respectful portrayal.

i also love to read tiger&bunny opinions online through google translate, from people who would understand nathans identity/possible tropes better than i do by the virtue of being LGBT+ and japanese.

one of the things ive seen raised is that nathans declaration of self-love in the rising is more compassionate than their prior portrayal, but that it unfortunately is somewhat of a trope in itself given the wording of it, which i think further explains how i think nathan wouldve deserved a bigger role?

theres also the recurring issue of misogyny, because nathan specifically says (dirctly copied from netflix translation): “they say a man is made of courage, and a woman is made of love. so what does that mean for people that are gay? we are invincible!”

men being courageous and women being loving is a cliche, which they included as a narrative choice and is not nathans fault... and t&b2 really didnt improve on the baked-in misogyny, which ive already talked about...

and ill be honest, i dont know how nathan romance shenanigans couldve tied into the main plotline lmfao, but they couldve called back to s1 and keith asking the girls for romantic advice, except now it wouldve been keith with the younger girls in tow trying to advise nathan, which wouldve been funny.

it wouldnt even had to have been a fuck you to people who like firesky romantically, because nathans plans couldve fallen through (by for example having the guy have been an antagonistic force in some way, perhaps interested in getting close to a hero after theyve been shelved just for the gossip, like an evil reporter, to make a point about media) and they couldve included a buddy hero scene afterwards where nathan remarks how keith would not do that.

because its true, keith would not do that, and it wouldve given people something fun to elaborate on?..

instead of remarkable improvements for nathans character besides the passive “no more creepy things”, we also get that scene at the end of the skyfire episode where subarus quip comes across as somehow homophobic to me, and i genuinely dont know what im supposed to feel about it. if youre wiser, then please enlighten me.

at this point i realized that talking about each character individually might kill me, because i have so many opinions, and maybe i should focus on buddy hero pairs a little better since thats how they were given to us in s2.

i also probably have more opinions on keith and nathan than the rest because keith is one of my favourite characters and i do really like nathan too, im just frequently haunted by the narratives past crimes against nathan and the currently occurring crimes as well, lol.

talking of subaru, his buddy partner thomas, and his sister ruby, why didnt they do something with thomas and the fact that nathan has been mentioned to have a little sister she cares a lot about? that couldve tied into the plotline?

i was very surprised ruby had no particular role and felt very separate from the rest of the narrative, and how nobody except subaru seemed to notice thomas wasnt present?

subaru begrudgingly (because hes 17 and wants to be independent) asking nathan or the firesky duo for advice because kotetsu saw he was acting weird and pulled him aside to talk about it and directed him to nathan on the subject matter couldve been a fun addition.

it couldve again showed that kotetsus strength is more than just some imaginary scenario where hes the smartest and strongest with all of the answers, because its not true. kotetsu couldve put himself down about it like oh bunny, i couldnt do anything, see! its those two giving advice again!

but barnaby wouldve correctly assessed that its only because of kotetsu subaru is doing this, and without kotetsu meddling, nathan or keith wouldnt have noticed to help subaru either.

mr. thomas overall had an alright arc. ruby was introduced, but much wasnt done with her. i sincerely thought she wouldve been adopted by ouroboros after everything that happened in cour1 and the mentions of orphans.

this drives me up the wall, because yet again, they had an obvious route to question heroism and villainy, and who is a victim of their circumstances and what acts exactly are evil.

kotetsu and barnaby wouldve had a lot of sympathy for ruby just because of their own backstories and personalities, and nobody else wouldve been unsympathetic either?

ruby is reduced to “little sister who loves and supports thomas”, and thats all: she barely has any real agency, even if it was her who sought thomas out. her personality is “gentle and understanding”. she continues the theme of being a woman in the show being reduced to narrative vessels to make the guys of the show do or feel something...

i also talked about them a bit earlier, so i dont have much else to say.

but one huge unresolved plot thread is their entire company? why did they even introduce the owner and manager of jungle when they werent relevant? and why did they seemingly sabotage subaru in cour1 by having his PDA not go off when heroes were called?

i thought it was significant? i thought jungle was sabotaging him?.. nothing came out of that?!

origami rock kinda won... they had a lot of good scenes. antonio was clearly beloved by the narrative. ive also spent two days writing this post so im kinda sick of writing it and this is one of the last parts im bothering to comment about so itll be kinda short, but...

like i mentioned earlier, alcoholism was kind of painted as something evil people do and antonios drinking problem was kind of bypassed entirely, when i feel like its a major thing for him? in the KOW the rising schedule, he really goes hard in on drowning his sadness and loneliness in alcohol.

it was also made into a joke moreso, with antonio and ivan apparently having gone drinking together?.. i feel like a more healthy direction for antonio wouldve been them focusing on things ivan wants to do... like, ivan went out drinking? seriously?

i guess that does feel like a major step for him in the sense that hes less shy and far less mortified by knowing he did silly thinks while drunk which is good for him to be less self-conscious... but its also like... i dont know, just weird me out that antonio would introduce ivan to that part of his life, which i felt was just his loneliness coping mechanism.

last but not least, kid cat... they really got the short end of the stick. they even lived in a dorm together and nothing ever really came out of that? it felt like a waste. i already talked about them a little bit.

paolin didnt really get a separate arc but she did really shine in cour1 at least, and maybe its just me but the whole situation around laras mom and kid cat being shoved into it soured their entire thing for me, especially the part of paolin comparing laras mom to her own mom, again... oof. that shit hurted.

