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kustas · 3 months

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Sorry for the incoming long rant.

I just rediscovered your blog, and I always enjoyed your thoughts on WHA and wanted to rant a little bit. I found a post of yours talking about how WHA is getting less nuanced and I feel the same way. I feel like in an effort to make every character feel like a person, the manga treats everyone’s issues as if they’re on the same level. I’m not sure if that entirely makes sense, but it feels like the manga is trying to make you sympathize with everyone to some extent, even though that doesn’t really work. For example, there is a chapter that pissed me off so much that I had to put the manga on pause. It’s the chapter where Coco shows off a spell that can clean water, and the townspeople are uninterested because they don’t need it. And the moral of the chapter is that Coco should make her spell for everyone. No. No no no. These people need to learn some damn compassion and realize that they need to help end what suffering that they are able to. The moral of the chapter should’ve been that these people need to stop thinking of only themselves. Everything else was aimed at them, so Coco’s spell didn’t need to be for them. It shouldn’t have been for them. There is also the situation with the knights. You went into this already but who gives a shit if they are offended by a grieving husband taking out his anger in them when they are a part of the system that caused his grief. The manga wants you to sympathize with everyone, and while I don’t think these people should be one dimensional their issues should not be treated on the same level as others. Anyway, sorry for the weird long rant, it’s just everyone treats this manga like it is The Most Flawlessly Progressive Manga Ever and your one of the few I’ve found who acknowledges is flaws without devaluing its strengths

Thank you for your ask! I agree with what you're saying and think you worded it very well. It's a bit of a shame it's so rare to find people openly critiquing the series in the community, while it's nothing serious (and minimized by being a bit of a hermit, lol) I've seen some animosity for doing it, I assume because many assume critiquing art means you don't like it or are opposed to what it's trying to do! Which isn't true. Granted Witch Hat Atelier contains many an obvious fantasy metaphor for real life social issues it should be under more scrutiny than normal if you ask me, because those are serious topics that affect people's real lives. I do have faith in the author's serious handling of touchy topics, but in the execution there are things I'd do differently for sure...

The manga wants you to sympathize with everyone, and while I don’t think these people should be one dimensional their issues should not be treated on the same level as others.

WHA has in its writing strong expectations from the reader regarding how you think of its cast I find hard to read through a lot - the latest arc in particular, comparatively, has much of its character based moments revolve around if they're good or bad in a way that implies it'll change how you think of a character and it disturbs me. Qifrey and Sasaran are two early examples of characters that do *not* play into that - Qifrey's beginning arcs simultaneously show him as a shady manipulator and genuinely good teacher who betters the life of his students, and it participates so much to the dramatic tension. Sasaran is a villain of the week who while shown to be a huge cunt, has a backstory that implies his original motives were not nefarious ones, and his life was not easy.

Compare this to a character like Dean who, as much as I'm a fan of his concept, falls rather flat because he's, depending on the chapter, pushed as good/bad to the reader, regarding his moral alignment. Characters who are just meant to be despicable don't have the same level of attention placed to their writing which is a similar issue. It feels insecure, like if the story was saying: we have those important characters, their role is to bring up difficult situations, please don't hate them, like them, see, they're nice too! And giving them chosen positive traits. People don't work like that and it feels cheap. Fandom's obsession with villains should show well a character being despicable doesn't make them unlikeable, and I'd like WHA's characters to be less "good"/"likeable" myself to make them a bit more human. This would detonate a fandom nuke given I still regularly see passionate debates about how mean and terrible characters like Agott or Custas are but hey

As for priorities in the depicted suffering of characters in universe - yeah, it's true some scenes feel a bit off in that department...the water cleaning scene you mention did not rub me the wrong way too hard, because it's centered around Coco, who's our main character, the story bending to give her a central role makes sense, and her unique position in witch society and how it relates to helping others are, with the responsibilities of witches, very important to the story. The apprentice backstories are an earlier example I had trouble taking too seriously because while they're all terrible, tiny silly Riche and her brother's experience with physical child abuse felt drawn with the same intensity as Agott being pushed to mental disarray by her rich fancy perfectionist family. It's all hard to complain about and might sting less if the writing was a bit less dramatic and preachy, but that might just be a me issue, I've seen many fans praise WHA's writing wholeheartedly, so...

What I am hoping is that the latest arc will conclude and lead to the shorter previous structure and we'll get individual attention brought to character stories, one after the other, instead of the all at once formula going on right now... We'll see!

#no real conclusion. if u wanna discuss more feel free to:)#ask #witch hat atelier #sounding like a broken record at this point but if you want a kids having variousproblems manga that im #o does characters right: read sunny

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crossdressingdeath · 2 months

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Can I just... okay, there's something that's been percolating in my head ever since the Durgetash patch 6 crumbs dropped and I think I can finally put it into words. Because everyone was getting so mad about Durge (and it was about Durge, not Gortash; it was an origin character getting their backstory acknowledged in the game at a point where it should've been from the start, saying it was about Gortash is like saying... I don't know, any unique dialogue Cazador gets in Astarion origin runs is Cazador content) getting five or six new lines when Wyll got nothing and... well, personally I think that's a little silly, first because adding a few new Gortash lines to Durge runs would not be taking away from Wyll content (the two characters have different writers, VAs and mocap actors, for the most part they would not have been pulling from the same resource pool), but more importantly because... if you want to point at an origin character taking resources from Wyll, don't point at Durge. Point at Karlach.

I mean, think about it. Think about how the game runs with these two characters. You likely meet Wyll first unless you go out of your way to avoid speaking to him until you meet Karlach. He asks you to help him hunt down and kill a devil, and you go and you look and you find her and... now you're doing Karlach's quest. They interrupt Wyll's quest in the middle to do Karlach's quest. And she keeps piping up during the conversation with Mizora afterwards, and it turns out that Wyll got sent after Karlach to begin with because Karlach is Zariel's extra-special favourite mortal, and suddenly Wyll's sharing his post-quest transformation cutscene (something which I think we can all agree should be entirely about him) with a character who wasn't even playable until a ways into EA. You can't even properly commiserate with Wyll afterwards, you can only even be nice to him if you choose to read the lines that way; you spend more time chatting to Karlach about Wyll's transformation than you do Wyll! Wyll's act one quest gets almost completely taken over by Karlach, I'm honestly kind of surprised I haven't seen anyone else talking about it. Even him being turned into a devil is barely about him because Karlach's backstory is butting in! There is a reason why no other origins share villains, but where Karlach's connection to Gortash is overshadowed by Durge in a Durge run here she's overshadowing Wyll in every run except maybe (I say maybe because I haven't done it) a Wyll origin.

And it gets even better! Remember how originally you couldn't save Karlach at all? Remember when it was death or mind flayer? Remember what Larian did when people complained about that? I'm fucking amazed I didn't see more complaints about that, given the number of complaints I saw about Durgetash getting five whole lines. Do you want to keep Karlach alive? Do you want to end the game with all your companions still breathing and reasonably happy? Well then fuck what you think is a good, happy and/or narratively satisfying ending for Wyll; you're packing him off to the Hells, because that's the only way to keep Karlach alive if you don't want to go with her (which you probably don't if you romanced someone other than her)! Like, I want you to really let that sink in; they made Karlach's survival completely reliant on how you end Wyll's quest. If you want Karlach to survive and don't want your character's epilogue to be "go to the Hells" (which, again, odds are most players don't) you have to end Wyll's quest accordingly. They could've put that into Karlach's quest! Give her an actual character arc (instead of the line-with-maybe-a-slight-curve she got) where you can encourage her to choose life and go to Avernus on her own or... I don't know, go with Dammon or something! Especially since as it turns out Zariel apparently doesn't actually give a shit, which the PC should be able to point out given Zariel's track record in this game of giving barely enough of a shit to make a token effort at getting Karlach back or killing her! But instead the climax of Wyll's whole damn arc has to share space with Karlach. Maybe not in the game's text proper, but from a meta perspective? If the player doesn't want to go to the Hells but wants Karlach to live, that's likely going to be if not the deciding factor in Wyll's quest then certainly a major one in—as with the transformation cutscene—a situation that should be entirely about Wyll.

I don't really know how to end this. I guess... I fully admit part of it is me being super petty about the sheer number of posts I saw getting mad about Durgetash getting literally five or six lines (crumbs! Barely crumbs! Crumbs that didn't impact Wyll in any way!), but it also really is like... people complained about that but I haven't seen anyone complaining about how Larian warped Wyll's whole story around Karlach. And I think more people should complain about it. Wyll's story got dragged off-course the second they started rewriting it, but they wrapped the whole thing around Karlach when they made her an origin companion to the point where at times it feels like Wyll's playing second fiddle in his own arc, and that's... well, honestly it just pisses me off.

