IT’S FROM JAPANNNNNNNN! You can call me Trey. I use any pronouns. I like musicals, anime, and most importantly Upside-Down Magic! Leorio doesn’t have a bedside table.
You know what I think is really cool? The fact that people sleep in really different positions subconsciously. Like you may not realise it, but some people may prefer sleeping in a position that you find uncomfortable - such as your back, your front, your right, your left.
But the one thing that people have in common, is that many people seem to sleep on Seiji Shishikura
Nothing is more devastating when you pause a show or put down a book to tell someone how much you love a character just for them TO FUCKING DIE AS SOON AS YOU START IT AGAIN
For the love of God stop saying Columbina was rewritten
This is SO far out from my regular niche, but this is actually pissing me off. I’m not sure if I’ve EVER posted about Genshin on here, but I need somewhere to yap. So Tumblr it is.
“She was obviously supposed to be scary and evil based on the other Harbinger’s voice lines!”
Um, no?
Tartaglia and Wanderer both say to “stay away” from her, but not necessarily because she’s scary. Moreso that she’s just strange.
Tartaglia says that he doesn’t know why she’s #3. He proceeds to say he wouldn’t challenge her because something seems “off”, not because she seems so strong or terrifying. And that description of her being “off” still makes sense with her current character.
Wanderer just speaks incredibly vaguely about her, yet again basically implying that he finds her off putting. Canon Columbina would in fact, be off putting.
The earth is rejecting her, leading her personality to be a little out there. She’s airy and not quite all there, which totally fits with their descriptions of her.
Arlecchino says she’s unpredictable and interesting. Literally NOTHING about her line plays her off to be the least bit intimidating or scary.
“B-b-but they changed her design!”
Bitch, she didn’t HAVE a design.
All we saw of Columbina before Nod Krai’s release was her appearance in A Winter Night’s Lazzo. In which she wore a coat that went down to her feet. The same coat that EVERY SINGLE OTHER HARBINGER WORE
But unlike (most of) the others, Columbina wore her coat completely buttoned up, leaving us with only a view of her hair, face, and the bow around her neck. Of what we COULD see, literally none of it changed.
That coat was NEVER going to be a part of her final design. It’s not a part of Tartaglia’s, it’s not a part of Dottore’s, it’s not a part of Arlecchino’s, it’s not a part of Capitatio’s, it’s not a part of Sandrone’s, so why the hell would it be a part of Columbina’s?
“But her’s was buttoned up, that’s the design we knew!” Yeah so was Arlecchino’s. And yettttt.
She was a total mystery. She did NOT have a character before. She did NOT have a design before. All that we knew about her was that all her fellow harbingers thought that she was strange, and that was the extent of that.
Someone says something and the Genshin fandom who don’t like reading the lore for themselves hop on the bandwagon, and REFUSE to see it from any other perspective. I’m convinced people are using Tartaglia and Wanderer’s voice lines as an “explanation” for why Columbina was “clearly rewritten” without actually reading them.
I’m not saying I have a problem with people who don’t like Columbina, that’s their opinion and they’re more than welcome to have it. But to say that she was rewritten, or they like the “old her” better? Get over your headcanons, there was no “old her”.
Headcanons are great and all, but just because you like a headcanon more than canon doesn’t mean the creators are mischaracterizing THEIR OWN character (this also isn’t to say that hoyo hasn’t “mischaracterized” their own characters before). Canon Columbina was never going to be how the fandom perceived her, I fear.
This is truly a case of Genshin readers vs reading comprehension
My younger brother is currently playing Morris Delancey in his schools production of Newsies. THEN he tells me he’s doing a scene from Hunchback for drama competition
It’s been a while since I had a fandom that feels worthy enough for my tumblr shitposting
Anyways since getting into Gnosia three days ago I’ve felt the insane urge to use my sewing machine that I’ve never used.
I’d love to make Yuri’s outfit and cosplay them
And Kukrushka omg, I’d wear her dress just for fun it’s so cute.
I had assumed there wouldn’t really be anywhere to buy any Gnosia cosplays pre made so I was surprised to find Setsu, SQ, and Yuri at all. Though out of all the characters that makes sense.
Are there any Gnosia cosplayers out there? And if so did you buy your costume or make it? I’m just curious
My favorite part of playing Gnosia so far (I got it on Friday and I’m now on loop 70) was when I went to look at who was in the round before anybody talks and I see Sha-Ming (my fellow gnosia) already blacked out. I think Setsu should kill him more often he’s annoying.