i disliked that paolin was pushed into somehow vaguely motherly/caretaker-esque role with lara with her even looking up those damn parenting books and her fun energetic and somewhat goofy personality wasnt so well preserved. i wish a girl character was allowed to be goofy while still having serious and cool moments: they could do this with subaru but not paolin.

i already talked about karina earlier, but again, even if its actually incharacter and natural for karina to be be “the responsible one” in her dynamic with ryan which i do enjoy, i cant help but notice the narrative forcing all girl characters into that sort of role... i would include nathan (haver of gender) in this, because i feel like being goofy on the occasion is very central to her as well, but hmm.

its not even that i dislike karinas and nathans dynamic with their buddy hero partners, its just unfortunate that all girlies had to do similar things, because i cant ignore it... t&b2 really goofed with that.

it disappoints me personally that even if i dont understand how it wouldve made any sense wrt the narrative, i wish paolin had allowed to show her gender non-comformity somehow?.. i probably had my hopes up after hearing about them essentially saying they want to add a bit of representation into t&b2.

but i suppose that mainly meant ruby mentioning she has two dads and the girl with an ex-girlfriend.

all of the girlies got sidelined, which ive already talked about...

i feel like karina got the most major arc which does make sense because shes more of a main character than the rest, but it was also taken a little bit too seriously in my opinion, i wish the characters clearly treated it as karina being a teen who has a crush on some old guy because teens do that.

it was also kind of like a waste for me... i didnt need so many scenes about it personally. shouldve made karina do things for herself.

i have to admit that for a moment i genuinely thought that karina talking to that fake rampaging girl about her unrequited love for an ex-gf was going to awaken some feelings in karina, lmfao.

another thing about mr.legend i didnt manage to fit anywhere is that we still dont know his name? hes just mr.legend, even yuri doesnt say his name. it makes sense, but narratively, this ensures that mr.legend remains the stuff of myths. it feels like this is what they wanted, but it sucks!

to give him a name behind the hero gimmick wouldve brought him down from his status to that of a normal human. ive always been certain that petrov is yuris mothers maiden name as well, so dropping mr.legends name wouldnt have immediately implicated “yuri petrov” of anything.

nobody even knows he had a family! it feels like maverick scrubbed all of that clean, just in case.

as for mattia, i think his character has worth but is used wastefully: not only is he the one to develop the drug that drives much of the plotline, he gives us more insight to the worldbuilding of t&b and normal peoples opinions on NEXT powers. he doesnt hate the NEXT, but if he could choose, he would have NEXT powers himself.

this sets him apart from other similar characters like ben or saito, who are both normal people at the periphery of the heroes without NEXT powers who have been portrayed heroically in the past, since he explicitly wishes he could attain a sliver of the heroism he sees barnaby have, and he thinks he needs a NEXT power to be able to do so.

this couldve been, yet again, used to reinforce the theme that heroism is so much more than just having a powerful NEXT power. mattia couldve also been used more intelligently, and while connecting him to barnaby is nice to give him a new friend, some of his functions couldve been covered by kotetsu or some other members of the hero ensemble.

it couldve worked better if, for example, the hero ensemble had more strongly reacted to suspecting mattia to have ratted them out. i already said that i think ryan wouldve been more than annoyed about it, but the moment couldve been used to showcase various characters and their reactions to it!

i think the moment couldve been drawn out instead of being immediately resolved, maybe even included something about how mattia needs to prove himself to not to be a spy for ouroboros, not because i think its reasonable, but it couldve meant something to have our heroes be utterly wrong about someone!

i come back to this again and again, but it couldve been used as a point that the heroes arent necessarily right just because theyre heroes, and that mattia couldve worked with saito and proven himself to act more “heroically” (alongside saito!) than how the heroes treated him.

and, unfortunately, the narrative itself undermines mattia because of auroras existence.

she introduces a huge plot hole for me. mattia has worked hard to try to develop a NEXT drug, and has actually gotten results, its just that he hasnt gotten the specific result he wanted: why doesnt he just mail that drugs composition to aurora and have her complete it, since her unclear NEXT power seems to have no limits and gives her a vast intellect without even trying?

in fact, when theres any sort of problem, why dont we ask aurora about it? if shes so important, why havent we ever heard of her before? her inclusion didnt feel natural at all.

i really hated aurora, because her character felt so cheap and gimmicky in every possible way. sure, she was foreshadowed in cour1, but since she obviously didnt exist in s1, it felt incredibly stupid that there conveniently is one single person ouroboros has to assassinate to ruin all relations between people who have NEXT powers and those who dont...

her power makes no sense: if shes so fucking smart and has been Thinking of ways to better the world for literally decades, then why capitalism all over the world?

i do think its realistic to expect she cant force the world to become an utopia, but the way shes introduced and dealt with doesnt really give me a well-nuanced view of her. she looks to the side and saves some lizard species form extinction with an idea.

i think her character couldve been interesting if they had used the whole season to set her up and i guess made the themes of the season somehow align with her and “not being able to fix the world alone no matter how smart you are etc” and included her as the brain and LL audun as the brawns and how neither of them could ever fix the world alone according to their opinions, and only in their bonds can our heroes find the most of their strengths, including connections with other people like how kotetsu could chat with a child in s1 to ease him down from his rampage at the ice rink etc.

