#and i get some people maybe what to differentiate between different lore is they want but like at least call it casual lore

[centipedelightning]

Hey. Hey psstttt Valentine you should totally tell us all the ways Papyrus shows his Autismcore Swagger(tm) 👁️ 👁️

This is gonna be a dissertation good god. Toni you don’t know what you’ve brought into the world. Also this isn’t really gonna be a “look at all the way’s he Is autistic!!” As much as look at all the correct reasons he’s autistic so I will be covering a lot of character misconceptions.

The correct and lore accurate reasons why Papyrus is autistic (and debunking some incorrect points bc I can’t stand misinformation) in no particular order. A whole lot more under cut.

Safe Food

a lot of people consider spaghetti to be Papyrus’ safe food or something but papyrus hasn’t even eaten his own food.

You might be able to argue that him making spaghetti all the time is a weird habit or missed social cue, but it isn’t a “safe food”. Hell, him not eating his own food is why he constantly misses social cues about how it’s actually super bad.

Face Blind

Is face blindness an autism trait? Tbh I’m not sure, but I‘m autistic and mildly face blind so I’m bringing it up. Papyrus seems relatively unable to tell the difference between faces. He does not recognize that Toriel is a different person from Asgore.

You might also be able to make a case about how he refers to Frisk as “Human” the whole time because he can’t differentiate than from others but that’s not really a strong point, so it’s being skipped.

Sarcasm/Humor

Humor is under this section for a very important reason: PAPYRUS’ MAIN SENSE OF HUMOR IS DEADPAN SARCASM. I’m not sure where people got the idea that he misses sarcasm tbh.

He’s joking here.

Another joke.

Listen, I am autistic and make the exact same types of jokes. Deadpan, obvious lies are so funny, but people usually miss that it’s a joke. That’s the case here. He’s just making jokes without making it clear with tone or phrasing that it’s a joke.

I just want to highlight some of his wordplay/puns bc people refuse to acknowledge that he likes puns too.

Another joke. Also he has a style of humor where he just stumbles into what he thinks is funny and commits to the bit even if the joke doesn’t really work and he’s so real for it.

Difficulty Lying

I don’t have any screenshots for this section because I’m not actually sure where people came up with this. Maybe it’s that his lies are super easy to see through, but he actually lies All The Time.

This is jumping ahead a bit, but the reason Papyrus’ speech is all caps is because he’s lying. If you go back a bit and reference fighting Migosp, until you get rid of the Whimsum that fights with them, they’ll speak in all caps. Once you spare the Whimsum, the Migosp’s case goes standard because it is not putting up a front.

Papyrus speaks in all caps because he is constantly lying about how cool and confidant he is. In reality, he’s very lonely person with a lot of insecurities.

If I can find the post about case setting and lying that I saw years ago, I’ll link it here.

Special Interests

He absolutely has a special interest in puzzles/puzzle making.

he spends a lot of his time making, thinking, and reading about puzzles. There’s no way this isn’t his main special interest. He also gets annoyed that Sans doesn’t recalibrate his puzzles as often which is so reflective of someone that’s into your special interest but not as much, so you get really annoyed when they aren’t as involved as you are.

tbh he might be joking here but if taken as a fact, that’s not normal!! That is not a normal level of enjoying something! (If true) he walked his ass over to the cliff and spent who knows how long painting it to make it look like a rope bridge, all for the sake of one puzzle. That’s autism levels of liking things baby.

He also has a lot of robot action figures so I’m saying he likes to collect them bc I collects dolls. MTT might also be a special interest, but I think it’s more that Mettaton is like the only celebrity other than Undyne down there.

Misses Social Cues

This one is easy and the most obvious. Very often Papyrus will miss social cues and facial expressions.

We know that his food is practically inedible, so this would obviously not be a scrunch of pleasure.

And here we see that he completely misreads Frisk’s face. Maybe he’s intentionally being dense but I highly doubt it. This paired with the supposed face blindness is screaming autism.

Voice Level

…..

I think people aren’t gonna like this one but it’s so often cited as a reason he’s autistic that I need to acknowledge it. I don’t think Papyrus has a volume issue. I think if the theory about all caps=lying then we can pretty safely assume all caps are not inherently indicative of loud speaking.

Undyne is a loud character. A lot of her voice lines end with lots of exclamation marks and very expressive sprites. She specifically only has words in all caps for emphasis because italics (as far as I can recall) aren’t used. Papyrus, on the other hand, is always in all caps, but rarely has things like added exclamation points to denotaste loudness.

That’s all to say I don’t have a strong opinion about the matter. You can bring up how, psychologically, people tend to raise or lift their voices in volume or octave when telling lies, so Papyrus may still be a louder character than most.

Love of Organizing

This one I found while looking for certain voice lines so there’s not much commentary.

He greatly appreciates when things are organized in a certain way, and especially when that way is visual.

Echolalia/Making Up Words

Another small section.

small example of repeating words (echolalia)

One of a few examples of him making up words

Difficulty Making Friends

Yeah this is one of the few sections people so manage to correctly cite. Papyrus has a huge problem making friends. Hell, most of his voice lines are about how he wants friends and capturing a human/joining the Royal Guard will get him that.

Other than his brother, Undyne is the only person Papyrus can really call a friend. Even then, the only reason the two are friends is because Undyne pitied him and agreed to “train” him. That’s not exactly standard friend making.

When Papyrus does have the chance to make a friend a bit more normally, he gets a manual from the Library.

*note that this voice line is only from the hangout, if the player chose to flirt with him, i would be a dating manual*

Do you think allistics need a manual on how to act normal and make friends? No of course not. He also is very strict in following the manual closely as to make sure he makes a friend “properly”.

he’s flying blind here y’all.

Also, he’s very emotionally intelligent and I think people overlook that. In the hangout, he’ll tell the player that he doesn’t like how they’re speaking to him and gives them genuine (and good) advice about having more than on friend so you don’t obsess over/overwhelm said friend.

Routine

Unless Sans was joking, which in this case I doubt, Papyrus has been wearing his battle body every day. For weeks.

It’s a comfort item and something that he clearly has gotten very comfortable having on all the time.

Whether or not the puzzles need recalibration, Papyrus makes it clear he has a set routine and needs it to be done. This specific screenshot is also an example of the “wanting people to be as into your special interest as you are” thing I mentioned earlier.

Strong Sense of Justice

Papyrus feels very bad telling a lie that conflicts with his friendships, and has to come up with a convoluted reason to eat around it.

I don't think this needs further commentary.

That’s all folks! I can’t say just how exhaustive this meta is, but it’s damn near it. I tried to pull up a list of basic autistic traits but gave up once damn near immediately. Autism Speaks I am hunting you down. Anyway, there’s more examples I could have pulled but I really dont want this to be a mile long post.

#undertale #Undertale meta #papyrus #papyrus meta #ut!papyrus #character analysis #do I need a ‘not a fic’ tag or something? #Oh well #autism king #autism #•centipede writes• #•centipede talks• #i dont want to proof read god #So I’m not gonna :3 #undertale analysis

[ceruleanwhore]

I just want to talk about some ikevamp qualms I have real quick because I have THOUGHTS I have FEELINGS and I have OPINIONS, dang it.

First up is that I just really question why they chose to include the people to did. Like no shade, but I wouldn’t exactly count Arthur Conan Doyle as a “great man of history” or whatever. Also, Napoleon as a choice makes no sense given that irl Napoleon brought back the monarchy and freaking slavery but the ikevamp version is all like ‘ohhh I just want a world where everyone is equal’ and it sure seems like they never bother to explain any of that or make it make sense. Instead of retconning the everliving shit out of Napoleon Bonaparte, I feel like they should’ve just gone with a different person. For example, I would fucking LOVE to be able to have Emiliano Zapata my beloved as a character in here and he’d be a perfect replacement for Napoleon since he’s basically everything they’re trying to retcon Napo into.

Also, this is definitely personal and comes from my experience as an English major studying the stuff I did, but I wish to fucking GOD they’d just gone with Chaucer instead of Arthur and I deeply, sincerely wish they’d just characterized Shakespeare correctly instead of the bullshit they did to him. Imagine real quick a version where the good, correct version of Shakespeare gets to chill with Geoffrey Chaucer, his own inspiration, and they could just go off in Middle English with a bit of a mess due to Shakespeare living and just writing and speaking English during the Great Vowel Shift, like we were fucking robbed. 

That’s another major thing that bugs me is all the missed opportunities to have more with the relationships between the residents based on mutual nerdiness. People have already talked about how the real Arthur was a major history nerd, so we could’ve had him and Sebastian/Akihiko being besties and geeking out over the history shit together. I also just saw something about how apparently Da Vinci might’ve actually come up with the idea for gravity before Newton, so why tf don’t we have science bros doing science shit together, huh? Why couldn’t we have another musician who isn’t Mozart, like maybe fucking Bach or someone with a wildly different style, so we can get that dynamic of them kinda fucking hating each other and thinking the other person makes shit music or whatever but then they’ll turn around and have long chats because they’re the only ones who can really talk music theory with each other?

Another qualm I have is with how they go about the actual vampirism. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the lore and structure of it and how they differentiate between types of vampires, but that’s not what I have a problem with. What I have a problem with is how all the ‘normal’ vampires, as in not the purebloods, tend to come across like they’re just humans who live longer because Cybird just chose to not include most vampiric traits. Anyone who isn’t a pureblood has a long but limited lifetime, can apparently get sick and be injured just like a human, can go out in the sunlight, and the only vampiric limitation is the need for blood, which in the story is taken care of and perfectly ethical with no problems so it’s literally just like if you had to drink a liquid supplement every day and that’s fucking it. Where’s the pizzazz, jfc. I want shit like the Vampire Diaries utilizing the thing about needing permission to enter a house, or any of the various creative takes we’ve seen on the sunlight aspect. I want Da Vinci to openly admit he made up the garlic thing just to fuck with the humans and the counting thing was Comte’s idea, or actually use shit like those bits from vampire lore. Like what if there was a version where we could get Da Vinci just spending a lifetime cursing how much it fucking sucked living in Italy for so long as someone who can’t eat garlic or whatever? It would just be so much more interesting and have so much more flavor if they weren’t all just a bunch of glorified humans with really long lifespans.

Okay and then the last thing, I promise, is MC/Mitsuki. I think my biggest qualm that I can actually identify and explain properly is how in like every single fucking route (except Vlad’s) she goes home and stays human and it’s so boring to just have that one same decision from her basically every single time. What I think would be better is if the two endings would give different choices so there’d be more variety. I’m not saying that like the dramatic route should always be set up so she gets the bite or some shit like that, because that would be even more boring, but I’m saying within each route, she’d make different decisions depending on the ending. For example, maybe in one route the two different choices are just that either she goes back home to her time and brings her bf with her or she stays at the mansion, but either way she stays human, whereas another route might have it so no matter what she will stay in 1800s Paris but it’s a question of if she gets turned or not. Now, maybe they’re starting to move more towards something like that, but most of what I’ve read is all the same, so I personally haven’t seen anything yet like that.

Anyway, no hate, but the way I engage with stuff I like is by picking it apart like this and also this is the sort of thing that I can really only stick on here lol

#ikevamp #ikemen #ikemen vampire #cybird ikemen #cybird otome #cybird #ikevamp criticism #ikevamp critical #but no hate

[ask-obt]

Is Inigo asexual or aromantic? I remember it being mentioned as asexual but he often talks like he just doesn't have romantic feelings for others.