#bg3 #the fact that they sacrificed wyll being the main character in his own story for karlach's story when karlach's story isn't even that good #is. also a factor #to be clear it still would've been a problem if karlach's story WAS good #but they made wyll a supporting character in his own quest line and for WHAT? a basic revenge story?#'ooooh revenge didn't undo what had been done to her' LIKE HALF THE OTHER COMPANIONS TOUCH ON THAT #AND IT'S HER WHOLE STORY #THEY DID NOT HAVE A SINGLE ORIGINAL IDEA TO USE FOR KARLACH AND IT SHOWS #also zariel would've been a much more compelling villain for karlach than gortash #if she was too tough for the party the demon who karlach served didn't HAVE to be her #but that's a topic for another post

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surlifen · 11 months

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guide to surlis sonas

aka an excuse to Poast Images and drone on because I love to do that!

current main sona I think and closest to a truesona: this otter guy who remains unnamed because all the names that are my name have already been used at this point LMAO

art by nepeteaa and by me! I'd honestly draw him more often if he weren't hard to draw? surli was easy because. Fox. (and Generic Thin whereas my body type is, while still pretty thin, specific in a way that's hard for me to draw) and honestly I enjoy drawing him more oTL.... otters are super hard to stylize cutely + in a way that looks Like Me... surli does not look Like Me teebeehaiche

surli fennec surlifen main sona of the past and still like... kind of me it's complicated

imbages by jilf and vhsdruid

i kinda ended up disconnecting from his Design as a Whole and the alt palette didn't really fix it but nonetheless he's never leaving my possession. it's weird cause my brain can really only connect fully to one character per Thing/Setting as a Sona who is Me so ever since splitting off into otter I don't feel FULLY connected to either the way I once did to surli :( but I am experimenting with having multiple sonas and maybe ill try that thing people do where they also do sonas for different Aspects of themselves so I don't just have an army of Normal Nice Blonds

pokesona: liam

art by me, cicadaghost, me

not much 2 say he is me pokemonned! he's much Smaller Cuter than I am and I really enjoy his simple design + imagining him in the pokemon world :3 like what berries he'd like best and what specific cities/landmarks he hangs out at... hiking in ilex forest and visiting the national park yk

lee: bunny....sona....?

art by me, purrker

he was a bit of an experiment in "CAN I have more than one fursona?" and also "CAN I make a sona who isn't Exactly Like Me?" i've always seen people whose sonas have Supernatural Elements and been like how can you do that. I respect it so much but if EYE am a normal human person how can I connect to something with strange abilities and qualities. and I still couldn't go so far as like... my friend whose sona is an honest to god several stories tall kaiju with a backstory and shit, but lee has supernatural luck and a connection to/control of storms/lightning because that's sick and awesome and cool. and also glows and has cool antlers when he wants. he's not as me as the others but he's there and he's not... NOT me?

fucking... willie dustice, silver city "self-insert" joke guy

unfortunately I DO love his stupid ass. you know how sometimes in a comic or animated show there'll be some obscure reference to one of the creators or someone on the team like as a gag that goes over most people's heads well he's supposed to be that. his appearance is me at my worst (needs haircut + shave) and he has the OP superpower of putting people in pocket dimensions of altered reality he controls entirely but he ONLY uses it to make stupid filler bottle episodes like They All Have To Play Softball or Beach Episode or whatever. represents my oft-abused ability as a creator to Put Those Guys in a Situation. he's not so much a sona (cause if I made a silver city sona it would be genuine not this greasy freak) but he sure is Representative of Me.

horse: horse

i was challenged to make a horsesona. I don't plan to do anything with him but kept him around because I liked his design. someday I might make a more natural horse sona for in case I ever joined some kind of equine rp setting or some shit equivalent but for now my sparklehorse

spinxynsona: coast

art by capricorne, me, me

coasty woasty... made for the nephfei world for the spinxyn closed species. first closed species sona ive ever had and i think hes neat! nephfei is such a well designed world that is really conducive to stories and characters influencing each other's arcs but coast is just some guy he's just there. he just lives there and minds his own business. (he has no gifts or curses so nothing really requiring a Story) but maybe i should get him some Friends at least maybe i can have a sona who has Story OC Friends from other people and still be like yes thats me if i was friends with everybody's ocs

dnd character who was based on me: august

art by me, thembodino

it was suggested since I have a very hard time being In Character (i get so self conscious) that I start with a character similar to myself! so august is incredibly Just Me FR. if i were to go on an adventure i would be bad at it and terrified. his campaign is suspended due to Life but i accidentally, due to knowing nothing, picked a pretty OP blend of stats that has made him bizarrely competent (not like. the best in the party or anything but he really can hold his own and once like critted twice and turned invisible and flew and killed a dragon) and honestly that's hilarious and I like it for him

that's it! the rest of my characters are just characters not sonas though I still love them dearly, some of them even more than some of my sonas i won't name names though ty if you made it this far. i love to Talk

#surli #liam #coast #lee #willie dustice #august

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 2 years

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Six of crows characters and their comédie brute costumes

Made a post about symbolism the other day and a few people asked me to expand on this one.

When disguising themselves in the city, the crows take on the costumes of the comédie brute and I noticed that the same characters usually wear the same costume, and I think that’s because they are reflective of the character’s personality, arc, and backstory.

Kaz Brekker: The Madman. Kaz is always described as wearing “the goggle-eyes mask of the madman”. A mask hides what you present to the world, and in Kaz’s case what he presents to the world is already a mask: an image of cruel, business-like professionalism to hide the madness within. When he wears a mask in a literal sense, it reflects back into the inner self that he represses.

Nina Zenik: The Lost Bride Nina wears the blue veil of the lost bride, described by Matthias as “some kind of gauzy veil caught up in her hair”. First of all is the more obvious of the two observations: she plays the lost bride, and is characterised as the Lost Grisha. But then as a further, over arching metaphor for her character arc, the description of Lost Bride categorises her entire tragedy. She has been lost for so long, and when she finds the love that she would have married she loses him as well.

Inej Ghafa and Wylan Van Eck: The Grey Imp This one originally stumped me because I couldn’t think of why they would both wear the same outfit, but then it hit me that it serves as a reminder of just how similar their stories are. For both of them, the abuse that they suffered led them to feeling the need to disappear, the desperation for greyness and being bland to just fit in with everyone and fade into the background - for Wylan to hide his “deficiencies” and to hide from himself, and for Inej to do starkly contrast the bright silks she was forced to wear. But the fact that each character only wears this costume once or twice shows that they are slowly learning to love themselves and step out of the shadow of their abuse to be their true selves without the need for hiding.

Matthias Helvar: Mr Crimson Matthias was a challenge to find the symbolism for, because he is only ever known to wear the Mr Crimson costume at the same time as everyone else on the stave. I discussed it with a friend, who pointed out the relevance of him wearing a costume that thousands of people (including some of the other crows) wore to watch him in Hellgate; he was essentially tortured for entertainment by being forced to kill the wolves. Taking on that costume represents his first step towards freedom, but the red cape of blood and the black tear represent his last.

Unfortunately the only one I haven’t managed to think of anything for is Jesper, to my memory he is only seen in the Mr Crimson costume at the same time as Matthias. Let me know if you can think of anything for him :)

Tagging people who asked for the post - @shoepolishpolice @hfcooney @elelandia @livsarthaven @45te

#grishaverse #six of crows #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #nina zenik #wylan van eck #wesper #kanej #helnik

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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I know the unpopular opinions meme finished ages ago, but id love to hear yours on Chetney, especially given the uthodurn arc. I suppose for more specific direction since thats quite a broad ask, what would you say is the fandom interpretation of Chetney’s character, and how does your opinion/interpretation of him differ and why?

Absolutely - and questions like this one are always welcome!

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the fandom response to Chetney this week, which was by and large positive. But with that in mind I think that honestly, it's hard to pin down a definitive fandom interpretation of Chetney's character! Some of this is probably the circles in which I engage and what people put in the main tag, but I think at this point people who felt he was comic relief or a shallow joke or "just couldn't get him!" have either quietly adjusted their expectations or have left the fandom, or have always been people only watching for one character and ignored him from the start.

