Character Analysis - Blog Posts

okay okay more twitter talk but I can’t help but notice how odd karamatsu’s subconscious is

their self awareness balls seem to vary in size based on how highly/lowly they think of themselves, their goals and ambitions, whether or not they know what they’re capable of, ect- this all ties into self awareness

that being said, karamatsu’s is second smallest after osomatsu’s, who CHOOSES to ignore his capabilities and not reach for more in life because he’s satisfied with where he is and he’s a guy who doesn’t need more than the essentials to be happy- he also doesn’t seem to think highly nor lowly of himself, he’s just…..him 

in a slightly different way, karamatsu seems not to have any goals or ambitions either- his subconscious is the only one made from a slightly reflective and transparent material as if his self awareness completely revolves around how he knows others see him (as in he has no idea who he is, he can only listen to the input given to him by others, which is sadly mostly negative- as seen in the fishing incident with oso, he clearly has no idea how he comes off to people, but their opinion seemed to matter a lot to him) and his goals and ambitions aren’t his own; you peer into his subconscious and you just see yourself 

it’s as if once you try to look deeper into karamatsu, there’s just nothing there, he isn’t aware of who he is-  he just reflects what he thinks everyone else wants to see; his subconscious gives off the vibe of being really /fragile/ and it seems he doesn’t like his current image so he goes and does nice things and whatever else he thinks make a person look cool/likable because if people have a positive opinion of him, he too will be able to have a positive opinion of himself- again, he’s a fairly nice guy, but he wants acceptance

at some point I realized for that for that exact reason, it made sense that not even minutes after choromatsu said he wanted to give out free hugs because communication with others is important, karamatsu himself went out and did it

it wasn’t his own idea or his goal but he took it for himself because if choromatsu suggested it and it helps people build relationships, it must be really useful, he wants that as well

karamatsu doesn’t have a true sense of self

EDIT: I should mention, his self awareness could have been as jazzed up and sparkly as todomatsu’s, which most people expected, but that’s clearly not what he actually believes about himself- his self awareness is that he’s an empty and unappealing person 

the first half of his name, kara, actually comes from the Japanese term karappo, which literally means empty

it was given to him supposedly because he’s empty minded but also because he’s an empty character all around- it would seem he’s aware of this and things apparently haven’t changed

luffy IS selfish. By @ace-no-isha

Thoughts about Akechi because he's infected my brain

We really never see the "real akechi" in Persona 5 or even in Royal, I think. That's not to say there aren't honest moments and real emotions, but every moment we have with Akechi is him trying to get us to serve some greater goal of his. In vanilla that goal is obvious: he wants to get close to you to further his vengeance on Masayoshi Shido. In the third semester that goal is less obvious but I'd say he wants you to think he's an irredeemable monster and that you shouldn't care about him so you reject Maruki's deal. Third semester is slightly more honest with Akechi- his convictions and feelings are all real, but he portrays them in whatever way will get you to do what he wants while keeping you at an arm's distance.

I think the only moment in the whole game where Akechi isn't putting up some sort of mask is after you beat him in the engine room. Before he's kinda having a big feelings moment so while it's honest, it's an extreme. After? He has no more reason to act, he just has his one request: destroy Masayoshi Shido in his stead. And you do, for the last request of the boy you never really got to know.

So who is the real Akechi? I don't think Akechi knows himself, I think he's lived so many years with a mask as Shido's Assassin or the Detective Prince or a pleasant boy that he doesn't know which is real. I don't think we'll ever see the real Akechi, not in anything mainline, both because they better not be making another Persona 5 and because there is no 'real' Akechi without the masks, without the deception. His character is like Joker's, he's constantly tailoring himself to be what he needs to be because that's the only way a bastard child like himself can survive. It's why I like wildcard Akechi fics so much, because he's just as malleable as Joker. They're rivals, after all.

Headcanon time! Here is:

What would happen if a different link were split by the four sword?

I posit: the colors/elements are assigned to different traits based on what each color/element is associated with. Ex: Four sees fire as warm and comforting, so his red link, associated with fire, is a warm and comforting individual. I shall also give them all names. We're starting with Skyward Sword Link, aka Sky here!

Red Sky: Magma. Having grown up in Skyloft Sky never had much experience with fire, so it's very much a new surface thing that's incredibly dangerous. Magma is a very curious type, that doesn't really know their own strength. Taking all of Sky's wonder at this brand new world, plus his pretty great strength, and putting it into this bass of energy.

Green Sky: Twister. Sky, despite living in the air, really doesn't have a good experience with active winds. A twister just up and launched his gf onto the surface man, and they're a hazard when flying on his own loftwing. As such, Twister is harsh, violent. All of Sky's rage, plus some really good swordfighting skills.

Blue Sky: River. Water's actually a pretty nice constant in Sky's life, though Faron didn't do a good job keeping that image. River is a calm, soothing type. Maybe a little overbearing, surrounding the others on all sides and making them feel claustrophobic. Sky's mother hen tendencies condensed.

Violet Sky: Dune. Leaning a bit more into the associations with the color purple this time we have a lot of the love for Zelda plus the ever-shifting nature of the dunes of Lanayru desert. Dune is pretty all over the place, emotionally. He's the one most likely to express them, too. He's sorta Sky's emotions but that's not entirely accurate, because the others still have a lot of emotions. Also gets to play the harp, helps center him.

