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hiii vote on the fate of the project I'm working on pleeease
you get no details, just follow your heart
it's cringe and you should stop
it's cringe but you should keep going
it's not cringe and you should keep going
it's not cringe but you should stop
I know that it's pretty much ancient by now, but I just finished reading Time and Time Again and holy shit. What a goddamn ride. It's been a while since a fic's gotten such a gut-wrenching reaction from me. Your work's still touching the hearts of readers, even years later. Thanks for giving that shitty eldest brother some well-deserved spotlight!
ohh I'm glad to hear it!! it's insane that that fic is nine years old at this point, almost a decade.... it's really wonderful to know that there's still people finding it for the first time, even more so to hear that it's still something that can strike a chord. writing it certainly was... a challenge. to say that least. but knowing that it can still find new readers and mean something to them makes it all worthwhile forever
so by now everyone knows the returned-to-origin eyes: the sort of winged emblem that forms around the pupils of demons who give in to their evil cycles/wicked phases/insert your preferred translation choice here. we've seen them on atori during the heartbreaker,
on kiriwo during the deviculum (and possibly other instances, this is just the one I remember clearly enough to go straight to it),
and, interestingly, on gyari during the idol games.
however there's also another style of eyes we see occasionally, and given the shape it may just be a pre-RTO thing (takes the < > that constitutes the main wing shape) but given the contexts we see it happen in, so far it seems more like a giving-into-the-thrill-of-desire thing than a giving-into-an-evil-cycle thing. we've seen it just recently on silvia during the meeting with zeze's brother, when his talk about creating gets her fired up,
on sabro during his evil cycle-influenced fight with atori, as he starts to find real joy in the act of savagely inflicting pain,
and, my favorite example, on opera during the second-year re-summoning fiasco, when it becomes apparent that kalego is going to make it as much of a challenge as possible.
it does seem most likely that it's a on-the-very-cusp-of-RTO type thing, but I dunno. the fact that gyari has complete RTO eyes just for a moment but seems to be back to normal later and sabro has partial RTO eyes despite being in an actual evil cycle make it kinda hard to tell exactly what's going on. also the implication that tormenting kalego is so much fun that opera would literally return to origins for it is just hilarious to me
stop me if I'm just stating the obvious here but dumb pointless theory: clara and urara are twins
little toddler clara used to play by dressing up as a monster and "was defeated when her brothers were born," a statement accompanied by a photo of her playing with little konchie and keebow. urara, called the eldest son, must have been born before those two, but if he was born after clara then wouldn't he have been the one to "defeat" paper bag monster clargon? (unless he had his no-nonsense attitude even as a baby, I guess)
the valac siblings have matching names. konchie and keebow both have the leading K, sin sin and ran ran both have repetition, and then there's clara, or rather kurara, and urara. of course this assumes that konchie and keebow/sin sin and ran ran are also twins, but like, I don't think that's a wild statement. sin sin and ran ran are babies, so if they were different ages it would probably be at least somewhat apparent. same for konchie and keebow, who were both babies in that photograph
urara seems to be the only other one of the valac siblings who's attending school. considering clara had just started her first year when the story began and urara calls her his big sister (as he would if she's the older twin), if he was also enrolled in school at the same time as clara, would that not effectively mean that they're the same age? and visually they do appear to be very close in age, although we only get to see urara clearly once
not that this would really change anything even if it were true
this isn't relevant to anything but every now and then it comes to mind: Mephisto's title as one of the 13 crowns. when he was first introduced during the deviculum, he was called the Gamesman. the next time he appeared at Siren Island, he was called the Mindgames King. two different translators, two very different translations. why so?
in the raws, he's called 盤外王 - or Off-Board King, to take it strictly literally. "board" in this context refers to a game board like for chess or shogi. "off-board" can mean in the literal sense, i.e. the place where game pieces are put when they're captured and removed from the board, but from what I've read, I get the impression it's more often a figure of speech. 盤外戦術, or "off-board tactics," refers to acts of psychological warfare: things a player might say or do before and during a game to get into their opponent's head and influence the outcome.
so I would think, then, that Mephisto's title suggests that he's very good at subtly manipulating whatever events he's a part of, likely by acting on elements outside of those events. dunno what the cleanest, easiest-to-understand way to translate that, but it's something interesting to think about wrt him declaring himself Iruma's ally.
what if I used this site as an actual blogging platform instead of only posting when I've drawn something that I think someone might think is neat
actually everyone should consider speedrunning mairimashita iruma-kun. if you're in the market for new brainrot here's my sales pitch:
premise: iruma, a 14-year-old who was molded into an extreme people-pleaser by scum parents who only really paid attention to him when exploiting him for their own comfort, is sold by said scum parents to a literal demon from hell who proceeds to adopt him as his grandson and dote on him exorbitantly. living under the constant threat of being eaten if anyone finds out he's a human, iruma gradually learns about concepts like eating until he's full, wanting things, and being loved while unintentionally charming everyone around him with his uncommon kindness
it's aimed at young teens so it's mostly a comedy with occasional action leanings but it also goes in HARD on found family themes and general wholesomeness. because of its demographic and genre it takes a largely light-hearted approach to the subject of iruma's childhood and how his parents treated him, but it doesn't shy away from the lasting effects it had on his overall personality and makes his very gradual character growth feel extremely rewarding to watch
it can be experienced as both as the original manga (300+ chapters) and an anime adaptation (three seasons, 67 episodes total, covers up to around halfway through the manga) that has a good dub if you're into that kind of thing. I think it's commonly consumed by watching the anime first and then picking up the manga where it leaves off but the first season especially can feel pretty slow at times so going all-in on the manga where you can kinda set your own pace may be preferable depending on your tastes
anyway yeah I recommend it. and maybe if you give it a try tell me what you think about it because I have exactly one (1) person to talk to about this shit
tumblr didn't let my art appear in the tag 😔 tragic