So I think the thing that differs in my opinion, to be honest, is just that like....I've never reduced him to mere comic relief? Like, he's an extremely funny and ridiculous character, but he showed a great deal of emotional depth from early on; if you didn't pick that up from his rapid turnaround on Dorian it's pretty much impossible to miss in his quiet conversation in the Heartmoor or the way he takes FCG's also ridiculous backstory about Shithead completely in earnest. These two things, as I've mentioned many a time before, are not in conflict! I think Chetney definitely skews far more comedic than, say, Fjord; or obviously more so than other Bells Hells party members Imogen; but like, comedy, tragedy, and horror are all connected by the same tissue, separated only by timing, perspective, and expectation. We know Travis can do a ridiculous character with heavy plot beats as we've seen with Grog; we also know that sometimes the funniest jokes come from more serious characters (again, I think an underrated moment of hilarity in C2 was Caleb's early "you look like a nerd").

It's very narrow and not terribly smart to box characters into a tiny contained archetype with no room to spread out, and Travis is particularly good among the cast at creating characters who defy those boxes. Chetney is an old weirdo with a high voice who says truly preposterous things; he is also someone whose life took an unexpectedly sharp slide downward following an impulsive decision, and who then, improbably, found that what many would consider rock bottom was in fact one of the greatest things that ever happened to him. He's incredibly passionate about what he loves, and vocal about what he dislikes, and deceptively insightful, and has a strong sense of justice and a remarkably good sense of how far he can push people with his over-the-top bravado without wearing out his welcome. He's even (heavily implied to be) bisexual.

I also think, and here's where "oh shit we need to catch up on the entire campaign on the Bells Hells page on the wiki" is really benefiting me, people underestimate how quietly instrumental Chetney is in many of Bells Hells decisions. He was not just the person to clock Dusk, but also the person to broker the compromise; he served as one of the more levelheaded party members following the disastrous fight with Otohan; he's consistently been the one to ask Imogen to actually consider her relationship with her powers; he was the one who convinced Delilah that she needed them leading Delilah to give Laudna a moment; and it was ultimately his idea to fly the skyship into the key. As of this level, he literally is the brains of the operation, with a +3 INT modifier to Orym, Ashton, and Laudna's +1 (and Imogen's +0 and Fearne and FCG's -1's). He has an overblown public sense of pride, but is remarkably willing to set his ego aside when he is not the focus. And for all he loves being a werewolf, he also does take responsibility for the harm he has done without wallowing in guilt. (Not that exploring guilt isn't valid as well, but I think Chet's approach is an admirable trait).

To be honest I think anyone who's not on board with Chet is uncomfortable with those final notes. Either they're one of the stragglers still on their "but Grog had a 6 INT and despite having five entire years to get over this during which Travis has consistently played characters with at least a +2 to INT, I shall not change my perception" bullshit, or, more realistically, are uncomfortable with the fact that Chetney (and, on a meta level, Travis as a player) both without hesitation will take the lead when appropriate or needed, but also will step aside when the narrative is not about him with absolutely no ego or resentment. I think that last bit really throws people off, especially people of the 'if the show cannot be interpreted as secretly centering my blorbo at all times I'm going to go into my tantrum hole' persuasion.

#answered #faltermoth #not me thinking of a proust quote about an ancient tiny werewolf man #cr tag #chetney pock o'pea

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linkspooky · 2 years

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Toji’s Two Legacies

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Gege likes to draw parallels between Maki and Toji. You might not have caught on, he’s extremely subtle about it. However, despite having the same backstory as the outcast of the Zenin Clan, and the same Heavenly Restriction, Maki only reflects one aspect of Toji.

Maki herself only became aware of Toji after seeing one aspect of him. During the fight against Dagon, Toji suddenly breaks into the Domain and in front of the scattered members of the Zenin Clan and absolutely slaughters the curse spirit that was givnig them all trouble. Maki has no idea who Toji is even, he is just someone who appeared in front of her and showed her a strength with her heavenly restriction that she had never seen before.

Her only impression of him was him as a fighter, stronger than anyone she had ever seen before, apparently, free of everything that was holding Maki back.

In her desire to be like him and emulate him, Maki only really understands that he is an extremely powerful individual who can defeat others even without cursed energy. In a mini-arc where Maki is apparently, not seeing something important, and learning to see more, there is something that we the readers know that Maki is not privvy to.

Toji is a complete and utter failure of a human being.

Toji, the strongest monkey even without cursed energy, only cared about the strength to the point of neglecting everything else.

Toji only cared about proving his stnregth, getting stronger, and crushing the same socery world that rejected him. To the point where Toji’s life is entirely empty. He has nothing, but his strength. Toji while alive, didn’t act that much different from his flesh puppet zombie that only attacked everything that was stronger than it. All he did was fight for money, blow the money at the race track, with no thought to how he brutalized others, or the people he left behind.

Which is why I point out, there’s another side of Toji’s personality that Maki is completely unaware of. It’s not good to be like Toji.

Toji’s decision, to neglect everything and only focus on getting stronger, made him abandon Megumi his one “blessing” the one person he loved truly. At the end of Toji’s life, he may have climbed the heights of one of the strongest human being, but he died empty and full of regret, only thinking of how he left behind Meugmi. Toji was strong, but that’s all he was. He had no connections to anybody, except Megumi, and he cut Megumi off.

Maki might not have any way of knowing better, but, Toji is still a terrible example for her to follow.

Choosing the path of strength, to the point where there is nothing else. While Maki saw Toji completely tear apart Dagon, there was also a side of Toji that only Megumi witnessed. Maki only sees Toji’s strength, but Megumi is treated to a different side of his father.

It makes sense, Megumi is the victim of TOji’s abandonment and abusive neglect as a parent. I doubt Megumi would even care that his father was one of the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerers, because he compeltely failed him in his duty of a father.

However, for Toji, ther ewas something even more important than strength. Something he should have focused on instead. And Megumi is only able to see that one small sacrifice in a moment of refret for how he lived his life. They’ve both seen different parts of Toji and were impacted in different ways (I expect at some point Megumi will learn who Toji is as he didn’t recognize him face to face in person), and I wonder if this stark difference in the way they both interpret Toji is going to lead to different paths for their character development.

Part of me worries the overemphasis on strength, is because Maki has nothing else left. Toji still had Meumi in his dying moments, but Maki lives, without amother, and without Mai. She hasn’t materialized any other goal, other than bearing her fangs, and challening the strongest around.

#maki zenin #megumi fushiguro #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory #jjk 199 #toji zenin #toji fushiguro #znein clan

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fg083nrt · 2 months

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What ships from Naruto do you like, except Kakuhida? I'm asking out of curiosity :)

Also your art makes me want to eat tables!!! RAAH!!!!! (/pos)

This is a surprisingly loaded question because I have so many and some of them span for almost 20 years now.

Also, as usual, disclaimer, since I've seen all the ship wars and holywars, THESE ARE ALL PERSONAL OPINION. PERSONAL OPINION ONLY.

(endless yapping below the cut)

In the past:

My first ship when I was 12 was Pain/Konan, and I think that was the first smut I've ever read like period. I was a big cheerleader of Hinata and Naruto/Hinata because I liked that Hinata just minded her business and stayed in her lane while everyone else was going thru shit (Team 8 had the best work-life balance, I think, they just clocked in and clocked out, no shenanigans). Obviously, Temari/Shikamaru and I loved Neiji/Tenten. I think as a kid these were like really fun dynamics. Once the anime reached the Akatsuki I was all over the Akatsuki LMAO.

But now, as a grown adult, I am almost 99% just KKHD, and Akatsuki ships are like the default absolute truth to me, but recently, I've been obsessed with more Naruto Yuri.

Love Ino/Sakura for that double-income spy who owns a secret flower shop/doctor dynamic; it's just nice. Like I am a firm believer that they could have solved their differences by scissoring or something. Also like, I think their backstory is like an insane missed opportunity (but what's written cannot be unwritten, so whatever) because these pages made me feel like I was reading some kind of josei backstory. Like, go ahead and read these pretending this is not from Naruto, and tell me where do u think this could be from.

Like "pussy from a girl who treats you like a small stupid animal (good until psychic damage hits)"

Like, I would be like, this is either a shoujo manga, or the next page is older Sakura crying in the kitchen with a photo of Ino or something, and then by the end of the story, they, like fuck in the field or something while Sakura is like "I can't believe my toxic female friend from school has 4 fingers up my pussy!", but this could just be projecting, but I still like the ship. On a serious note, Sakura being a crybaby who was picked on would have been a fun opportunity to play with her character and create more empathy for Naruto within her, but her role was more like tying the two characters together, which worked well, but lots of people were salty, but it pushed people to support her character more so it evens out.

