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kira-the-whump-enthusiast · 2 years

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omg i saw you reblogged that one post about villains who love too much and tagged is as an oc named,,, alesky, i think? (This ask box is blocking the character name so apologies if i spelled it wrong), I am Intrigued and would love to know more about them

Sorry it took me so long to get to this ask!! Tysm for it btw I died of excitement when I saw this in my inbox!! And yes, that’s Aleksy!

Here are some picrews of them :D

And here’s some art my lovely and amazing friend made of them <3

Their full name is Aleksy Annora, and I made them like a year ago after I read “The Man Who Loved Flowers” by Steven King.

Some content warnings before the rant: domestic abuse, serial murder, a lot of angst, attempted murder, execution, attempted suicide, implied major character death, probably some more stuff

Aleksy is just a totally normal barista in a popular coffee shop, of course. There is no angst or tragedy or murder in their backstory, not at all.

Well who am I kidding lol. Pretty much their main concept is that they are a Serial Killer For Love™ cuz goddd I love that trope. Tho I wouldn’t really call Aleksy any sort of yandere. They share some of the aesthetic tho!

The thing about Aleksy is that they fall in love all the time, but at the same time love is the thing that scares them most.

To them, the easiest way out was to end their boyfriend’s life. So they took a pair of scissors, sharpened them to a point, and stabbed their boyfriend to death. Immediately afterwards they fled the country and changed their name to what it currently is, Aleksy.

And that’s how they ended up the city they live in currently! Aleksy wanted to just live a typical life, completely separate themself from all trauma they lived through, but that was not how things would go.

Aleksy is constantly falling in love. And normally, this wouldn’t really be that bad, but Aleksy is both obsessive and utterly terrified of everything that love means.

They fall head over heels, and they also do it really unhealthily. Like, they stalk their crushes, try to learn every single little detail about them, but they also will never talk to any one of them. (That’s how they justify it as okay in their head. And it’s not like it would be a good idea to ever pursue a relationship. Aleksy is too imperfect for that.)

And for a while, they’re happy, their crush seems perfect in every way, and maybe this time they’ll even build up the confidence to actually say hi. And then cracks start to show in the perfect idealized version of their crush that Aleksy has built in their head, and they become scared.

Scared that if they let themself be vulnerable around this person, then they’ll be hurt. Scared that any minor imperfection could point to a much deeper flaw, one that could end up hurting them in so many different and horrible ways. And then the obsession that fed them happiness becomes something incredibly distressing. They don’t want to feel like this, they don’t want to think about this person, and they’re absolutely terrified of losing the little control they have over their life.

So Aleksy always ends up grabbing the sharpened scissors they never discarded, and stabbing their love in the throat in the dark streets of the city at night.

It’s the only way they know how to end it. When their crush is dead, Aleksy can safely put them out of their mind. The dead never hurt anybody, after all.

And this has happened multiple times. They’re a wanted serial killer, but also, no one knows that they’re the culprit. The police are very slow in solving any sort of case, even the serial murders get put on long holds. Aleksy has managed to get away with their murders for this reason.

Until, they meet Juno Líming. Juno is investigating the serial murders that Aleksy has committed, because her brother, Kyu, was one of the victims. She asks Aleksy some questions, not knowing that they were the one that killed her brother. Aleksy isn’t aware that she’s Kyu’s sister.

And then they end up becoming friends! Juno is pretty much Aleksy’s first friend, actually. Most of their life they weren’t allowed to make friends in any meaningful way, and even after they escaped that, they didn’t really have any sort of drive to make friends. But because Juno is pretty much consistently visiting them for investigation reasons, the two end up getting to know each other :D

Aleksy finally has a healthy relationship! They don’t become any sort of obsessed with Juno, and Juno knows how to like. Make friendship. They do some wholesome stuff together :)

And then I hit them with my comically large angst hammer! Because while Aleksy very much enjoys the friendship, Juno is also making a lot of progress in finding out how Aleksy committed their murders, and now she’s really close to figuring out who was behind it. And then Aleksy realizes that if Juno finds out that they’re the culprit, then they’ll never be friends again.