// I've always used sexuality/romanticism labels interchangeably due to my own personal experience of living in the middle of nowhere where a lot of the folks here have a hard enough time understanding sexuality, let alone romantic attraction and the difference between them. I guess that muscle memory is something that carried over to OBT a bit when pride month comes around? Of course I understand the importance of using such labels for a lot of folks, and encourage people to use the labels they identify with! I myself am on the asexual spectrum and am biromantic, and I write Inigo as demi/ace- but for both of us, I would casually use the romanticism label as the catch-all term to describe attraction (so I'd call myself bisexual, and him asexual/demisexual).

I will be delving into some more pondering about how sexuality works in OBT's worldbuilding below the cut here- I will give a soft CW for talking about sex as a concept.

(Adding this parenthetical after the fact, but for those out of the loop, sexuality = sexual attraction, and romanticism = romantic attraction.)

This does bring up how sexuality and romanticism differ in OBT- I quite frankly don't really like the idea of pokemon reproducing sexually in my own comic's lore, so the worldbuilding makes it so they don't need reproductive organs to reproduce. And I don't think the process of creating eggs by blending aura imitates the sensations and experiences people feel when they do have sex in real life. Maybe pokemon would feel a little energized after? But I don't think it'd be exceptionally pleasurable.

So when you take out the pleasure part of sex, it stops becoming a recreational activity and a bit more clinical... The only real reason poekmon would participate in OBT's aura breeding is to create an egg. So how does irl sexuality translate into OBT's world?

While writing this post I thought maybe sexuality could indicate the willingness to have children and start a family, but that would really alienate the experiences of people who enjoy sex as a bonding experience and just want to get closer to their partners without committing to a whole family. I also thought about sexuality maybe being just cuddling? Though for me I consider kissing, hand holding, cuddling, etc. to be what differentiates a romantic relationship from a platonic one. Maybe there's still a form of heavy petting in the world even without genitalia that would constitute the label of a sexual experience? (I certainly don't think genitalia has to be involved to have sex haha)

But to be honest I don't really think about it that much since it doesn't interest me.

So I guess the conclusion I boiled it down to for OBT's world is that sexuality/romanticism end up being the same thing. I do still believe some characters are more into physical contact than others- Inigo would probably be less interested in kissing and cuddling than Dielle, who is very touchy-feely.

#on borrowed time comic #ask-obt #ooc #sexuality #I do miss these sort of thought experiments though #if your college has one- take a gender and sexuality studies class. they're super fun

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

My conversations with @twobellsilence have given me an idea.

A way to explore these characters beyond just the story.

There are two ideas we came up with.

A. Individual character stories like SFV where it outlines where the character will be during the events of the story.

B. Make the individual character training more like Konquest from DA where you get lore snippets.

If they were to choose any, it’d probably be the second option because that costs less resources.

So, what would this hypothetical training mode look like? Imagine like an updated version of Konquest. But instead of explaining the origins of the characters fighting styles and weapons, it’s used for lore. This can be used to great effect on new characters. Maybe there would be a visual novel esque style instead of just a monk on a journey.

For example, let’s assume this is a game where the other Kombat kids appear instead of being shafted-

There is an ancient technique in the Cage lineage. A powerful technique to bring any opponent to their knees. Perform the ball buster on your father three times. You don’t need a sister anyway.

Cassie enjoyed watching her dad’s films as a kid. She still does, but for different reasons. He promised to teach her a few moves from his latest film. Make him proud.

Bi-Han may have not been the kindest man, even to his allies. But Kuai appreciated the little tutelage he gave. Perform the ice ball.

Despite the alliance between the Lin Kuei and Shirai Ryu, some habits die hard. Spar with Hanzo, for old times sake.

Erron Black is a skilled mercenary and an even better shot with a gun. This Shang Tsung fellow wants a job done. Tell the old man you don’t take a job for free.

Training with master Bo’ Rai Cho was certainly a difficult experience. Jin’s streetwise past gave him unique Kombat experience. Put the drunken master on his ass.

Frost’s cybernetics maybe be less armoured than Sektor’s, but they outclass him in many ways. Show him his obsolescence!

The saurian people can possess mainly reptilian traits. Reptile specialises in invisibility. Perform invisibility, then this combo on Johnny Cage.

While he is not at the level of his father, Takeda’s latent telekinesis is nothing to scoff at. Demonstrate to Master Hanzo.

Even without blood magic, Skarlet’s skill with a dagger is impressive. Perform her basic attacks on the Tarkatan general.

Mileena’s penchant for sai is a holdover from Kitana’s memories. However, Mileena uses them to a far more vicious degree than her “sister.” Use this failed experiment as a target. (The experiment is Meat.)

And instead of a fight against a doppelgänger of the character, it’s an important match up in the characters story. EG. Frost versus Sub-Zero.

The game could change the costumes to further differentiate the points in characters lives. I think it’d be neat.

Maybe you get special “origin” skins for completing a character. Like Cassie’s MKX Comic appearance or Mileena wrapped in white bandages or wearing rags as a sort of “test” attire.

There would be a reward for completing all characters, I’m not sure what, but it wouldn’t be just a costume like the MK9 challenge tower. That flesh pits costume does not seem worth all that trouble.

And, that’s all I have for this idea. Hope you enjoyed, maybe one day we’ll get something like this.

Oh, who am I kidding?

#mortal kombat #revelations and stupidity

[hanjeongrp]

Welcome to Hanjeong, Osuke. You are quite the dryad. At 28 (200), you have quite a claim to the usurping royal family.

Enjoy paradise.

OOC:

Name/Alias: krys

Pronouns: she/they

Age: 26+

Timezone: CST

Triggers: none

Password: n/a

IC:

Biography Information:

OC Name: Osuke

FC: Kento Yamazaki

Species: Nymph, dryad

Occupation: tea vendor at market

Residence: the forest and west side

Gender: cisman

Pronouns: he/him

Age: 28 (actually 200)

Claim(s): other royal usurper: cousin

Biography:

There are certain unique trees that stand among the forest of Hanjeong. One that is deep in the forest, hidden in a grove is known to some, as the king cherry tree. A 250-year-old cherry, standing tall and blossoming when the time is right. It liters the ground in beautiful blossoms creating a picturesque scene. Not only does it brighten up the area, but it also happens to be the anchor of a specific nymph. A dryad known as Osuke.

Osuke has always been a bit of a wild card among his people. While he is on the younger side of nymph life, he isn’t as social as some of the other younger nymphs. Preferring to be amongst his tree or sprouting and encouraging various poisonous flora and fauna. His specialty. He has been more on the quiet side for most of his life and tends to enjoy things that way. But, he happens to be a little chaotic at the same time.

For instance, his grove was home to a group of other trees and plants. The grove where the usurpers congregated and spoke in whispers. Osuke never said a word of the upcoming betrayal. Instead, offering a few ideas here or there. Something to spice it all up for the plans he overheard. While he never intended to be, over time they called him a cousin. Being from the same grove it was a bit like an extended family. Him being included.

Most didn’t see his involvement coming, but in truth, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Much of his life, while still young, was a life of slight exile among his own kind. Specifically, within his age range. Not for his actions but for his gifts. Poisonous plants and flowers weren’t always welcome. The poison didn’t differentiate between humans and nymphs. No one was safe from it. Truth be told, Osuke never wished to try to be different than he was. Clearly, he was meant to be that way.

So, in the spirit of simply being, he has taken the time to experiment and learn the right plants to mix and turn into a micro dosing type of tea. Yes, this came from trial and error. Yes, this may be one of the reasons the younger nymphs don’t like him much… Since he would trick them into eating ones, he knew weren’t too deadly… But wanted to see what would happen. Maybe they shouldn’t have been so gullible.

Either way, he has been successful in putting together different mixes depending on what the user is looking for when it comes to experience. These mixes are sold at the market to humans looking for a little bit of fun. The usurping never really put a dent in that business. Even when everything was still said on done... There were a few naiads that continued to get teas from him…

Even the death of the human mayor hasn’t put a dent in his business. Secretly he thinks that it has risen slightly. Humans looking for an escape, but he has no comment on it really. Mostly he thought human issues were just that, human issues. But there was a part of him curious if it was a death caused by a creature of the wilds... Like himself. If it was… How did they do it?

Anything else? Changes you want to make? Comments you have? Extras you want to include?: i didn't make any wild lore this time but i bet we can discuss things cause obviously you had a character connected to the nymphs before i did! 

#kento yamazaki #supernatural rp #fantasy rp #urban fantasy rp #hanacceptance #osuke #poison tw #murder mention tw

[loudlyunladylike]

I literally hate the phrase "semi-lore" so much

#mcyt #if you do use it i don't have any personal issues with you dw like it's become part of the community's common language #i just wish it wasn't #like in my eyes lore is lore #and i get some people maybe what to differentiate between different lore is they want but like at least call it casual lore #like ranboo referred to his making the lab stream as semi lore #what does that meann?? like i know he just means it's not as fancy and high production as like his lessons stream for example #but in normal word context semi means like ''partly'' like that would sugggest his whole lab is only like kinda lore or whatever #and it isn't you know it isn't i know it isn't ranboo knows it isn't #and it's one thing if a cc uses it to describe their lore sure yanno it's what the community have told you to title it yanno #but when the community calls just completely normal dsmp streams semi-lore?? like especially when it's something like ponks which is clearly #lore #like more often the phrase semi-lore is just used to downplay people's content or to deem it as less important and that's not fair #dsmp

[idol-trickster]

Advice for ask blogs starting up?

You’re asking for advice~? I’m both flattered and honored to be able to get this question. I’ve decided to answer and post today for Mun-day. This post will be a bit long as I like to give thorough advice, or at least offer insight into what I’ve done, but I’ll do my best to break text up into palatable sections and keep topics relevant. 💜

I’ll be going over:

how to set up your core values and image

how to interact with blogs and keep audience awareness

how to keep your passion alive.

If you’re interested and in for a long read with some mun anecdotes, feel free to continue below!

♫ Core Values and Image ♫

When you’re starting up, I really encourage you to have three things in mind to make sure you cultivate a proper image and platform for your blog: Content Focus, Presentation and Goals. These are things you don’t want changing too much throughout your blog’s runtime, as they should be your “Core Values”. In other words, these are the special traits that will differentiate your blog from others out there. I’ll discuss each of my big three below, but don’t be surprised if they blend in together, as that should be the point and how they function.

♪ |---- Content Focus

This is probably one of the most essential parts of a blog and truly what makes you the most unique, along with Presentation. Find out what part of a character/muses’ personality you’d like to focus on the most. 

For me, this was a focus on Ji-Woon (and Yun-Jin) with a large nod to Korean culture and K-pop music, putting them near the forefront. This is because I grew up learning the culture through popular media and was confident in how to honor it, or even have a desire to learn more of it.

Personal Mun Ramblings, will be referred to in Goals but not mandatory to read) It was so special once I learned my favorite game and scene for so long was bringing another part of life that I enjoyed. I was a year 2 player of DBD since I play on console, and I’d gotten DBD the same year of Console’s release date; roughly a few months before Nightmare on Elm Street DLC was announced. So to me, this was a blending of fandoms/cultures that made me excited and brought me back into the DBD scene after a small hiatus following other passions, because now two of my passions were mixing. To preface, I’d been a fan of K-culture: Watching K-dramas and even being a generation one/two K-pop fan; around since BoA, BigBang, Girls Generation etc.’s relevancy along with even seeing EXO and BTS’ debuts (Roughly a fan since 2000s, in my pre-teens/teens). 