buuuut i feel like that couldve been the plotline for some other season altogether. now that we know LL audun, he could get him back later and see how hes doing, etc... in the case he was given more nuance or something and not just sent back to jail, i mean.

theres also the moment where aurora opened her eyes and i guess i was supposed to feel it was significant but i genuinely didnt care. like okay. yeah i noticed that. no i dont care that the day was saved and “she felt comfortable closing her eyes again”.

was that purposeful?.. the implication that shes closing her eyes from the world?.. and she only opened them when she realized she personally was in danger?..

that was so wild to me, i still dont know what the purpose behind that was, but that certainly was how the overall arc felt about yuri. eyes closed, who cares if some guy suffers for no reason.

rosicky was interesting to me, and it was a waste she got shot before she could have any sort of discussion?.. she just felt like a cheap trick to get yuris body fucked up. it couldve been an interesting moment overall, but, well...

not like were going to get anything about yuri reacting to how all of that went down? so it was just... weird.

and then rosicky died and gregory "won” their little squabble, and i wish gregory had fucking exploded because lunatics been making some points and i fucking hate him...

also just to return to the ouroboros ties of the season, they made ouroboros so all-powerful it was stupid and lost a lot of meaning to me. like alright, they can do anything, why are we even fighting, and why is rosicky alone in charge of this operation... makes no fucking sense, its such a forced situation.

the ending of cour2 was... well, it existed. i mean, i dont personally mind kotetsu retiring for good overmuch i suppose, but i think with everything that happened (especially in the way i think things should have happened) he couldve just continued as proof that even people without NEXT powers can be superheroes...

and also as a some sort of proof that it was mr.legends refusal to change any part of his hero image that really did him in: kotetsu could cling to his heroism while accepting hes just a guy without powers and not make it such an issue.

and i suppose if he retires, i wouldve loved to see him take some sort of director-like role instead: i dont think he would be able to let hero stuff go completely, but him being a senior you ask for advice would still give him a lot of things to do.

right now its also a bit of my fear, if they have any thoughts of continuing tiger&bunny in any way ever and yuri had to die so that kotetsu could take over the spot he ended up occupying as a director...:( genuinely makes me make a sad face in real life.

by the point we got to the end they had already fucked up the entire premise and any message they wouldve hoped to send and if they had some sort of uplifting message after yuris death, i failed to understand it. but it felt like a giant fuck you to the fans of the show called “tiger&bunny” to get that last bit of tiger&bunny pair disbanding because of reasons.

i mean, theyre not even remotely my favourite characters and i dont think about them overmuch, but leaving it more open-ended wouldve been so much more fun for so many fans? they really fucked up the shows undercurrent of interrogating who can be a hero and why in the first place, but like...

yeah that shit sucked ass sorry. i dont even have anything to add. people who showed up to see more kotetsu and barnaby content getting that half-hearted discussion about where theyre gonna go from here and then showing their plaque in the “true heroes” hall...

i feel like it undercuts kotetsus character so much, because hes always been the “underdog”, and hes pulled through everything that came before this. they explicitly mention that hes been working really hard to supplement his waning power, and then leave it at that: if i was supposed to understand from that part that kotetsu isnt really retiring or anything, it didnt really come across due to the other circumstances.

and again, i dont even really care about kotetsu! its just that he really exemplifies the tone of the show as a fact, and i like to think i have a modicum of media literacy. and by undermining the uplifting message of the show, they directly undermined him, and by undermining him, they further muddied the spirit of t&b.

i feel like an ending i wouldve killed for is one that couldve included that sort of tour of a museum, but it wouldve showed mr.legend paraphernalia being moved away from “true heroes” and also included our protags being inducted in there if they so wished, but leaving it more open ended... and definitely proving that mr.legend was not worthy of being thought of as a hero.

it was weird that the second league isnt brought up at all during the entire season from what i can remember? i dont even have anything significant to say about it, but i think second league heroes are and have been important, just by existing, to the narrative asking the viewer who really is a true hero and who insnt and what it all means.

they just didnt care, just like they didnt care about that question and yuri. again, they fully ignored anything they had set up before, and kept introducing new characters when old side characters couldve been brought back.

i have some thoughts on the police chief being a younger version of the police chief from double decker... im unsure if the implication is that double decker is more than a spiritual sequel and its not just cameo, or if its something more.

mattia did off-handedly mention that hes developing now trying to develop a drug that takes NEXT powers away if i read and understood it right, which would, i guess, make a canonical disappearance of NEXT powers possible.

i have actually never seen double decker myself, but i understand it references tiger&bunny while being separate and clearly “in the future” from it, and as far as i understand, it doesnt have people with superpowers.

i personally think that imagining double deckers world as a canonical sequel to the world of tiger&bunny sucks, but i dunno what the real implication there is.

i also want to talk about the art direction of t&b2 since im airing out my opinions and complaints, so why not: the art direction kinda sucks. everyone has been smoothed and thinned down and the essence of t&bs charming style has been lost in some ways.

you can really see the jump between older art and the newer art with ryan, for example... ill talk about ryan now because this is my post and i love this guy.

he is downright ugly in some parts of the rising, and i love calling him ugly, but in a serious way, yes, i think hes explicitly supposed to be handsome (because what else does he have going on for him even except being loud and looking good lol).