They end up totally panicking, and they get a little messy in hiding the evidence. And their slip-ups are enough to make Juno realize that her friend, the person who’s supported her through all her hard times and her investigation, is also the serial killer she’s been chasing all this time. And the same person who murdered her brother.

Aleksy tries to run after this, but Juno chases them and ends up cornering them! And Aleksy realizes that they’ll surely be caught now, that their only friend must hate them now, and that they can’t keep living this life but they don’t what else they can do.

They try to kill themself with their scissors, right then and there.

And they end up surviving, but not without a scar on their neck and some damage to their larynx.

They do end up being tried for their crimes, and well, now they’re on death row. Juno does end up visiting them a lot, tho. She can’t really reconcile her knowledge of Aleksy as a friend and confidant with the knowledge that Aleksy is a serial killer and murdered someone very close to her. So she kind of omits the latter from her head. Her impression of Aleksy as a friend is stronger. And she’s tired of losing people close to her, she won’t let anything like it happen again. If that means being Aleksy’s friend, then she will do that.

Aleksy doesn’t really understand why she still wants to be her friend, and they think the last thing they deserve is her friendship, but they’re happy for the company regardless.

#this isn't really whump more like angst #Aleksy is a pre-me-finding-out-about-the-whump-community OC #whump OCs #still labelling it like this anyways #angst #oc aleksy #my ocs <2 #I didn't really get into Aleksy's perfectionism + hypocrisy #they're like really insecure so they also developed a sort of ego to kinda cope #and that ego prevents them from feeling things like guilt and remorse #they also just don't really care about their victims as like actual people you know?#aleksy is mostly interested in the idealized versions of their crushes #and not in them as actual people #anyways yeah they're a total hypocrite #btw aleksy does die at the end #yeah in their story they do get executed #juno is the protagonist there's a lot more that goes on in the story but it's not super developed yet #anyways this is mostly just aleksy's perspective #I enjoy them a lot :D #also goddd I need to talk about Juno more she's one of my fave OCs #so this was a tag rant #if anyone else like reads this. I love asks about my OCs always <2 #plsss send some

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birdmenmanga · 1 month

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@raventhekittycat

hi okay so I've been mulling this one over for the past day or two and I think I have the answer. not to be using hamburger to explain anything to an american but you're my detco mutual so I'm going to try and explain it in detco terms

There's a post going around recently about how if you've read detco and only detco, the first time hakuba shows up you're going to be totally flummoxed, because damn this guy is clearly important, he gets to be even cooler than Shinichi, he's got a half-page shot of him (in such a panel-dense series such as Detective Conan, no less!!) and he's got a fucking hawk. he's CLEARLY important. everything about the narrative is indicating that you need to PAY ATTENTION to hakuba and that he's the coolest guy and he's important!!!! and then he dies in the case lol (not for real. but still.)!! and you're like huh??? what was that. why did aoyama do that.

But with the context of magic kaito this totally makes sense. He's a beloved character that people have been waiting decades to see again. Of course Aoyama is going to hype him up!! It's his big moment after years of being locked in the backrooms!!!

Anyways reading birdmen for me was kind of like that. The author's previous series, Kekkaishi, was pretty one-dimensional at the beginning, and even after the main plot started picking up at around volume 6, it still felt quite understandable. I knew what she was trying to get at, and the spectacular job she did with the anthropocene and climate change metaphor towards the end of that series really made me interested in the rest of her works. That and the way she writes familial relationships is absolutely DEVASTATING. (I mean this with the highest of praise)

But when I read BIRDMEN for the first time, I was probably in... middle school, maybe? And I read it, sure, but I didn't get it. I could see what was literally happening on the page but the narrative choices were absolutely baffling at times. Why skip over the entire part of the plot where they figure out who the birdman that saved them was? She blatantly doesn't care about that. What does she care about then?? I knew I didn't get it, I knew there were parts of it that were important and I couldn't figure out why and THAT'S how it dug its pretty little claws into me. Even after I finished catching up it nagged at me a little bit, not often at all, but enough that every once in a while I go, huh, right, that was a thing, let me go read it again.

For the record this type of story haunting has happened to me twice. First time was the Heart of Thomas, second time was BIRDMEN. I think the thing is that these are both stories which are not what other people say they are and I think I came into both of these stories with a misconception, trying to look too hard for things that weren't important and therefore missing the things that were.

