when you think about rek’s character, chances are that if you have any thoughts on it, it’s that his paranoia is his big thing, something that’s a core part of him. the truth is, though, that rek isn’t— and was never— truly paranoid.
“but what about the entirety of season 3? what about his reputation as untrappable?”
for one, which is just something smaller i see people get wrong and is definitely fair if you’re only watching rek videos since it’s a bit difficult to garner the exact timeline: the arc of people trying to trap rek wasn’t actually that long. it didn’t start from the beginning of the season, and it definitely wasn’t season-wide; from the end of the season with decimation and the republic, to the princezam empire and the wall war, and even going all the way to the cleansing, trapping rek was no longer a “thing”.
for two, and my main point: rek’s words and actions aren’t those of a paranoid person.
i see people cite how he acted during season 3 as the primary example for why rek is paranoid, and throughout the arc rek was cautious, yes, but it was always justified. just to list off a few examples:
rek hadn’t been distrustful of vitalasy until the failed dripstone cannon when he went to vi’s meeting. he didn’t trust vitalasy in their next meeting (which is the normal response to someone killing you), and from then on he found evidence of vi trying to trap him again and again. also, he watched vi say he would kill rek to his chat.
despite parrot betraying him in the very beginning of the season and trying to kill him before the end fight even happened, rek hadn’t been distrustful of parrot until he quite literally told rek that he was part of the attempt to trap rek in the end. only from then on did he truly question parrot and his actions— and yet, when given a choice between getting away safely and leaving parrot to die to subz or coming out from where he was hiding into the walls of his castle to help parrot fight, he didn’t hesitate to leave his hiding place. he didn’t hesitate to jump up behind subz and start attacking. this is something i’ll come back to later.
paranoia is irrational suspicion, the unfounded belief that everyone is out to get you when they’re not. in rek’s case, they were. what people tend to take as paranoia is just rek exhibiting reasonable caution— and, honestly, most of the time his caution wasn’t reasonable enough.
rek was always cautious of any traps. but rek never stayed away from traps, not if he could help it. this one is partially due to rek’s real-life views on content, and also just partially because of his curiosity. take parrot’s video, for example, where subz brought rek to two extremely suspicious holes in the ground and told rek to choose one and jump in. and rek does! it’s not like he didn’t know it was probably a trap, the same way that it wasn’t that he just didn’t know when people were trying to trap him. his reputation as “untrappable” came from a mixture of caution and luck, not paranoia.
when i mentioned parrot, i talked about how rek had still come out to save him from subz, and there’s two things i have to say about this.
the first point comes from something that stood out to me against the characterization of rek as essentially a paranoid wreck, back when i was first getting into lifesteal. that notion didn’t match up with how rek acted in zam’s tree pilgramage stream (which happened during the trap arc), because he just wasn’t wary of parrot at all. zam even makes a comment on this to parrot, asking “haven’t you tried to kill this guy like two times”? but rek showed no signs of suspecting parrot had a trap, despite parrot being the one to lead their group to the coordinates. the most wary rek acted was when they were going through the nether portal back to the overworld coordinates, and only because he was worried that the other team had trapped it.
the other point i wanted to bring up with rek’s actions— saving parrot— is that it wasn’t just a one-time “swallow your fear” sort of thing; his actions are consistent. branzy and his plan to test rek by trapping himself is the perfect example: branzy and rek are on opposite teams, and branzy has been trying to trap and kill rek this entire time. he intentionally starts out by messaging rek in an ominous manner, and keeps being intentionally suspicious throughout showing rek to see if rek will still put his trust in branzy. and rek is very much suspicious, yes, but when branzy asks rek to trust him and stay standing directly in one place, he does. when branzy makes his grand speech to rek about how if his best friend rek is still in there, rek would “risk his own life in order to save branzy”, rek is already jumping from one gravel block to another to get to branzy before he even finishes the words.