hes just a different kind of attractive than barnaby who is pretty, and theres various scenes in the rising where you can see that barnaby has more of a button nose while ryan has a sharp, short nose, unlike yuri for example, who just has a large nose overall (and its his charm point!).

ryans most notable quality is that his eyes are drawn to look hooded and deep-set with straight eyebrows that make his strong brow even more prominent, and he usually has a very distinct wrinkle across his forehead.

and what does he look like in t&b2? certainly nothing like that.

i know that the rising has a much larger budget for the designs than the episodic show, and either way they wouldve had to simplify ryans design to translate it into the episodic format. and we all know the goofy parts of season1 they fixed in the bluray release...

that never was a huge problem, and i wouldnt mind it. yes, i guess ryan couldve been changed for marketing, but he looked like that through-out the entire movie and was hugely popular regardless and BECAUSE of how he looks. but its not just ryan, its that the art direction changed drastically, and it made all the characters look so much more generic and samey.

just after the scene i screencapped above, you can see barnaby and ryan from further away with less detail for a scene that passes by quicker, and you can see that less care was used to make them look good but they still were kept distinctive and different. (and sorry to barnaby, i caught him in in the middle of a movement, so he looks extra goofy.)

t&b2 doesnt even have a lot of scenes that i can remember that really let the chracters emote and make goofy faces: kotetsu has always been hugely expressive! i want to see him make a funny face! kotetsu is also the main character, and part of his thing is being an Old Man (even if he isnt even that old for real, but thats beside the point).

he has wrinkles around his eyes in that shot even if its not hugely detailed, and in contrast i feel he was very smooth in t&b2. the art direction felt as aimless as the bullshit plotline, and equally as uncaring towards established characters!

everyone was drawn very samey. another example to me is the scene in cour1 where thomas inspects keiths pectorals is just sad, because hes been thinned down like everyone else. what was there to inspect? absolutely nothing.

this screencap from s1 has more to inspect than the scene where keith is supposed to be noticeably buff. by the way, this entire scene with the girlies and keith has more personality and goofiness than most of cour2.

and heres a screencap of keith from that episode, where his face shape and features are distinct.

ts been a decade and i know that anime production has gone through changes in this time and netflix-style mass drop of episodes may be harder on people in general, but comparing my s2 screencap below to the screencap above just makes me miss the old style because im scared to but s2 keith next to the one above... his eyebrows were so sadly thin and so were his face and body.

you know, lunatic doesnt even have a distinctly large nose, and his eyes arent even particularly sunken and he doesnt have many wrinkles around his eyes like i think is charming for him, because everyone is just smoothed down... and the above screencap isnt even a good example of it, but the charming thickening of lines at some parts is entirely missing in t&b2 from what i can remember? i feel like the linework used to be stronger and more interesting overall.

anyhow, yes, t&b was also fixed up for the bluray release but i feel like the atrocious-looking parts are kind of funny to look back on. i wonder if theyll be editing s2 visually? (and please revise the entire storyline for yuri too, thanks.)

speaking of s1, where did this entire sentiment disappear to? into the ether?

also, i cant help but be plagued by thoughts because the episode i got those keith screencaps from, kotetsu & barnaby are interviewed by kids who are taking the reporting very seriously, and their reaction to kotetsu saying the person he looks up to is mr.legend is lukewarm at best.

then barnaby talks of his parents and robotics, and they light up, which is funny because barnaby is way more popular, but it also narratively, in my opinion, shows that especially the new generation of sternbild thinks mr.legend isnt that impressive and would be more willing to accept that despite the myths around him, he was a man who severely sucked.

theyre ready for new heroes to commemorate, ones that really deserve it, and they (even in cour1!) dont see lunatic as a villain but an antihero who protects them.

oh well.

thanks for reading, even if you didnt read all of it and just read interesting parts or skimmed through it! i guess writing this was like free therapy for me because i need to deal with how deeply yuris cour2 canon arc affected me lmfao.

i dont think ive ever been so blindsided and taken aback by the total surprise i felt at the direction his arc took and that definitely factored into how deeply it fucked me up because if i couldve anticipated that yuri could for example die, i wouldve been a lot more normal about it.

but out of all things, i cant believe that tiger&bunny would do that to me, and make me see all of that pain... genuinely fucked up not going to lie. fugan and mugan and their father being shot to death is one thing because its shocking of course, but yuri has been in the show since the start.

yuri has existed in the minds of people for over a decade, now, so it feels so unexpected they would so callously kill him off, it feels entirely uncharacteristic, and i feel like its not something that anyone couldve expected, and maybe it wouldve been less shocking if season2 had come out like, say, an another year after the rising...

but still, i dont understand how we make the jump from yuris portrayal and the overall themes of the rising into t&b2 and his role in cour2. its wild, i dont know how to get over it.

breathing through gritted teeth how i published a few fanfics with yuri in a huge hurry before cour2 dropped because i wanted to have them started in case some major yuri details drop and ill feel compelled the rewrite the yuri parts of them but huh... well.... cry laugh

i love imagining scenarios with my favourite characters, but i tend to include yuri in the core ensemble cast of heroes: trying to imagine any post-canon shenanigans feels so hard right now like watching a VHS reel that ran to the end and has to be rewound, and actually makes me incredibly sad.