Because sure, BIRDMEN is about mental illness. Yeah, it's about an evil scientific organization growing mutants in a lab. Yeah, it's about what it means to leave your humanity behind. That's all technically correct, on a surface level, and the fandom at large likely agrees with these takes for the most part, but in my opinion none of that really delves into what the thematic messaging of the story is about.

There are cryptic conversations about authority and human extinction and peculiar outfit and ability choices. You can tell these choices weren't made to serve the purpose of "writing exciting shonen manga" because that was what she did for the most part in Kekkaishi and you can tell she wasn't putting her whole pussy into doing that here. So what was she doing? What's like. All of this. Waves my hands at this.

The short answer is that it's really about the interplay between capitalism (represented by humanity) and communism (represented by birdmen), and explores the role institutional white supremacy (EDEN) plays in enforcing capitalism. It is ALSO about queer liberation and the importance of community, but hey, that double-stacks conveniently with the communism metaphor.

But also take this opinion of mine with a grain of salt. As far as I know I'm the only one who really truly deeply believes that it is not only AN interpretation of the work, but one that was fully intended by the author.

So basically, I like it, because I think it says something true and beautiful that I also believe in, even if I didn't have the words for it the first time I read it. But I don't really think that's what people really look for in a media recommendation.

Do I like it? Yes, I love it. Will I recommend it to others? Yeah, sure. But do I think it's deeply flawed? Yeah, absolutely. It's flawed in the same ways as The Witch from Mercury— a rushed ending, too many threads that were opened and never tied together. The pacing and characterization is perfect in the beginning, and too rushed at the end. There are prerequisites you basically HAVE to read in order to understand the story (tempest for G-Witch and the communist manifesto for birdmen). I think a truly good story wouldn't have any of these things so if people don't like it I never blame them.

It's my personal experiences that make birdmen so profound to me. If you are not queer I just don't think Eishi coming out as a birdman to his mom will hit the same, just as an example. Sorry that I wasn't the kid you wanted me to be. I know you love me and you just want the best for me and that's why you're so controlling, because you think I can be saved by conforming to societal expectations. But I can't live like that. I can't be like that. And that's why I must go. etc.

Aesthetically I do love birdmen a lot. If I had to describe it in a few words it would probably be "chilling", "beautiful", and "powerful", which nicely coincides with the type of things I personally like to draw. It's also silly to a small degree but it's so serious and I know Tanabe can be way way way funnier (read kekkaishi for this. kekkaishi and hanazakari no kimitachi he were foundational to my sense of sequential art humor) so that's not really the standout trait of this series.

I can't let it go because I'm chewing this series like a bone. And it's taking me years but I am getting that sweet sweet marrow. By god. We are on year 3 of this shit and I am GOING to understand this series. and I'm going to make 3 video essays about it

#just thinking thoughts...#stray bird thoughts #so it's like... I don't like it because birdmen is good #I think I like it because I am a certain type of person and the author was trying to say something specifically to the type of person I am #OH #I'M THE TARGETED AUDIENCE THATS WHY I LIKE IT.#YEAH THATS REALLY IT!!!#A long time ago I said that birdmen wasn't written for the people who read it at the time it serialized.#it was written for the people they would become.#and I stand by that 100%#if it really stays with you there is going to be a reason even if you can't articulate it yet #and it may APPEAR sloppy to someone who doesn't see the queer or communist metaphor #like 'what is she doing what is she saying here she's not saying anything meaningful and emphasizing the wrong things'#but that sort of presumes she is gunning to make 'the best shonen manga ever'#which she clearly isn't.#I remember when I was reading fma with a bunch of my classmates and I'd lend them a volume or two every day #and a piece of feedback I received that has stuck with me was 'volume 15 was so boring'#(that was the volume recounting the ishval civil war. it was boring because we were middle schoolers and didn't REALLY get it.)#and like. I think to people who are looking for something like kks. the whole thing is going to feel like fma volume 15 #like WHAT is she going on about? ? ?#like witch hat and dunmesh I think are similar types of stories but I think these two are just executed way better than bm #but because of that it is just not as compelling to me you know.#like yeah yeah it's well constructed. we all see it's well constructed.#the metaphor is so well constructed that I don't feel the need to point it out. everyone is saying it already you know #but bm is cryptic enough and just slightly missed that execution enough that I feel like I'm pulling the analysis out of a smoking wreckage #recently I've been watching mentourpilot videos about airplane accidents and like. that's exactly it.#there's nothing to say about a perfectly executed flight.#it's the ones that failed. and in particular the ones that just barely failed by a little bit. that compels people the most.#cue my de communism is failure post. bc that bm sure did fail.