Tsunade/Shizune is like my next super fave, especially after rewatching the Tsunade arc. Tsunade's character is just so well done when it comes to how people cope with grief by doing destructive things, I loved it; Kishimoto is fantastic at mature story beats like this weaved between magical ninja fights. But yeah I loved their dynamic like Shizune is essentially her attendant/pet girl/assistant who is extremely loyal to her, but also nagging in a way and also Shizune is just very animated and kinda dorky while Tsunade is a calm mommy- sorry a mature rich woman of status who needs to be taken care of (nearly blacked out writing this). Their back and forth is just chef kiss, too. Honestly, I think that's my favourite Naruto arc; the first part of Naruto is great when it comes to mundane details that I now have more appreciation for.

Their auntie banter!

GODDDDD THAT WAS SO LIKE IT HURTS SEEING OTHERS LIVING THE LIFE YOU DREAM OF

And obviously still love Temari/Shikamaru! I loved that Shikamaru was always very tsundere and going on about how much he hates girls, but deep down is actually like, "Me when a bad bitch tells me to do anything." it's a satisfying way to play with his "character flaw". Seeing him go soft on Temari was like a mini character arc within his already happening character arc during Sasuke's pursuit, like we saw him grow up twice, great stuff!

The entire chapter 235 is just an amazing growth for Shikamaru in elevating the like "men/women" way of thinking to like "what makes a person who they are" way of thinking I really love that. The character is also a great reminder for those afraid of failing btw.

Kakashi/Iruka is my fave, 50% from a historical standpoint; the fact that you can find Kakairu fanfic on Geocities from 2001, and I have some doujins in my collection that are more than 20 years old now is fascinating to me. Love how incredibly loyal the Japanese fans are to Iruka; these guys were holding onto hope for so many years till the Pain arc and then, boom, Studio Pierrot's final Naruto arc!!! It's just incredible fandom history. I love that kinda stuff, love the ship itself too, it's very homey to me, some of the legendary fic they had was fantastic, like entire book's length, incredibly loyal fans.

#brainworms #idk I just think kishimoto's earlier writing in Naruto is detail rich and well done everyone feels like a real person #also rereading stuff for shikatema and its funny how shikamaru and his dad's convos feel like kishimoto's personal inner dialogue #shikatema is honestly like fandom's most beloved ship because of how natural it feels and how well and early it was setup without like any #cliffhangers or major conflict apart from some early tension #but also ino and sakura should have had more rivalry but idk if it would have fit in the story Kishimoto was telling and that's okay means #we gotta write some original story where we have the spy with flower shop and doctor relationship and the story surrounding the relationshi #is like fun as well #easier said than done but fail we may sail we must

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karume-everything-else · 8 months

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What are your thoughts on this idea? https://www.tumblr.com/aikoiya/722157861322604544/yanganondorf-x-sheikah-femoc-prompt-meeting?source=share I don't recall if I've asked you this before, so if I have, please just ignore this. This isn't a request for you to write it, just a request on your thoughts about it. Like a review or critique. I'm asking because I find that different people have a lot of amazing ideas, so I've been going around & asking those who enjoy writing GanondorfxReader stories their opinions in the hopes of further expanding on the story concept.

So, after reading it... you seem to be working with a nebulous timeline. The references to Ganondorf being Gerudo King doesn't line up with the BotW timeline if the Yiga are a thing. Its easy enough to work around for most story purposes but that by itself can be a little confusing.

As for Nemma as a character, she definitely has a set dynamic arc in learning to trust others. But I'd give her some kind of crippling fear or serious Achilles Heel to keep her more grounded. Something like a fear of bugs/spiders or maybe she just gets weird about giving/selling her creations, which would make her gifting a hand-crafted sword that much bigger of a gesture. Other than that, I would have her carry around exactly one trinket that has no usefulness in battle; that being a small metal Shiekah Eye pendant that her great-grandfather/ grandfather made for her. Perhaps as a necklace or charm on the end of her favorite sword. I could also see her keeping a small bag of Deku Nuts, not necessarily for herself to disappear but as a distraction for stealth missions.

And considering how much she sounds like San from Princess Mononoke, the downward triangle tattoos would look better, also doubles as an allusion to the Shiekah Eye she wants to unlock.

Not entirely sure why you specified Ganondorf being yandere, I think most people put him as such when he is in the height of his powers. He is a king after all, being told 'no' isn't going to be common for him.

All that said however, I thought I'd break up every other thought by what timeline it would happen in. Two strictly canon timelines centered on BotW and TotK, the nebulous timeline you created, and things that would happen no matter which timeline its in. With the stricter timelines having the "necessary" tweaks to Nemma's backstory/motives. This is just how I would handle the story, so please take this all with a grain of salt. <3

Things that Happen no matter what

Ganondorf gives luxurious gifts, but he doesn't make as big a fuss over clothes and jewels. They just show up in the closet/ jewelry box and he has Nemma's usual outfit made of "better" materials with the stipulation that it's still just as functional if not more so. (If nothing can be done to improve it or the finer materials make it less effective then he leaves it alone)

Ganondorf still tries to keep up appearances however and does give over-the-top, extravagant gifts in front of others knowing Nemma won't actually use them. Things like large decorative vases or crowns specially made for her.

Like Nemma, the important gifts are given in their chambers and usually consist of new weapons, cookbooks, maps, things she can either use or would be interested in.

There would be several "fights" before Ganondorf takes Nemma as his wife. Both as a test to see if she's truly a worthy queen/ warrior and because he can't stand the idea of someone being stronger than himself.

He has seen her fight against monsters and that's what sparked the "I must have her" mentality.

The only reason he walks away from these fights is because he makes it very clear that this is just a sparring session between warriors. His way of showing respect... even if his compliments of her skills are sincere.

The only time Ganondorf would ever consider asking/ forcing Nemma to do something would be dressing up for Royal Affairs. Something Nemma would begrudgingly do... but she'd have several hidden weapons and her favorite sword at her side.

^Things Ganondorf both expects and respects. The second anyone says something about how a queen shouldn't have weapons on her person, Ganon draws his sword and openly challenges the commenter because "How dare you disrespect my wife!? She isn't merely a queen, she's a proud warrior and will be respected as such!"

^Something Nemma is on the fence about how she feels because on the one hand; she can fight her own battles and she's used to negative comments about her life choices. On the other; it is nice to have someone openly call her a warrior and defend her honor even if it's over something small.

Two of the most useful gifts Ganondorf gives to Nemma are a well-trained Sand Seal and a well-trained horse. The horse would be much smaller than his own, unless he could get the Great White Stallion to match his Great Black Stallion. But it would be up to Nemma if she even uses either. For all intents and purposes, the horse would be reserved for the Royal Convoy while the Sand Seal would be actually useful when Nemma wants to get somewhere remote to explore before the sun goes down.

Cooking is the first way Nemma starts working with and trusting other people because while Ganondorf tells her about the cooks in his employ; he respects her do it myself attitude. Though Ganondorf does attempt to help, he sucks at cooking. Thus Nemma teaching him.

It was a slow process, but eventually Nemma started cooking for herself and Ganondorf pretty much every night. The only time she doesn't cook is for Royal Affairs, or when she isn't there but that's a given.

Nebulous timeline

Assuming that Ganondorf can, he is constantly going with Nemma on her outings. If not, then he does so once in a while to hone his skills and attempt to keep her safe.

Strict Ancient Timeline (Before the sealing)

Instead of Nemma lamenting the loss of culture, she fears it. Worries that the allyship with the Hyurlian Royal family will bring about the loss of the Shiekah culture.

She would have a decent mentor in Monk Maz Koshia. (I know the timing isn't 100% perfect, but it would be hella cool for her to learn all of this from the master before he becomes a mummy)

Ganondorf would see her fighting a Lynel or some other massive creature, or else bringing in the monster parts to sell/ trade within the Castle Town markets and he would make some quip that seriously pisses Nemma off and leads to their first fight. (Overseen by Rauru and the Hylian Guards since they don't fully suspect Ganondorf of treasonous activity... yet. He gets one chance)

Ganondorf does mellow out some, not to morally dark grey, but he delays his attempts to take over in hopes of corrupting Nemma a bit more. Getting her in on his plans to possibly better them altogether.