theres that new audiodrama coming out with ryan featured in it and i cant even be excited because i just get sick, like physically... i guess imagining myself casually engaging with tiger&bunny content makes me feel like im spitting on yuris nonexistent grave. woe is me. fuck you tiger&bunny2 cour2. TL;DR - my opinions, this entire post condensed somehow:

the whole arc for yuri felt like a giant fuck you not only to him and all of the fans too, and same with the ending kinda

ryan was brought back for a fun cameo only because he never became plot-relevant really so what was the point lol? screentime waste

plot points set up in cour1 and further before were ignored and scenes were specifically used to counteract them?!

big misogyny moment for all woman characters of the show

hero ensemble overall was underutilized

new characters/excessive focus on side characters like the fucking mayor and the police chief in cour2 felt gimmicky and unnecessary and generally didnt add much worth. i dont care show me my funny heroes instead

they tried to do too many things and lost sight of why t&b has been so great and why the idea of a more self-conscious t&b is so exciting: of course the show has had a lot of flaws, like nathans initial portrayal, and to imagine a show that has the same spirit but improves on those flaws is amazing. its just not even remotely what we got</3

never expected a flawless show but there are flaws that you can headcanon away and there are flaws that undermine the entire theme of the show this far. i dont know how to make s2 any better after seeing cour2 without totally ignoring any of it happened

cour1 wasnt even bad. it was solid. shit just hit the fan in cour2

the art direction was a huge downgrade, but maybe it was just budget constraints, so i dont know how harsh i want to be about it.

leave a comment if you want, lo, i love to talk, its relaxing. i also mightve mixed shit up so dont embarrass me too much if you notice any overt mixups since i really did marathon the cour once and i dont know how i can bear to look at it again. i also have some confusion over some parts of the story which i detailed above in my manifesto so if you wanna educate me, please do, lmfao...peace out...

#tiger and bunny #tiger and bunny spoilers #meta #t&b2 #t&b

[centi-pedve]

hullo! if you adapted Island of Ideologies in another media, let's say a novel... would the narrator still be Five like in the first few pages of the prologue? someone else in universe (like Dr Slay. i mean. Dr Rose)? or an omniscient third person narrator? also what would change drastically (like things youd skip in a novel but not in a webcomic and vice versa)?

GIGGLES MENIACALLY. ohh ozymandias you read us so well for we have a fascination with media type differences.

we actually considered ioi as a novel at multiple points! so thankfully we've thought about it a bit prior. we imagine the narrator would be third person - the primary reason why we have five as the perspective character is because it's really hard to do comics in proper third person.. to us.. but third person we're more comfortable writing with, and it allows for more neutrality. dr rose would be such an interesting perspective character because he's a curious little beast to us but it probably wouldn't function well for the prologue specifically. for a lot of reasons but mostly just coming back to the fact that he's not a good person specifically in a way which would fuck the narrative a bit lol... he doesn't view most people as being as human as him, especially certain characters, which makes it kind of difficult to tell a story about humans doing human things, and his weirdo tendencies would be difficult to depict internally without also making us seem like a weirdo! it's fun to think about though.

as for what would change drastically... the dialogue omga... we're a novel writer before we're a comic writer and we think that kinda shows. so the way we go about dialogue has to be different by result of the fact that we don't have any other words at our disposal to make up for anything that might be lost in the dialogue alone that isn't also picked up by the visuals. most comic writers seem to more so have the perspective of This Is Just How Dialogue Is rather than feeling like they need to make up for the fact they can't make use of prose, so, we'd definitely be more in our comfort zone if it was novelized. maybe less melodrama in every syllable lmaooo

we don't think there's anything we'd Skip that would be like, notable, because story is story to us... if we can't include a certain necessary series of events in a piece of media then we won't consider it as an option. since comic stuff takes a LOT of time it's basically only scenes we feel are necessary, either because it progresses the plot or gives some sort of needed character insight. but if it was novelized we'd probably spend a bit more time on certain things to let scenes breathe.

despite us being more comfortable with novel writing, there's a few reasons why we didn't go with it... first, less and less people are interested in novels, ESPECIALLY if they don't fit into certain mainstream categories. meanwhile people are more likely to give a comic a shot even if they don't regularly read comics because it's easier for the average person to pay attention to. (we're kind of the opposite, weirdly, it's easier for us to read light novel adaptations of a series than its manga counterpart, but we understand what's normal for most people.)

second is. the character names are literally SUCH an issue that they could singlehandedly ruin any attempts at novelization. right now they're fine but once the focus shifts on the bajillion characters whose names are just different ideologies, it will become very. very difficult to read. if not unreadable. ideology names are wordy as hell and shortening them like anarcho primitivism -> anprim, would make it even harder to distinguish between characters despite being less wordy, because sure it's functional normally but not when anprim is in a scene with anmon, annatur, ansoc, and primprim. the general advice is to not have too many characters which start with the same first letter but we're performing overkill here. +, we only think memorizing characters would be possible if there was some sort of visual aid. even if you can't remember the name you can probably associate that specific character design with specific actions, which doesn't work in print. if you forget a name then you'll either have no clue what's going on or you'll have to search it up which is a hassle. if we ever used prose to tell any part of ioi then we'd have to make use of specific guidelines and be fairly intentional with what characters we use in order to not be confusing and awful.