“that’s season 3, but what about other seasons?”
to be honest, i don’t see as much of a reason for people to use the newer seasons as an example for rek being paranoid; i feel it’s mostly because of his existing reputation, a sort of confirmation bias.
yes, in season 6 he built escape tunnels into his starter base and started doing clownpierce checks, but he wasn’t being paranoid. for instance, he didn’t accept any gear that lifestealers offered to give him, and he set up his starter base aboveground in a village, right in the open. in the face of that, his multiple escape routes are completely reasonable, maybe even too little. and yes, the clownpierce checks were funnily named, but as the season went on they were less for checking for clownpierce specifically and more for checking his surroundings if he thought there might be someone nearby, which is just a reasonable thing to do on a server like lifesteal.
i don’t think there’s too much to be said about season 7, but there’s also not much that needs to be said. rek built his base directly under a nether portal and directly part of a stronghold, with the stone covering the entrance from the portal being only a block thick, leading to his base getting found, and him getting jumped and loosing all of his gear and items. ouch.
it’s true that lifesteal has its own fair share of paranoid players— take poafa as an example, who was completely convinced that rek was flying above to search for him and kill him while the two of them were having a chat, or pili, who built his base so out in the depths of the ocean that nobody would ever find his base unless it was leaked— but despite his reputation amongst both the playerbase and the lifestealers themselves, rekrap2 is not one of them.
you ever think about how Trina has so many costume changes in act 1 because she's constantly accommodating the needs and requirements of the men around her and amending her own needs and wants to fit around theirs or are you normal
sighing as i recline back in my seat thinking about lapis lazuli (land of the lustrous edition)
i think it's quite funny that in my youth i was unable to reconcile that lapis was indeed a manipulative person and tried to like... justify it with personality adages that didn't really make any sense, but now that i've gotten a little bit older, i think a particularly compelling idea is the idea that yes, lapis is manipulative, but since the gems are notoriously bad at communicating with each other, they were really none the wiser as to the depths of which their behavior affected the people around them.
i don't think i can really call any of the gems inherently cruel so much as their society breeds a very jarring callousness surrounding one's personal use to how they can contribute to the group. i think that, in contrast to phos, lapis was beloved—they were charismatic, personable, an excellent fighter, and extremely intelligent. they were responsible for keeping the gems' recorded history in order as the librarian, and very well could've done a lot of the recording themself. in short, they're highly valued within the gem society's pecking order of usefulness and it undoubtedly went to their head.
i don't think lapis was ever super emotionally intelligent; or, at the very least, finds the emotions of others muddling, meddlesome, and confusing. i think the reason why phos was able to go to the moon with lapis' head on their shoulders was because phos has a particular emotional attentiveness that i feel lapis lacked, and with lapis' particular strand of manipulative tendencies now swimming around in them, was able to tap into the moon gems' emotional needs and wants. lapis could not do half the crazy shit phos did because they're not nearly as compassionate as phos is. lapis got their head shot off because they were thinking too hard about the situation in front of them in the first place!!! and i don't think this lack of care is born out of any inherent maliciousness that lapis possesses, so much as their natural proclivity for intelligence subsuming all other facets within social interaction and self actualization.
i believe lapis is sorely lacking in empathy while phos excels at it, even if the ways in which they try to empathize with others is clumsy and filtered through the inherently unempathetic way their society is constructed—and it's so interesting to me to think about a hypothetical scenario where a gem gets brave enough to tell lapis how their self-serving behavior at said gem's expense made them feel bad and lapis being unable to brush it off because of its pointedness.
it's why i think, in a way, lapis is kind of a tragic character. it didn't seem like they were proposed with the opportunity to reflect on their personality, considering that their status intermingled with their purpose for existing, like all the other gems. i struggle to see lapis as like... deliberately cruel and conniving. bcs that's just not interesting to me and doesn't gel with how the characters in hnk are written anyway. to paint lapis as The Token Evil Teammate rather than somebody whose arrogance blinds them to the wellbeing of their peers and has an endless thirst for knowledge at the cost of not only said peers, but themself, is just absurd to me.
i also think that the ways in which hnk demonstrates the varying types of intellectual on a sort of sliding scale of emotional attunement/intelligence is fascinating, honestly. cinnabar in particular is somebody who is incredibly smart but also incredibly kind, especially when given the room to actually be a fucking person LOL. euclase is also very intelligent and kind as well, and is also the primary source for lapis' more unsavory behavior. in a way, lapis' character sort of speaks on how self-serving intelligence is impotent in the wake of emotionality intermingling with logic—as stated before, phos actually MADE it to the moon, whereas lapis' inclusions could only expound upon the awesomeness of the feat, even just as a hypothetical. they even commend phos on their cleverness as well—not so much, though, as to concede that phos is the smarter one bcs lapis is nothing if not haughty!!!! & also phos doesn't think things through all the way and is rather impulsive but WHATEVER!!! i love them both sm...
anyways if lapis and phos existed at the same time phos would call them a lying bitchass motherfucker when lapis crosses them one too many times which would put a large crack in their ego and make them start to reconsider some things. the green rock would teach the blue rock compassion!!!!!!!
aka a quick run down about why it had to be Cooper to tell Mateo what he did
Ok so the lines:
Mateo: "[The Dream Realms] They're in the wrong places! This isn't right."
