Thursday Tidings

[angelcage]

◇ I'm not a mascot person but the faewish sprites in Infinity Nikki are great. They do have somewhat simplistic personalities but I really appreciate that they have a fully developed society. Also almost every single sprite you meet is such a fucked up little guy doing their best who sucks so much. I love that. Here's some individual faesprite highlights:

◇ Self-absorbed faewish sprite who is in love with a faewish sprite doll and hasn't noticed. You play matchmaker for him and his Coppélia love.

◇ Ascetic faesprite sect who are like yeah so our sins led to the death of our God and everyone just frolics consuming wishing orbs. In penance, we will not partake in eating wishing orbs. Which is fine but then if you check out the medical bay area, you do see one of the ascetic faewish sprites passed out there and the doctor is like yeah they're too hard on themselves they eat like one or two orbs a month so they're always passing out from weakness or hunger.

Anyway you can help their leader round up younger members of the sect who keep running away for ~some reason~.

◇ Pair of scientist faewish sprites. They were arguing about funding and one has run off because pft the bizarre wishing orb problem can't be THAT bad I'll go see for myself you're surely exaggerating. You don't need more funding/manpower. And then she gets there. And like so this entire hill? is shredded bizarre orb dust. it's just heaps of blue glitter that is significantly higher in elevation than the rest of the faewish lands. and there's rusted gears and cobwebs and everything obviously needs maintenance.

And she's like,, hm,

you have to get the two of them to stop being tsundere at each other to work on the problem, in that he has to admit he was worried when she stormed off to places unknown and she has to be like, yah so actually. it's bad.

◇ The whole sovereign of fresh plotline. There's one that's supposed to do sending on rites to faewish who are ready to return to the wishing one but his dad fucked up his wife's funeral rites because he was sad to lose her and she became a ghost. and this traumatized his son out of feelings and attachments forever
his son is like I must not ever so I can be the best at funerals. you help him do his dad's funeral rites.

◇ Faewish sprite that has done literal warcrimes. Because his family was like, the closest assistants and supporter to the wishing one and as time passed since god died he felt useless and then he was offered a way to be useful to his people again. Just at the cost of doing many many awful things. Anyway, time to support a pseudo demon in becoming a new god so he can be useful and helpful again :D;;;; UPHOLDING THE FAMILY LEGACY VIA HERESY. he's so good at this.

◇ Faewish sprite who was thrown in isolation darkness cave for minor infractions repeatedly when he was young by the paladins so he grew up to want to be a paladin/knight because he can be a good boy, he'll prove it, please let him be good boy,

◇ Stalker fanboy faewish sprite who steals the trash of the leader of the faewish sprites and will do nothing but like sing praises and the second spoilers happen and there's a new leader, just turns around on a dime and is immediately like I AM SELLING MERCH FOR THE NEW WISHMASTER HE'S GREAT PERFECT WONDERFUL.

◇ Fireworks sprite. Which is another sprite the wishing one made. anyway this one is very cute and likes roleplay and fireworks and decides to try and help a kid he made friends with a lot time ago, the best thing to do is to stage a kidnapping and hire some criminals with no intent to pay.

Help. They want to do good but they suck so so much. And this is without getting into plot specifics. My favorite fucked up little guys. And they look like this. Adorable.

◇ Got my application to the Honours college in on time! A few days before due date, even!

◇ Went out to lunch with some friends and made plans to go hiking with two of them in August if we're all in the country. This place! Purple heather fields, it looks fucking gorgeous. I'm looking forward to it!

◇ On my little enstars discord server with friends we've been doing a ship of the day poll where I randomize a ship and we do yay/nay/hmm about it. It's also ended up being an excuse for rarepair discussions so I'm gonna copy/paste/summarize some ship discussions and my opinions on them.

◇ Sena Izumi/Aoi Yuuta My personal vote was yay!