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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 months

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also tbt but shoutout to the way this one tweet of mine got these Likes trickling in from randos, dunno why this one in particular but win that it was one that outright says Autistic. and taylor mason loyalist / understander

truly in this and any other glimpses it's o7 & warms my heart that there's other absolute randos who are Nonplussed about billions re: winston, that is, they too understand him as a person in the world of the story & from that perspective respond to material like "uh"

#i know it...i know #winston billions #others out here like [??] & ''why aren't ppl acting like Characters (anytime but also surrounding winston)'' & ''this isn't fun either''#just nice in a way of like. billions really does just expect you to hate him right off the bat & then forever superior contempt style #2 sentence horror story out here like #''yeah great job creating that allistic bias abuse fantasy hellscape simulator; billions''#''but we call that our good normal person pov utopia wish fulfillment simulator :('' roll finale credits #dime a dozen rando glimpses of ppl who do just go ''yeah that's just being normal there is no Shift in perspective for me''#i.e. Get insta hating winston & then just interpreting whatever he does negatively #a fascinating tension b/c recognizing the effervescent vivacity of the role as immediately executed like we Need so much of this guy #while only being willing to write [loser is shitted upon for Our fun by proxy of (we are not the loser!!)] over & over #quant duo providing the [one character can only be wrong one can only be right they both have to just be others' plot devices] wahoo....#billions introducing winston like we put him in a basement & he gives us code. good work though :)#billions outrobanishing winston like we put him in a basement & go in & assault him & call him a slur & take the code. real fans win :')

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reel-fear · 4 months

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people who still make Joey the ink demon despite canon steering far away from that being the case this is for you I am sending u kisses XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO <3

People who make Joey well-meaning, sympathetic, a lighter shade of morally grey than canon I am also sending u lots of love <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3!!

And people who generally steer wildly from the direction Bendy takes with its characters and has fun with it I hope to see more from all of ur aus and rewrites!!

#ramblez #batim #batdr #this is not me saying aus that don't do this r bad blah blah I just personally have a super soft spot for Joey being the ink demon #since I really like the idea storywise the symbolism of Joey becoming the ultimate monster of this story #joeys who also take a very sympathetic role who are more morally grey than canon also hold a special place in my heart #joeys who think what theyre doing is right not just for them but for their staff who genuinely care abt them who love them mwah #I just love to see very unique takes on these characters I kinda miss when it was only like chapter 2 so everyone had this wildly #different but very unique and fun takes on where we thought the story would head hell for a while we didn't know if Joey was evil or not #thats what spawned Encore it was originally just a collection of theories I thought would come true #esp since I dont think bendy is a particularly well written story its fun to see the fandom have such fun wild ideas on where to take #the concepts and idea presented in bendy that never really panned out into anything interesting or were discarded or retconned #yknow? I miss the days where the aus were wildly out of sync with the actual story when all we had was a few names a few tapes #and we all went wild making our versions of the story and characters and then got so attached to them we doubled down #when canon didnt deliver on em #umm oops this is long have a great new year folks! Get wild get weird with ur bendy aus and rewrites #lets have fun this year and take canon as optional bc lets face it Bendy isn't great but man is it fun and I care abt that way more than #the quality of the story tbh #it had great ideas and executed them uh badly! But idc bc I can stir those great ideas in my head all day and see others do the same <3 #anyways yeah thats it love ya guys have a great 2024 <3

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ladsofsorrow24 · 4 months

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honestly the problem with boruto, or specifically, time-skip naruto and its main cast is that kishimoto is REALLY not good at writing complex relationships that doesn't get solved with "and now everyone is happy!"

