now i gotta ask, what's YOUR favorite silas headcanon(s)? personal and/or from NK blogposts!
GOOD question! I've had a lot of fun writing my own interpretation of Silas the past few months, so I have a LOT of headcannons… Some of which being inspired by the game or NK directly, some I just thought were cool in my head. Some might even conflict with canon blogposts, but I still try to keep my version of him feeling "in character", so to speak.
Easy answers: I love the fact Silas likes vanilla ice cream and ice puns. 100% he would, he's so lame and boring. He'd totally love classical music and anything else "beautiful."
Lengthier personal lorey headcannon stuff:
When Silas was first introduced, NK started with "Ever wonder what happens when you teach an Ice Monkey magic?", and I liked that concept by itself a LOT. So my interpretation of Silas largely centers around the idea he is (or… was?) a regular Ice Monkey, rather than being born with any special differences like some Heroes seem to have been. He was like any other Ice Monkey, but his own ambitions lead him to pursue magic as a craft. Naturally, he excelled at this and over time became an incredibly powerful ice mage… (I mean, apparently ice powers by themselves aren't the same thing as magic in-game, but his attacks are clearly a proper combination of both, since he struggles so badly to pop purples LOL.)
His awesome abilities are moreso a result of his personality and eagerness to learn than anything else. Which also lead to him becoming a mysterious wanderer when perhaps learning by the books wasn't enough for him… (As much as he loves books.) This is why sometimes when I draw Silas without his hood, I don't always draw his horns. To me, his horns aren't attached to his skull but rather made of his magical ice. They are an intentional adornment made by him, and therefore I treat them as optional. He's just a very talented Ice Monkey, after all. One who LOVES ice sculpting!
He'd consider himself just like any other Ice Monkey- given his voicelines in-game and how often he uses the words "we" and "us", he seems to feel strong comradery with them, and his teammates as a whole. In general Silas just seems like such a sweet and supportive guy who lifts others up by default. A very warm personality despite how cold he can look and sound, heh.
I could go on with more, but I think that's enough for now. I have a lot… :D
Actually, I really like the fact that the termina contestants don't immediately start killing each other.
A common criticsm of Termina I see is that.. "this is a death game, so why don't the other contestants target the player character more?". I think, yeah! It would be great to see more interactions [hopefully in the update soon haha...]. But I think that the atmosphere we have now, where the contestants don't target you that much, is good, if not outright great in making Termina seem unique and not just another battle royale game.
It's pretty realistic that these contestants - most of whom are just ordinary people - wouldn't immediately resort to murder just because of a dream. Everyone has their own goals in the city, and it's even OOC for characters like Abella, who is largely grounded and pacifist, having never seen actual war, to start murder immediately
Lastly, and this is my most favourite though most subjective interpretation, is that the lack of overt battle royale suggests a sort of hope despite the dark, hyperviolent atmosphere in F&H. People are willing to help you! People are willing to join your party, stick together, talk to you in party talks and provide a sense of companionship in the darkest and most ruined of places, are willing to chat to you in PRHL BOP and chat to each other.
I think it is rather poignant (esp. in a B/C ending run) that, no matter how horrific things are in Prehevil, most of the other characters still retain their humanity, at least until they are moonscorched. I think that, F&H 1 and 2 are both infamous for their dark, grotesque themes and setting; but people tend to overlook the fact that it isn't just dark. (Or conversely meme it to hell because it is easier to make light of heavy topics than actually dissect them).
In both F&H1/2, despite the darkness, there is light and hope - in the people you meet, in your own survival despite the horrors, in the save spots you find. And perhaps that tiny slimmer of light and hope is what makes that darkness even more oppressive.
For Termina Ending B/C it's even more horrific when you turn on your fellow contestants because (until they are moonscorched) they dont attack until provoked, they are just ordinary people trying to live through this.