With their dynamic, I imagine River falls into the leader role. In the sense that they keep everyone on track and not dead at least, Twister is their battle strategy. River doesn't really mind the role of leader? None of the others are really vying for it. Twister kinda tries but every time the others are like "no, you're still in time out for X." Dune and Magma are just happy to be along for the ride, though there is no guarantee that they won't wander off somewhere. Magma because something looks interesting and Dune because they're just following the highest energy person right now.

If they had to be given combat roles then Magma is the tank, Twister is the rogue, River is the Healer and Dune is the distraction. Dune is perfectly fine just running around irritating their opponents and catching their attention so the others can get good hits in, so I guess support in a way?

Sometimes I think about for how much Faultline looks down upon Skidmark and the Merchants, for her whole “he has no ideology, he’s just an idiot” line at the S9 moot, Skidmark and the Merchants actually showed up to the Leviathan fight, while Faultline and her people got the hell out of dodge because no one was paying them.

 Like, Melanie, you are not significantly less of an opportunist than those guys!  You sided with the villain alliance over the bombslinging terrorist because they outbid the terrorist. Your wholesome fan-favorite found family is composed entirely of people you took in because they were at rock bottom and you could exploit that- you were not Spitfire’s first choice of boss, lady! Your cute surrogate-daughter is someone you broke out an asylum to use as a gun. You only grow principles when it would let you butt heads with Tattletale more effectively, or wring more money out of a deal by positioning yourself opposite Alexandria! 

I dunno, I find this internal moral jockeying between the villains to be super entertaining because of how clearly it highlights how many people in the wormverse are angling for any means by which they situation they’ve arrived at in life is the morally and practically correct one.

I really love how Taylor can either hold a grudge forever or have it disappear alarmingly fast, and it all depends on if she acts on her anger at first. Like she forgives and is willing to work with Sophia after the bullying, Lung after he tried to kill her, Rachel after she tried to fuck her over, Defiant after the everything. Like most people wouldn't forgive all those acts and trust those people afterwards, but she hardly even considers otherwise because she believes that people should work together against unbeatable foes despite their differences and when she fights alongside someone she kind of just forgets the things they've done.

When she acts on something though, when she acts immediately in an irreversible way the people she lashes out against are immediately marked as 100% irredeemable evil bastards in her mind. Alexandria, she doesn't regret the murder in the slightest despite the fact that it had consequences and Alexandria isn't a being of pure evil. Since she killed her she has to convince herself that it was right and just and that she doesn't regret it, which erases any nuance Alexandria had in her mind that would lead to her forgiving her. She does this again a buncha times throughout the book. Against the C53s in the Cauldron raid she thinks about how everyone in the crowd could be innocent, forced to go along with the mob out of fear that they'll be next and with no chance or choice of getting away and being peaceful. But then she dangles a disintegration knife into all their faces to kill Mantellum and suddenly they're all monsters who delighted in torturing innocents and all voluntary members of the mob and none of them deserved any mercy because they're Evil Bad People, so she'll never lose sleep or forgive them.

Aisha points something like this out in 29.5 actually, she says her and Alec had an argument over it because Alec was annoyed at how quickly and easily Taylor stopped being mad at her bullies and didn't want revenge. I think Alec equated Sophia to Heartbreaker in his mind because they caused both their respective triggers, and he can't fathom the idea of someone not wanting to slowly torture and kill their Heartbreaker to make them feel an ounce of the pain he felt, and honestly Alec is the normal one here I think? I think most parahumans would get revenge on the people who caused their triggers in a heartbeat if given an opportunity, and honestly poor Alec imagine trying to understand and make sense of your dulled emotions and Taylor Hebert is there as the worst example ever with her weirdo decisions. Aisha defended Taylor and her choice to not get revenge but she still got revenge for Alec because she hold grudges for herself and other people.

Letting go of hatred to someone isn't something other people can really do like Taylor. Going back to Aisha, she fucking despised Bonesaw during Gold Morning and hated how she got a redemption, but Taylor was fully willing to work with someone who sawed her skull open for the greater good when it would be completely fair for her to never want to get help from her. Idk what my point is here I just think it's really neat that unless someone is her enemy right then and there or unless she already killed that person and sorted them into the Bad Person Category, Taylor is willing to forgive anything and everything to make sure everyone works together.

Thinkin’ about The Siberian

I was sitting on a draft that said something to the effect of “Worm AU where Manton pulls an NBC Hannibal and moonlights as The Siberian on top of being a globally respected parahuman studies researcher. Is this anything.”

Then I thought about this a little more and realized that this might not be far off from what actually happened. There’s a throughline in Manton’s interests, in his trajectory through life, where he’s trying to figure out what you can use powers to get away with doing to people- about identifying constraints and overcoming them. 

He’s the guy who somehow credibly catalogued, and got his name associated with, the fact that powers generally can’t be used to pop people like balloons, and he did so reasonably early in the timeline, in the nineties at the latest. That’s…. an interesting direction to take your research! When people are just coming to terms with the fact that parahumans are real he’s out there taking careful note of whether they can manifest their powers inside people to instantly kill them. How did he test that? What capes did he collaborate with to test that? What did those conversations look like? Did the IRB at a minimum issue any revise-and-resubmits?