Cooper: "But it's great- I mean look at it! It doesn't have to be exactly the same as it was before. I learned a lot of new stuff, I'm better!"
Mateo: "But how do we know it'll be better?"
Cooper: "We don't. We can hope for the best-"
Why are these lines so important? Why am I saying it had to be Cooper? Why am I making a whole post about said few lines-?
Well ok, first we have to understand that the narrative basically likes to play this game of tug-o-war with Cooper, it's constantly doing this; Mateo or Logan, his family or his friends, what he wants or what someone else wants of him, to stay the same and be perfect or change, etc.
That last one is actually pretty important because most other decisions and challenges he's faced with in the show can fit under it; ie. does he keep doing what he's been doing and listen to his family or does he change and go against that and do something else? Does he stay friends with Mateo and nothing changes or does he become friends with Logan and change, well, everything, basically? (Because Logan is actually a decently huge plot mover in season one and technically you could say he wouldn't even be a part of the group if not for Cooper but- I'm not going to get into that here).
Point is, throughout the entire show thus far Cooper has been tied to change, not only in the ways mentioned above but in other things too; like how his capture by the Night Hunter in episode one kind of sets everything off, because suddenly Izzie and Mateo have a stake in this their friend is in danger, so it goes from fun in the dream world to -> save our friend and start figuring everything out. Furthermore he even has a whole sub plot in season two about how the loss of his memories changed him and how else he changed his way of doing/thinking of things to make up for said lost memories. And honestly that's just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on-
But anyway.
So Cooper = Change in this, or at least the idea of change and the choice whether or not to accept change or go against it.
Sound familiar? As in maybe there's another character, or two, that really struggles to accept change-?
And I might make a post about this because it's really fascinating to me but I am in fact talking about Mateo!
Throughout the series Mateo's aversion to change is constantly popping up, and I guess you could really equate change to loss in some of these: but in S1E4 he doesn't want to go through the Dream Forge due to the idea of loosing Z-Blob. In part one of season two Mateo is constantly struggling with not only the fact that things changed and he lost Z-Blob to the point where everything he dream crafts is almost some subconscious attempt to recreate/get Z back but he also struggles immensely with the whole Jasmin situation because to some degree you can clearly tell he doesn't want the dynamic in his family to change, (I mean just look at how he reacted to the idea that Jasmin and Izzie were changing how they went about celebrating José's birthday-)
"Jasmin's changing everything!"
Mateo very clearly struggles with the idea of change because if anything he probably ends up equating change to loss. Every time some big change has happened in his life he has lost something; his mom, Cooper, Z-Blob, which is no doubt related to why he seemed so bugged by the placement of the dream realms being changed. To him it probably looks something like "Positions of dream realms changed -> change = bad because it leads to loss -> this is wrong, something will go wrong!"
Thus that brings us the line: "They're in the wrong places! This isn't right."
With all this being said though, Mateo hating change and Cooper, in a way representing, the idea/choice that leads to change it all starts to add up.
Cooper was, from what we've seen, the first change that Mateo had to face that went right, Cooper came back and while their friendship had changed if anything it was for the better. In the grand scheme of things Cooper was probably what eventually led Logan to stop bullying Mateo. And if Cooper hadn't lost Mateo's comic in S1E13 who's to say Mateo ever would have gotten that semblance of courage from Mrs. Castillo to share his comic with people-? (albeit this one was a bit indirect on Cooper's part lol)
Cooper inspired small, good, changes in Mateo's life which have honestly seemed to snowball pretty well for Mateo. But at the same time Cooper also had to learn how to deal with his own problems with change and practically his whole life being flipped upside down thanks to his lost memories.
Both of them have been affected by change, in both good and bad ways, their entire relationship has changed but while Mateo views change as bad Cooper figured out that it wasn't all bad, that there is good in it and that maybe it, maybe they aren't the exact same as they were before but in spite of all that they're better now.