To explain, this is partially because of a one chapter idol story titled Leisurely Self Bondage where Izumi has stopped stalking Makoto so Makoto goes and stalks izumi about it and he gets REALLY ANGRY about Izumi paying attention to Yuuta instead. If I recall correctly, offering to carry his books? Sena Izumi who loves bullying his juniors. They also have an early story where in summer they're all at school way later than they're allowed to be and the school is ~haunted~ maybe, though it turns out that no the piano that plays itself in the dead of night is just Ritsu. But this is where Izumi meets the twins! And he's pretty nice to Yuuta iirc, which is part of what led up to leisurely self-bondage.

Their relationship doesn't get much followed up upon, but I think the bitterest little brother in the world should get a cynical mentor option 2 that is not Rinne. Especially since Makoto and the twins also have a video game rivalry at the arcade. (There's a substory with them going at it on the machines from the first game too!) Makoto takes their high scores off machines whenever he sees them.

Anyway, Makoto's insane jealousy over someone Izumi barely knows is peak. Him INVENTING third legs of a love-triangle to be angry about is so funny to me, and especially with Yuuta's characterisation in the sequel where he's much more come into his own, I think Izumi and Yuuta's complexes would be really interesting together. Two very different flavours of cynicism, and senpai-kouhai complexes. Makoto as unspoken third party just elevates it for me. GO GIVE HIM SOMETHING TO BE JEALOUS ABOUT, YUUTA. I BELIEVE IN YOU. As a relationship it was largely dropped for the sequel (because the format is much less... good for cross-unit relationships, with most main story stuff written by akira being unit locked) but I wish there was a world where we could have continued to see it.

◇ Itsuki Shu/Narukami Arashi This was a hmm for me. I am intrigued by the dynamic but have a hard time conceptualising it as a ship.

Part of the issue is that this is very much a hinged on an unspoken third party (Kagehira Mika) relationship, but unlike Makoto who is a jealous bitch, Arashi doesn't really desire to interact with Shu about it, other than her threatening to beat his ass if he ever hurts Mika. They've even had a few stories together! (The victorian doll scout, moment repayment fes) But they're not really interested in or drawn to each other.

I think, weirdly, that if you got Mika out of the way they'd be able to have a more indepth relationship and THEN it'd be interesting to see what it's like. A friend in the discord proposed a heist or a roadtrip fic with them and I immediately agreed. Because they do have levels where I do think it would be really interesting to see them interact. For instance, their gender shit is also really interesting. Since they both REJECT masculinity but in different ways, where Arashi is trans and Shu has a masculine personality but is very much into the visuals of androgyny and has no interest in conforming to masculine expectations of interests. In the first game in particular he's very... purity-brained and oh no gross puberty, boys are beautiful before they hit it and that's clearly his physical ideal and he resents to some degree not being able to perform androgyny, but then in the second game he's actually way more chill about bodies but also more chill about... For instance, in the first game, the valkyrie outfits are much more masculine, except for Nazuna who conforms to that pre-pubescent androgyny. And in the second game where he is much more actualized and chill about bodies and growing up, he's just like, yeah sure, puts both himself and Kagehira in heels and corsets and outfits that are not quite dresses but clearly are very female fashion inspired. He will simply persue what he wants even if it's not societal norm because he likes it. Shu vs society: he has decided he will do what he wants regardless of society, which has always been his stance to some degree but in the second game he actually has the confidence to pursue his aesthetics completely.

Which is a lot about Shu but Naru also has a lot of like, her desires versus what society wants to see from her. (See: the beast scout, in particular, but we know for gravure she plays masculinity and has a complex about her body not being the way she likes it. All her commentary in the first game about her being upset about putting on muscle, being very particular about always having her makeup done). But it'd be good to see them compare notes on about gender and aesthetics and performance and romanticism.

They're not each other's type though. So I end up faling on, yeah, I agree with Kaz (friend who said it first), I want to see them do a roadtrip or a heist together and get to have long conversations and fight with each other and fall into being friends. But I don't think it's a ship and I do think like, Mika there means they'd both just decide to interact with him instead of each other.

I also think there's a chance the way he talks about death might set her off. ENEMIES TO FRIENDS TYPE BEAT, MAYBE?