And then, of course, he gets picked up by Cauldron (also known as the infinite untraceable victim depot) to work on improving the vials- gaining a sufficiently in-depth understanding of what they are, how they’re made, and what they can do to people that when Cauldron told Legend that Manton had gone rogue and was the one creating C53s, he found this plausible. You’ve got the guy who’d later become the backbone of the Slaughterhouse 9 basically systemically cataloging every conceivable way a power could violate someone’s physiology- first from without, and then, at Cauldron, from within.

Then, when he pulls the trigger and gives himself powers, the resultant ability is essentially a distilled refutation of the Manton Effect- a minion that can obliterate anything, eat anything, delete any material from existence, viscerally dismember people in a unity of conventional and esoteric, power-enabled violence. And he’s insulated from the consequences of his actions on two levels- in terms of Siberian’s invulnerability, but also in the discrepancy between his form and that of his minion. He mixed the vial that gave him that power himself.

Essentially- I don’t think Siberian is something that just happened after a psychological break following a messy divorce. I think Manton basically pre-committed to becoming something like The Siberian, spent most of his career working towards some form of transcendence through superpowers, and the messy divorce was downstream of the cracks starting to show as he got closer and closer to what he’d been chasing.

Now to segue into a complication that’s more directly supported in the text- it’s Worm, it’s always complicated- Master powers spring from loneliness. My theory is that while Manton wanted apotheosis, and while he’d probably been gearing up for a rampage for a while, he genuinely didn’t want to do it alone; he wanted a sidekick. Hence why he bothered pursuing a family in the first place, hence why he fed his daughter a vial, hence why his own projection ended up looking like his daughter after he accidently made her explode or whatever with the bad vial- a monkey’s paw restoration, giving him back a facsimile of the person he wanted to take along for the ride, and making his capacity for violence inseparable from her presence.

This is why he joined up with the Nine rather than remaining a solo act; it’s why he engages in a bad imitation of the Parent/Child relationship with Bonesaw; and it’s why he seeks out Bitch as a candidate. His interest in her candidacy parses to me as genuine- Even moreso than Bonesaw, even moreso than Jack, Bitch has arrived at a no-frills fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want outlook that’s very appealing to Manton. He wants to have a murderer-daughter relationship!

But Rachel got where she is the hard way, by having a life that sucked a lot, by getting near-constantly kicked around! She has a clear reason to be so angry! Even if all my postulations about Manton having a long game are complete bullshit, there are several stages at which Manton had to actively opt in to the same lifestyle and reputation that Bitch was forced to adopt as a basic survival tactic. He didn’t have to start eating people! He’s a tourist! His “freedom” is inseparable from his distance, his disguise. Rachel’s “freedom” is just the freedom of having nothing left to lose.

All of this to say- In an interlude in which Bitch has an extended internal monologue about how people with families have the opportunities to be assholes and monsters to a captive audience, it is absolutely not a coincidence that she’s scouted by a would-be parental figure who proceeds to be an asshole and a monster in front of a captive audience, before trying to buy her affection with a puppy. In rejecting Manton, Rachel dodged an esoterically-packaged but ultimately very familiar bullet.

A fun little bit of foreshadowing/character work is that New Wave’s capes all have kinda dorky names that are just normal English words. Except, for Panacea, which is hardly dorky, and is a word that originated in mythology, with all its associated meanings. Even in her name, Panacea stood apart from her family.

And, of course, it represents the pressure placed on her. Lady Photon’s name isn’t a promise. Glory Girl’s name isn’t a promise. Flashbang’s name isn’t a promise. Panacea’s name is. And she ran herself into the ground trying to keep it.

I think if Taylor ever got (normal, non-evil) cloned then one would kill the other within a day. Taylor would despise herself if she had to look at herself from outside her own head.

Lisa's interactions with Taylor make a lot more sense if you believe she's never had a real friend in her life, even before her power started to whisper things in her ear. Taylor's experience got messed with by the bullying, but Lisa is starting from the bottom and has to pull from her interactions with the Undersiders and it shows

Reread 19.y, and noticed something I hadn't caught before:

Parents. Plural. He makes such hay over being someone who really knows her like other people don't, but he doesn't know her mom died. That's not an unreasonable or unconscionable thing, you're not rude for not knowing everything about your classmates' circumstances. But also, it was a detail that we see the trio implicitly reference, and that Emma will be explicit about without visible shock from other classmates. People who know about Taylor enough to torment her know about it—but its not something Greg knows. It highlights how he's being kinda ridiculous, thinking he has some special connection to her. Good little detail.

Truly the tragedy of Taylor is that she was just, the best at violence and discovered this at a time in her life when she had nothing else. Is it any surprise that she ended up as a creature of nought but violence when people only cared about her in relation to her capacity for violence?

list of times taylor hebert used other peoples powers better than them:

when she told genesis to create a body that looked like crawler with the s9 riding on his back

when she used clockblockers power to bisect echidna. this literally fundamentally changed the way clock used his own power

when she made doormaker open and close portals overlapping each other so that the portals were effectively moving (granted this was only possible with the help of taylors multitasking power)

help me add more things to the list

nobody move. i've just successfully articulated the sentiment that taylor's power turns her into a panopticon because she was living in one & explained her trigger in a way i feel satisfied with for the first time in my life

the concept of the panopticon is not just about surveillance, but about creating an environment where people cannot be sure whether or not they are being surveilled, and thus must constantly act under the assumption that they are. which is exactly what happened to taylor--we see from when we first meet her in the school that she's anticipating attack from every possible direction to avoid it, and the one time she lets her guard down a fraction and assumes she's found a safe spot to hide from abuse, she's targeted with the juice spills. and this is after her trigger event, but it's clear she behaves this way because it was beaten into her over the entire course of the bullying. it's what she describes when she recounts the trigger:

“I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  But I made a friend, one of the girls who had sometimes joined in on the taunting came to me and apologized.  ...  Her approaching me and befriending me was one of the big reasons I could think the harassment was ending.  I never really let my guard down around her, but she was pretty cool about it. “And for most of November and the two weeks of classes before Christmas break, nothing.  They were leaving me alone.  I was able to relax.” I sighed, “That ended the day I came back from the winter break. I knew, instinctually, that they were playing me, that they were waiting before they pulled their next stunt, so it had more impact. I didn’t think they’d be so patient about it. I went to my locker, and well, they’d obviously raided the bins from the girls bathrooms or something, because they’d piled used pads and tampons into my locker. Almost filled it.”

the precise moment when she stopped consciously anticipating and preparing to react to abuse--when she relaxed, when she stopped acting as if the lack of danger didn't mean that she couldn't still be hurt at any time--is when she was brutally reminded that she's never safe. she's still in the panopticon. she isn't literally being watched every second, she isn't literally in lifelong danger of having her vulnerabilities exploited, but it feels like she is. she can never ever be sure she's safe.

so she triggers, and she gets a power that turns her into a panopticon, and lets her watch everyone right back. it lets her regain control by turning her into a source of danger that could attack anywhere, from any direction, any time, fully unexpected.

& the reason her power enables her to watch Everyone--not just a single person, or a few people--but Everyone, is that the other major aspect of her trigger is the trauma of facts like this:

“It was pretty obvious that they had done it before the school closed for Christmas, by the smell alone. I bent over to throw up, right there in a crowded hallway, everyone watching. Before I could recover or stop losing my breakfast, someone grabbed me by the hair, hard enough it hurt, and shoved me into the locker.”

"All I could think was that someone had been willing to get their hands that dirty to fuck with me, but of all the students that had seen me get shoved in the locker, nobody was getting a janitor or teacher to let me out."

for months, for years, she was in a community where everyone regularly witnessed her humiliation and abuse, and everyone, dozens and dozens of kids and teachers, either contributed to it or was knowingly, silently complacent. this is what sticks with her: the idea that she is so universally reviled, so deserving of revile, that any crowd of witnesses would, without hesitation, consign her to the filth of the locker.

what else is she supposed to conclude, but that everyone she interacts with is a threat? that she can't drop her guard ever again, because no one will be coming to help her if she does? of course she has to become the panopticon. of course she has to watch everyone, all of the time, if she wants to stop it from happening again. of course she has to live among the teeming lowly and crawling things she has been taught via one firm shove that she is worth less than, and of course she has to use them to watch everyone back. and it would be inaccurate to say that doing this--monitoring everything with her bugs--makes her feel safe. all it does is allow her to remain in a constant state of paranoia and traumatized hyper-vigilance more efficiently.

This moment in particular is super special to me, out of all of worm. Is the starkest window into her inner world, this is probably the first and only time where she actually expresses out loud to another person the fact that she actually took some pride in being a bad ass supervillain, where she actually gloated about being "bad". She was aware of how deranged she was and she actually liked it a little.

This is a taylor we almost never get to see

god i love imp (big spoilers)

you know, the more i think about worm, the more i realize that aside from skitter, imp is one of the best fleshed out characters. and the amazing thing is how her characterization is all in the background where people don’t notice it. just like imp herself.

Keep reading

attention everyone we have reached my personal favorite Line in worm

I stepped toward Sundancer and offered a hand to help her up.  She flinched away. Oh.  My hands were bloody.  I dropped the offered hand to my side. “Let’s go,” I suggested.

there are a lot of good Lines in worm, and while i will acknowledge that many of them are sort of objectively more powerful culminating moments than this one, this one is still My Personal Favorite. Oh. My hands were bloody.

it's been obvious through the early arcs that taylor has a lot of repressed anger: she beats the shit out of rachel, even after being bitten. she outright admits to the other undersiders that she hasn't taken subtle revenge on the trio at school because she's afraid she would take it too far/it would obviously be her. she is, initially, unnerved by violence: she's a bit scared by the gun present in the loft, it creeps her out that brian knows every way to break a person's body, she feels guilt about the idea of any civilians being hurt during the bank robbery. but she still beat up rachel, and she still shoves bugs up the wards' noses during the robbery, and she still gleefully rides rachel's dog and laughs and hollers from the joy and the adrenaline rush of victory afterwards.

the expression of this repressed anger thru violence escalates further when her concussion leads her to slapping emma in the mall. in the principal's office, when it's clear that nothing she or her dad says will garner help with the bullying, she shouts and slaps papers off the table and asks what would happen if she brought a knife to school. after she and her dad leave the meeting, she calls lisa:

“Hey.  How did it go?” I couldn’t find the words for a reply. “That bad?” “Yeah.” “What do you need?” “I want to hit someone.”