#ioi #asks

[pompadorbz]

it's always been interesting seeing murder mystery game fans defend its murderers. Or rather like, the WAY they're defended as having been purely good and free of blame because of XYZ. like ofc they're given reasons to be sympathized with and in a game like danganronpa or something where this chapter's murderer was last chapter's buddy I'd say giving all the characters some kind of interesting quality is like. important. But also. Your honor they still killed that guy. under pressure and perhaps danger? yes. but also. they killed that guy you don't need to pretend they didn't. They're not a worse character because they killed that guy. Fiction is cool because there are no real world rammys for killing that guy. But there's been more of a spike in people thinking that they need to like only the morally perfect characters. I also see the inverse that directly results from this where the moment a character kills there are people who do blackflips to explain that this character sucks actually and they aren't interesting and they're. evil. Thus erasing all nuance in a game that. lets be honest has very little nuance in its character writing to begin with. I think the way danganronpa functions (i know i said murder mysteries broadly but lets be clear fellas. we all know what game this is about), more specifically the pattern of always having like, a protagonist a deuteragonist and antagonist kinda aids to this problem a little? Because then it shoves specific expectations onto one character instead of balancing that burden among the entire cast and like, tying their actions against and with the protagonist towards their own like. logic and pathos and what have you. If there was like a hypothetical dr4 (god i fucking hope not) I think you could do something interesting where like. the 1st chapter is how youd expect it to be. you meet your cast and then the hints of the main trio are established for that trial... Only for you to wake up in a DIFFERENT character's POV for the second chapter, and now their relationships are different and their views are different. They may notice things and details that protagonist 1 doesn't. They work better with DIFFERENT people and now you have a new trio of characters that you've already met in chapter 1, but maybe you're seeing them in a new light now. Then when later chapters occur and nobody is left you could get a character working by their lonesome, or bring in older characters from a new protagonist's perspective and maybe the person who was once the protagonist is now the antagonist or something. Kinda messy but I feel like you could work with it. This would also totally erase the issue of like. certain characters feeling underutilized because it could realistically give all of them a chance to be in the spotlight and to help. No character would feel shunned away... They can all get figures this wonhobby....

#syd spiels

[averyspoopedcorgi]

for the ask game would you like to do eichi and mayhaps even.. tatsumi…….

atsa!!! i knew u were gonna give me tattsun lol but eichi is a welcomed suprise

i hope u dont mind some of my answers being short or shallow cuz I haven read many stories and most of my character thoughts are gibberish :,)

ok ei-chan first

favourite thing about them: his whole character, how complex he is the guilt he feels for his actions I like that he isn't some irredramable villain but just somebody who wanted to save something he loved dearly by any means possible (I hope I'm correct about the last part I haven't read about the war in a while) also half the batshit insane stuff he says is hilarious

least favourite thing about them : I have nothing I particularly hate about him I suppose he monologues are so long sometimes they make me wanna take a break from reading lol

favorite line: pretty mission epilogue only comes to mind from what I've read

brOTP: hell dorm but mostly aira, something about them bonding over their love for idols also chiaki i wanna see them interact more

OTP: the emperor and the his funny clown (wataei) have a vice on my heart

nOTP: romantic reichi or just him with any oddballs that aren't wataru or keito x eichi idk why they just rub me the wrong way

ramdom hadcanon: hell dorm movie which in reality r just aira and eichi watching idol mvs while rei snnnzzs

unpopular opinion: STOP MAKING JOKES ABOUT HIM DYING WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE YES YOU CAN HATE FOR THE SHIT HE PULLED BUT SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO REALISE THAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT A CHRONICALLY ILL MAN DOSENT MATTER IF HES FICTIONAL <- mad about marriage poll

song i associate with them: im soso sorry ive got nothing ; ;

favorite picture of them: babygirl or tiger eichi i cant pick

ok tattsun time!!!

favorite thing about them: the way he talks about his faith is so interesting....youd expect him to spout bible verses left and right but after reading feather touch and his conversation with aira just reshaped him in my mind, theres so much i like about him but this i what really scratched my brain

(also more meta but i like that him being chirstian isnt treated as a joke if that makes any sense )

also also vehicular manslaughter

least favorite thing about them: bastard will not come home no matter how hard i try. i wasted hot limit funds on his revival still nothing. i have every alk five star except him. what did i do tattsun senpai/hj

favorite line: feather touch but specifically the convo with aira. thats all

brOTP: aira and tatsumi. literally the senpai-kouhai friendship of all time

also christian rock drom with koga and leon theryre all besties canonically what else does a guy need (also they take leon on walks together and i think everyone should know that)

OTP: gee i wonder what it is *standing in front of a pile of tatsumayo fanart*

nOTP: idk really??? any of his juniors ig

random headcanon: koga taught him how to play the guitar!!! now you can always hear the distinct sound of christian rock from thier dorm room

he loves dogs like really loves dogs but could never own one cuz he lived in a church for most of his childhood so hes beyond overjoyed to share a dorm with leon

also cane user and bisexual tatsumi is soso real to me

unpopular opinion: stop treating him like hes some white queerphobic christian whats wrong with you people stop acting ;like every christian is terrible

song i associate with them: ah abuseken's christ and guchiry's orthodoxia

favorite picture of them: naur who let bro drive

#again im sorry if any of tjis sounds wrong im no good at getting my thoughts across TT #proxys barkings