Anyone could have told Mateo this, if anything Izzie has tried, but, really, Cooper is the one that's going to help Mateo realize that change isn't always bad. That change is ok, because Cooper changed, their friendship changed, but they're both still there.
Ok, I’m sick of seeing only Netflix posts lately so I’m ranting about Simon lol
Unfortunately I had some nice paragraphs written for this but tumblr crashed while I was writing so this is my second time making this post (TwT)
TL;DR with the rant under a cut for easy scrolling, I am deranged and have studied all of Simon’s outfits, here’s some fun tidbits and I guess kinda a guide about his fashion sense :3
Oh boy, where to start XD. Castlevania has a lot of intricately detailed usually gothic and/or visual kei inspired fashion designs, usually with some amount of historical accuracy, thanks to Ayami Kojima, that the series is known for. But before this, the character design style was very different. From the very 90s shonen anime inspired Richter, to Christopher being deadass shirtless in a skirt at one point, to John Morris being in basically casual clothes, there’s a lot of variety in it.
Well, being the silly Simon super fan I am, I’ve studied all his outfits a ton over the years I’ve been a fan of the series and oh boy they are INTERESTING :3. I’ve noticed a lot of elements are consistently reoccurring, specific to him, and some are very much not specific to him lol. Anyway, just trust me on this one, overanalyzing the closet of an NES barbarian to be able to make new outfits for him is FUN >:3c.
So, I’ve seen him not wearing pants thrown around as a joke before, but it’s actually the truth! Besides the Haunted Castle wedding suit (an outlier that should not be counted lol), I actually have never run into a design where Simon is wearing full length, proper pants. The closest he ever gets is black tights in Simon’s Quest and occasionally shorts, but on that topic, shorts aren’t even his most common choice! Let’s look at some of his oldest designs:
This one is really hard to tell, but based on the angle of the lines, the shadows, and context clues from other art for CV1, I don’t know if that’s actually supposed to be shorts 💀💀💀!
In both his cute little manual doodles and his almost more adorable teeny 8-bit sprite, his outfit is a belted tunic of some sort! So like, the equivalent of a really tiny dress or a long shirt XD. And really, his cover art design is kinda just a more detailed version of these. They both have a distinction between a top and bottom part of the upper half, they both have big belts, they both have the tall boots and arm guards, they both have teeny skirt part, and Fun Fact! They both have red in the hair! I color picked a nice high res scan of the CV1 cover art, and yes, there’s red in his hair!!! It’s like a nice mix of dark reddish blond, it’s a very fun hair color :3.
However, that’s not where CV1 ends in tunic vs shorts debate:
THAT’S A SKORT— DO YOU SEE THAT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HALVES, ONE IS DEFINITELY A PANTLEG LMAO. So yeah, skort Simon is also a thing thanks to this particular magazine scan lol, thus leaving us with the possibility that it is both a skirt and shorts on the CV1 cover that he’s wearing X,,,,D. Never change, Simon, never change.
Besides the tunic, there’s some other interesting details to his CV1 era designs! :D In a lot of depictions he has this neat cape, something that returns in some Simon’s Quest art and Smash Bros lol, but he’s never shown wearing it in game. What’s interesting is that Trevor actually gets a cape in his game’s opening as well as Christopher in Belmont’s Revenge if I’m remembering correctly. It’s very neat seeing Simon character design details rubbing off into other characters :3. I like to think lore wise that it’s the same cape that’s been passed down to Simon from those two.
He also has the headband! Iconic! But have you noticed the little ball shapes at the ends of the tails? They’re either knots or, infinitely cooler option, beads :D!!!!!!! And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were because that leads me to another design: X68000–
Now this one is one of my favorites :3. It’s kinda like a forward facing version of his original design but with some new details! And his headband gets this cool lookin, intricate distinctly metallic design on it, something I’ve seen a lot of artists simplify to a general crescent moon shape. But it is kinda similar to the shape on his belt buckle, something that I still have no idea what it’s even supposed to be. Also, his arm guards and the thing at the end of his necklace (which may or may not have vampire teeth on it, they could just be metal spikes though) are similar; it makes me wonder if it was an attempt at a tortoiseshell pattern? Filigree? Whatever it is, they’re all matchy matchy about it.