lisa invites her to a raid on the ABB so she can do that, and it's soo. Sooo Very. to watch how she cuts loose on it. she's so angry rachel notices it in how she's standing, and she's still confused about how rachel noticed. she's a confident leader when the fight goes crisis mode, she responds to rachel bucking against her orders by consistently shouting at rachel to "NOT fuck with me right now," she acts nigh-suicidally aggressive during her fight with lung, and she snarls "don't fucking underestimate me" when she takes him out using a caterpillar dipped in newter's blood.

all of this happens in relatively subtle increments. she doesn't notice how she progressively becomes comfortable expressing herself and taking charge instead of withdrawing or acting insecurely during the course of the mission. she doesn't notice that she's not horrified by dealing with newter's wound or seeing the sniper's broken leg. back in unmasked society, she was forced to consider how many of her aggressive actions were the result of the concussion loosening her impulse control--here, she repeatedly yells at bitch without a second thought. it's a place where her violence and anger isn't only acceptable but necessary. the circumstances normalize her outbursts and comfort with violence to her, leaving her blind to how alienated and dissociated and repressed and traumatized and furious and just Fucked Up she has to be to face down lung and then dig his eyes out.

when she says that she "doesn't believe in eye for an eye," in arc 4 alec asks her why the fuck she's a supervillain. his implicit assertion is clear: being a villain is, for him, about taking your revenge for being hurt out on whoever you can manage or justify, even if they're not the person who originally hurt you. and taylor thinks she's not doing that. but hey: she goes beyond just "hitting someone" and into literally taking lung's eyes as a culmination of the cathartic violence she's been engaging in as recompense for how she was mistreated earlier.

and the person who serves as a more "normal" reference point for how far taylor just escalated is sundancer: horrified by the idea of having to use her sun to hurt people, shocked by how casually violent taylor has been, flinching away from taylor when she turns to sundancer after committing that violence & tries to offer sundancer help.

because, oh. her hands are bloody. she hadn't even noticed how bloody they were getting, but they are.

deeply evocative one-line reminder of how taylor has changed in these first five arcs, without even noticing. and the best part is that, while the imagery of "oh. my hands were bloody" does convey that change in an incredibly brief and powerful way, the fact that taylor is saying it still means even she hasn't really realized. she thinks it's mainly just about the superficial, literal blood on her hands, and not the metaphorical blood on her hands that sundancer is disturbed by. it's good.

Ok but can we all appreciate Willow's character? Her goals were to be "wise and strong to protect everyone she loved" when she stated it in front of the palisman in Hunting Palisman.

And throughout the episodes, you can really see the acceleration in her growth. She's sorta like an older sibling to everyone now.

Mediating fights and arguments, (though in this example it was more of a joke)

Making soup,

She even started working out to improve her physical strength to better protect everyone she loves! (She even changes the way she uses her magic to better suit her new physical strength she's been building) Even though she's always had the immense amount of power, she's still seeking to improve herself in terms of strength and character.

And in the last episode, when everyone else was arguing with each other, she was the only one quiet and calm on the side. She of course was probably also going through things in her mind but didn't let it affect her and she managed to calm everyone else down too. She gave some advice to King about looking for opportunities to help others too.

"There's always a way to help, you just have to look for the right opportunity"

And this is why I will forever mourn Ride being cancelled it had so much potential yall 😭SO MUCH POTENTIAL AND THE CHARACTER DYNAMICS AND CHARACTER NUANCES JKDMNCJWLALCNF SO MUCH POTENTIAL

The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.

Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?

Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.

And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.

When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.

The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.

I think a detail of Kaidou's character that isn't talked about nearly enough is that he's actually a huge dick

He tends to make fun of certain people around him, probably to boost his own ego/complex. ESPECIALLY with Nendou. Like, Nendou will literally be sitting in silence, and Kaidou with instigate and tease and borderline bully him completely unprompted.

Like, idk, I feel like Kaidou gets the "baby boy that can do no wrong" treatment a lot, but no he's an asshole actually

THIS

This is The Problem with new dmc anime. All other stuff can be overlooked. But not this shit. They made a such grand mistake taking out the literal soul of the gameverse. Everything else doesn't work as it should without this conflict done right.

And it's done completely wrong. Who's idea was it to poorly disguise USA politics and racism problems as "demons", "slavery" and "hell".

Dmc explored the union of human and demon parts, questioned what they are, what they represent. With main themes as love, power and survival, explored through different concepts of family. It was always there in different forms that evolved and layered over each other with each new game and manga.

So the most noticeable outcome of those? We got intimate family melodrama with brutal and unstoppable action. Which is a receipt for success!

In the new anime we get boring "save the world, save them all" in a grand plot because "they're just like us" and Dante who has NO IDEA that he's a halfdemon and what was his family. Unless they play the amnesia card which would be ridiculous ngl but also even worse. So he's basically left without conflict AT ALL.

He's just a guy.

When the whole premise of dmc is that this "just a guy" is not in fact "just a guy".

I'm almost crying, send help

I think part of what makes the Netflix show so frustrating is the fact that there's definitely blind spots in the original lore that could allow for a deeper discussion on a demon's capability for love and goodness, but the show itself just did not seem interested in actually exploring those ideas.

I've seen some posts going around about how demons not being inherently evil was already established in the games, and I think that is true. The gameverse has a bit of a strange philosophy when it comes to demons and their capacity for good. On one hand, the original two games act as though the only way for a demon to be good is to actively distance themselves from their demonic heritage.