It was even funnier in a different loop when I was talking to him and there was an option to say “you suck” and it was like “you called him a dick”
Hell yeah I did I hate that motherfucker
There was also the event where he brought up small talk and he was telling me “haha the Gnosia won’t care about a loser like me” so of course I had to get rid him immediately after.
Then I got a bunch of loops in a row where he was voted into cold sleep and he groveled at our feet. Pathetic little man.
Point is, this game makes it really easy to bully him and I love it.
Anyone who's played Gnosia knew what's coming as soon as they saw "Citizen Slime". But this episode mostly isn't about the slime; it doesn't show up until the 15-minute mark.
I want to comment on how the anime handles gender stuff differently from the game, but the translation obscures a lot of that and I don't speak Japanese. (I caught how Yuri keeps almost saying "boku," but that's it.) I hope a bilingual person interested in both Gnosia and gender writes their thoughts.
So instead, I'll talk about Sha-Ming. This is a Sha-Ming episode, after all. Citizen Slime is Sha-Ming's love event.
I'm keeping most of my gender thoughts below the cut, but I'd like to start by saying that I don't like that they changed Yuri's gender for this event. Either make Yuri's gender genuinely unreliable, or have Sha-Ming want to bang an enby. No one would question it; he harasses Setsu enough.
I don't get why they did that. Is an anime with two vocally nonbinary characters (also whatever Yuri is) really afraid to have a gay-looking romance scene? (Even though Yuri doesn't look very masc? The most butch lesbian Twitter can handle is more masc than Yuri.)
But that's hardly the biggest problem I have with Sha-Ming this episode. It feels like the show is trying to convince me that he's a really Nice Guy, deep down.
In my opinion, the game version of Sha-Ming is someone who seems like a colossal jerk at first, but is revealed to have a soft side, but is still a massive slimeball. He's not as ruthless and selfish as he pretends to be, but he is still selfish and, if not ruthless, at least ruth-impaired.
It feels like the anime is trying to frame him as an unproblematic husbando. A cool bad boy who's secretly not bad, so it's normal to want buy his merch. But he's not that in the game, and I don't think his anime characterization stands up to scrutiny either. If he's acting like a jerk to keep people away, there are a lot of ways to do it that don't involve inviting them in. Guys can alienate women without being sex pests!
That element of anime!Sha-Ming's characterization is what bugs me the most. The anime depicts him as a shy softboi who wouldn't even kiss a girl, even if she triple-dog-dared him and called him a chicken. The game doesn't have any equivalent to that scene in Sha-Ming's room (the closest is the medical pod conversation), but Sha-Ming does act like a guy who was raised by his bonobo buddies.
I assume everyone knows about bonobo promiscuity? The TL;DR is that sexual acts are much more central to how bonobos socialize than it is for humans. Sha-Ming doesn't literally act like a bonobo, but he does act like someone who never quite internalized what "sexual harassment" means.
The game doesn't connect those dots, but the picture makes sense if you connect them. And it's a more interesting conclusion than "Sha-Ming is just a normal douche".
Anyways, in a situation where Sha-Ming didn't just watch slime eat Remnan and explode Shigemichi's head, I can't imagine he would turn down a cute girl who offered to kiss him. He'd smooch her, probably in the hallway, because part of him still doesn't understand why this sort of thing is supposed to be private.
I'm not saying that I wanted a scene where Sha-Ming follows through on Yuri's offer, which they didn't expect or want. I'm saying that I didn't want the anime to include a scene which made me wonder why Sha-Ming wasn't sexually assaulting Yuri.
The answer to that question seems pretty obvious, though. It feels like the anime is trying to make its characters more appealing. It happens elsewhere in the episode, too; Jonas doesn't cause the slime incident by inexplicably taking Comet out of cold sleep; he's rescuing Comet from cold sleep she was inexplicably put into.
Remnan and Yuriko aren't hostile to the self-insert; they're just shy and mysterious, respectively. Raqio isn't a self-absorbed asshole; they're just kinda rude. Kukrushka is a "cool" slasher monster, not just a weirdly dangerous girl. We haven't seen any of Stella's possessive side, either.
And of course, Sha-Ming is turned from a seemingly genuine sex pest—someone who means what he says when he asks Setsu for a hot kiss, whose flaws might make people do unwanted discourse (or, worse, not buy the merch)—into a shy nice guy who just acts like a sex pest. Which removes everything that makes him potentially interesting, without removing anything that makes him unpleasant to watch.
...Yuri has boobs now?
...was Yuri supposed to be masc this entire time? Was their nonbinary swagger an accident?
...are we going to discover that the instant sex change machine from that dummied-out Sha-Ming event is canon in the anime universe? Hopefully because Yuri gets into it to deal with gender dysphoria and not because Sha-Ming shoved them into it in this timeline?