Rauru suspects this however and attempts to persuade Nemma to turn against Ganondorf. (This would be after the wedding and around the time the Gossip Stone Earings are gifted.)

When all else fails, Rauru straight-up kidnaps Nemma and seals her away underground. Something Ganondorf didn't fully catch because he was arguing with another royal.

At first, all the Gerudo people are with Ganondorf in his attempt to storm Hyrule and take it by force to save their beloved queen, but too many are maimed/ killed. When Ganondorf tries to rally them a second time, they refuse and mourn the loss of their queen.

Ganon however refuses to let go, fueled by his own pure hatred that is amplified by Demise's curse and the fact that he can still hear Nemma's heartbeat through the Earings.

It isn't until after he falls into the underground that Ganondorf even finds Nemma, and his time waiting is to build up the power needed to break the seal on her.

However, Rauru's seal can only break when the Hero is in great need. (IE when Ganondorf's rage peaks) This causes her seal to break right when Ganondorf is at his most monstrous as Rauru hoped she would see this and turn against him.

But... Rauru couldn't account for how fast Ganondorf would crumble at seeing Nemma hail and healthy again, more focused on apologizing for not being able to help her when she needed him most and the hundreds of years spent in isolation...

The Yiga Clan would revere Nemma just as much as they do Ganondorf and try to find/ resurrect her as well. She becomes known as the Queen of Darkness/ Monsters by them... if she ever finds out, she hates it.

Strict Post-Calamity Timeline

This would be a Nemma all too aware of the stories about Ganondorf and all the more desperate to learn her cultural roots.

She would be extra wary about the first meeting with Ganondorf, even if she did just take down a Boss Bokoblin and his crew... this man was far more deadly.

Ganondorf would consistently seek her out after monster fights, a little annoyed that someone so small can take down his best like this.

It would all be a test, with the last of the fights ending with Ganondorf mentioning how the next fight will be their last. Either due to Nemma killing him, or by him claiming her for his wife.

This could terrify Nemma, or make her question her own need for a partner who can best her/ stand toe to toe with her. But it could just as easily excite and intrigue her.

Obviously she would have to deal with the Yiga Clan suddenly revering her as their Queen the way they have always preached about Ganondorf being their true King. Something she could use to her advantage or outright despise... or both

It would cause a lot of friction between her and all the other Shiekah, no matter whether it was her decision or not.

There would be no way out of being Ganondorf's wife because he would refuse to kill her himself and keep her from being able to perform Senpaku.

Even if she attempted to escape, it would be all too easy for Ganondorf to track her down...

Making this the most similar to the Yandere tag for Ganondorf.

#ask #ganondorf x reader #ganondorf #botw #totk #totk ganon #loz ganon #calamity ganon #ganondrof #aikoiya

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dissociatingdumbass · 6 months

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Got tagged by @mondengel2 for the character ask:

Byakuya, Rukia and Ichigo

How I feel about this character

All the people I ship romantically with this character

My non-romantic OTP for this character

My unpopular opinion about this character

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Byakuya

It's my favourite of all of the Bleach characters. Really obsessed, not gonna lie. Love his character and the evolution he had during the series.

Ichigo. Only Ichigo.

They're perfect for each other, because Byakuya doesn't need to be protected and neither does Ichigo. They're equals. They're personalities are very complementary. They just fit well.

I never really put much thought into it, because Byakuya is difficult to have close relationship. He's been evolving a lot as a big brother to Rukia. If we're taking out the OTP thingie and just use the word friends or even BFFs, I'd say (in my series) he becomes quite close with Inoue (after therapy). He'd also have a very cool bond with Karin over their respective husbands...

He's autistic and demisexual. I HC all Shinigami as being naturally Pansexual, so... (Isshin is just a fucking idiot who spent too much time in the World of the Living)

I also don't think he was really, really in love with Hisana. I think he was young and obsessed. If she hadn't fallen ill and died, that marriage wouldn't have lasted anyway.

More backstory. An on screen definite cut with Hisana's presence in his life. (she was a heavy anchor and some of you still ship them, like people don't have the right to heal and move on...)

I wish he had been the one to go with Ichigo to fight Yhwach.

I wish we had more story about what happened in the Royal Realm.

I wish people would stop saying he should have died... No he shouldn't have!

Rukia

I like her a lot. She's a tomboy. She's aggressive and rispid at times. She's got a good heart and she's powerful. She's a dork... Just like her brother.

Currently, Renji... Because in the end (even with that awkward beginning) they do match perfectly. And Renji evolved a lot during the entire series.

I had a time when I thought she'd be good with Inoue, but then I started to change my mind.

Ichigo is her absolutely non romantic other half.

They bounce off of each other in hilarious ways sometimes. They have a good rapport and they absolutely trust each other.

Do I even have one?

Only in the background she's given... Which is none. We don't even know how she survived being dumped in the middle of the street (anime) or in the middle of nothing, against a tree (manga). There had to be someone who found her and took her in in those first years. Babies don't survive on their own.

The Prologue doesn't exist for me, so I'm not even going there...

I wish they would have shown in more detail the evolution of her relationship with Byakuya. I'd like to see them being shown more as the close siblings they should have been from the start.

I wish we'd seen a contrite apology from Renji for being an asshole towards her in the beginning.

Ichigo

Whereas Byakuya is my awkward, autistic, demisexual ass... Ichigo is my short fused temper,my sarcasm and my wish I could just help and protect everyone around me. (except I'm... just me...)

He's the best Main Character ever, for me.

His essence is in his name.

Byakuya. No one else, ever...

When I started Bleach I wasn't even focusing on pairings. I like the story and the battles.

The Lost Agent Arc was what made me go "Hold up! What?" And then I went back and analysed every single interaction between Ichigo and Byakuya!

They're so perfect for each other!

Byakuya's growth is solely due to Ichigo being in his life.

It's the way he crash landed on the raven hair's life and changed it for the better. And Ichigo also learned and evolved into a better person and better warrior because of Byakuya's influence in his life. I mean Young Tensa even looks like Byakuya! (No. Not Yhwach. You're wrong.)

Rukia.

For all the reasons mentioned prior. They're going to be such chaotic in-laws... (in my series)

That man is gay... He's also Ace.

People think he should have pressed Isshin into saying the truth during those 17 months. I think what he did was indirectly say "I'm giving you the chance to come clean on your own." and when Isshin didn't, he didn't press the subject because he's prideful and stubborn. It was a test and Isshin failed... As per usual...

He should have stayed in the Soul Society right after the Quincy War.

He should have been honest at that point and say in no uncertain terms that he absolutely HATED the normal life everyone in the World of the Living seemed to think he should want.

He should have become a full fledged Shinigami in the 11th squad.

And Kubo should have been a better writer and not have punished Ichigo with that fraud of an ending.

(He also should have been shown decades afterwards and be either shown or implied that he was with Byakuya... But that's just my representation starving ass because I'm tired of heterosexuality in media.)

Tagging @the-winds-of-kushala (going multifandom here) : Kenpachi/ Ben Tennison/ Dazai

@bothzangetsus : Shinji/ Renji/ Unohana

@ichijager13 : Oskar Von Reuenthal/ Yang Wenli/ Dusty Attenborough

#asks #fandom asks #character asks

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kitkatnerds3 · 9 months

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NEW BSD EPISODE, THOUGHTS

There was a lot of cool stuff that happened this episode! The ADA reuniting scene with Atsushi tackle hugging Kunikida and Kyouka having to physically keep herself from also tackle hugging her family, Seeing Tecchou again, bunch of old man yaoi, Ranpo being an absolute delight and my favorite character he is so cool I love him and so does half of the police force, the appearance of our boy Akutagawa, And a bunch of really cool animation choices! The part where Atsushi was talking about how he was scared and then the words saying fear condensed and turned into Atsushi was awesome, and I think I saw a style change when they were talking about Fukuchi's backstory, and style changes are always awesome. We still haven't seen what the ending looks like but from what I could hear of it the song is pretty good!

What I want to talk about the most though is stuff that I heard about from the Fukuchi backstory, before that though I just wanna say,

BSD FANDOM PLEASE. I KNOW WE HATE FUKUCHI BUT THERE WAS SO MUCH STUFF ABOUT HIM THAT WE SOULD TALK ABOUT MORE!!! First of all, the fact that he has three movies based on him and that most of the united nations guys seem to have a crush on him is fucking hilarious. And second of all, this is the part I want to scream about,

ONE OF HIS PAST EXPLOITS IN THE WAR WAS ABOUT HIM GETTING RID OF A PROJECT THAT WAS CREATING WERE-PEOPLE!!! WERE-PEOPLE!!!