Dante telling Trish and Lucia that "devil's never cry" actually feeds into the idea that demons are inherently evil and that they aren't actually demons because they are capable of goodness. In those games, this is played straight. However, in later entries, they seem to recognise this for what it actually is - the rhetoric of a man who is projecting his own self loathing in regard to his demonic half onto the people in his life who are dealing with similar problems.

Vergil and his core beliefs around demonic power being the only thing to keep him safe when human fragility failed him is the first time Dante is forced to confront a flaw in his worldview. Vergil is technically correct in that their heritage is what has kept the two of them alive up until that point and that in order for Dante to stop his brother and Arkham, he'd need to embrace that power too. Dante seems to internalise this as the idea that his power needs to be used as a force for good - "with great power comes great responsibility," style, but still retains that he is good in spite of his demonic power.

Power in DMC is not inherently evil, the folly of the villains in the series is that they seek it to fill a hole that should have been filled with love instead. On some level, Dante recognises this, but is often too burdened by his self loathing that he has a hard time excepting and seeking out love himself.

In contrast, Nero is able to acknowledge what is truly important to him, allowing himself to be vulnerable when he gives and receives love, while also fully embracing his demonic side and the power it gives him. V also has a similar revelation, although his is just as much about learning to love life itself and rediscovering passions so he can have a better coping mechanism that isn't more power.

These core character arcs clearly indicate that the reason humanity is seen as morally superior in the games is their willingness to love and willingly give. To gain more out of life than just power (it's also what makes the power hungry human villains so evil, they want to throw away what makes them human for the chance at being powerful). Whereas demonic power means that demons live in a perpetually dog-eat-dog world where there is no incentive to love or create, you can only ever take. But when demons like Trish are given the chance to grow from that, they are just as capable of love as any human.

This then opens up for the line of questioning, well, if environmental factors are what's making demons so power hungry, then wouldn't exploring how being shut off from the opportunity to grow in the human world be an actually valid idea for the Netflix adaptation to explore? It could have been! Genuinely!

However, the writers were not interested in exploring that concept, not really. The need to fit established DMC lore into the shape of a narrative about how the Iraq war and the US government intensionally otherised Arabic people meant that those ideas couldn't be expanded upon because of how that would have impacted the portrayal of a very direct analogue of a real life group of people.

This is often the problem central to the fantasy racism trope, because it's a direct reference to a real group of people who's only actual differences from any other ethnic group is appearance and culture, any discussion of how physiological differences may impact the way they live and experience the world very quickly become a minefield.

The demons in the games are often one of a kind or a species with entirely alien biological incentives, trying to make them seem like their way of life would be no different from the average human is actively contradictory and just plain boring. It's part of why the demons that were taken from the game look so out of place compared to their more human shaped counterparts.

There is the potential in examining a demon's ability to love in the gameverse version of the lore, and it wouldn't have been a problem for the anime to explore that. That sort of exploration would have had to focus on how love can come in many forms, how a fundamentally different way of perceiving the world around you doesn't mean your perspective isn't valid. However, because demons are an exact reference to a real life group of people now, making them out to be anything other than just like any other human is risking a lot.

So that's the crux of the issue for me. I think trying to force the demons from the game lore into an Arabic shaped hole is kinda a bad idea. Hell, if they were desperate to make the US government into the big bad then there would have been precedent for it. DMC2 and DMC4 both concern powerful groups in society abusing demonic power for personal gain, the idea that a government would do the same isn't too dissimilar in my opinion.

To be honest, I feel a lot of the criticism of the anime has only been scratching at the surface of the actual problems so far. I'd appreciate it if the pre-existing fandom could recognise where problems existed in the source material before jumping to complaining about the adaptation, even though there is a lot to complain about...

Character Analysis on Prussia

and also let’s take a look at the canon interaction between Prussia and Japan !

So, I’ve been reading, discussing and analyzing a lot about Prussia’s character and the canon interaction between Prussia and Japan on twitter in japanese fandom and it was quite interesting. We’ve realized a lot of new things and also made me feel sad that some people are making Prussia a annoying bully in fan fictions. So I’ve decided to share it with y’all and discuss about this in English fandom too!! I’m going to start with Prussia’s character analysis and then prupan analysis regarding the canon strip “Opening the country is tough, too”. I also note that these analysis are not all my ideas but taken from what the other Japanese fans have said while discussing. so credits goes to them too :)

Seguir leyendo

The Iron Cross weared by Germany and Prussia

We can see Germany and Prussia wearing an Iron Cross to their necktie, which is, as we know, a military reward. But it’s not every Iron Cross that can be hooked like that. The only two grades made for it are the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross and the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, both the most highest awards a military could received.

Seguir leyendo

Alright I need to ask the question cause it’s killing me…

When did the dynamic between Sonic and Shadow change for the worse?

The more I look into their dynamic throughout the years, the more I notice how different it is now than it was. It used to be “you never cease to surprise me blue hedgehog” and “it’ll be a date to die for.” Even when they were enemies in SA2, there was a respect, and a side where both of them enjoyed the banter. That continued for a while, where both seemed to enjoy each other’s company and Shadow enjoyed the banter just as much as Sonic.

When exactly did it go from that to what it is now, where Sonic is this character who lives to annoy Shadow and Shadow pretends to barely tolerate him? Why did it change? I don’t get it, their dynamic beforehand was wonderful. And don’t get me wrong, there’s still that mutual respect at the end of the day to an extent. But now it’s literally like Shadow can’t stand him and Sonic is the one doing all the teasing and banter, almost as though he’s searching for what they used to have.