You, the player, become the overt aggressor, who undermines that smallest glimmer of hope in humanity which the other contestants represent -- and that makes Termina's atmosphere all the more hopeless.
guys settling this. i'm not changing my name anymore i don't care if my canon name is masc or whatever. no mo name crisis. i'm ok with shorter more neutral nicknames to "lucas" like "lulu" or something vreah. BUT just lucas. until i find a name i want to set as my legal name 'cause for now it's actually "nikki" but again i don't want to say it's cut and dry when i'm indecisive as hell.. keeping it simple even for pookeronis yeah they can call me nikki for now if they want to but i mean lucas is great for casual use. yeah. no more name crisis tell me to shut up. why am i even saying this ok yeah this is useless info to non familial pooks. iunno like i want to be called lucas but i don't want that as my legal name because i just. i'm not sure why. i want a new legal placeholder name and a casual name amongst irl peers but it's not like i don't want to be known as lucas. i wanna be known as lucas. COKLEY. because that is me. obviously. but i wouldn't change my legal name to that. so disregard my legal name because i'll only mention it on casual irl use but as long as i'm online or whatever or with those who know what media i'm from then i encourage it period.
ACTUALLY yeah whatever call me lucas only i'm done here bruh i just yapped too much again 😢JUST LUCASSS!!!! IGNORE WHATEVER THE HELL I JUST SAID I RAMBLED ALL MY THOUGHTS OUT LOUD AGAIN NAME CRISIS ALERT
just lucas. nikki for formal irl use. sh. shhhushhh
Finished watching The Other Bennet Sister! I will put my thoughts on the show below the cut (beware spoilers)
Okay, so. I like that Mr Ryder wasn't a twist villain or a terrible person, despite being the love interest that wasn't chosen. He was slightly irritating due to being very privileged and not being aware of it, but overall he was a pretty nice person. I like the complexity of him wanting to love Mary without "owning her" by getting married, but not understanding that this arrangement would ruin her reputation and life much more than his, and that many women married for protection. I think the nuance here was explained pretty well!
I love that Mary was allowed to be genuinely awkward in her interactions with other characters throughout most of the show. What I dislike about most romances are that they're often overly perfect or staged and it makes them hard to relate to or even work as wish-fulfillment for me.
VERY GOOD DEPICTION OF AUTISTIC CHARACTERS!! I think Mary and Mr Collins were both clearly meant to read as autistic – and they're both characters who are kind of depicted as ridiculous and off-putting comedy-characters in the source material so it was really nice to see them given more depth. I like that Mr Collins is still as off-putting as he is in previous adaptations but there's just.. more to him. Mary does feel like a different character than I'd seen her initially but i love the direction they went with her.
That said, I feel like making her a fan of bright garish colours was a little stereotypical. I do get that it's to show the plain colours and patterns she wore at home weren't really her, and I guess to symbolise her putting herself down Vs exploring her true self, but. 🤷 Idk. It's a thing writers often do with autistic characters.
I disliked how often Mr Ryder accidentally interrupted romantic moments between Mary and Tom Hayward. It felt like a cheap way to make the viewer dislike him or at least not be on his side, when there were already more nuanced reasons for him and Mary not to be a good match (the biggest being that Mary simply didn't love him romantically lol)
The ending felt unsatisfying to me for many reasons so prepare for a long rant.
The proposal between Mr Hayward and Mary was incredibly annoying to me. It was too perfect, it was in a public place but everyone else just cleared away as soon as the two of them began talking to each other (?? 😭) I liked this show for it's awkward interactions and the fact that Mary was loved despite this. To throw that away for this climactic scene so that Mary gets a perfect proposal was a weird writing decision. Later I'll make a post comparing this scene to Lizzie's and Mr Darcy's proposal scenes in Pride and Prejudice.
The fact that Mr Hayward came back at all was a weird writing decision. Don't get me wrong, I really liked him and felt that he and Mary had chemistry and would have been a good match – but it would have been so much more interesting to have Mary find her own way in the world. It was unusual for a woman to do so back then, but not impossible, and it would have been interesting to see. In fact the show seemed about to end on that before he suddenly reappeared. It felt like the writers planned to end it one way and then somebody was like "WAIT☝️The girl has to get married."
TL; DR: I massively enjoyed the show, it was very self indulgent, I did not like the ending.