This design also gives him the staple left shoulder pauldron, of which has these huge stitches holding it on and an added belt that connects to his other belt armor. Get used to belts, he has a lot of those X,,,D. What’s really neat about this one’s belt is that he has both a hilt for the family sword but also one for the whip on the other side, and they’re on the wrong sides for drawing the weapon properly 💀💀💀💀. Which is also funny considering his CV1 cover art has the sword on the other side, which is kinda wrong too? Who knows, maybe he’s ambidextrous and just doesn’t care what sides they’re on lol.
The biggest thing I can say about this design though is that a lot of these accessories and armor pieces look homemade, like as if he just took teeth as a trophy himself and strung them on a cord or made a shoulder piece and put it on an already existing belt he had. Adding onto this, there’s also the possible beads on his headband and the cords around his boots (which could be an attempt at a certain actual historical type of shoe that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me rn, in which case would make these not boots and actually corded shoes with very nice big fluffy socks hehe, I am forcing you to imagine him with big fluffy socks—) and yeah! I can see him making his stuff on his own :3. Which is so cool! I love this idea so much, it makes for a lot of things to imagine him doing hehe. Also gives him a hobby??? Yeah :)
No indication of if he’s got shorts or not in this one, maybe I’ll count how many have skirts or shorts and put that at the end of this lol.
But shorts get another point again cause we’re looking at Chronicles:
Oh Chronicles. Well, the first thing I wanna mention is that, this is Ayami Kojima’s design for him, so here we are seeing a very interesting mix of the visual kei style and 80s barbariancore in a way that honestly slays (figuratively and literally). And, surprisingly, there is something historically accurate about this design, and it’s not what you’d probably expect. Based on the width, material, cross rivets, and the buckle on the front, Simon is wearing an actual dog collar. Like, for dogs. Like it’s dog armor used primarily for hunting dogs I just— Again, never change Simon, never change 💀💀💀.
We also see Simon preferring to put his armor on his left side again with the torn in half coat. It’s also somewhat similar to 1600s coats, not really of any specific country in fashion that I can tell, however the sleeve being that short is not accurate, leading me to believe that he probably tore that off too lol. Very Chrom Fire Emblem of you, Simon, and another example of him D.I.Y.—ing things. The basic elements still stay similar to past designs. Shorts, distinct upper and lower half of shirt, belts, armor on said belt, sword and whip hilts, arm armor and tall boots (shout out to the heels on this one), and armor on the left, unfortunately no headband though. But that distinct bottom half to the shirt part of his outfit in this one is defined with… a corset? Yeah!!! That’s a corset!!! Though the proper name for the time period might be a stay or a girdle, but Simon is straight up wearing a belt over a corset. And said corset over a coat. Half of one. Don’t question him—
But the main entries to his 80s bara-barian half of the wardrobe, let’s get to some knightly aesthetic outfits, of which he does have a good amount, starting with SCV4:
Simon’s knightly outfits are usually a similar silhouette as his original tunic look, just in metal this time and in various colors. SCV4 has his armor as gold on the cover, blue on the Japanese cover and manual art, and green in game! And they’re all pretty much the same with mild variations. On the cover art, his shoes are corded sandals with nothing under them, but in game and in most other artwork they are these metallic boots with the classic X shape of the cords baked into them. Some art gives his middle belt armor section this cross with snakes on it, which is an odd thing to be referencing here. It’s either a staff of Mercury, usually associated now with medicine but was an alchemical symbol before that, or something else I can’t find any info on. There’s also a big ab window because these are all proper half shirts lol. Straight up a metal breastplate with nothing under it, a pretty bad idea tbh 💀.
All in all, these are generally really simple, but there’s one more thing before I stop talking about SCV4:
I LOVE this design. It’s this really nice blend of the older CV1 era style and the metal armor of the later ones, very cool. Shout out to the eye creases and the dead stare shadow over his eyes too, they really conveyed the effects of witnessing the horrors well lmaoooo.
Again, tunic, belt, arm guards, headband, the usual, but, speaking of symbols, there’s something about this one that’s been driving me nuts forever: I cannot find out what that symbol on his paldrons and belt buckle is!!! It’s this upside down triangle with a bent rectangle missing the bottom line over it and it LOOKS distinctly intentional, but I can’t find it or what it means anywhere!!! I tried searching through lists of alchemical symbols, religious symbols, nothing so far has been close (TwT ). Regardless, great design, definitely in my top 5.