[fearowkenya]

okami is still the gift that keeps on giving. when i last cleared the entire game i was like "ok this time for SURE i have seen the whole thing and all of its secrets" but no. in THIS playthrough ALONE, ive learned:

you can make friendly fire happen between two enemies; not ALL of them, but it works on imps at the very least

using trees in combat actually does damage some enemies a fair amount! i actually think it interrupts some attacks but i have to experiment more

using a cherry bomb on an npc outside of combat is EXTREMELY FUNNY, particularly on imps

ringing the epicurean bell BEFORE orochi's appetizer is ready spawns a blue scroll

someday i might make a video about 'okami secrets' but honestly idk how many of them are all that hard to figure out. because of how many times ive played this game idk what things are or arent considered obscure. anyway, here are some of my favs

if you power slash heaps of snow in kamui, youll sometimes get snow sculptures of certain characters

How The Sun And Moon Techniques Actually Work (this ones more of a theory, if u care to find out, it's below)

you can smear ink on enemies to get them to flail around and farm demon fangs off of them with the reflector sub-weapon counter

drawing a circle around npcs makes most of them run over to pet ammy

that previous thing notably does NOT work on waka , but it still consumes ink and plays the sound effect as though it DID work. i LOVE that because it implies to me that waka DOES feel a pull to go pet ammy like the rest of the npcs, but is capable of resisting it

you can't headbutt waka! he sorta shimmers and evades you and you can never hit him.

you can find the real raos skeleton in the tunnel that connects the palace in sei-an to ankoku shrine

theres SO MUCH specific dialogue that youd have to actively seek out in order to see. for instance, everyone in kamiki village has unique dialogue if you talk to them while susano is on your back instead of taking him directly to the rock at the village entrance

OH I JUST REMEMBERED; if you draw a circle around any of the wep'keer villagers, instead of running to pet you they will shift into their wolf forms.

okami good. and like...this game came out in 2006. could you fucking IMAGINE how much neat stuff could be possible if they made a Actual Sequel with modern game engines. capcom . im looming behind you capcom do you fucking hear me are you listening capcom im

ALSO theres a lot of stuff that had me wheezing in confused fear during my last full playthrough. a lot of it pertains to lechku & netchku and the events surrounding their fight. like i have reason to believe that the intro legend about shiranui and orochi is wrong, but im not gonna make a post about it until ive gone through and played the whole game again, paying particularly close attention to the past-kamiki and ezofuji segments

ok im elaborating on how the sun and moon techniques actually work, as i understand them

i was halfway through writing up a thing about how these techniques don't actually let you control the position of the sun and the moon, and instead just changes the time. but then i remembered that no actually thats not true, since a lot of puzzles require you to have the sun or moon shining on a specific thing !! so in that case YES you are changing the position of the sun/moon. also the mechanic is LITERALLY you drawing the sun and moon in the sky so what the hell was i even talking about.

yes, without a doubt, ammy can control the position of the damn sun or moon as she sees fit, which affects the amount of light on the planet and changes the "time" to "day" or "night". the reason time is in quotes there is because if you are UNIQUELY changing the position of the sun/moon, the flow of time would be unchanged. unless you are looking at a sundial, man-made clocks WOULD NOT change if the sun was suddenly in a different place.

BUT WAIT! if you go to sei-an city and stand somewhere so that you can see the clocktower, then use the sun/moon technique, the hands on the clocktower start to move REALLY FAST until they correspond to the time that reflects the technique you used. which means that ammy changing the position of the sun/moon DOES affect the literal flow of time*.

heres the (in-universe) theory part: i think that the sun/moon brush skills at their core are techniques that let ammy control the flow of time by using the place she draws them as a reference point. i think if she wanted to, she could kinda 'scrub' through time the same way you would for a recorded video, but drawing the sun and moon is just easier, faster, and more fun.

im doubling down on this idea because in the beginning of the game when you first get out of the tutorial zone and into kamiki, there's no sun, no stars, no moon, nothing. all of the villagers are statues. i think that orochi's revival caused time to stop, which would explain why drawing the sun is what fixed the problem. by drawing the sun, ammy re-established the flow of time and got it moving again. im willing to bet that the moon technique would have worked just as well, but at that point in the game you obviously dont have access to it

now that i think of it, there are a few more brush techniques that you could argue are time-based. im less confident about those , so i'll list them but refrain from elaborating for now because it would require me to double check some stuff and i dont want to do that right now. also id be here for HOURS. anyway , other than the mist technique, the ones that i think COULD have something to do with messing with time are rejuvination and bloom. *as a side note, im pretty sure when you change from night->day or day->night it moves time forward, but im not sure what it does when you use sun/moon techniques to "reset" the current part of the day.

for instance, when im running around an area looking for stray beads and treasure, theres lights that shine on the spots youre supposed to dig, but only at night. instead of waiting for daybreak , when i hear the owl noise that happens like halfway through the night, i use the moon technique to "reset" the night back to the start. i started doing this because when i was a kid i saw that when you change the time of day , the villagers go "?????" and i felt bad for confusing them. i digress.

i'd be curious to find out since the game keep tracks of how many "days" (day/night cycles) it takes you to complete the game. i want to know if "extending" the night/day moves the "clock" an entire day ahead, or if it moves it back to the start of that original day/night. i can't remember off the top of my head if the number of days affects your overall score for the entire game, but i imagine it doesnt (or if it does, not by much) because of how often you need to be using sun/moon tech to solve puzzles.