I wanted to cultivate and pay homage to that for my blog. Ultimately, that’s why I chose to have the name Idol-Trickster. Because I wanted my characterization of him to be immersed as an idol in k-culture. After all, that’s what differentiated him in the Dead By Daylight roster, so I wanted to reflect it. ( semi-relevant: I was a fan of Japanese-drama/pop so I knew the difference and similarities between the scenes. I’m still learning and differentiating between cultures though, and enjoy it quite a bit.)

ANYWAY, back to how to apply this advice- It’s good to look at the blog scene and see what’s out there. Understanding other personifications and know where you want to go with your own ‘version’. In Trickster’s case, maybe someone would want to play up in his narcissism a bit more, or maybe the fact that he’s a bit insane, or even making him completely evil and kill obsessed. This depends on how you want to portray and spice up the character to your liking and will ultimately give you an advantage on your blog.

Granted, I was one of the first blog runners for this character, but even then I had a solid game plan on what I wanted my focus to be. I wanted Trickster to be charming. An Idol (denounced or not in lore with his final ‘real-world’ killing). I wanted him to try to hold onto that small bit of humanity and people pleasing, despite his twisting and figuring out what that meant for him. It made for an interesting ‘plot point’ in my mind, and I figured others would like to see that.

♦ |---- Presentation 

Now that you got your ideas in mind...How are you going to present them? Think of the big picture first, since it’s the easiest and most generalized. I always start out with a general theme. Like I said above, I played on Korean/Idol culture a lot. Which meant looking through blogs for existing idols or groups/band fan pages. Fun fact, the blog theme I use for Idol-Trickster was based on a One Direction fan-blog template. (Not K-pop but definitely ‘boy group sensationalists’) My tumblr theme even has header text sections like this (it made me solidify my choice):

Which reminds me a lot of BTS’ 

As funny as it sounds, I even use Cookie Run font for Hangul/Korean text (Popular mobile game developed in South Korea) along with Manga/Manwha  text.

This is because I knew I wanted to pay homage to K-culture from text to even in my art style choices. I enjoyed reading manhwas and webtoons, and noticed webtoons are arguably been the biggest trend in Korea. (Like what Manga is to Japan, comic books to America etc.). In fact, I even remember my first webtoon when the platform was just starting (I feel so old reminiscing on these things). I knew if I could bring a bit of that in my posts, I’d be happy and would add a layer of ‘immersion’ to fans. Granted, I knew it wouldn’t be possible to go all out webtoon style for every ask, but I did want at least an art style that looked like it could fit in or was heavily inspired by them, even if I only did big comic pieces on occasion.

All of this to say, starting out big can help focus on the aesthetic and presentation. It brings interest. It makes everything feel developed and keep you closer to your Focus. If you want a scary blog, go for scary themes, etc.

Now of course, you don’t have to change your whole art style or be particular in your font choices. Those were just BIG PICTURE things to separate from the others. 

You should also focus on how you’ll make your character act. What is their aesthetic. How are they going to speak to readers or others visually. Will they voice all their thoughts and talk out loud? Do you want them to stay quiet on certain topics and not monologue those? Full sentences or Short curt ones? Large vocabulary or limited? These are all important to try and keep consistency in your characterization. Make sure you have an understanding of your character and how to present them. (This will get explained more in the Next big section “Interaction and Audience Awareness”)

☆ |---- Goals

Finally and the last of the big three, one of the most crucial elements to have that ties in everything else above is your goals for the blog. Having something you want to achieve or strive for. It’s okay to have some change or add more as time goes on, but they should always stay fairly solid. I can’t tell you what exactly these should be, other than they should fit your interests, or how you wish people looked at a character.

Sharing my goals: I had major goals seeing how the fandom handled the release of Trickster, and k-pop culture/fans in general. 

I firstly wanted to cultivate a space safe for k-pop enthusiasts. A welcoming introduction to people either wanting to get into k-pop previously in the dbd fandom, or vice versa of new faces to the game/scene.  > I was aware of preconceptions towards K-Pop fans or ‘kweebs’, and wanted to make it apparent that they shouldn’t be ostracized. Alternatively I wanted to explain idol/k- culture to DBD-enthusiasts while remaining ‘in-character’ if possible.  > Hearing that DBD fans were concerned the game was going to cater and bring ‘those’ types of people (k-pop enthusiasts) made me a bit sad, because I was one of those people! I’d just been a sleeper agent ✨. So it was a way to prove we can be normal DBD fans too. No gate-keeping here.

Show why Ji-Woon was indeed a good killer/horror icon, and why All-Kill has some of the best writing in the game, as a cohesive story line.  > People upon initial impression thought it was a marketing scheme. “Why is a pretty guy showing his abs. DBD is just catering!” When in reality that reaction was exactly what made Ji-Woon a good and scary killer! I Jokingly like to say this is the ARG effect. Audience reaction is so fitting to how they would perceive him as a real idol serial-killer. No one would suspect him, it’s so dramatic. He’s not taken seriously at all, etc. (He’d get away with it, even if it was happening right in-front of you.) > Admittedly I adore that this is more of a non-traditional westernized take on a villain/killer or horror in general. Neither survivor or killer were completely black and white in their roles. There’s no “hero” and “bad guy”, instead it was just them both being morally gray to achieve their goals. It’s a psychological/thriller horror which is very Korean in notion.  Straight from Wiki: Many of the Korean horror films tend to focus on the suffering and the anguish of characters rather than focus on the explicit "blood and guts" aspect of horror.[...]Modern South Korean horror films are typically distinguished by stylish directing, themes of social commentary, and genre blending. (To me All-Kill does this fantastically in homage to the cultural awareness)

Make people who were fans of Ghostface into fans of Trickster.  > This one may seem a bit silly. Admittedly though, ghostface is a fan favorite in the DBD roster. No one questions why he was added, in fact a large majority of the fandom was asking and wishing for him to be added in before he was. People liked the charming narcissistic side of him that DBD created, and enjoyed seeing him interact with others. > While Trickster isn’t an exact copy, in fact I think they’re more Day and Night of each other, he had all the traits fans enjoyed about Ghostface. Ambition towards their chosen art/production, god-complex/narcissistic, an iconic appeal that only they bring. The thing that makes them charming and likeable to fans. > I knew if I could get any type of die-hard fan to see the ways of liking Trickster, it’d be the Ghostface enthusiast. It’s good to remember the good ‘ol waffle: What would Ghostface fans like. WWGFL (joking)

Nothing will be seen as cringe on this blog. > I don’t know how to explain this other than It’s for my own sanity and comes with safe space territory. It’s welcoming. You want broken Korean while I’m learning? Deal. You want that OC shaped like a 8? Got it. I’ve got limited energy and I’m not wasting it on if I think something’s cringey or not. 

I don’t know if I’ve reached these goals on a big scale, but I do hear that I’ve achieved small successes through some friends, so I’ll take the win. I still try to implement these and think about them when I make posts, so they’re pretty fundamental in what I hope to achieve on my blog. 

♫ Interaction and Audience Awareness ♫

This was touched on a bit from my goals, but I wanted to talk about how your blog will interact with others and how to be aware of your general audience. I’ve never really struggled when interacting with blogs, so I may either be the best or worst person to speak on this matter.

AUDIENCE AWARENESS: Firstly, I would say keep a general audience in mind when making your blog (especially your first blog in a community/fandom) and posts. While I see some people vouch for “+18 blogs only, minors DNI” I think it marginalizes your audience, and personally I’ve never been a big fan of it. Mostly because I like to keep things comfortable for the general populace, especially on an open social-media site. If +18 interactions happen, I’d say take it off blog or put it under a ‘keep reading’ “spoiler”. Intimate or gore pieces can scare away casual enjoyers; but if you’re adamant in your character portrayal to interact with others of that caliber and you’ve already found your community, the use of tags should definitely be your priority, as well as making a list of them easily accessible and understandable. This is keeping Audience Awareness in mind and stops anyone from feeling discomfort. It’ll allow people to feel safe interacting with your blog.

In the same vein, I understand that my characterization will be interacting with others, anons or blogs. This means that despite how much of a jerk my character would be, always make sure it’s spoken about to others before hand or explained OOC or in tags why they act that way. We don’t want hurt feelings amongst the blog community or to make someone think they did something wrong. It simply allows us to have insight into the character. 

Alternatively, I’d say try going for a less intense characterization, unless you want to intentionally be the edgy blog. Edge is more palpable in small doses over a constant assault of it with only some moments of levity. We want the blogs to be a good enjoyable experience with interesting variation in the character, not a threatening one. Overall, I’d say make sure you show a full range of emotions and knowing roughly how your muse will react, and reasoning behind it. Being well-rounded makes things dynamic and keeps viewer engagement.

INTERACTIONS: Don’t be afraid to talk to other people in the fandom/community. I hear often that blogs are shy on approaching others, and it causes an anxiety of wanting to interact, but never doing so and not knowing what to ask (this section should help). We can’t expect people to just see us and come talk to us like popular kids. An effort should be made on reaching out and connecting to others first. If you want someone to talk to you, then talk to them first. 

Now this comes with some loose rules of comfort though, especially if sending in asks. 

Speaking for the DBD community: If you chose to interact with other blogs and run a blog, make sure you send relevant asks. Try to think of something that’s unique to your character/characterization only. Something no one else will ask. Why? Because there’s anons who can catch the basics, and you can easily get overwhelmed by people asking the same question from different blogs. This makes the mun worry over which iteration to answer, and may end up not picking yours. Simply because it wasn’t unique enough to catch interest. If you’re certain no anon asked a certain question yet, and know it might just be a quick response that won’t leave room for a response, then ask on anon, not on blog. It’s good to remember that when you send an ask, you’re not only trying to find out more about the muse being asked, but taking a chance to show off characterization of your own muse as well. Something that could potentially lead to an actual interaction over a quick answer. A well thought out ask can spur relationship building between blogs, and that’s, in my experience, truly what people are most interested in seeing. Chemistry and relationships between characters/blogs. Not entirely just a single characterization on it’s own.

Most importantly though, try not to be afraid of the community. We’re here to entertain them and have fun with them, not stand around like an awkward kid in the corner of class. This ties in to our last section:

♫ Make yourself Happy ♫

We’re ultimately making an ask blog to make ourselves happy. It’s good to cater to an audience, but make sure you don’t sacrifice your Core Values or what you want to get out of your experience running an ask blog. Alternatively, if something isn’t working and you’re unhappy with it, it’s okay to change ideas. I’m constantly learning new facets of my character and building on them, and sometimes I wonder if it’s hypocritical, but I’ve realized it’s just growth as both muse and mun. If it can naturally happen over the course of the blog, then that means you’re doing a great job building a ‘story’ or ‘dynamic experience’.

We muns do this for fun and it’s good to try not to take ourselves or the blogs too seriously. (Alternatively, try not to make it all a joke either. We do like some character depth.) Like I said, a dynamic blog is fun and seems safer and more enticing to interact with. This is all a fun social-platform and ask blogs are just another way to stay social. 

Admittedly it can get overwhelming some times, but being open about this or even knowing when to close an ask box or step away can help keep your passion from burning out. Set boundaries and limits. Maybe just try changing something up and do a meme or personal art/comic if you want to keep nursing your muse but don’t want to feel indebted to doing asks/responses or keeping a certain style. 