And what else is in my top five? Oh yeah babey, it’s Simon’s Quest time:
Ah, Simon’s Quest with his fuck ass bob and the stolen Ravenloft image— but unironically, that armor fucks fr. Again, similar silhouette! If there’s any take aways from this post, it’s definitely that Simon is a little shirt, little pants kind of guy. A severe lack of long sleeves and long pants legs until now, and even then, these are skin tight. Heck even his boots(????) are vacuum sealed, just look at those fabric creases by his ankle!
Now, it’s honestly really hard to tell if his “gloves” and “boots” are supposed to be in some parts metal due to the shading on them and the base armor being very similar. I personally like to depict the forearm and calf parts as metal and the hand and ankle parts as not, but eh. Like most things regarding Simon, I suppose this too is up to interpretation XD. There’s some variation in color in some scans having the underclothes be white, dark blue, or black, and the armor be any range of red to purple to brown too. But towards red and black is probably the most accurate due to his sprite being those colors.
But this is a shockingly rare case of Simon being fully covered in one of his outfits, and I’m inclined to think that there’s probably a reason for that. Not only does he have a rotting curse right now and drawing straight up gore on the cover of an NES game was just not an option lol, but he’s not letting his guard down anymore after being hit. Which would also explain the sudden change to all metal armor as that can’t be cut through as easily as leather.
Speaking of all metal armor, oh I looooove the detailing on his. The gold accents to his byzantine (a nice in between color of red and purple, a color that is also reused in Smash Bros again in the middle corset section of his outfit) are what I would call stylized floral patterns, kinda in the way that fleur de les don’t really look exactly like flowers but still are supposed to represent one. Not sure what kind exactly, but possibly some sort type of angel’s trumpet? Very neat regardless. The gems inlaid in it are all green on top and around the belt, but the center belt buckle is bright red. It’s a very jewel tones color scheme!!!
Well anyway, if tumblr will let me have more images, I’d like to show off a few other random examples of outfit elements he’s had before I close this off with something :3
This was a pretty recently found scan of Simon wearing get this: a pleated miniskirt. Probably Roman armor inspired, as some of his other magazine scans have depicted him as such. One ad for SCV4 and another (live action even) for Simon’s Quest has him even wearing like a Roman helmet and everything, it’s odd. Add helmets to the list of things Simon might wear. Hmm maybe I should make a tier list of things based on how often he’s worn them…
Moving on!
This one goes for the bold choice of giving Simon not only an expected tiny belted tunic, but side slits on the legs! And uh um a little too much detail but uh— It’s also this kinda white, kinda bluish, kinda silverish color? Add this to Simon’s color palette I guess lol.
Which reminds me that I didn’t mention colors very much until now whoops. Throughout all of hie designs he primarily seems to wear neutrals like various browns, greys, and metal tones. But he also has a lot of color. Like as in there’s enough different colored designs to make a whole rainbow of Simon outfits. Common combinations like dark green, gold, and wine reds; blue and silver; brown, gold, orange, and kinda purplish greys; etc etc. And his HAIR. Oh boy, would this guy love modern hair dye X,,,,,D. He’s had it various blonds, reds, browns, even black at one point, blue, green, unnatural red, pink, and in one concept design white! Personally, I like depicting it as a nice in between of red, blond, and brown, it encompasses the most I think.
The final thing I wanna mention is the Smash Bros design, which I unfortunately can’t show because I’m on mobile and have met the 10 images limit whoopsie— (_ _ ;). This design is really a good culmination of a lot of elements. Not really definitive or anything, but very good :3. And it has something I didn’t mention earlier that I’ve noticed in some Simon designs: random belts or metal around his upper arms and thighs lol. The Smash Bros design in particular has the arm band things on both sides, Chronicles has it on the not half coat one, but this is another thing I’ve seen other characters (Christopher in particular, but his are just gold rings) have. The leg thing is less common, but yeah, that exists lol. Thank you Simon for uh bending two pieces of metal around your leg…? It’s cool XD. The corset also makes a return, as well as, once more, the same basic silhouette with the armor only on the left side, the belt armor pieces, etc etc. He’s very particular about that—
Well, anyway, Simon definitely has a vibe going on, but here’s a brief summary of things he seems to like:
Skirts, tunics, long shirts, and shorts (and skorts I guess), but nothing past about half his thigh, generally over the knees.