I’m genuinely curious when that change happened, because it bothers me beyond belief. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

The Female Gaze in 2521: On Empowered Female Characters and Healthy Masculinity

Y’all I’m so excited to dive into this!

If you’re a kdrama fan, then by now you’ve probably caught on that kdramas often incorporate “the female gaze”. While it’s debated what’s considered the female gaze, we can all conclude that it is different from the omnipresent male gaze in media.

The male gaze describes the visual or aesthetic presentation of women in a way that depicts them as sexual objects, with personalities that tend to center towards men or their fantasies of how women "should" behave. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but if you watch literally any popular show or movie, you’ll quickly notice the male gaze because it’s woven into the camerawork, the characterization, or body language of the characters on screen. See if you can catch it here.

Not so subtle, right? Kdramas are not free from it, either, but it is worth noting that kdramas do tend to pull an opposing card, namely the female gaze.

This tends to center female characters as being a spectator rather than an object, and typically holding more agency, meaning they lead their lives and choices. The male characters are often characterized as charming, sweet, polite, and romantic.

I see two forms of the female gaze in 2521: first, the empowered female characters and their depiction on screen; second, the portrayal of healthy masculinity in the leading male characters. 

Since this would actually become a literal essay if I tried to encompass every instance or relevant detail, I’m limiting it to just a few observations. But trust me, this show is abundant with many more. If you want to discuss it more, feel free to message me - I’m a nerd for this shit haha

Anyway, leggo~

Let’s start with our empowered protagonists (abbreviated to FC for Female Character from here on)!

Hee Do’s character is a take on the classic “I’m not like other girls” trope but thankfully the writers have spun it into a refreshingly animated and enlivened perspective. She is loud, sometimes adorably obnoxious, a little childish, and passionate. Contrary to the typical loud kdrama FC, she is innocent but not naive. Also contrary to other FCs, she does not seek a love interest. Her main goal is to improve her fencing and transfer to the school where her idol trains.

I like how Yi Jin’s presence in Hee Do’s life lifts her up and helps her accomplish her goals, but he’s not an absolute necessity. This kdrama could very well have orbited around the high school friend group and Hee Do would still succeed. This is pretty poignant, since Yi Jin being there merely enriches her life. She still ultimately has agency over her choices and dreams.

Also, let’s highlight how none of these FC are sexualized, be it their school uniforms, fencing gear, or the beach scene. Yes, Korea is much more conservative with these things, and yes, I think the writers and directors were cognizant of the thin line they were treading with the age gap and Hee Do being a minor for a while. But still! I think it’s worth celebrating and pointing out that they often show her wearing her red tracksuit pants under her skirt while no one else does. 

Seungwan is another FC who shines so well with the female gaze. She’s the one who makes an active effort to call out the abuse of the teachers at her school. She is an active participant in her life - she makes a clear stand that she will no longer tolerate witnessing abuse. Her agency is clear: she’s not backing down, and not stooping down to threats of being expelled.

Instead, she whips a reverse uno card and goes fuck this place, I’m leaving. That’s not to say empowerment comes without vulnerability and emotion. I think that’s what I enjoy so much about FCs done well in kdramas contrary to western media lately, because western media female empowerment these days seems to be “see, I’m a heartless bitch, watch me stand up for my beliefs and not even cry”. So when Seungwan explains the situation to her mom and says she’s sorry and starts crying in her mother’s embrace, it makes her moment of courage to leave and stand for her values that much stronger.

It’s brave because it has a toll. It’s brave because it’s an unfair situation to be put into. Crying about it makes that reality crash down on us much harder. Also, can we celebrate how this drama doesn’t attempt to give us beautiful crying scenes? A lot of male gaze centric media will make even women’s suffering an aesthetic viewing experience. But this? Not at all. We got runny noses, snot, creased eyebrows and sobbing breaths and shaking shoulders. Beauty isn’t the focus. It’s the feeling. 

This feels like a good transition into part 2: healthy masculinity! Because! Let me tell you!! We have plenty of kdramas with men crying, sure. But I’ve never seen performances like this where 1) male crying is filmed in such an intimate way and 2) where the female lead is framed as the dominant comfort - but not an emotionless hero, either.

Let’s talk about Jiwoong’s crying scene on the rooftop when he found out Seungwan was leaving.

The camerawork doesn’t shy away from showing the growing hurt and welling tears in his eyes. She comes over to hug him, swooping her arms over his shoulders even though he’s the taller one. We see him cover his face but not shy away from letting it out. She pats him on the back. It’s refreshing to see a male character cry without him having to throw things or break shit lmao like men can just stand there and cry and allow women to see them like this. 

Transition into Yi Jin’s crying scenes (oh man, Nam Joo Hyuk is my favorite actor for a reason: you can read his face so perfectly without him needing to speak). Yi Jin’s crying scenes are also devoid of being overly dramatic while still encompassing the intensity of his feelings and the weight of the moment. The scene that stands out the most to me is in episode 8 when he’s doing the live reporting via the hotel room but his computer crashes.