Don’t wait for the perfect ask or interests, it’s okay to create content individually and share what your ideas are without being asked. In doing this you can draw people’s interest. So long as you keep yourself happy, you’ll do good running a blog, and will be able to maintain your run-time and passion much longer. Most importantly don’t look at numbers. I never mentioned them anywhere, but that’s one way to not have fun. If you’re doing your blog right, you’ll get big numbers.

Create for yourself firstly, and others secondly.

Bet you weren’t expecting this much. I just had so many thoughts... Still, I truly hope this helped anyone curious in wanting to start up a blog, or even help those looking to polish up theirs.

#V-Munday #Munday #OOC #text #ask blog help #dbd #|| #I had this typed before #but then tumblr ate it right when i was going to upload #and I didn't have it saved as a draft #So It took a bit to get the energy back #but I did it again~ #This ones more organized #and longer #I don't know how cohesive the end is. #I was typing for quite a while #so I'll look this over later #If you ever have any questions #or interests #please feel free to send an ask ^^ #( to mun though so I know LOL)

[thevindicativevordan]

On Kong Kenan/Super-Man

It should've been him. He should've been the Superman of 5G/Future State/right now not Jon, and he should be the one getting an HBO Max series not Val. Hell he should be getting a movie!

God this dude is literally the best legacy character Superman has ever gotten, wholly his own person with his own lore and status quo while still building on the idea of "Superman". I am so pissed at DC for essentially just dropping him after his ongoing ended, what the hell Lee? You keep trying to make the Wildstorm characters happen, I need you to get my man Yang another Kenan book.

Have to admit I was a bit nervous at first about whether or not Kenan would be a worthwhile character. Yang's New 52 Superman run had been a disappointment to me overall, with only the the arc where Superman has underground wrestling matches against forgotten gods really sticking with me. Now he was introducing a brand new Superman? Didn't feel like he had "earned" that yet. But from the first issue I was hooked on this new character.

Kenan was unlike any other member of the Superfamily. He wasn't kind or sweet, he was an asshole! He was a bully! He was fantastic! Right from the start Kenan was set up to undergo a very different kind of character journey than the other members of the Superfamily. Empathy, humility, respect for people weaker than himself, these are all traits most heroes wearing the S-shield already posses by the time they first don the crest, but not Kenan.

Like all bullies he was even a bit of a coward himself at first, trying to bail on the experiment meant to give him Superman's powers right as it begins. After "saving" Lixin (the kid he bullies and steals lunch from every day) from Blue Condor he demands all the money Lixin has on him as payment. He's not courageous or selfless either at the start, Kenan is as much of an opposite of Superman as you can get short of being Bizarro. Learning the appeal of these traits formed the basis for his growth over the course of his series.

Seeing Yang bring in a lot of recognizable "Superman" elements in the series, but with a twist, was also great. Kenan is the one who bullies "Luo Lixin" rather than the traditional Clark/Lex friendship of Pre-Crisis and Birthright. Initially Kenan develops a crush on intrepid reporter for Primetime Shanghai, Laney Lan, but she dismisses him as too young and Kenan eventually ends up pursuing Avery Ho (Flash) instead. Baxi the Bat-Man of China has a similar relationship with Kenan as the traditional Superman/Batman in terms of being vitriolic best buds, however Baxi is the one who has the most respect for authority while Kenan is the rebel. Kenan is a part of the "Justice League of China" which does not meet with the approval of the already established Chinese superheroes, the Great Ten. That contrasts nicely with the good relationship the Justice Society and Justice League have, as well as seeing Yang lampshade the "Chinese copy" trope and incorporate that into his storytelling.

One of the funniest differences is how Kenan chooses to immediately reveal his identity as Super-Man to the world by taking off the compliance visor he was forced to wear, contrasting with Clark's choice to hide his identity. He was so eager to impress people that he never gave any thought to the danger he could put himself or his family in by revealing his identity until it was too late, something Clark is well aware of and has taken great pains to keep his identity secret. Was a missed opportunity for DC to have Kenan comment on Clark copying him for once when he outed himself under Bendis.

But one of the most poignant differences between Clark and Kenan is the gulf in separation between their relationship with their parents. Clark has a loving relationship with Ma and Pa Kent, trying to live up to their lessons as best he can. In contrast Kenan's mom was believed to have died in an airplane crash when he was just a child, and he never really knew her. His father was distant from him after that and the two weren't really close despite Kenan's attempts to impress him. So Kenan lacks that strong connection while still clearly loving both of them.

Pa Kent's death is one of the most tragic examples of Clark's love for his parents, and I've always been a fan of takes where Clark promises his father to fight for the powerless on Pa's deathbed. Kenan gets a similar scene at the start of his career, his dad "dies" (after being exposed as Flying General Dragon, a pro-democracy "supervillain" from the Chinese authorities perspective) and wants Kenan to promise he'll fight for Truth, Justice, and Democracy. But because Kenan's dad never really bonded with him, Kenan doesn't know what those mean, and can only promise that he never wants to see people die, something his father takes comfort in at least. In classic comic book fashion it's revealed that Dr. Omen, Kenan's "boss" and the one who gave him his powers, saved Kenan's father, because she is Kenan's mother! Kenan's relationship with his parents forms a lot of the crux of his character arc, and seeing how Yang utilizes the classic Superman concept of family kept the storytelling exciting.

Yang's brilliant exploration of the concept of "Superman" through the prism of Chinese culture was a great way to differentiate Kenan as well.

I absolutely freaking love how he tied to the concept of Qi to the S-shield in particular. Connecting the shape of the shield with the way Kenan has acquired his powers along the path of the Bagua (eight trigrams used in Taoism that represent the fundamental principles of reality), with his octagon S-shield outline representing all eight principles together, was mindblowing! So was the idea of restricting Kenan's access to his powers unless he was actually acting in a Superman manner, that tied his character growth to his power growth in an entertaining manner. There were so many characters and concepts that meshed Chinese and DC lore together, like how Emperor Super-Man was Kenan's "Doomsday", they even recreated that iconic dual kill shot! The Chinese Wonder Woman Peng Deilan, being based on the Chinese Legend of the White Snake! There was even some Korean mythology referenced with the Aqua-Man member of the JLC "Dragonson".

Yang also managed to do a Superman Blue/Superman Red story with Super-Man Yin/Super-Man Yang!

Shameful that it took me a while to realize what Gene Yang was doing but once I caught on I was touched. You can tell how much Yang loved Superman and his mythology, and how he was excited to incorporate as much from Clark as he could, while still using it in a way that was solidly Kenan's. And not just Superman's mythology, but the history and lore of the entire DC Universe. I-Ching got to be brought in, fleshed out, and used as Kenan's mentor! The "Yellow Peril" villain from Detective Comics #1, the comic DC gets its name from was brought in and revamped as I-Ching's twin brother All-Yang! Hats off to Yang for taking a racist caricature and attempting to make him into something more.

This series was a beautiful attempt by Gene Yang to build a space for Asian heroes and villains where they could be more than stereotypes, Kenan himself being a defiant mold-breaker in every regard as the complete opposite of most Asian characters in Western media (a jock, a bully, loves his dad but not on great terms with him, a powerhouse as a hero, etc). So much thought and hard work was poured into this by Yang and his team of artist collaborators.

Especially the costumes, man Kenan had so many great looks. From his starting outfit (which is my favorite Superman variant not worn by Clark himself), to the one with the Yin/Yang shield he acquired later on, to his Super-Man Yin & Super-Man Yang outfits, Kenan looked damn cool. Part of me is bummed they didn't go with the Chinese character shield they toyed around with, but I loved how Yang used the "s-shield" as a plot point, so I'm not too broken up over it.

All that great work Yang did to build that space up has been more or less forgotten sadly. It was nice to see Kenan in the DC Asian Month Celebration issue. Avery is going to be in Justice Incarnate at least (unsurprising considering she was created by Williamson). So fucking bummed that Superman Family Adventures cartoon didn't happen, they were going to have Kenan and John Henry Irons in it! Would've been a dream come true for me to see Irons in animation again, and Kenan making the jump to outside media! Maybe that would've encouraged DC to let Yang keep writing New Super-Man, or at least encouraged them to use him elsewhere instead of allowing him fall into Limbo.

Unfortunately I'm not sure what the future holds for Kenan. Jon is being pushed as Clark's replacement in the comics, with DC keeping all the other contenders such as Kon benched. Calvin is leading the Justice Incarnate team likely due to the upcoming Coates reboot that will make Clark black. Val will probably get something once Taylor leaves Jon's book or once they officially announce the HBO Max show is happening. So where does that leave Kenan, my new favorite PoC legacy hero? Currently my only hope is that Yang is working on something for DC involving him. Yang left Batman/Superman, where I was hoping to see a Baxi/Kenan team up, to go work on "exciting other opportunities" per his Twitter. So fingers crossed that there's something in the works for Kenan!

One day I hope he gets his day in the sun again.

#kenan kong #new super man #gene yang #justice league of china #superman #dc comics

[shushiyuii]

For the Parallel worlds au: you said Tommy was scared of being tiny, right? I bet the first meeting of him and Toms was interesting (initial accidental fearplay!). Can you write something for there meeting?

Here you go, Love! I hope you like it! Also first Parallel worlds fic yaay! Also I'm gonna fucking speedrun fics today, you guys are gonna get so spoiled today- screw the sleep schedule.

I'm planning on writing more Subject T0M lore, New Au I have planned and a one-shot- Also, if you guys want you can claim anon thingys so I can differentiate you from different anons if you plan on being a regular- Okay I think that's enough lmao

Warnings: Slight accidental dehumanization, fearplay and swearing

Words: 1.2K

To say Tommy’s Day went quite differently from usual was barely correct in his opinion. First, he had been taking care of his Spider/Son Shroud, then going on to do important things such as robbing and mining cobblestone, trying to scrape up food but instead, as he was walking out of his house something quite unexpected happened.

Rather than seeing the prime path, there looked to be some sort of black hole, like a tear in the world, he stared at it for a moment until he couldn’t feel his body and he was lifted by a strong force, dragging him within this strange hole.

Within this hole- was a whole other place, he could see darkness, but saw some luminescence with strange cracks of glowing yellow and dark blue. Each one seeming to have stars of some sort, if he squinted enough, he could see what seemed to be different places. (This is what we call the Rift’s Realm, if I need to go into more detail about it, I will. Got a ton of ideas for this world :3)

Then, he was falling, dragged? Flying? It was difficult to tell but one thing is for sure as he felt distorted and ‘fell’ within one of these ‘stars. And he blacked out.

He woke up in shock, holding his head as he felt a pounding headache. He sat up in a daze, slowly fluttering his eyes open. It took a minute to register his surroundings. Instead of seeing his house or being outside, everything seemed like a completely different environment. He sat on what seemed to be a giant piece of wood, with strange-looking giant squares and objects. Everything seemed so much bigger compared to him.

It startled him, to say the least, he wasn’t to say a big fan of this. Everything was so different, so different, a much bigger world. Sure, he had claustrophobia, he’d much prefer to be in a smaller environment, in this big of an environment was just as big as the L’manhole, which brought up many unwanted memories. He hated this, to say the least.

He scrambled backwards without much attention to where he was walking, which almost caused him to fall from the edge, it didn’t help his fear. In his panic state, he couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, one moment home and safe, next in the open and lost. Which wasn’t safe.

Where was Tubbo? And Ranboo? Maybe even Da-Philza and Techno? Heck, even Wilbur? Were they around? Had the same thing happened to them?