WHO DO WE KNOW THAT HAS A WERE-PERSON POWER, A STILL SLIGHTLY NOT EXPLAINED PAST (LOOKING AT YOU 'Compared to what your parents did to you when you were first born this doesn't even count as abuse') AND WHATEVER THE FUCK MADE HIM SO SPECIAL IN THE DEAD APPLE (LOOKING AT YOU USING YOUR ABILITY EVEN WHEN YOUR ABILITY CRYSTAL HAD ALREADY BEEN REMOVED AND ALSO IT'S BLUE WHEN ALL THE OTHER CRYSTALS WERE RED)?

THATS RIGHT. FUCKING

ATSUSHI

Am I yelling too much? Quite possibly. Do I care? NO! THIS INFORMATION COULD BE SO IMPORTANT!!! THE VAMPIRE'S THAT THEY MENTIONED APPEAED AGAIN, WHO SAYS THAT THIS MIGHT NOT SHOW UP LATER!!?

I have done the math, the war ended about 11 to 12 years ago, meaning that Atsushi had been born already while the war was still going on, it's entirely possible that he might be connected to that incident!! And while it does kinda seem like that whole thing happened kinda early on in the war, well that's what parents are for!

This could also tie into whatever is connecting him to the book, if the tiger is an artificial ability created by some government, maybe they used the book or something like that! To be completely honest I am constantly grasping at straws to figure out what the heck is up with Atsushi and the book, I have no idea what could be connecting them, but, the more theories you have the more likely that one of them will be correct!!

Now, from this point on I'm going to be discussing manga spoilers, so anime onlys beware.

I am both so hyped and so fucking scared for next Wednesday, for as we all know, Akutagawa does exactly three things in this arc, show up, be gay, and die. He's accomplished the first one, I'm excited for the second one, and the third one terrifies me. I DON'T WANT HIM TO DIEEEEEEEEEE!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! But I'm also so excited for 'you know the reason yourself, don't you?' and 'run, you fool (soft smile)' and 'from the start the hole was only for his ally to escape through' because, shin soukoku canon. But also all of the gay shit comes with the knowledge of what comes next and AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! FUCK!

Also, one thing that happened in this episode kinda reminded me of a question I had.

Where the fuck are Junichirou and Kenji???

Have they just been wandering the port mafia underground this entire time? I know that Juni probably runs into them again, or at least runs into Kunikida, but does he ever meet up with Atsushi or the rest of the agency at all? Or does he just get kidnapped off screen and we don't see him until they reveal him tied to the bed? And what about Kenji?? Does he just walk around with no idea what's going on with the agency until he meets Tecchou? Where is he???

Anyways, great episode can't wait for next week!!!

#bungo stray dogs #bsd season 5 #bsd spoilers #bsd fukuchi #bsd atsushi #bsd akutagawa #bsd junichiro #bsd kenji #bsd theories #kinda

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iamacolor · 2 years

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Writing wise, do you think junho is a good male lead? I saw lots of comments saying he needs more depth or needs a short arc lol what do you think?

hello anon! oh that's a very good question. the short answer is yes! the long answer is when it comes to him having his own arc i think it's important to remember that in eaw, youngwoo is the only real main character and although junho is the male lead he's not of the same importance as youngwoo, it's not his story, he's a secondary character. a lot of dramas that focus more on romance as the main relationship have a female lead and a male lead who are both as important to the plot and who both need to go on a journey for the plot to move forward and even for the plot to start (alchemy of souls which is currently airing is a good exemple of that, it is the story of mudeok and of jang uk, equally, and they depend on each other - other dramas like this are the king's affection and run on that also star park eun bin and kang tae oh) whereas in eaw, because it's a different genre, it is 100% youngwoo's story and junho happens to be a part of it. he's not "necessary" to the story, although he's a big part of it, in the sense that without him there would still be a story, a different one but it would still hold. so that means that his arc is to be in relation to hers (and he still has to confess, to tell minwoo he likes youngwoo etc so that's an emotional arc) and i think that's fine because none of the other secondary characters have their own arc, it's all linked to youngwoo. it's very clear when i watch the show that although all the characters have their own little particularities they're still meant to serve youngwoo's story, it's not a real ensemble show.

as for his characterisation it's true that we don't know a lot about him but i don't think it's a lack of depth and i don't need to know everything about him for the romance to be believable. i've got a few points to explain: a) so far i don't think youngwoo knows that much more about him than we do and we mostly follow her - she likes him for who he is and how he is with her and she isn't really the kind to ask people questions about themselves at work (and it seems clear to me that junho is a bit shy about himself even if acts of service come easily to him)- i do hope that as they grow closer she will grow more curious about him because i think it's a necessary step in her journey to see her experience a new type of relationship and a new interest (and it would make a good parallel to when she told him she had nothing to talk to him about than whales - but they're not there yet so there's been no occasion for him to share details about himself - but also aside from whales i don't think she's told him a lot about her life and you don't need all the details about someone to like them) so until they spend more time together on things that aren't work (and i really hope that time grows quickly lol) we're not going to get much more b) i don't think we're ever going to get nor do we need his entire backstory - what i really need is for him to tell youngwoo what he feels and what he wants and to talk about what they are to each other because i do think it's important for their relationship to feel balanced and equal and also because if conflict/tension happen between them i think it's more likely to be because they have different expectations or ways of dealing with things if that makes sense? and it's talking with youngwoo about themselves and spending time with her that's what will give him depth in our eyes like it will in youngwoo's - and we still have 8 episodes left to do that so hopefully the writers also consider it as an essential step lol c) compared to the other characters you can already tell that junho is a little more special, i haven't rewatched all the episodes but i'm pretty sure junho is the only secondary character we've seen outside of work without youngwoo (i mean we've seen minwoo with him but that's just because they're roomates, we never see anyone else than junho on their own) yes all his scenes are linked to youngwoo but it's already a big difference. for exemple we don't see sooyeon outside of work and aside from the fact that her father is in law too we don't know much about her but it doesn't stop me from appreciating her friendship with youngwoo because her actions and her evolution are clear to me. we see more of geurami's private life because that's how she's connected to youngwoo so that kind of makes her an exception.

#extraordinary attorney woo #vinformation #i've got mail #don't know if i'm really clear lol #anonymous

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cheetee · 1 year

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⭐

I reblogged this ask meme then passed out immediately. Whoops! Anyway, you had the misfortune to send me this just as I finished my entire series. I'm about to hit you with literally every thought I've ever had.

EncantoTV: A Retrospective

My goal in Encanto fanfic is always, as best I can, to re-create the tone and style of the original movie. I called the series "Encanto TV Episodes From Another Timeline" because that's the level of canon compliance I wanted, not just from the plot but also from everything else, with the tone and the humour and the themes and the characters we focus on - I wanted to write something that felt like Disney had greenlit it.

(It's entirely PG except this part, which I removed briefly in early 2022 and then remorsefully put back because I literally couldn't replace the line "de-bitched their grandmother".)

Fun fact: I literally did not care for Camilo one iota the first time I watched Encanto. I don't mean I didn't like him; I mean I straight-up forgot one of the characters could shapeshift a couple of different times during the movie and had to google who the hell he was afterwards.

I put Camilo in When the Cat's Away because I thought he would be a funny narrator to a story that was primarily about Mirabel and Bruno, and then by necessity of being the narrator he got his own character arc, and that character arc spiralled into being the main emotional hook of the fic. Whoops.

The character who did get plenty of screentime from me, though: Bruno!

Here's the thing about fanfiction. Most people watched Encanto (2021), a Family-Adventure-Comedy, saw Bruno, thought he was hot, and then proceeded to write fiction about him that was also hot, such as porn, angst, porn/angst, and the great many variations of those things that exist on AO3. I watched that movie and went: "Great! I want more of this attractive, compelling character. He is a side character used primarily for comic relief, with a tragic backstory that is only ever minimally explored. Therefore, that is exclusively what I am going to write."

Hence: Bruno only appears as a major supporting character, and his main roles are to act as foil to Mirabel and comic relief, much the way he does in the original movie. I don't know what it is about that that I enjoy writing when, as far as I can tell, every other Bruno stan on the internet went down the logical route of writing fic that was about... well, him. Maybe a bit of narrative irrelevancy is just something I find attractive in a man?