#mattie chatters

[lemoneychicken]

Give us the hazbin hotel shitty cosplay dance breakdown king, the world needs to know

okay <3

one major reason that it looks so strange is because im 90% sure that they are trying to replicate shots from the music video. ive never seen it myself but ive seen screenshots from ppl memeing on it, and judging on their posing an how many cuts there are, i think thats a pretty safe assumption. they arent technically pulling off the actual dance moves incorrectly but because they are attempting to mimic the movements of a highly stylized animated character its going to look weird regardless- especially the shots with them lying on the ground. sometimes you just cant replicate the vibe of an animated movement with a real person, especially with dance moves that arent... really dance moves.

another detail (or lack thereof) is the backdrop. while the idea of using a bg from the media youre cosplaying could work in the right context, its certainly not a good fit for that cosplayer dancing. the background is barely shaded, making it all look very flat and empty. their dance moves on the imaginary stripper pole specifically feel so much more awkward because of this- its incredibly clear they are in a fake environment yet they clearly intend for us to take that video seriously.

lastly, an this also ties into the backdrop, is how plain it all looks. music videos are flashy, with a song like that youd expect dramatic neon lights! but theres flat lighting on themselves, and zero lighting on the background. (i know that theyre some some cosplayer with a phone but they could use the same editing program they used to key in the background)

its so lifeless and the lack of lighting + the vacant backdrop png make their quote unquote dance moves look even worse, and they all mix together to remid you that thats just someone alone in their bedroom swinging their legs around thinking theyre hot shit

....sorry to get a bit mean at the end there. anyways, thats why i think its not the greatest to look at

#if this hsows up in the tags im exploding myself #no hate to the cosplayer btw. im sure they get enough flak for the vid #though maybe pick something else to watch

[gludgenbell]

I get jealous over my fictional crush when he was shipped with another character (I’m unsure if they’re Canon but fandom sites defend the ships a lot). What should I do?

hrmmmm see I'm not the best person for advice and this one's a bit tricky

but I think what youre feeling is understandable

I got jealous over a joke oc pairing between some friends and I and while I cooled down quick after stating that I was jealous and it stung a bit more than it prolly should have because I was very attatched to a specific pairing, this was the set pairing that would continue, and I adored the characters that were in it- so the joke pairing being made felt like a 'well wouldnt this be better' after I held this other thing so closely

what helped me out at that moment was stating I was jealous, that it stung, and that I needed a second to cool off and understand that itll be okay either way

I dont get too jealous often, so my advice is pretty shit, but I think taking a moment to think about it all might do you well? Its what I tend to do for things

thinking about what exactly draws you to the character, why youd be jealous and if its something you could come around to being okay with, but give yourself time yknow yknow

#I hope that helped a little.... #gludgen answers! #anonymous #I'm not the best with advice so I dont recommend coming to me

[1990jeevas]

What obscure character design headcanon do you have for the dream smp members?

oh fuck okay these r gonna be super dumb and random but. let's go

wilbur soot

has a bunch of lil scars from his childhood, half of which he doesnt know the origin of

im a techno wilbur twin supremacist so both of them had reddish brown hair growing up, but technos got lighter as he grew up and wilburs got darker

bumpy nose from getting it broken as a child a few times (at least once by techno, though it was an accident, and once by tommy, probably on purpose)

technoblade

collects gold jewlery and wears all of it, even if it cant be seen. because of this, he has a bunch of piercings (specifically picture him with septum and both sides of his nose pierced and basically every ear piercing known to man)

big tall giant man with the broadest fucking shoulders and the tiniest waist. would be one of those dudes that kpop stans make waist compilations of

tubbo

you know those hcs of him having ram horns? yeah that but the horns are so small that they're not visible and you only really know they're there by feeling em. stubby lil fuckn things they are

canon height is smaller than his irl height. make that bitch 5'3"

long, pretty eyelashes!!

tommyinnit

lots of scars on da hands and arms bc he's a rowdy child

he still has braces idc idc

very freckley like as many freckles as a fuckn redhead or smth

baby faced mfer

schlatt

horns are quite damaged but it's only really noticeable up close/with feeling it. they're very rough in some parts, smooth in others, and have a lot of cracks in them, if not some pieces chipped off

tag on da ear, ya know, like a sheep.

puffy

lightly freckled around the temples and chin area

wide hips, small shoulders

ranboo

has stereotypical feminine features in the face

another broad shoulder, tiny waist combo, but not as drastic as techno

give him a tail...but with a pretty ring on it.......perhaps a gold one

suit has pretty black detailing on it but you can only see it when you look for it

pocket watch type beat bc i said so

dream

i drew dream with a mullet once as a joke but it kinda fucks so. mullet dream

very freckley but not as freckley as tommy. mostly on nose, chin and cheeks

pretty boy eyes. very wide with long lashes

fundy

one of those teens who has Not Bad Facial Hair. has a cute lil goatee

idk i picture him looking something like baptismonfire but more compact lol

another short king, probably 5'3"-5'5" range, but he wears some sneaky heels

like shoulder length hair, can be put into a ponytail if he so pleases

#hope this is what u wanted #i could give some for more specific characters if youd like #dream smp #/dsmp #also just a general cw for if u dont know who baptismonfire is and u look up like his ig specifically #his page features bugs blood and just general horror type stuff #check his yt if u wanna avoid some of this stuff #shit self #asks #bangerz