The answer came when he heard what sounded like a door closing, instead a lot more echoey, much louder… It didn’t help his headache. He looked for a place to hide but everything seemed so open and big, with whatever was coming his way was much faster than him, no way he’d make it but there was no way he wasn’t going to try…

He ran behind what seemed to be a somewhat round object, he heard what sounded like loud slams but were most likely giant footsteps…

To say the least, Tom’s Day had been relatively normal, just doing his chores, checking up on his friends, working on video ideas and such. He had just finished his chores and just came to his room and made his way to his desk to finally start to work on videos when, as he went to grab his mouth, he saw something quite odd.

It looked to him, but so much different, smaller. It looked to be like 6 inches tall. Heck, it stared at him in horror as he stared back. It was, wait- no It wasn’t right, it was like a person, he was a person just- small? It even looked like him…

His mind filled with panic as the giant had found him, of course, he did, he hid in one of the most obvious spots- the giant moved his finger towards Tommy, to poke at him to which he let out a scream of fear. When the giant heard the scream, he looked to be shocked himself, confused even as to what was going on?

Then a familiar voice hit his eardrums, “Hello?”, it was his voice- at first, he thought it was a voice in his head, but it wasn’t, it was the giants. now that he thought about it, the giant seemed almost like him. The same handsome face as his, the striking blonde hair, even the same baby blue eyes and dazzling t-shirt.

I-it was him, just giant?

His fear calmed somewhat but that didn’t quite help or conclude the situation, he was still in an unknown place with what seemed to be another version of him. “The fuck?”. He muttered out of his train of thoughts.

Then suddenly, the giant himself screamed, finally seeming to understand the reality of the situation. The volume of the scream was enough to send shivers down his spine.

After that none of them moved, instead of staring at each other, both of them seeming too scared to ask about what the fuck was going on. There was a moment of silence when the giant coughed to break the tension between the two.

“Sorry- I- Who are you? And what are you doing in my room? Heck your size and-“. “HEY! Do not question my size Asshole! I’m just as confused as you are! I just woke up here- I have no fucking idea what the fuck’s going on!?!”. As he rambled, he began to pace back and forth.

“I- You sound just like me… What’s your name?”, “Tommy Danger Kraken Innit, is my name. The biggest man in the world”, “The biggest? Right now Small man you look as if you’re one of the smallest people in the world-“, “Hey!”. “Wait- You said your name was fucking Tommy?”.

“Yeah?”. He answered confused as the giant just realised his name. “THAT’S MY FUCKING NAME!” the giant yelled. “WHAT?!”. After the freak out both seemed to realise the similarities between them despite his- well epic scars.

The similarities between the two were uncanny. Then the giant’s hand moved to pick up his smaller self, wanting to get a closer look at well him. “Hey! Put me down you prick!” The tiny yelled but the giant seemed deep in thought as he concluded that it was in fact a smaller him.

“I- You’re literally a smaller me. Just like my Minecraft character?”. “What?”. “The Dream SMP, L’manburg” He began to list off, “YOU KNOW ABOUT L’MANBURG?!”. “OF COURSE, I FUCKING DO! IT WAS ME AND WILBUR’S THING IN THE SERVER”. “I-“

“Are we the same fucking person or something?”. “I- I think so?”. “How did you even get here?”. “Some weird hole or some shit dragged me in, and I woke up here”. “We’re going to need help about this…”. “Agreed”.

The giant carefully placed his tiny self on his desk, moving to turn on his computer and open discord, when he did there was already a message in a group chat. From Wilbur. “Could somebody explain to me why I have a tiny fucking Ghostbur and Me?”.

Well… Seems they weren’t the only ones in this situation…

#mcytg/t #mcyt g/t #dsmp g/t #giant!tommy #tiny!tommy #Parallel worlds au #Shushi's writings

[rossa-motte]

are we writing magical realism?, blog.

Sorry if something reads awkward, I wrote and made this on the phone!

So, first of all, my credentials:

I'm latina... that's enough for some people, oops.

I've studied it

I read it

I write it, I think

I'm not going to distract ourselves so much with history, Internet already has a lot of that. But we can say it originates in Latin America at the beginning/midst of the 1900s, but is written in other parts of the world as well.

Most of the time, the definition we heard is something on the lines of mixing reality and the fantastic, treating the unreal as real. Also, a lot of people see it as fantasy for latinos.

But all this is quite vague and ends in lots of people from countries where isn't common thinking it just means contemporary fantasy, fantasy for literary writers, or thinking it is an... aesthetic... *shivers

Well, if it's none of that, what is? How do I know if I'm writing it? Everybody says something different... And, yeah, a lot of people don't see eye to eye on this, so this is as far as I know and my personal opinion. But here are eight things I think defines magical realism (particularly differentiating it from fantasy):

i. Yes, it's fantasy, but the point isn't magic.

In fantasy the point is magic, is people thinking “oh, how crazy! the magic, the other world!”. Even if is a contemporary low fantasy, the fantastical elements are the focus (most of the time, at least, there are always exceptions).

In magical realism magic is just there. It has a relevance in the plot, character, or setting as much as cup of water, a ride on a bus, or the night. Nobody is going to stop for it nor explain it.

The story in fantasy is about, for example, about a magical girl. In magical realism is about the girl, who so happens to be magical.

ii. And one of the reasons for that it's because it's character driven.

While magical realism is not “the fantasy for literary writers” I think it has that in common with litfic: the plot can be a more... quiet one. Maybe not 100% character driven, but with a subtle plot. And if the plot is not that strong, fantasy can't shine in the plot either.

And, if there's a strong plot (let's say, action with spies or some shit) magic has nothing to do with the premise. It's not a “I'm a secret agent and I read minds but nobody can know about it”, more like an “I'm a secret agent in this Totally Normal World where sometimes someone reads a mind”.

iii. Because magical realism is not a classic genre either.

If I tell you I'm writing an epic fantasy, most people know the type of story I'm talking about. In other world, inspired by the past, high fantasy, probably with this magic journey as a plot, and with very specific clichés an archetypes as options.

We can't do that with magical realism. It's more like saying we're writing historical fiction. It's just one factor of the plot (or setting), and we can have a romance that is historical, as well as a thriller that is historical.

Magical realism is too broad to even have clichés or archetypes.

iv. And it's too vague: we're not writing hard magic systems here.

A really thin line divides magical realism with a low fantasy-soft magic system. I think there are lots of stories that fall in a awkward in-between.

Maybe the difference, really subtle, resides in magical realism “making less sense”.

This other type of fantasy usually has some kind of rules that bend a lot, or some thematic focus. While magical realism looks more like surrealism, kind of dreamlike in a sense, where different unconnected stuff can happen without any sense of logic.

This doesn't really mean it doesn't makes sense. Usually it does but in other ways, like an emotional one.

v. Not only that, but sometimes, magic is not magic.

In a fantasy, the fantastic element resides in magic itself or a concrete thing, but once again, magical realism looks like surrealism. Sometimes the magic resides in the uncanny, in a weird version of reality.

Maybe it has elements that exists but are so strange and unknown that it feels unreal. Or things that could happen but the chances are so low and the conditions so precise that it kind of doesn't make sense (like surviving with a tiguer in the ocean).

And sometimes it feels like a strech to reality: something that could happen but a little too much, like exacerbated. Think about the gothic subgenre, or these post on Tumblr listing a specific setting + gothic. I remember one about university, telling for example, that the answer is always communism, in any class even math, or that time doesn't pass. Is interesting and funny because is somehow relatable, it feels like that even if we know that's not realistic.

vi. And sometimes the magic is ambiguous.

A lot of the times we have explicit magic or magical elements... but we can't be sure if they are really an out of (our) world thing or it has a logical explanation.

For example, ghosts are super common in magical realism... but also in real life. Most of us probably know somebody who has a experience with a ghost (some of us ourselves), or know some legend about spirits in our place.

So, if a character sees a ghost in magical realism, we, as readers, have to ask ourselves: is this character really seeing a ghost or it's just imagining it? 

Same if we have a witch who hex someone and then bad things happens to that person. Or tarot cards telling that something is going to happen and then it does... All that can happen in reality, and it can be real magic or just coincidences.

vii. Related to that, this ambiguity exists because a lot of the time the magic is based in real beliefs and lore.

Let me put it in other words to get across the point:

vii. Magical realism doesn't has to be in Latin America to work, but it needs to have a heavy setting and folklore.

Just as in gothic literature, setting is just another character, and is super common to base the magic in the folklore of that specific setting... and that usually creates this ambiguity.

In fantasy there's a lot of focus on being original, but magical realism (usually) is very traditional. We work with what we already have in our settings.

And this also means... sometimes... magical realism and reality has more in common that one would think.

For example, Border is a Swedish movie with trolls... this only works in Sweden (or near it) because it's part of their stories. In Latin America it would be too alien for us. But, for example, Argentina has a lot of lore with duendes (like elves or gnomes).

viii. Finally, magical realism is not an escapism.

People usually thinks about fantasy as escapism. While I think is incorrect, sometimes it is like that... Even if not, the fantasy part is super romantic and we want to be in that world.

In magical realism not so much. It has a love-hate for life and reality. It's not bad but it has a comment to make about it. Magic is beautiful but mundane, life is cruel and romantic, all bittersweet.

And yes, usually, in Latin America, that means talking about colonialism and poverty.

If any of you want to add something, don't doubt it!

#fiction writing #writing #magical realism #realismo magico #latina #latino #latine #latinoamérica #latin america #fantasy #gothic #surrealism

[iaintyourbro]

The Unknown Journey Continues

Part 1

I know it's been a while... but I've been going down a rabbit hole with @starlight-samurai regarding time loops, Jenova, Minerva, and more fun. So I figured I'd try to put it into one post to get the insanity out of my head. Everything in here is based on things we've found by either going through more obscure Ultimanias, learning more about Dirge of Cerberus and trying to decipher what the hell Jenova is by putting together various sources - including other Square Enix games - and how they handled freakishly similar scenarios.

Did you know there is a companion mobile game for it that was out on the good old flip phones? Did you know there was an online mode in Dirge of Cerberus only available in Japan, but had story elements that were not in the main game?

The sad part is, there's still so much to go through...

(I've also had various discussions with @ourfinalheaven, Manu, who doesn't have Tumblr, so here is her Twitter. and Somebody's Nightmare (here is her Twitter). So I wanted to tag them here, as it's much more fun to discuss these ideas as a group, since it'll only help you build on and strengthen your own ideas.)

Please be aware, there will be Spoilers for FFVII - Almost all Compilation titles, Xenogears, and NieR Automata throughout this.

So let's go on a journey where we explore what actually already exists in the compilation - including the idea of the whispers and timeloops - how Minerva may play into everything, and what exactly Jenova is capable of doing.

I asked Sesi if he'd ever played any of the NieR games, because he'd said something that made me wonder if they were going to take a similar approach. As a very, very quick high level summary: NieR Automata deals with a time loop type of idea. The androids will be rebooted and repeat the same things over and over again. This is broken when 2B is killed by A2 because she becomes infected with a virus. That being said, you have the option after Ending E to either erase all of your data and end the cycle OR you can try again. The Pods have a discussion, and one asks, "But won't they just do the same thing again?" and the other replies with "Maybe. But it could also be different this time."