like... sometimes there are things that you can't forgive, but you can move on from, forgiveness doesn't always come in a "i'll forget everything bad you did" package, but it can also means learning from your mistakes and others and moving on from repeating it again

sarada not forgiving sasuke for practically abandoning her but also focusing her love solely for sakura make much more sense because she truly don't know much about sasuke other than he's... cool? but maybe, gradually, as she get to know the history of uchiha, she's able to move on from her resentment and learn that even if he's a bad dad, he's also a victim of circumstances.

but yeah, reading that naruto gaiden really convinced me that it's actually better for sakura and sasuke to be unofficially divorced but they just... aren't comfortable to talk about it with their kid. idk i feel like it's... kinder for both characters rather than forcing them in this awkward relationship... ya know?

#but yeah i feel like the problems really just #kishimoto don't really know how to get more complex stuff to come out fruitfully in his writing #like he does get good ideas #but damn.... the execution is BAD #so yeah #i'm not really mad about the time skip i'm just disappointed because #he can do So Much? with this story #but yet he... doesn't.#should just end this whole thing at chapter 699 really #tmi tag #naruto #naruto gaiden

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larnax · 1 year

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finally managed to rewrite a version of thronés story i actually like

first we have to decide what thronés story is like. about. on a material “what happens in the story” level and then on the thematic level of why those things happen. right now i think thronés story is probably supposed to be about getting freedom and something something family abuse but what actually happens is throné trying to get this weird collar off which she does by performing a very convoluted paternity test she didnt even know she needed to do until halfway through the story and its About how fucked up it would be if this one weird horny guy had too many kids that he was evil to. that sucks ass so we’re gonna change it. im fine with the “what happens” being throné trying to get her collar off, i actually think it works pretty well as a way to symbolize her being trapped in the blacksnakes and you can do a lot of interesting things with the degree to which her metaphorical collar even can come off the way a physical collar can, so thats what the story is actually gonna be About. the focus of the story should be on the conflict between thronés desire for freedom and a Normal Life and the fact that shes never Had that and the life shes had instead is extremely difficult to get out of

the single biggest problem with thronés story is that i cant emphasize this enough at the finale it suddenly nosedives into her being told about her biological family history and then needing to go on a quest to find this one random fucking dude who she has never met before and who is so blatantly evil he might as well just be a generic villain and then she has to kill him and then the story immediately ends. its not ‘bittersweet’ because im still feeling whiplash from a completely different story busting in at the last minute and the story claude is from is so morally simple(should this evil immortal rapist be killed? yeah, probably???) that it literally cant be bittersweet because it was definitely good that he died and throné has no reason to care about him

i understand that ot2 wants to have the character’s stories all tie into the postgame(except agnea lol) and honestly i dont even hate the idea of taking the theme of grooming her story has and giving that exaggerated form in this immortal organization but for the love of fucking god the leader needs to actually be a part of the story before the eleventh hour and it makes me insane that hes not because its so so so fucking obvious: Father. you know, Father? that guy who was introduced in chapter one and who throné actually has an established relationship with and who has actually been the one grooming her for her entire life before the story? why the fuck is the climax of his death preceded by a confusing and boring account of his relationship with thronés biological mother who she never knew who cheated on him with a complete stranger all of which happened before throné was born and that she did not know about until just now and is mostly irrelevant because it doesnt change her relationship with him at all because she just kills him. what is going on where am i.

so the first thing i would do in a rewrite of thronés story is remove the question of who thronés biological family is entirely. it doesnt matter and in fact actively makes the story weaker. what matters to throné and ideally the player is the people who raised throné who she considers her family and who she actually has a relationship with. even though Father is now an immortal who created the blacksnakes hes not biologically related to the children because thats stupid im sorry its just dumb.

he created a gang of children the normal way by taking in poor children who don’t have anywhere else to go and don’t have anyone to miss them with the promise of a place in the world and food/board with the caveat that they work for the parents Forever. this also means that some of the blacksnakes believe theyre in the organization by choice, or that this is the best option for them(will be relevant for mira), and are willing to accept the treatment not just because of the collars but because of the metaphorical collar of poverty. none of this even needs to be outright said & in fact i would significantly prefer that it exists almost entirely in the inquire/etc options for npc blacksnakes and the player is allowed to simply pick this up through characters who act as if its true. throné specifically will have joined the blacksnakes because she was drawn in by the idea of having a family and a place in the world as a kid who was starving to death in the streets of fucking uhh idk i play in spanish whatever Sotoburgo is. this does not need to be established in a flashback, it can be established entirely through simple mentions about how the blacksnakes saved her life and then the player can just recognize what’s going on.