No long sleeves or pant legs (unless it’s tights when absolutely necessary).
Armor primarily to the left, unless it’s metal, in that case usually a full plate or paldron set.
Belts, hilts, belts on his arms, and neck, and hanging off of things, and legs, yeah belts—
Boots/tall socks, corded or not, and something on his forearms or wrists.
Headband! Seriously out of every Belmont he is the most dedicated to these lol.
Necklaces and beads and other little accessories and adornments are also cool.
Alrighty then, have fun Simon-ing and I encourage you to look through his or other characters’ designs and pick them apart a bit sometimes, even if it’s just through what’s on the wiki :3. If anything, I think it’s a good exercise in character design and consistency! But yeah, I wrote all this late at night and can’t think of anything else rn. If I do I’ll do a sequel I guess hehe. Either that or I might rant about another character hmmmmmmm—
You’re one of few people who I see consistently (text) post about Rekrap. What’s your opinion on his usual characterization from the fandom and/or the fandom’s common perception of him?
this is a difficult question for me to answer, not because i don’t have very strong opinions— believe me, i do— but because i have a 1.5k draft about basically this exact thing, so i’m keeping this brief, especially since the others will probably give longer answers. i highly dislike both.
when people say they like rek, it’s not meant in the same way as for other lifestealers, and the vast majority of his fans neither critically think about him nor critically consume his content. this means that people don’t actually understand his character or even have a character to “give him”. in an attempt at having a character that’s more than just a blank slate, everybody then either 1. latches onto the first misconception of a “character trait” they can push onto him, which in his case is his “paranoia”— i talk about this more here; 2. takes the surface-level view of him as a person as nothing more than always nice, wholesome, and innocent, and conflates it with the character of him on lifesteal (because rek does have a character on lifesteal, regardless of its intentionality); or 3. both.
in other words, his characterization is derived from a singular (incorrect) trait of his from 3 years ago and a shallow idea of him as a person, whether that be of him in real life or on lifesteal. and i’m not going to talk too much about his perception for a similar reason, but it’s just of a person who is the staple, normal, endlessly-wholesome “nice guy” who can never have a single less positive thought or trait. like mage said, it’s just woobifying him.
something that i think is sooo interesting is rek’s thoughts on pvp. because one big thing about rek right now is that he doesn’t care much for regular pvp; every time he’s been asked about it, especially recently, he’s very ambivalent. he’ll hum, he’ll haw, “i’ve been there done that”, “i’m done with my training arc”, “i’d rather pve over pvp”. but every time he says that, i can’t help but think back to other times, other seasons, because rek didn’t always feel this way.
in season 3, with the cleansing, a new type of pvp was introduced with candy crushing, which was essentially bowspam with tipped arrows. it needed good aim to deal with, required a hell of a lot of caution and proper inventory/health management to stay alive against, and rek liked it. to rek, it was something interesting and fun; he’d spend hours upon hours upon hours practicing it with clown until he got it down and started winning. in his own words, bowspamming and candy crushing “was the first time [he’d] felt a natural at pvp”. and he put it to good use in the cleansing battles, in the breakoff between the dirties and the chaos faction.
by the end of the same season, rek had started doing cart pvp. (his first rekrap1 video was cart pvp, actually, a clip of him doing a trickshot on ls!) rek was good enough at it that when he asked zam to meet at spawn, their team started preparing for almost an hour for it: they made stasis chambers and went as a group of four together because they believed rek was a threat, somebody who they weren’t willing to show up to a meeting with one-on-one. subz and zam said verbatim that rek “might be the scariest one [on their team] because of his minecarts”.
and i still remember during a hoplite 100 player tourney, when jude invited rek to some crazy ass knockback sword + tnt cart custom kit duel, rek said it was insane, but he was laughing all the while. he got absolutely destroyed twice in a row, yelling “i’m so bad, i’m So bad”, and still said after “we go again, we go again”. it’s always the unconventional types of pvp that draw rek in, really; to him, that sort of pvp is actually fun. and so it’s a bit sad to me that the current lifesteal kit is so limited (axe&shield and sword), because i really believe rek would care more about pvp if it was something actually enjoyable to him