Here's Sesi's message back to me when I asked him about this (cleaned up a bit since we were having a casual conversation over Discord):

Maybe I could just guess based comparatively on the Dirge storyline, because that was sort of SE's first flirtation with “robots and androids” since they’re all programmed and locked behind like task managers and shit that can shut them down. The story of the online mode for DoC that came out in Japan, we never got to see it, you’re basically an Android OC and you have to get to “the end of the level” and then essentially die, and a new one takes its place. This keeps happening until Weiss is essentially freed from being able to be task managed by the guys who are suppose to be able to control them and I know from tons of years with Square games that they’re verrrrry bad at differentiating their narratives they tend to just keep “ripping themselves off” so is it anything close to that?

Cuz if so I think I kinda know what you’re saying and yeah, I agree, I think with CC bringing in its poetic symbolism and LOVELESS, and DoC bringing back the cyclic nature of the lore, whispers, premonitions and future visions, proto-Materia and the perversion of this next cycle since the planet can no longer cleanse and protect itself and its will is weakening lesser and lesser to the point where it’s fate is “in a true sense of jeopardy This time essentially it’s all tied in together and sort of played as though it's a fated track; a cycle of events and something has hitched it, thus the whispers manifesting and Sephiroth's higher implied control over his destiny. Of course, even all that is just their new red herring game, but it’s definitely a part of the lore they want to play with, in order to go back and reMAKE the OG with the comp inserted from inception. Also gut punch a lot.

Time Loops

I was somewhat surprised to find out that this concept is NOT new to FFVII's universe. It's discussed in Dirge of Cerberus... probably one of the least played and least understood of the compilation. (Trying to sell a third person shooter with terrible controls to a market of mostly people used to turn-based combat wasn't going to go well.)

On top of it, we didn't even get all of it, since online mode was never released outside of Japan, and the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode was on Amp'd Mobile and Verizon flip phones back in 2006. Were you around for the cell phones in 2006? I had the ones on the list, and how somebody could play a game on those blows my mind.

Square has a tendency to reuse themes from their other titles. Probably one of the most blatant is the similarities between Xenogears and Final Fantasy VII. They were both being developed at the same time and a lot of ideas that didn't make it into FFVII ended up in Xenogears.

NieR

So how does this work? In NieR (both Replicant and Automata), you play the same path multiple times. Each time, it's slightly different depending on what side quests you did your first and second playthrough, but there's also other subtle differences throughout the story. In Automata, you get to play as 2B your first playthrough and 9S for your second. They follow the same path, but you get it from his perspective the second time and it reveals a bit more of what is going on. However, even with some slight differences, the main plot points stay the same and the ending result it also the same.

Then on your third playthrough, you wake up in the Bunker, and you're getting ready to go on a new mission. This time, though, 2B is killed and shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, you play as a new character: A2. In the end, pretty much everyone "dies", but you can choose to "reboot" and try again. You also can say you are done and let them all rest and delete your save data (the game gives you the option for both Automata and Replicant, and with Replicant, it actually leads to a new ending).

The striking thing for me is... There are certain events that will always happen, no matter what.

Fixed Points in Time

It's been years since I've watched Doctor Who, but there was something that stuck with me, and that was the fixed points in time. You can read about all of them here, but here's the basics:

Now, of course Doctor Who goes into this with much more detail and it's a recurring theme. However, as you read through that page, you'll probably find many aspects that have been used in various JRPGs that you've played. And Doctor Who most likely pulled some of the idea from classic Science Fiction novels. Each story puts its own spin on it.

How does this relate to FFVII Remake? Well, when they say that the major plot points will stay the same, it reminds me of this. No matter what, Cloud must fall into the Sector 5 Church, the Sector 7 Plate must be dropped, Aerith and Zack both must die, and Meteor has to be summoned, to name a few. So, with a time loop, those things would still have to take place in order to prevent a complete collapse of reality (at least in how Doctor Who uses it).

Therefore, the Whispers are ensuring that the Will of the Planet is followed.

One of the major themes in FFVII is that of loss. People die and they do not come back. Yes, other FF games do allow this to happen (FFX, FFXIII, FFXV), but VII is not those games. It was written with that idea in mind, that once a person dies, they, just like in real life, are dead and cannot be brought back.

I've previously written that I think they'll make us believe we are able to change fate, but we will eventually be slammed with the reality that we can't. That is because the planet has determined that certain events are fixed points.

Xenogears

Xenogears takes a bit of a different approach to the loop idea. Instead of repeating the same time period over and over, it has the characters reincarnated, and the same outcome happens each time: Elly dies. However, each time it's different. After all, they're in various time periods, in some cases thousands of years apart.

In all of the lives of Fei (who will have a different name in each time period) and Elly (who is always Elly/Elhaym), Elly will end up dying trying to protect Fei and the others. In one life, she is a religious figure at a totally not Catholic church, in another she's the wife of a scientist who was working to create children from nanomachines due to mass infertility issues. But she is ALWAYS with Fei, even if his name changes.

In her Mother Elhaym time, this is when Lacan (Fei) finally snaps. Though he's not fully aware of his past lives, he becomes aware, the anger consumes him, and he becomes Grahf. Fei is then reborn into the time period you play the game in.

There's a lot to unpack with this, so I won't go into it. Grahf wants to destroy God (Deus) because he thinks if he does, then it'll stop the suffering (his suffering).

If you do want to read more about Grahf, you can do so here, but it probably won't make much sense unless you've played Xenogears up to that point... Since it's much later in the game that this is all explained.

Lacan's desire was to stop the cycle of Elly always sacrificing herself for his sake. Though Grahf is not a perfect existence - he's not fully "The Contact", he sacrifices himself in order to let Fei move forward, and hopefully stop the cycle, by destroying the Deus system. (Elly also tries to sacrifice herself here, but Fei goes after her and stops her.)

Now, some people may think I'm saying that Cloud or somebody is going to do this in order to save Aerith or Zack (or his village or mom), but in FFVII if they do the loop method, I don't think Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others are aware of it. Most likely, it's only 'Sephiroth' and Aerith who are aware of it.

How this Could Be used for Final Fantasy VII

I'm stressing could because there's so many different possibilities on how they use this (if they are using this), so please, don't take this as fact. This is based on speculation based on what we know.

A time loop is a great way to explain away the differences in the story that we've seen: Biggs being alive, Wedge living for longer than he should have, etc. Since these are not major plot changes, they can simply say that this time it'll be slightly different... but your fixed points (major plot points) will remain the same.

It's a way to pull in some of the more obscure themes from Dirge of Cerberus and also play with the LOVELESS lore.

It could all simply be a big red herring and it's really just a remake of OG, but with the compilation tied together nicely... since it works much better when it's combined and not in 50 different games, books, movies, etc.

I don't think it's a "sequel" per say, not in the way I generally perceive a sequel. It's more of a loop of the same thing. The question is, when is the loop started and what will cause it to end? When will the planet (if it even is the planet) determine that it's good enough to begin moving forward?

JENOVA, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Minerva - Oh My!

Let's be real... Genesis isn't exactly the most popular character in the FFVII Compilation... but what if they make him one of the most important to the story? //Ducks as various fruits and vegetable are thrown in my direction//

I think what Genesis is probably most known for is his love of LOVELESS. He has the entire thing memorized and randomly says lines from it throughout Crisis Core. LOVELESS lore is still something I'm trying to grasp, so I am not going to comment much on it. Once I understand it more, I'll update this.

...And then this happens. The secret ending for Dirge of Cerberus, where Genesis picks up Weiss. Weiss, who has now been introduced along with Nero in FFVII INTERmission and is an optional ridiculously hard boss in the Shinra battle simulator in chapter 17 of the main story. There is some lore associated with the battle sim - so if you don't plan on beating it or you just can't, you can look up the pre-battle and post-battle cut scenes on YouTube. They're very short, but interesting. (I beat this asshole last night - it's a hell of a fight.)

....To Be Continued because apparently Tumblr won't allow more than 10 images per post now.... Next will be more on JENOVA and Sephiroth along with Minerva.

#ffvii #ffvii genesis #ff7 genesis #ff7 intergrade #ff7 intermission spoilers #FFVII intermission spoilers #FFVII Intermission #Final Fantasy VII #Dirge of Cerberus #FFVII Weiss #Xenogears #nier automata #final fantasy vii #ff7r #final fantasy 7 #timey wimey

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.

#shut up Janelle #lok #Atla #lok crit #legend of korra

[mingmingfufu]

Can we just talk about the ending of KawoShin open discuss. *sort of spoilerish*

I feel like I’m the only one who’s like reallly disappointed LMFAO--ya’ll there’s so much “canon” alternative universe and merchandise for Kawoshin in Evangelion that it kind of makes me upset to realise this couple just went down the drain. Yeah, I can see how people were like, “Kaworu’s toxic” or “Kaworu has a hero complex for Shinji” to which I say are valid points. But the toxic thing I feel like can also be applied to pretty much everyone around Shinji tbh, except for Rei. I did NOT, like Asuka at all but I really love her character though, and I felt for her a lot throughout the series.

I did not ship them either because honestly, Shinji and Asuka seemed better off playing the sibling dynamic instead of trying to play bf/gf which honestly is kind of forced by their living situation. Also since they’re in a similar disposition non existent father and dead mother, you’d imagine they would rely on each other for emotional comfort. Though Asuka—her personality I feel like she can’t differentiate between familial love and romantic love and the affection she wants is a bit of both. But, her character tries to be “mature”; she wants romantic love more and does this through sexual means and romantic gestures e.g. like kissing. One of my friends told me that you can’t stay friends as a boy and a girl cause eventually you catch feelings. Which I say is kinda dumb cause I have a lot of male friends, and I definitely don’t harbour those feelings, but I guess it’s a common phenomena.

I think this is what happens in this case, of Asuka and Shinji. Even after rejection of instrumentality they actually are depicted as childhood friends. But knowing how they both were before to each other, it was not good tbh. Also to mention the choking like thrice— bro if anything, this showcases a really abusive relationship and I think this outstretches the idea of their character tropes. Which I firmly stand by saying they’re superficial to each other. AsuShin were never really there for each other and are using each other in a forced situation. However, you can’t deny that they didn’t at some point catch feels, also Shinji is pretty consistent how he still cares about everyone around him. Which I really like how they add that to his character because it reminiscent of Yui, because you see a duality of both his parents personality in Shinji throughout the series—it’s a really nice touch. But bruh, if we gonna talk about that coma scene—I’m out LOL.

Thoughhhh, she is a true definition of best girl I really like her arc, fighting drive, and her skills as an Eva pilot 😭💗--but bruh she’s still a toxic and sometimes annoying tsundere trope, but still she’s 14 what can you do. So I feel like Kensuke and Asuka are actually a pretty good combo, cause he’s always been pretty mature even without parents. Also Asuka was into older guys, so I guess this is a win win?? Also Rei and Shinji, I honestly cannot get my head around it cause that’s pretty much his mom—so in a way that’s like either his half-sister or mom-ish clone?? Idk but Yui is definitely the donor LOL.

Kaworu and Shinji I felt like brought a bunch of things out of each other. I don’t know which timeline begins first, but I’d like to think the manga, the anime (plus its movies), and then to the rebuild series. Because I think that order is kind of pivotal to observing Kaworu’s character development from being a person who’s trying to understand human feelings to then the kinder person we see in the final series. You can tell how he’s changed and he knows Shinji a lot more as well as being considerate to him e.g. giving him personal space or letting him work at his own pace. Also that “we’ll meet again.” Is an obvious nod to how he’s done this before.