Whatever about Camilo and Bruno, though. I thought Mirabel was a great character when I first watched Encanto, and now, having written 100,461 (fuck!) words about her, my feelings have only deepened. Mirabel, my daughter, life of my life!!! I adore you!!!

Seriously: I love this girl. I wound up spiralling into a whole series because there's just not enough I could say about her. I love the way the world feels when you're at a certain point in your teens, and you're smart and empathetic enough to understand the injustices of it, and you've got this whole life ahead of you to fix them and all these things to do around you and suddenly, for the briefest period of time, you have nothing but big ideas and burning passion to see them through. I wanted to capture that type of kid, somebody who's clearly very passionate and brilliant and inspired, despite the crushing lonliness and insecurity that sometimes comes with being fifteen.

Mirabel and Bruno's relationship is very dear to me. Mirabel is a teen who's pushing away her parents and the other adults in her life, feeling misunderstood. Bruno knows how to interact with the teens in a way that makes them feel treated and seen as adults, that validates their adult feelings and actions, while never actually crossing the boundary into being a friend. Bruno is a mentor, good at showing vulnerability when he needs to get through to someone and holding it back when they need strength instead. Mirabel desperately wants someone who makes her feel seen, and she needs an adult in her life she can trust. They go together like that.

The thing I'm proudest of about EncantoTV, though, is the plots. Because deciding that something is meant to be a cartoon TV episode, not a movie, not a novel, is just... a different type of story. TV plots can be bad. There are holes, there are wildly unrealistic natural disasters and uses of weapons, people run on and off the screen, and the whole thing needs to get wrapped up in a way that you can theoretically miss this episode and it still makes sense.

My finest achievement? I have gotten SO good at writing plots that are STUPID AS ALL FUCK. I'll write fucking anything in there. I put a ghost in the Encanto. I destroyed a whole fucking mountain then NEVER referenced it again. I brought back Bubo. Antonio went to JAIL. The places the characters go in Birds of Paradise? That shit makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER when you look at the timeline, because they could only have been walking for a few hours AT BEST but they still hike an entire watershed AND drive the same distance within AT MOST a couple of hours.

And you know what? AIN'T NOBODY IN THE COMMENTS TELLING ME IT WAS STUPID, CAUSE THEY CHECKED OUT BEFORE THEY GOT THAT FAR. Belissimo.

Anyway, it's 4am, and I'm definitely rambling. Here's my last point, which is about having readers!!!

My webcomic used to get a comment every 2-3 months. My fiction has been rejected from a couple of litmags. Something that has been mind-blowing, life-changing, awe-inspiring? Readers! People who read what I wrote and they liked it, and not only that they told me they liked it!!! I have written lots and lots of things, and I have never, in my life, had people go out of their way to contact me and tell me what they enjoyed and why, the way that people have done for these fics, and it's... damn!!! It's world-ending!!!

This was a long-ass post, I guess being my goodbye to the series... I want to thank you, @youmaycallmeyourhighness, for sending it, and for the various comments and messages, that shit means the WORLD to me. I am a humble college student, my grades are bad, and it is surreal that my writing is something that interests you.

To @bitchykuromi, @malewifebruno, @pinwheelwhirl, @greenvillainredemption, @originalavenuefox, @ramblesanddragons, and several others who either aren't on tumblr or I just can't find rn because it's 4am: I hope you all know how much it means to me that you liked my fics enough to read them over all this time, and find the time to tell me about it, and you are all such cool people it brings me such delight to think that I actually might have made you laugh irl.

THANK YOU WORLD FOR THE EXPERIENCE OF MAKING ENCANTOTV: IT'S BEEN REAL. Goodnight!!!!!

#encantoTV #my writing

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friedfriedchicken · 1 year

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I finally finished watching TF:EarthSpark S1 (please give me like 2+ seasons) and I have gathered all my thoughts into one silly list

Love how Alex Malto is very Filipino honestly. Like- it's so small but he's very there and he's the only fictional Filipino I've ever seen in anything live-action or animated that didn't originate from the Philipines. My dad was immediately activated when he heard/saw Alex say 'nanay' (my TV was quiet compared to the movie he was watching in the other room) and it makes me insanely happy. Also he's a lot like my dad scarily enough.

Originally I had TF:Cyberverse in my brain as the 'divorced Transformers show' but EarthSpark has much more divorced-exes vibes oml. Megatron with Soundwave and Shockwave, Bumblebee with Breakdown, Tarantulas in general, especially Megan and Sounders

I'm not a fan of humans in TF stories but the Maltos were great- they were woven into the story very well and were also very entertaining! Alex could infodump and had a fun arc with Bumblebee, Dottie and her backstory were great lore-fillers and her mom abilities were silly (there were a lot of dads but only one mom), Robbie and Mo felt like their own characters without overshadowing the Transformers, and the other background humans were generally enjoyable.

On the other hand- Mandroid didn't really stick with me, especially after he came back after his thingy blew up. Dude is practically a zombie- let him die 😭 BUT I'm excited to see what he'll do next season regardless of how little I enjoyed him as the big baddie

This show has so many dads oml. Alex Malto, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Tarantulas, Soundwave, where are all these dads coming from?! It's so fun, you get dads in different fonts like silly, casual war vet, PTSD war vet, not-paid enough war vet, new dad war vet, give him another chance war vet, and angry ex!

Starsceam's eyes are blue! It's so random and small but it activates my brain! Is it a design choice or something more?!

We've seen multiple stunticons but never all together in one place. I wonder if we'll get Menasor or not but, regardless, I love this version of Breakdown so much. Dude is so chill and spawned a new ship in my brain QwQ Bumbledown? Breakbee? Those two had very complicated vibes but my non-TF fan sibling agrees with me they have friendly exes energy

TERRANS- I LOVE THEM- ALL OF THEM- THEY'RE SO COOL

The fight scenes were so 💋 smooth and beautiful and I'd marry the fight scenes if they were people

I thought Bumblebee's friend he was chasing down was going to be Blurr because hee hoo I grew up watching TF:Animated and TF:Cyberverse plus Blurr is one of my favorite Transformers

Actually, my brain is infested with Bumblebee × Breakdown because seriously- this show didn't use slowmo scenes until BREAKDOWN SACRIFICED HIMSELF TO LET BUMBLEBEE ESCAPE. WHAT IS THAT?! IT TICKLES ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHIPPING TROPES OF ALL TIME (friends to enemies to lovers) BECAUSE THEY RACED TOGETHER, GOT SEPARATED, BY THE WAR, AND STILL RETURNED TO RACING WITH EACHOTHER HELP ME

Arcee with her classic car-inspired look omg 🛐 she's so cool and pretty besides for her black eye-liner thing. It looks really weird when her eyes are closed but she's very pretty regardless

Addicted to the found-family vibes of this show (It's not a TF series unless there's found family) but the especially traumatic energy of Tarantulas and Nightshade fuels my 4:47 AM mind. Tarantulas literally doesn't care about anything other than keeping this kid safe and can't tell what actually is safe or not and SACRIFICES HIMSELF SO NIGHTSHADE AND THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY CAN ESCAPE. PLEASE DON'T HURT HIM HE JUST WANTS TO LIVE IN PEACE WITH THE COOL KID HE FOUND IN HIS HOUSE ONE DAY

The size differences in this show are immaculate.

After getting kidnapped by Mandroid and cut, Megatron keeps the slice in his shoulder for later episodes and it's so cool that the continuity is there but sir, please patch yourself up! I don't hate it, it looks cool, but your armor is broken!

Please where did Mandroid get the funds to make who knows how many Arachnamechs?! The government/GHOST sure wasn't paying him while he was in his corrupted Howl's Moving Castle evil lab or sitting in his illegal fight ring.

I know the captions call Hashtag 'Hashtag' but she said she didn't have a word for it therefore her name in my brain is actually gonna be #. Just that. #. She deserves it because she's so silly. She has a fake ponytail and headset as part of her head design- it's amazing.

ALSO # MADE A REFERENCE TO "All your base are belong to use" AND I LOVE HER FOR THAT- POP OFF QUEEN

On the topic of design, Nightshade's protoform look was a little uncomfy for me with the helmet leaving their head very exposed and the random 'ear' discs. It felt weird but after they got their alt-mode they've been nothing but beautiful.