That's absurd. Do you think there timelines where Comet is a guy, or where Otome is a porpoise, or where Sha-Ming is non-douchey?
Yuri's trying to pass by mimicking SQ! That's neat, but I don't think they can pull it off. They don't have SQ's feminine swagger.
Yuri almost called themself "boku" ("I") before correcting to "watashi" (also "I").
There's a lot of nuance to Japanese pronouns, but "boku" is usually used by boys and some men. In fiction, it's also used by tomboys and a lot of gender-ambiguous characters, like Yuri. "Watashi" is more formal, or at least polite; both genders frequently use it, but women are more likely to use it in informal contexts.
This also comes up later, in the scene with Raqio. I don't speak Japanese, but it feels like Raqio's "Hmph, you don't even understand that?" might have been directed at Yuri obviously changing pronouns to fit their boobs as much as anything else.
There's really no way to translate this into English, but Yuri is trying to force-femme their dialogue.
...that's the explanation for Yuri being "a girl" this loop? Because the Silver Key wanted to watch Sha-Ming hit on fem!Yuri? Disappointing.
Maybe it was too much to hope that the anime would canonize any way for normal people to have female puberty in one timeline but not others.
Silver lining: This means the Event Search feature is canon to the anime.
Yuri is learning a lot this loop, but nothing that the Silver Key wanted to know about.
...oh. This event.
Being Remnan is suffering. The slime might have been a mercy, this loop.
Also this event. I guess it makes sense to mix it with the "Yuri got Jusenkyo'd" subplot. Or it would, if any of the gender lore was actually addressed...so I guess it's just gratuitous.
Adaptation note! In the game, SQ doesn't know (or says she doesn't know) who's in the shower. She still encourages the player to "go take a peek," but this feels generally pro-voyeurism rather than specifically interested in one character. Wanting to see what Raqio, specifically, looks like...is different.
But the previous event suggests that this SQ is gnosia, which would mean...well, it means I'm less inclined to count this against SQ, for reasons which would be a spoiler to explain.
...hm. Yeah, it's just not the same. anime!Raqio's hair seems a bit shorter and less colorful. Or maybe it's the texture? I don't know, but the anime version lacks something that makes me envious of game!Raqio's hair.
Sad.
I'd also like to draw attention how Raqio's gender lecture was cut. Also SQ's observation that Raqio has a dick. Not sure if this counts as "raqio penis erasure"...
BULLSHIT
First off, I always got the impression that Sha-Ming kept sexually harassing women and Setsu because he never internalized that it was harassment. He treats sex and sexual favors casually, and acts like everyone else should do the same.
Second, Sha-Ming isn't Gina. Sha-Ming isn't as self-centered and callous as he pretends, but lying is well within his boundaries. So is betraying his fellow gnosia (which comes up later in this conversation).
It feels like the anime is trying to turn Sha-Ming from an asshole with a human heart into an awkward guy who acts like an asshole to keep people away. An unproblematic fave, who still does most of the unpleasant stuff that his game counterpart did, but with more sympathetic motives.
But I don't think it works. I didn't like game!Sha-Ming, but I loved to hate him. I don't like anime!Sha-Ming, end of sentence. They took away what was interesting about him, and he's still as abrasive as he ever was.
I know it must be hard to fit all the plot-relevant or iconic events into just a couple dozen episodes, but putting this Kukrushka reveal in the middle of the slime chase is really awkward.
Remnan and Shigemichi get eaten, Yuri and Sha-Ming run away, we see the slime rushing down the hall and seeping into the walls. Then we pause for a few minutes so Setsu and Stella can talk about Kukrushka.
I guess the "Jonas talks at you and Setsu for three days straight" bit doesn't fit as well in anime.
...also, it's weird to have Setsu claim to monitor Jonas's every action in a loop whose disaster was caused by Jonas doing something weird.
Or we could go with that. That's even weirder. And it's still weird that Setsu wouldn't know about the slime if they were monitoring Jonas's every action.
SQ is so childish. I love it.
This is your twelfth loop, kiddo. You know Setsu has done (will do? is doing?) over a hundred. More relevantly, it's your fourth loop with Sha-Ming. You met him maybe ten subjective days ago, and he was in cold sleep for three of them.
I know this is your first day as a woman, Yuri, but you should not put this much faith in a guy you've known for a week. Especially not when he acts like such a massive douche.
Our of the last four loops, this is going to be the third time you see Sha-Ming frozen for being a gnosia. The only time Sha-Ming had a "future" as anything but a popsicle stick was the Kukrushka incident. I don't think he was smiling then!