Gonna ramble about my NINAH ocs for a bit.. (PART 1 BECAUSE I HAVE MORE THAN TWO)
(Will show drawings of them eventually but for now just ramble.) Putting it under a cut to save space!
So first we have "college student". Bad posture, Kinda chubby, Has a scraggly lookin mullet and wears square framed glasses. (He's mostly a self-insert lol)
he has a brother that shows up under specific circumstances that has some special gameplay mechanics :D
(College student also has interesting mechanics as a visitor that I'll get to in a bit)
He's a visitor most of the time but like there's a 10 percent chance of him not being one. his dialogue is suspicious no matter what, even though they have explanations. Talks about:
feeling wrong in his skin (He's a pre-op trans man)
Pain That comes from nowhere when he's stressed that feels like something is clawing at him from the inside like his skeleton is trying to escape (He has Fibromyalgia)
Picking at his skin like he's trying to find the man that lives under his skin (Ocd makes him pick at his skin)
And as a visitor, he will only kill after you have checked his teeth. (He doesn't count towards the 2 visitors in home count for the pale man before the teeth check.) He also doesn't kill people like Bar guy or any of the chill people he likes (I wanted an interesting mechanic because screw it I'll be cringe.)
He always has bloodshot eyes from crying
He always has blood under his fingernails from picking at skin
Refusues armpit checks
Aura check always comes back strange
Ears always show up as fine, even if a visitor
Teeth are crooked when human of course, when visitor, not crooked.
He also takes the seat of the Coat Guy, so of course he's a bother to Bar guy :P
___________________
Now, The second one!
"Wounded Soldier"
(He is a remake of an oldish NINAH oc of the same name, I donnot have an older brother just thought it would be cool to connect the ocs like this)
The brother of "College Student"
He only appears the day after the Soldiers are killed and you look out the window. Similar face to CS, but he has very short hair instead, along with stubble. He has bandages all over himself. More muscular than his younger brother.
Seems pretty suspicious at first, but is always human garunteed. He tends to stay mostly silent and tries to be professional, but it is obvious he's at his limits.
(He has a very interesting thing that happens depending on the status of his brother if his brother is in the house.)
His dialogue talks about
The pale man, lots about how terrifying it was and even more terrifying that it let one soldier live.
His brother, and how he's worried for his safety.
About his brothers-in-arms he had to see be murdered by that visitor.
he asks you to speak up because he has partially lost hearing in one ear
He takes the seat of the firefighter.
His mechanic is cool imo, when his brother is in the home, multiple things can happen.
If his brother is human and gets killed by a visitor, he will hunt down and kill that visitor the same night.
If his brother is human and you shoot him, he will shoot himself.
If his brother is a visitor, and you shoot him, he will go into a state of grief and not talk to you or allow checks.
When you check him:
He will have bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep
dirt under his fingernails and cuts on his hands from crawling away from the pale man's attack
somewhat crooked and yellow teeth
Normal armpits
Normal Aura check (Shows red spots where each of his wounds are located)
on my annual replay of classic rn and im still amazed how expressive the in-dialogue animations are, theres so much personality to them its a shame 2 went with mostly blank stares
Rarely am I left at an active loss for words by an anime. Yet, I think this is the third or fourth time Oshi no Ko has done that to me.
I'll try explaining anyway. The opening part of this episode takes the form of an unbroken excerpt of the Tokyo Blade stage play. Those first couple of minutes are pretty incredible on their own, leaving the entire actual plot of Oshi no Ko itself in the margins to express a clear love for this completely fictional shonen manga and this equally fictional adaptation of it. In doing so, Oshi no Ko, and everyone working on it, express love for the shonen anime as an art form and a worthwhile format. (And, indeed, for 2.5D plays as well.) Their pastiche is pretty damn fantastic. I won't go so far as to say that I'd rather be watching Tokyo Blade than a lot of *actual* shonen anime airing right now (Elusive Samurai has been great, after all), but the series makes a very good case for it as a compelling piece of art. Also, in having Oshi no Ko's characters portray *Tokyo Blade's* characters so well, it makes a compelling case for them, too. Kana is utterly enchanting as the hot-blooded Tsurugi, even when she's quelled by being bested in combat, and everyone else here puts in a great performance, too. One of Oshi no Ko's great magic tricks is making you think about how well the characters are acting, as though these were actual people.