Jawbreaker my boy- you don't need an alt-mode to be so silly <3

Reoccurring Fluffy Ears is amazing

Honestly a lot of designs are either hits or misses. Megatron looked perfect to me but Optimus was off with his very flat head and weird faceplate. Like he was missing a forehead and the faceplate itself looked wonky. Soundwave was super pretty, even if his face is one solid color he absolutely rocked that look. I miss the smiley face Cyberverse Bee had on his pelvis area but at least my eyes aren't drawn to EarthSpark Bee's hips lol. Also Wheeljack. They brought back the mustache face but made it white and it feels incredibly silly and cool and scary and weird at the same time.

I think I'm done rambling for now but this might come back later hee hoo

#FriedRambles #Transformers #TFEarthSpark

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kyogre-blue · 3 months

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Act 3 of Inazuma is finally done. I'm so glad it's short. I miss the days when archon quests were short.

Looking back on the entirety of Inazuma, I think it had some very cool concepts, but unfortunately the execution fell completely short. The first two acts are mostly passable though not particularly good, but act three really falls apart.

I would say there's three main problems:

One, the Genshin writers just aren't very good at writing characters and emotions. It's not something concrete that I can point to, and it's not immediately obvious, but if you compare it to a genuinely good writer, you can really feel the difference. I recently got through LB6 in FGO and, tbh, I didn't really care for it. But man, Nasu absolutely nails the emotions and the characters. You can't help feeling for them. By contrast, Thoma in Ritou still comes across as annoying at best, and Ayaka is too lowkey to leave a real impression. Teppei, Kazuha, etc, they all have similar issues, which really lowers the possible emotional stakes of the story.

Two, Genshin writers are also bad at any kind of theme or deeper message. It's not even an issue of not having a message, or it being too simple. They try to have a deeper narrative, but they seem to just be aping what they've seen in other works without actually understanding anything, so what you get is a confused mess that doesn't convey anything at all and is actually at odds with what we actually see in the story itself.

The "longing for the gods' gaze" aspect was the worst. It's fundamentally nonsensical. Teppei wanted power, and he didn't care where it came from. He didn't care about Ei's gaze or whatever. The people of Watatsumi sure as hell don't care about her gaze, given that they don't acknowledge her as their god to begin with. At most, this becomes a purely mechanical thing, where they want Visions, that come from "the gods' gaze" but then it's just saying "humans want power" and that doesn't sound very good, does it? Similar issues withe regard to stuff like Ei's entire backstory and desire for "eternity" which is so ambiguous as to become meaningless, and because the writers don't really understand it, they also can't address her grief or the meaning of Makoto's stance on grasping the current moment. Contrast to the current Case Files event rerun in FGO and just FGO's themes in general, which have a lot to say about how suffering and death are inevitable, so is there a purpose in living (yes), and is there meaning in actions that no one will remember (yes). It's the difference between writers who know how to think through their story on a deeper level and those who don't.

Third, the writers don't seem to understand how to construct a full sequence of setup, development and payoff. They end up off-screening things that really need to be onscreen, and this massively undercuts all the character arcs.

Sara has a fairly direct arc (though, notably, I don't think she ever reaches the point of genuinely questioning her loyalty to Ei, only runs off to inform her about the situation), but her confrontation with Ei is entirely cut out, so her arc seems to just go nowhere, since she remains the exact same person afterwards. It's like she didn't even have a storyline. Kazuha is stated in the prelude to not understand why his friend put his life on the line, aka doesn't understand his friend's ambition. Then in the climax, he is able to light his friend's vision, implicitly now understanding his ambition, and the ending cutscene even focuses on that same vision with the statement that some ambitions outlive their holders and pass on to others. But Kazuha has only on cameo appearance in between those two points, so we have no idea how he came to have this change of heart. Heck, we don't even know what his friend's ambition was! The only way to read what we're actually given is that Kazuha started simping for the Traveler and this fixed all his problems, like Shenhe. But since his friend's ambition doesn't seem to have been about protecting anyone, this also doesn't make sense as a narrative. They really murdered Kazuha, it's still amazing.

Teppei has a similar issue, where what should be big moments in his story are entirely offscreen. This ties into the Watatsumi portion's bad pacing, where the supposed passage of time is hard to really feel because they just didn't bother with coming up with scenes to properly support their stated storyline. Teppei really needed to have the effects of him using the Delusion, the combat victory he achieved with it, be shown on screen. This should have been condensed into one major moment of power, rather than a bunch of offscreen battles somewhere else. (Also, Teppei's ghost appearing in the final battle makes no sense, since you're implied to be channeling the visions set in the statue, and he didn't have one. Would have been funny to give him a Vision when he's already too old to use it, so he gives it to the Traveler, and you can look at it after the final battle and realize, bittersweet, that it's gone out... this is fanfic tho.)

In a minor way, this even hits Ei. They never so much as vaguely suggest the existence of her sister. No one ever goes "yeah, the Shogun changed so much 500 years ago" or "the Shogun always seemed to have two sides to her, but after the Cataclysm, she became only the warrior" or anything, and this means her sudden monologue about her losses comes out of nowhere and is hard to really care about.

If they managed to fix one, maybe two of these, Inazuma would honestly be a passable story. But that would require the genshin writers to gain like twenty levels of skill overnight, and that ain't happening.

Still, I have to say that Inazuma's concept is good, and up until the final sections, they seemed to have actually done the step by step aspect of the plot better than I remember. The events follow more coherently that I remembered, and they at least mention a lot of later plot points fairly early in. It's just that those passing mentions are often too weak to support the later story...

Anyway, I still stand by this being leagues better than Sumeru. It's shorter, for one, and it had an interesting premise. Sumeru is just wasting your time the entire way through.

Now, I just need to do Ei's two quests to remove the storm... pray for me. They're both so stupid, albeit in different ways.

#playing genshin

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perenlop · 1 year

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Top five anime

oh god forgetting every anime ive ever watched

5. fullmetal alchemist brotherhood/2003 (very different shows ik but i can never decide which i like more). i really love the world presented in these shows, i love the themes of how human we all are at the end of the day. i love all the ways they play with science and real life alchemy, and all the interesting things that come from it... like how do you even come up with alphonse's entire ordeal? it's so unconventional and yet it's handled near perfectly and we get all the drama and situations that come from a boy being tied to a suit of armor.

4. death note. tbh i mostly agree with what everyone else says about the show, it's super engaging and it's fun to see the game of cat and mouse that L and Light play. both of them are super interesting characters and its fun trying to figure out their plans only to be thwarted. again, it's a non conventional idea, but death note embraces the fantasy aspects really well while being more focused on the corruption of light and him trying to keep himself from getting caught. sadly tho i do have to agree with a lot of people that the latter half of the show with nate isn't nearly as good. i like the stuff that happens like light's dad dying but i just kinda missed L the entire time

3. cowboy bebop. this is a show i might have to digest some more bc it does require more thinking, and i may have to rewatch it to fully appreciate it, but i really enjoyed it! space western is a genre i've never thought about, but it's a very natural combination and I think this show really captured that. I love it's main theme of living in the present, it's kind of unlike most shows i've seen. at first i didn't appreciate not having the backstory of most of the characters since they seemed so important to the episodes, but that's kind of the point. we don't NEED to know every little detail about their pasts. because the show is about the present and how they're coping in spite of their pasts. and it works because it's unfair how these people are still suffering for what happening in their past, even despite everything they've accomplished in the show. it's a very bittersweet show and i enjoyed it. also i love edward. baby

2. trigun (i havent finished it yet though). i can't say much abt the entire thing but i LOVE all of the characters a ton. i love vash himself the most, i love silly characters that are actually extremely genuine and tragic at their core. he's got one of the most compelling backstories i've seen so far and i'm excited to see how his arc concludes in the show. the other characters are also extremely good! i love meryl and milly a lot and how they're actually kind of more of a threat than vash, and how they have a vitriolic relationship with him but grow to genuinely care about him. wolfwood is also a good character to pair up with vash in a lot of episodes because he's got different ideals, and also the gun cross makes me laugh. idk i love the world and these characters and im excited to finish the show.

puella magi madoka magica. im aware that on its own, its probably not nearly as good as these other shows, but at this point the show means a lot to me. I've got a lot of good memories associated with it and its kinda helped me at a time i needed it. i love all five of the main characters a lot and each of the struggles they go through. it's another show where it's world is fully utilized in every way it needs to be for the story to work. i love all the psychological horror elements and how they're presented in an almost uncanny way. the art is beautiful and the witch labrynths are fully realized. this show is so good i can't emphasize enough how dear to me it is as this point

#honorable mention to way of the househusband though bc its very fun #and ofc pokemon is a massive honorable mention as well just bc like its integral to me at this point #but feels weird to put it besides these shows lol #mail #epiousios

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