Mother still exists and is still the primary antagonist of chap 1-2 while Father exists sort of in the background, but she needs to have the simplistic evil turned down just a tiny bit. as it is the blacksnakes’ familial structure feels really shallow because Mother is all vinegar no honey. the mafia boss who is very rewarding and affectionate with well-performing underlings and simultaneously cruel with under-performing underlings is both another character who can just exist and the player will like Get It almost instantly, but is also much closer to how a lot of abusive mothers work. oh also uhhh im. replacing pirro with mira entirely. sorry pirro but mira is the second most interesting character in the story and i want to give her more screentime. mira is Mother’s golden child, shes younger than throné and kind of bad at her job but Mother insists on sending her on jobs with throné anyway and blames her if things go wrong, so when the diamante job goes sideways and one of their crew dies and also they fail to recover the objective Mother does the whole whipping her in front of everyone thing and then demands that she go and singlehandedly complete the mission, which Mother clearly considers to be a suicide mission to do solo right after a failed attempt when the place will be crawling with guards, but throné has no choice to accept it because, you know. collar. so throné goes and tries to stealthily infiltrate the diamante manor and manages to recover it but what then? why, it’s mira! mother has trusted her with her first ever assassination, and it’s to make sure that even if throné makes it to the objective alive, she doesn’t make it out of the manor. throné fights mira and wins, but when mira realizes she might die she begins pleading for her life and throné can’t bring herself to kill her so she flees the manor and decides that her quest to leave the blacksnakes begins Right Now. on her way out of town she’s “ambushed” by Father, who came to congratulate her for successfully making it out of diamante because he knew she would be able to complete a mission no other blacksnake could. throné is conflicted between feeling good that he’s proud and knowing that shes gotta get the fuck out of here and feeling just a little bit incompetent for not being able to kill mira(she doesnt say any of this explicitly, she thanks him for praising her and hes kinda like ‘cmon champ say it like you mean it’ and throné thinks ‘but i dont’). he leaves and throné thinks about her objective— she needs to remove the collar, so she needs the keys from Mother… and Father. she knows that at this time of year Mother goes to visit the orphanage in Sotoburgo she uses as a front for educating and taking in young blacksnakes.

she arrives in Sotoburgo and sees. well look who it fucking is, mira! a normal blacksnake wouldve been executed for failing an assassination(throné was definitely going to be executed either way which is why she needed to leave immediately, this is unstated but you can guess), but mother’s golden child rides again. throné disguises herself as a nun and sneaks into the orphanage to find that mira has been brought with Mother as a punishment for failing the mission, where shes being treated as a child. throné walks in shortly before mira is used as an example to the children of what happens if they fail to succeed in their duties and shes whipped. after that Mother leaves to go to the garden and throné pursues her but when she gets to the garden Mother reveals that she knew it was throné the whole time and mira steps out of the shadows, Mother reveals that mira was spared from execution on the condition that she helps Mother eliminate throné now, there’s a double battle where mira protects Mother but after throné overpowers them both and knocks mira out Mother also begins pleading for her life and uses the fact that she spared mira to prove that throné is actually very kind and all this will be forgiven if she just— and then throné stabs her and as Mother’s dying shes like “damn.. you really are your father’s daughter…” and throné is like ah. the agonies. anyway then mira recovers and realizes mother’s dead and does the whole “SHES ALL I HAD” thing and that shes really gonna kill throné this time Youll See and throné tells her that shes clearly not meant for the blacksnakes either but that the next time they meet, it’s kill or be killed. mira asks throné what other options does she think she has(even if you get the collar off, what will you do then? do you really think you can live a normal life?) and throné… cant answer her. she leaves. Father ambushes her again on the way out and tells her that hes proud of her for killing Mother, and asks her to go on a job with him. throné agrees, and he leaves. throné wonders if this really is all somehow part of his plan