The deafening silence hits the audience hard. It’s meant to feel like a slap in the face because we’re meant to sit in his shock for a bit. The shock, denial, anger, and sadness washes over him as the camera centers a closeup of his face. He shakily puts down the phone, gets up, collapses next to the hotel bed, lifts up the sheets, and shouts - and I mean fucking shouts - into the duvet. This happens as the camera pans out so we all go from feeling caught up in his emotional turmoil to feeling the spaciousness of the room around him; how he’s so alone, how he has no one to rely on in this moment.

I fucking held my breath man. Because this felt so intimate. We don't normally see male characters on screen break down like this. And if so, it might be framed in an aesthetic or artistic way or even sexual way, like crying in the shower. This was just...plain hard truth. That shit was intense. Can I just say? Oscar worthy, my dude. 

The second moment that stands out combines the two observations! We get an empowered FC and a representation of healthy masculinity all in one! That’s right peeps, I’m talking the tunnel crying scene.

God, what a performance. Note how the camerawork highlights that he is collapsed and lower than her.

Hee Do is the one holding his face. She’s the one who caresses his tears away. And mind you, even though we’re talking the Very Handsome Baek Yi Jin here, he is still a snotty crying mess. In traditional media, this visual is very much a male-dominant gaze: a helpless woman being saved by a heroic male protagonist in her moment of vulnerability, held in his arms, her tears being wiped away. This scene flipped the script, though. It’s beautiful to see a female character in this role. And again, just like with Seungwan, it’s not to say that she, being the hero in this moment, is devoid of emotion either. No, she cries too. She cries because she sees him, sees his pain. She doesn’t let it eat away at her and let her spiral. It isn’t an overly dramatic moment of hysteria and tears. It’s an acknowledgement: I see you. I understand you. Which is why their romance is all the more special. These are two people who have now seen each other at their worst. And they still choose to be gentle and soft and caring because the world around them is cruel enough.

What are your thoughts? Overall, I keep finding ways to celebrate this kdrama. Be it the writing, the visual directing and color theory, the character development and character arcs…….there’s just nothing quite like it. And I don’t think there will be something like it for a while. Hopefully this sets the new standard.

Love you fam :) Thanks for reading!

Peace out~

So I've noticed that people seem to really misunderstand Maki's dynamic with Kokichi and Korekiyo(separately)...And if anything, People get them confused with each other

The fanon portrayal of Maki and Kokichi's dynamic is that they both hate each other, Kokichi jumps at every chance he has to antagonize her and she hates him enough to jump at any chance to hurt or kill him

The fanon portrayal of Korekiyo and Maki's dynamic is that they're perfectly fine with each other, Especially because of their calm and collected personalities

When it's actually..Kind of completely backwards..

In canon, After Korekiyo finds out Maki's talent; He jumps at any opportunity to antagonize her, Knowing the rules of the game and every other participant protect him from her actually hurting him. And she antagonizes him way more in chapter three even before the murder. He's also blatantly rude to her(Actively ignoring her in conversations and then asking, "Did you say something?" or "Did you hear something?/srs), And Maki is always annoyed with him even being there

Meanwhile in canon with Maki and Kokichi, Even after her talent is revealed she's literally completely fine with him, He antagonizes her for a bit but she is always shown to just not care at all or even at some points responds calmly to him..In chapter 1, She was the only person to agree with him and didn't just assume he was up to no good like literally everyone else did..She only gets more aggressive with him when he says he killed two people for fun and that he was the mastermind. She even felt guilty about killing him even when she still thought he was a remnant of despair(After finding out he wasn't the mastermind)

Am I the only one to find it funny how the fandom got those two dynamics completely confused😭😭

You know, I think Maki actually does feel guilty about Kokichi's death.

Yes, by Ch.5 she absolutely hated him, but it was understandable. He declared himself the mastermind — person who supposedly kidnapped forced everyone to kill each other. He took Kaito — the most important person for Maki in this game — hostage. He mocked Gonta after his death. He told everyone that he enjoyed their suffering, laughing like madman. Throughout all the game, he accused and insulted Maki of being an assassin. And finally, the last straw was the fake memories that he also helped Junko start wars and cause destruction. This all led to her snapping and trying to kill him.

And Maki never enjoyed killing. She was forced to become an assassin and only stayed for the safety and wellbeing of children in the orphanage she grew up in. She really wanted to prove the group. that she could be trusted. She even told this to Kokichi after the 3rd trial.

Yes, at the end of the fifth trial she told Kaito that he shouldn't have agreed to Kokichi's plan and it would have been better for Ouma to just die. But at that moment she was desperate, hurt and scared that Kaito would be executed. Naturally she would be mad at Kokichi.

But in Chapter 6, she was the one who volunteered to search Kokichi's room to find any clues that could help end the game. If she didn't care at all, she would not offer to search there. I think part of her also wanted to find some kind of confirmation that he really was an asshole who absolutely deserved to die. Or, on the contrary, confirmation that he really did try to help them. Just anything to form her own final opinion about him.

And also that moment during the Final Trial when Tsumugi, the real Mastermind, revealed that those memories, that finally pushed her to try to kill him, weren't real. Maki sounds shocked and horrified at that. Because those memories were the reason that pushed her to try to murder him. And if they were fake, that means she did all that for nothing. She broke her unspoken promise to Kaito, and that resulted in Momota and Ouma both dying. And all of it was because of a lie.

It feels to me that she does feel guilty for both Kaito's death and Kokichi's death, because it was her actions that partially led to everything ending that way. I think no matter how she feels about Kokichi, she regrets what she did.