His literal story in every timeline is always romantic LOL, like bruh I can’t remember which game it was but basically a bad ending of Kawoshin route is that you reject Kaworu and he starts the third impact 🤡. Also I don’t know why but I started to see a weird dynamic between those two, in the manga their interactions reminded me of Asuka and Shinji—which Shinji is the tsundere Asuka here. I don’t know if this is relevant but the older character relative to the character they’re with seems to play off a mature vs a childish person trope. Asuka is younger than Shinji and Shinji is actually younger than Kaworu. Then again I could be overseeing this but istg manga Kaworu and Shinji mirror the whole Asushin dynamic. Like he’s seriously agressive against Kaworu, then after killing him he admits liking him. 🤡 I don’t know which is funnier no homo Shinji, homophobe shinji, or just closet Shinji who needs to realise sexuality is a spectrum so he could’ve idk—come out as bisexual, but whatever manga Shinji lol that timeline is over.

Anyways the development of these two is real and I think the rebuild timeline shows them at their best bringing their own personage out from each other like how they both enjoy music together--WHICH I’M SO SAD WE NEVER GET TO SEE THAT CELLO AGAIN. Then there’s those feelings of humanity, love, kindness, etc. Which yeah an angel could represent those things, but Kaworu is still his own person, self-aware of a cycle and if you think about how he initially was there to USE Shinji, but ultimately turned on that plan set by SEELE because he loved Shinji (and a bunch of other things like him showing Kaworu humanity). I also can see the argument, how “ideal” Kaworu is to Shinji, but he’s more self aware of the time he has before he KNOWS he’ll die and knows how to act for himself in that duration to make the most of it. All with Shinji. At some point, I think he fell in love with Shinji tho I don’t know where it began tbh—considering that all those alternate universes do exist. Kaworu does romantically love Shinji--so, in some universe they both reciprocate their feelings to each other. 

In the last movie during that convo with Shinji. Like bREH it’s so emotionally moving because Kaworu remembers ALLLLL the timelines and how he’s been with Shinji and later Shinji himself recalls the events too. Where they show the scene from the manga and anime. Kaworu cries after being set free from the EVA cycle. Which, I definitely understood what he meant by him saying “it’ll be lonely” and how Shinji changed or that he’s actually different this time.

Either way, Shinji did right by him because it’s always Kaworu who has the purpose of “trying to save Shinji” but it always ends up the same. I thought that was really moving because Shinji tells Kaworu he’s gonna let him live a life for himself for once and he wants the same for everyone as well. Which was honestly so meaningful cause I think Kaworu’s character and like Rei too when they start to realise how to “live” like a person and not another puppet it’s truly liberating. Another thing I forgot, bruh Kaworu calls Gendo his father and ngl I feel like this is kind of a weird lore situation because I for sure don’t think he’s the donor. I think he calls him that as an insult because he knows Gendo’s whole doing and relative to Shinji—I kind of see it as a joke LOL. Like it’s equivalent to saying, “daddy chill”, or “hey look it’s daddy and his plans to end the world” also I kind of like to think of it as a father in law thing cause you know, Kawoshin *winks amirite*

The ending, I’m honestly hoping is just an open ending because it gives everything an actual start of their adult lives not being dictated by extraterrestrial forces. Though, I’m kind of wondering if the world doesn’t have EVAs does that still mean everyone else still has the same backstory, and do they remember? Maybe Mari really is just a coworker lmfao, and there’s still a chance for Kaworu and Shinji cause ngl, they did have a convo (presumably from the spoilers) about still remaining close afterwards and that stare at the ending seems very hopeful.

I call bs from Anno saying, “oh Shinji is based off him and Mari off of his wife”, like honestly any OCs made theres always some part of yourself made into that character. Which is probably why a lot of people relate to the characters in EVA because they’re based off real things (e.g. those war machines characters are named after and people around them). I think why Kaworu and Rei are together at the end, is bc they’re very much the same. They’re mass produced dolls—which oddly enough that’s the case for all the children except they don’t recall the loop. Kind of funny also how both Kaworu and Rei became farmers lmfao so ig it runs in the family (yes that’s right I like the idea that they’re siblings it was always noted that they’re like “the same”).

Another thing, i think why the rebuild really did well for Kawoshin and in my opinion canonised it—the convo with elder Ryoji Kaji (Misato’s baby daddy) that there was a time he felt incredibly lonely and depressed thinking Misato didn’t love him and so he started looking out for himself. So self love and found himself a hobby in farming which he suggests to Kaworu—basically saying he might feel like Shinji doesn’t love him but he’s gotta remember to take care of himself. if I go thru a breakup ill feel like it’s the end of the world but Kaji says y’a gotta self love broe and take care yo self gad dam fam 😭 💗.

Though, that look at the end from Shinji to Kaworu—I’d like to believe there is still hope that one day when they’re a bit stable in their adult lives, they’ll run into each other.

#Kaworu Nagisa #shinji ikari #neon genesis evangelion #rei ayanami #mari illustrious makinami #asuka shikinami #discussion #kawoshin #nge kaworu #nge shinji #nge

[everything-laito]

How would you react if someone close to you found out you enjoy Diabolik Lovers and then accused you of glorifying Laito’s actions by drawing fan art of him? I don’t think it is shameful to enjoy fiction with themes of abuse as long as one can differentiate between fiction and reality and right and wrong, but I was just wondering if you think it is worth ending a whole friendship because of this dispute. My friends think I am someone who supports sexual assault through this series and it hurts.

Coming back from the dead to answer this question

Oh goodness, first of all, I’m very sorry anon. I’ve been in that exact situation with a friend when I first got into DL six years ago. They’re not my friend anymore due to some other things that happened in early high school on top of that, but trust me, it’s something that I’m familiar with too.

I was also ashamed of myself as well for some time. But, after when I was first sexually assaulted, I still didn’t mind Dialovers, and in fact, it was a coping mechanism for me (probably the healthiest I could find at that moment too). Although, Laito’s HDB route definitely hit very very hard because it is his darkest route in the series. But you can still watch something and be like “oh god this is a terrible situation” but know it’s still fictional, and since Laito’s HDB route is a well written one, you can appreciate it from an artistic stance. Art and media shouldn’t be limited to drawing the positives. Sure does it glorify nonconsensual situations??? Maybe a little but it does show Yui’s deterioration and trauma. Which is why I don’t think it glorifies it too much in HDB, considering what Yui’s thoughts are can be very real.

(Also not saying all sexual assault survivors will have the same opinion of this anime, I don’t speak for all survivors. But there’s your perspective from one :))

Regardless, the fanservice of DL, at its core, is a ravishment fantasy franchise. Sure people are here for the lore too (I know I am), but they can also be for the fanservice. I am unsure how old you are, anon, but considering this petty argument is occurring between a friend and you, it sounds like some high school/late middle school drama to me. I preface this considering I’m gonna be arguing something from the 18+ scale too. If you’re not 18+ this doesn’t rly apply to you (since no minors should be practicing kink) but there is something called CNC, or “consensual non-consensual.” Also known as “rape roleplay.” It’s a kink that can be used in BDSM, and is enacted by consenting adults. Is it nonconsensual? No way! However, in order to practice this, you need a lot of communication and trust, and it’s something that you shouldn’t start out with of course. Also, see Netflix’ “Sex Explained” and I think the first episode is on sexual fantasies. Many women have ravishment fantasies, but that doesn’t mean they want it ACTUALLY to happen to them!! With those types of fantasies it’s just in a D/s (Dom/sub) power play situation, which again, is performed by two (or more) consenting adults.

When it comes to that argument as well, it’s kind of like saying “if you watch and like slasher horror, you support serial killers” which,,,, is far from truth. Murder and rape are both terrible things. We’re just more used to seeing glorified violence on mainstream media rather than rape in general. There’s a whole slasher fandom! With people who love the lore and people who love the characters! It’s pretty similar to this fandom given the circumstances. But there’s people who have crushes on real life serial killers, and that’s just,,,, that’s a huge issue (abs very gross), and very different. Since one’s fantasy, and one’s in real life with real life actions that have affected legitimate families that exist. Even going from the slasher serial killer, it’s like “if you like Deadpool, do you support his actions?” (Which yes he’s an antihero but he does pretty illegal things) which no!!! It’s fun to explore dark and illegal exposition in a fictional world! It’s an escape! It’s looking at a story and still having empathy and sympathy for the characters.

So no!!! Liking DL is not supporting rape!! That’s legitimately such a stretch, and if you want to get technical with this, it’s a type of fallacy called the “slippery slope” fallacy. I believe it’s a combo of others too, but it’s making a claim and having the conclusion be way out of left field. I believe it falls under poor deductive reasoning (but it may be unsound inductive reasoning, it’s been a while since I’ve had to use those skills oops). For an anime specific example, let’s just say you know someone who has a crush on Yuno Gasai from Future Diary. Many people do. Many people love her character. Yuno’s a very flawed, traumatized character just like the ones in DL. But people love her! But you’re not supporting her incredibly unethical actions and murder by liking them!

Even if you know that this is a fictional universe, if you knowthat the characters are flawed but still like their characters, that doesn’t mean you’d support their actions irl. If they’re an interesting villain like legitimately all the characters (except Yui) in the first game are (the diaboys become both the villain??? And the hero??? It’s blurred in the later games but that’s what I love about DL), but you can appreciate their characters and flaws, that’s not supporting their actions at all. It’s a goddamn fictional universe and if you know not to do that and you know the repercussions of it irl then your friends should know you well enough that you have a good head on your shoulders!!! Shit makes me wicked mad, but it’s nothing to lose a friendship over unless if they’re being very toxic (that ex friend I was talking about earlier was a very toxic person and that’s also part of the reason why I’m not her friend anymore but it wasn’t DL related). Sure you can disagree with liking DL, but you still have to respect them. I’m linking a video from Markiplier made four years ago with a powerful message.

I’m very sorry you’re going through this. It’s completely normal, healthy, and inconsequential to be exploring a dark fictional world but not its contents in real life. Your friends shouldn’t be treating you like that. It’s hypocritical of them in my opinion, assuming that they also watch stuff with violence and illegal/unethical acts in them—I don’t know a single person who doesn’t, considering there’s even kids cartoon violence. Best of luck you you though, I hope I was able to help.

#i could pop off on the whole video games equalling violence argument #im not gonna #but video games dont create violence they literally dont #unless if you have some serious mental issues but that goes for anything not even playing video games #SHIT MAKES ME MAD LOL #ask corn #diabolik lovers #dialovers #dialover

[americangodstalk]

American Gods: My opinion and review of season three’s finale

SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD!

I took notes while watching the episode so I can give you my exact thoughts here.

This episode has two good things. Only two. 

The first was that they started to drop off some Shining vibes at the Center of America. Honestly, I was all for it. The Shining is the embodiment of the creepy hotel, and one of my favorite works, The definition of the anomalous, haunted, evil hotel. And the Center of America is supposed to be the Overlook hotel but for the gods. A creepy, dangerous place where they can break down into pure madness or oblivion if they are not careful. Too bad they did not continue and explore this more. You can see the difference between the old seasons and this one because in this one, they mix up together two different moments of the book in one episode: the Center and the vigil. In the old seasons, it would have been two different episodes to give enough screen time for each of these moments/chapters to be adapted faithfully and entirely. 