thronés chapter 3 is actually really good so im leaving it unchanged

but ok so chapter 4. throné confronts Father and he tells her how proud of her he is for making it this far and that he knew she would. if she succeeds here, she’ll prove once and for all that shes worthy to lead the blacksnakes. throné tells him that shes fucking off forever after this and he cant stop her. he says he doesnt have to— someone with so much blood on her hands can never live a normal life. even if the collar is gone, she’s still a killer and a thief. sooner or later, she’ll realize the blacksnakes are all she has. throné wants to refute him, but can’t come up with a satisfying response. Father switch to fighting sprite and tells her that it’s time to stop trying to run away from the life she chose, that she was meant for. throné defeats him. his last words are “i love you”. throné switch to heavy damage sprite and after a pause says “i hate you.” she reaches for the keys and unlocks the collar, but realizes that she really doesn’t know what to do now. she leaves the montwise cathedral but on the way back to town is grabbed by a strange man who is just repeating . idk like “i’m lost, help, help, i’m lost” or whatever this guy is one of the broken vessels and throné manages to shove him off and kill him but finds a note in his hand that is a map leading to an X or maybe directions. idk whatever but this is a map to the gondola

throné arrives at the gondola and finds lostseed. i actually love lostseed i think it owns and its one of the coolest locations in the game so im slamming it in just like the writers but at least trying to make it relevant. throné finds the shrine(btw this is the shrine) and goes through and who is it at the end You Guessed It it’s mira. throné is like. what the fuck is going on. mira tells her that this village is where the successor of the blacksnakes must go to receive the gift of agelessness and throné is like. what? she reveals that Mother and Father both wanted to have their successor candidates and that mira was Mother’s. the gift of agelessness is like. a fountain you have to drink from or maybe it is the flame itself somehow, and all the broken vessels are people who tried to drink from the fountain but were unworthy and instead went insane and are now empty husks. mira says that shes going to kill throné once and for all so she cant come back to take revenge and then mira will drink from the fountain and become the successor. throné tells her that this is a bad idea and shes definitely going to become a husk. mira tells her to shut the fuck up and you know what at least she knows her place in the world and attacks. throné overpowers and kills her. mira has a bit before she bleeds out where she tells throné that she always knew throné was stronger than her, and that throné could be the best leader the blacksnakes have. her last words are. ok so this would be easier in japanese but in english even though i feel like its kind of clunky you can still have mira call her “big sister”. throné obviously decides not to drink from the fountain of youth. you dont need to have any dialogue to establish that she has now realized she had complicated feelings about mira but i want to have her unlock mira’s collar and maybe give her a burial in lostseed. her last scene is returning to montwise and buying a raspberry turnover or whatever. she reflects that she still doesnt know where she goes from here, but that she at least knows that no matter what, she won’t be the blacksnakes’ successor. i was debating between her endcard being that or the grave but since temenos already has a grave endcard i think having a version of her endcard that references the raspberries thing is better

OH also her design on her endcard is way better than her ingame design. no thief design is complete without the little mantle and also please give this poor woman some fucking pants. i think she should also have gloves though. tbh i also want to have her skirt be full instead of asymmetrical but i do acknowledge that at this point im basically just describing tressa’s clothes with a longer skirt but in my defense i really like tressa’s design and they could add details to make it different.