Which leads us nicely into Oshi no Ko's actual greatest accomplishment this week. Getting You, The Viewer to shed tears over Melt.
Yeah, Melt. Remember Melt? Introduced in the first season as an actor in the Sweet Today TV drama, there instantly pigeonholed as a good-looking but talentless piece of cast filler. Melt has had a pretty compelling supporting arc in the second season, and it comes to a head here during a scene in the play where his character fights the character played by Sakuya. Sakuya, for his part, is a relatively recent addition to our cast, and has been previously introduced as a frivolous womanizer who likes to pick on Melt because Melt is a bad actor. In a sense, he's Melt's foil, being someone just as handsome but who's had to work harder to get where he is. The two's clash is thus both very literal but also very much a struggle for the audience's approval, and I don't just mean the audience watching the stage play.
During his part of the episode, Melt's on-stage performance is cut with backstory. In a sense, this is cheating. Obviously, we the audience would have sympathized with Melt much more from the beginning if it were made obvious to us from the start that Melt's general lack of drive is the result of a lifetime of people fucking him over just because he's pretty. At one point, mentioned in passing as though Melt himself doesn't want to dwell on it, he even mentions that he was taken advantage of when he was younger. A heartbreaking and sadly true-to-life detail that really recontextualizes a few things about the character.
Nonetheless, this is not an episode meant to make us *feel bad for* Melt. Honestly, there was already room to do that if you were so inclined. Instead, it's meant to explain where the inner reservoir of conviction he draws on here comes from. Melt's key scene in the play is a minute or two long at most, but over the course of the last several months, and at Aqua's advice, he's been pouring his entire heart and soul, blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights, into this *one* moment.
Aqua's advice also raises an interesting point. If everyone in the audience already thinks of Melt as a poor actor---and certainly, that seems to be the case---he can use that to his advantage. if they're underestimating him, they're set up to be surprised, and that is precisely what happens during the episode's climactic scene. Struck down, Melt's character scrambles to his feet and makes a heroic last stand against his enemy, summoning a magnetism that no one knew he had. This blindsides everybody; Sakuya, Tokyo Blade mangaka Abiko, the Sweet Today author who's also watching in the stands, the rest of the cast, the rest of the audience, and also, you know, the rest of the audience.
Again, part of the magic here is that Aqua's advice doesn't just explain Melt's methods in-universe, it explains *how he's been written up to this point to get us to be surprised as well.* This is the kind of thing you can only pull off if you're both very confident and incredibly talented at understanding how stories work; a magic trick that seems to explain itself as it's being performed, only for that damn rabbit to pop out the hat anyway, to your and everyone's complete surprise. Akasaka Aka's done it again, god damn it.
It should go without saying that this applies to the entire Doga Kobo team working on this series as well. There is absolutely nothing in their back catalogue that could've prepared anyone for how well they'd handle Oshi no Ko, and this is visually one of their best episode's yet, as Melt's sudden surge in charisma is presented as a swirled, painted acid trip. In the audience, Abiko bounces with enthusiasm that someone truly understands her work. In the audience, another mangaka cries. He is chasing after the one thing he's been missing up to this point, depicted literally as it happens figuratively; star power. When he seizes it, he shines like a supernova.
I’m very disappointed we don’t ever get more on how Metal sonic and Shadow interact with each other outside of Archie comics (which is noncanon) and the sonic rivals stuff, which by the way is so painfully cute the way Shadow just seems to get metal in a way nobody else really does (“Metal sonic, are you okay?” no response “I’ll take that as a yes.” with a smile on his face) it’s really just giving a semi-nonverbal interacting with a non-verbal autistic person and I love it
In a way they do have a lot in common with how they were treated mostly as weapons and while Shadow could break away from that identity, Metal physically could not even if he wanted to (which I believe in a way he does, even with the reprogramming)
Anyway watch this video, specifically the ending bit it is SO romantic