Two, the Technical Boy’s storyline. It was still too short for my taste, but I admit, they handled the revelation pretty well. Not establishing him as an Old God, but as a bridge between the Old and the New, that’s pretty clever, and making him the first and most powerful of the New, I roll with it. It also makes sense given World’s identity that he would usurp and overthrow who would have been the true leader of the New Gods. My main concern with this that they would have presented Technical Boy as dating back to the prehistoric times, which would have been very problematic for the lore (especially since the New Gods are described as an American phenomenon. And among the “things” we saw in artefact 1, was the first printing, most precisely the European first printing. Anyway)

Now for the rest and the bad parts...

I was ultimately pissed off at how they treated the passing of the body of Mr. Wednesday. It is not a “Norse tradition”, or not one I know of. The vigil thing, now that is done in accordance to the laws of the divine Old Gods, true. But in the novel it was clearly established that what happened at the Center of America was something that was bound by divine rules. RULES not traditions. That was the only thing the technical boy and Mr. Nancy agreed on. It wasn’t a matter of cultural tradition. 

As I mentionned before, the Center of America scene lacked tension. It wasn’t just a place where the god were “powerless” in the novel: it was a place where they could not attack each other because they were too careful surviving on their own. It was a place of danger, of tension, where the technical boy was starting to become mad. And here? Czernobog has sex with the receptionist. Which is another thing that disturbs me: not only is it unfitting with the setting (again, the gods are on such an hedge that they normally couldn’t be that relaxed or casually have sex like that), but it is also unfitting with the character - it is Mr. Wednesday that is a seducer who enjoys charming (literaly) young girls to get a bit of worship now and then. He is the lecherous guy, not Czernobog. 

There are VERY UNFORTUNATE implications with Shadow’s choice between divinehood and humanity. Because here, humanity is represented as black slaves, while divinehood is represented by a white man - even more a white European entity. Very, VERY unfortunate implications here. 

And what the hell is going on with Shadow’s character here? This is not the Shadow I know of, this is not the Shadow of the novel or even of the previous seasons, this is not even the Shadow of post-AG material! Since when does Shadow desires godhood? Since when does Shadow crave power and wants to become a leader? Who the hell is this? 

I still don’t get the fucking point of SHARD. What the hell is that? Especially since Mr. World is clearly Loki. In the novel, the natural tensions between Old and New were enough to draw on the war. The New Gods weren’t some kind of brainwashers invaders trying to puppet humans. I don’t even understand what Shard even is. Hell, in the novel the New Gods even carefully avoided to call themselves outright gods despite being ones, to differentiate themselves from the Old ones.

On a similar note, I realized something else with Lakeside (since it reappears). Many watchers were annoyed at Lakeside, feeling it fake, not understanding why such a town would be considered peaceful or idyllic. And it makes sense, because for most of the screen time, Lakeside showed us to turn on Shadow, accuse each other and hide secrets. In the novel, Shadow spent time with more of the people in town. He bonded with more people than Chad, Hinzelmann and Marguerite. There was much more a sense of welcoming and hospitality there. So again, they rushed it. If they wanted to make a season about Lakeside, develop the town fully. 

And poor Bilquis. She just doesn’t know what to do anymore. Oh, let me correct that: the writers don’t know what to do with her anymore. Ever since the ending of season 1 (which is technically the beginning of season 2, since they clearly reused the scripts left by Fuller and Green), she has been just wandering around, and even now... her character just leads nowhere. That’s what happen when you have a tertiary character of two scenes become a central one. Why not introduce some of the dozens of other divine characters, huh? 

And if there is a season 4, they better up their stakes, because so far the number of gods, both Old and New, on screen, has been dwindling massively. You wouldn’t believe America is filled with deities, huh? At least for the Old Gods they’re more numerous, but the New? Media/New Media is gone without a trace, these new things of Shard we can’t even identify are also out of the picture, the Caretaker disappeared, most of the Agency are just children, Technical Boy took on the role of many of the other New Gods (like gods of radio and the telephone), Money (whoever he is since his character is still confusing) isn’t even on board... Is it just Mr. World, Tech Boy and a bunch of children now? 

And I am not convinced about the Norns speaking and acting here. In the novel they were much creepier. Here, for fuck’s sake, one of the Norns looked at the ground before stepping down the frontdoor. That ruins the entire mystic mood! 

Let’s talk a bit about the vigil stuff, shall we? Outside of the fact they removed a lot of what made this beautiful (Ganesh isn’t here, Ratatosk isn’t here, Jesus isn’t here either, nobody’s fucking here), they also did something I believe to have again ruined the ritual. Here, Shadow is tied to the tree by branches - not by ropes. The tree animates itself and ties Shadow.  This is bad. Why? Because in the novel there was an ambiguity, and that’s what made the power of that scene. You didn’t know if what Shadow saw was supernatural events, real gods, or if it was a sun/thirst/hunger-induced hallucination. That’s what made it even holier, since it was precisely this same ambiguity that ruled the old religions (was it a drug hallucination, or truly a god speaking through the priest’s voice?), 

Finally I do not know what to think of the reveal of Mr. Wednesday’s death being a con, to revive himself... The sacrifice of a son wouldn’t restore Odin to his former glory, at least no by the book’s lore, it would certainly merely bring him back to life maybe, but that’s it. We all know what he truly needs to return to his all-powerful glory. I think the reveal of Wednesday as a cruel con men is also too early. This season built up Wednesday as a figure to root for, with a good and compassionate side. You can’t just ruin it all by the end of the season. It has already been ruined by season 2 and the end of season 1. Wait until season 4 for it... if there is one. 

So yeah... all in all what I have to say is. Missed opportunity. Stick to the book. 

#american gods #spoilers #season 3 #finale #review #television series #stick to the book

[bean-na-farraige-agus-foraoise]

A Rebuttal of “Lesson 6: The Structure of Early Gaelic Society”

This is part 6 of my 20-part manifesto on why druids should do some research for once. You can find the master-post here.

This is a long post, so the actual rebuttal is under the cut! Each number in parenthesis (#) corresponds to a footnote formatted in the Chicago manual of style located in the block quote at the end of the post, any reference to the Brehon laws is linked within the text and will not have a footnote!

Hey hey hey welcome back! It’s been a few months, and I’m refreshed and am once again ready to tear into druidic bullshit. Today we’re continuing our look at Robin Herne’s “lessons,” this particular lesson can be found here. 

From the very beginning of this “lesson” I’m sensing a problem with Herne’s writing that I’ve seen and spoken on before, which is the concept of a pan-Celtic religion. Herne’s lesson may focus on Ireland, but that’s only because he feels as though it’s “harder” to talk about Wales.... a nation with a very different history and a different religion than Ireland..... but they’re both Celtic so whatever right? For any newbies here, there was no Pan-Celtic religion. I mention this in Part 1 of this series.

From there it only gets worse really. For starters, the Romans never conquered Ireland, the nation whose history is supposed to be the focus of this lesson. Beyond that- the Romans used existing British oppida as the urban centers of the tribal system that was established under their rule, to claim that pre-Roman Britain was made up only of villages when archaeologists can’t accurately determine the populations of the oppida is ridiculous. What the Romans did was establish the first cities that were not located in the South East of England. Herne also has this weird focus on Ireland and Britain being “rural” as though most cultures weren’t largely rural- and honestly the focus on distancing these cultures from anything urban is a HUGE red flag if you know the history of paganism and Celtic Twilight, bad show all around. And of course Herne doesn’t cite any sources so for all I know he’s pulling this out of his ass. All in all it seems like Herne is falling to the classic pitfall of circle jerking to Rome, maybe if he could get off Rome’s dick for a few minutes we might actually learn something. 

I question whether Herne has ever actually read the Brehon laws, or if he understands that there were similarities between the laws of many medieval societies, even those that didn’t share a “Celtic” label. I genuinely have no idea what “change” he’s referring to that would be a gradual process considering the continental Celts and the Gaels were different cultures, and the laws in question existed at different times, and also the laws he references for the continental Celts were only “mentioned” by classical authors, who if you haven’t read my other rebuttals are notoriously unreliable narrators. 

I question the choice to say “Think of the cenn as rather like the head of a Mafia clan! “ and particularly to end it with an exclamation point. The cenn, is the head of the family, and thus the family’s legal representative in court. This was not a cultural practice unique to Ireland, similar practices are shown to exist throughout Europe during this time. And in no way is a patriarch (or occasionally a matriarch) who protects the family’s interests and revokes legal agreements made without their consent the same thing as a mafia boss. This isn’t a crime syndicate, it’s a judicial system that protects the different families within the tribe and in theory was meant to ensure that contractual decisions were made with the consent of the family. 

Beyond this to describe the social structure of early Ireland as a “caste system” is... stretching it- movement from one class to another was not uncommon, and more things factored into one’s status in Irish society than simply the situation of one’s birth. Beyond that, this system is more easily broken down into six groups than into two, and Herne would know that if he’d actually read the Brehon laws. Rather than just splitting society into “the blessed ones” and “ordinary people” the Brehon laws organize it into kings of various grades, professional classes, flaiths (a sort of official nobility), freemen possessing property, freemen who possess no or very little property, and the non-free classes. And joint ownership of property could qualify a selected joint-owner to become a noble, this is very much not the rigid system Herne would want you to believe it is. 

Herne’s discussion of the Lia Fail while simplified does hold up. In the lore we see the process described by Herne for choosing the high king of Ireland, it’s described clearly in The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel. And I will admit, I’m with Herne up to a point in his discussion of the concept of lanamnas, there’s clearly a fair amount of research he needs to do into medieval history to truly understand the relationships he’s describing, but he’s not necessary wrong, so I’ll let it slide, these are meant to be introductory lessons after all. 

However. Herne makes some... interesting claims in regards to divinity. Herne makes the correct statement that “Each partner in lanamain must recognise that they have a duty to give certain things to the other person, but also a duty to allow that person to give back to them ~ there is no honour in emasculating someone, nor in allowing yourself to be rendered servile.” This is correct, we see this very same principle in the two sided nature of the virtue of hospitality, we’re called to be both good hosts and good guests. But then Herne goes onto say “This applies as much to the Gods as to other humans. Hosting a ritual for a god may be seen as fulfilling the coinmed, but there should also be expectation back of the deity. If your life is barren, then maybe you need a better head to guide you (either that, or you‘re not fulfilling your duties to them).” Ignoring the fact that Herne has all but called the gods parasites if they don't attend rituals we host for them voluntarily (something we should be doing anyway, and without the expectation that they’ll show up)- this argument rests on the assumption that we can understand the divine and how they interact with us enough to judge whether or not we need a "better head" to guide us, which I think anyone who’s actually had an encounter with the divine or felt their presence can tell you is bullshit. They’re divine for a reason, they’ve existed for thousands of years, we’re just a blip on their radar, it is not up to us to judge whether or not we need a “better head to guide us” or if we’re giving enough, the gods decide that. 

For everyone who had “baseless claims about the roles of historical druids” on their BINGO cards you may now cross that off. Herne falls into the typical pattern of repeating the “druids were the precursor the Catholic church” story fabricated by 16th century Germans for political clout. Don’t be like Herne, read a goddamn book, I have recommendations, feel free to dm me or shoot me an ask if you’d like them. 

And last but not least, I would like to remind everyone that the “every family/tribe has their own tartan that differentiates them” is a largely 19th century creation with scant pre-Victorian basis. 

That’s all for today! If you want more reading on any of the topics mentioned in this post feel free to shoot me an ask or a message and I’ll provide you with a reading list!

#my writing #research musings #anti-druidic rhetoric #anti druidic rhetoric #aka facts #20-part manifesto