MORE IMPORTANTLY THOUGH for crossed paths . its so fucking stupid that her crossed paths is with temenos i fucking hate it here for real. throné doesnt even do anything shes literally just the Specialest Birthday Boy in the world’s sidekick and its so frustrating bc again theres a way more obvious pairing: osvald. obviously osvald. if you asked me which character i would pair with the girl whose main trait is that her abuse was from her father, the guy whose main trait is his relationship with his daughter would be a lot fucking higher on my list than catholic sherlock(partitio can just be kind of there in temenos’ story and in the postgame he suffers a lot less from being completely ignored because The Most Important Guy In The World is the only person that matters for temenos’ torch(no hate to partitio btw i love the spaghetti western man but someone has to be the sacrifice)). throné and osvald are mirrors of each other in a bunch of interesting ways, thronés conflict is about whether or not shes her father’s daughter/osvald was extremely close with his daughter who was a lot like him, throné has spent her entire life in the underworld but wants to live a normal life/osvald was living a normal life but has recently been plunged into the underworld, etc. you could have osvald and throné conflicting because both of them are projecting their father/daughter onto each other and their crossed paths are about them realizing that they need to approach each other as individuals, you could have the two of them ending up falling into a father/daughterish dynamic in a lighthearted way, you could have an inverted mentor/apprentice dynamic where throné ends up teaching osvald mugging tips and tricks or whatever, you could have the two of them sharing the conflict of not being sure if they can ever find a normal life when osvald has dedicated so much of himself to revenge and its not like he can just fucking. pick up his life where he left off and throné doesnt even know what a normal life would be like and hey maybe osvald could share some of what a normal life with a caring father is supposed to look like. if the crossed paths were tied to their main story you could even explicitly have the two of them conflict over what osvald owes to his daughter now that he knows shes alive or have throné react to harvey changing elena’s memories, or you could have osvald get invested in thronés conflict because as a father hes got a personal stake in seeing a father treat his daughter like shit. or i dont. fucking know. thatd probably be best saved for travel banter actually but what im saying is their dynamic is much more interesting and i would pretty please like to allow throné to have an important role in what is allegedly supposed to be Her shared story.

but in the spirit of not completely rewriting everything osvalds crossed paths actually works fine with throné instead since she and partitio both have a get item path action but throné’s motivation for helping regulus will initially just be contrarianism where osvald is like “dont waste your time” and throné is like “hmm interesting. unfortunately i do have to see what happens solely because you seem so upset about it”. i think this story works best where throné and osvald sort of unconsciously fall into a father/daughter dynamic where throné feels a sudden powerful urge to exert major teenager energy. the second entry is again mostly the same but throné offers to steal it instead and osvald is like “no im going to punch this guy”. during the stargazing scene regulus mentions that osvald’s new assistant reminds him of elena and that he thought she was the only person who could drag osvald into wasting his time and osvald is like ill fucking kill you and throné is like ah papá i did not know you were so weak willed that a ten year old could drag you around and osvald is like ill blow this whole building up (paraphrasing). this is definitely on the lighthearted end but thats fine octopath really doesnt like having protagonists conflict which does suck ass but i also understand

for the postgame obviously like i said lostseed is the location of the scholar/thief shrine, the blacksnakes’ founder found a way to harness the power of the flame to achieve immortality and the leader of the snakes is brought into the moonshade order and theyre supposed to sacrifice themself to snuff out the torch, if youre really dedicated to The Sacred Flame Is Unambiguously Good No Matter what you can have lostseed not be the shrine and just keep the blacksnakes leader sacrificing themself bc ik octopath’s canon mythology is allergic to being interesting but either way osvald can be like. Damn you dodged a fucking bullet huh(paraphrasing)

since mira has tragically passed away she cant be the postgame quest but instead the elderly guard/gondola operator being twins can still be a thing so i would like the guard to have a brother and also like. niece who he thinks died, and so he asks you to see if you can find anything that remains of them. the brother is his twin and his niece is the “give it back” girl. the solution is still to bring the guard to his brother, and the brother leads him to the girl and explains that she was another successor candidate but that when she tried to drink from the fountain it turned her into a husk and so he stayed in lostseed to watch over her. the guard and ideally the player realize that all these broken vessels were once full people and decides to stay with his brother to watch over the town in case a way is ever found to heal them

#c.paradisi #i wanted to put this under a readmore but apparently youre not allowed to do that in the old editor and the new one has character limits #so you get big chunky boy.#octoposting #while writing this i was like. hmm. is this too sappy and straightforward. and thats definitely my biggest concern #but like whatever. i really liked octopath 2's stories that were straightforward but well-executed so #yeah idk. its pretty fitting that i think about throné way more even though i thought castti's story was better #octopath loves to give me delicious concepts and then trip on its face trying to execute them and every time im like hmm interesting.#i am going to think abt this for the rest of my life

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