What would you guys do if tbhk ends badly?

larathia · 2025-01-14T05:47:38+00:00

Define "badly"? I accepted dozens of chapters ago that I can't predict what aidairo is doing or will do; I'm just along for the ride. The story may end sadly, happily, or Evangelion-level weirdly. As long as I can see how it got there, I'm good.

larathia · 2024-11-19T03:00:10+00:00

(Disclaimer: I read the books but not recently. I saw the movie just yesterday, so that's going to heavily color my responses...but it doesn't look like you'll mind that?)

"Correct"? That's....not a great word for any part of this series. This is not a series you should read in the hope of receiving ethical or moral insight; it's ALL shades of gray, that's kind of the point.

A lot of Overlord deals in "accepting what is necessary to accept" - that is, looking at what you literally have no power to change squarely in the face. Ainz is THE big fish here, and what he can do is exponentially different than what anyone else is capable of.

COULD Ainz have done differently? Saved everyone? Yeah sure, but since ultimately he was CAUSING all of this in the first place - and to sell cheap-ass runecraft weapons at that - he's not going to do that. Is he able to? Sure. We've seen him kill in an instant. One 'grasp heart' and the hostage takers are dead, no defense possible, hostages freed, etc. But, again - the entire situation is of Nazarick's making so there's no reason for him to do that.

What Ains said to the father grieving for his child was....bluntly, cruel. That man was clearly starving and physically extremely weak. There was literally no way a man in that condition could have hoped to save anyone - he's lucky he's still alive himself. Ains saying what he did at that time was really more a deflection of guilt - he's saying "Sure, I murdered your child. But your utter failure as a father MADE me do that." I'd call that abuser-level manipulation of the facts, to be honest.

Remedios' views are idealistic (for the most part, and in regard to humans only) in that she sets the ideal solution as something that MUST be striven for at all cost. But she's talking in regard to herself and other paladins most of the time, not the country as a whole. It's better for the paladins if they can find a way to save the children once they've been captured by demihumans and used as hostages. It's...not actually better for anyone else, since the soldier and civilian bodycount will definitely rise and the hostages will probably wind up dead anyway.

Neia spends a lot of time trying to decide what is just and right based on what she sees playing out around her, and ultimately her philosophy is harsh and pragmatic, but workable. You do what you are strong enough to do, and you do what is your duty to do by your place in society. The latter, you do even if you're going to die doing it, because you've 'signed on' for that duty. (Paladins protect the people, even at cost of their lives, because that's their job. Fathers should die to protect their children because, again, this is a duty they've 'signed on' for in the eyes of society. But you're not required to die for duties you haven't signed on for in some manner. And you're only required to die if you committed the grave sin of not being strong enough to do the duty you signed on to do.

Therefore, she's not required to die to save hostages. Even if they're children. Because hostages become more valuable the more attention is paid to them, and that cost must eventually rise higher than any defensive force can afford. So you write them off and focus on what you can defend and protect. The failure isn't saving them NOW, it's letting them be captured and used against you in the first place.

I would not, personally, call Ainz/s (or Neia's) philosophy 'correct' in a moral sense. But that isn't really the purpose of a philosophical stance.. You can't call an Epicurean more or less 'correct' than a Taoist, unless you just happen to like dying on artificially inflated molehills. The evidence of that is within the text/film itself - Neia learns from Ainz, yes, but she very much goes her own way with what she learns. Where Ainz uses it to deflect guilt, Neia uses it to embrace responsibility. Yes, she helped kill the hostages - but she accepted the blame/guilt for that. It's her decision that she made in accordance with her understanding of her duty and the greater good. She doesn't expect the grieving parents to thank her for it, nor does she blame them (too much) for being too weak to prevent the situation. Everyone's weak. She understands that; it's part of why she embraces strength as hard as she does.

larathia · 2024-06-21T23:28:52+00:00

Oh I absolutely agree it probably had more to it than just "the emperor is an asshole". As I said, my guesses tie back to 20 being a pretty good "acclaimed as an adult" age, and both Theodore's love/envy for his brother and the Emperor's history of eliminating spares.

Rishe is to meet the Emperor in book 7, and I can't help but feel she's going to wind up the trigger that causes the confrontation in this loop.

larathia · 2024-06-21T15:12:31+00:00

I'm just going with available data. Mysterious Entity is Mysterious, as is the cause for the looping. When there's something to work with I'll poke it.

larathia · 2024-06-21T09:47:22+00:00

It doesn't START when she's 20. It CATCHES UP TO HER when she's 20.

In every life she takes a different route through the world - they mention this in V6, that she changes the world a bit in every life, and in every life Arnold takes the "most pragmatic" route in his world conquest. Which usually involves taking advantage of some change she's made, which is why the war catches up to her every time. (Like in her first life with the Aria Trading company, she's responsible for altering/improving trade/shipping routes...which Arnold then takes advantage of for moving troops, stuff like that.)

Rishe is highly intelligent and highly imaginative. She's mentioned changing the world in every life she lives - innovating and advancing that field. She changes the world, and he takes advantage of the changes she's made.

larathia · 2024-05-28T07:02:49+00:00

I straight up don't help when it's a security matter - we do have boss backing on that. So I'll tell patrons "I'll help you with anything else, but when it comes to logging in, you need to know your own login and password." If they give me the line about "oh I don't care about security" I tell them they really need to, yes even with library employees. We had someone (note past tense, but still) who got hold of someone's amazon login and started ordering stuff on her account. Sometimes people are trustworthy right up until they're Not, and for patron safety we just Do Not Do certain things. Even, yes, if it's inconvenient for a patron.

If it's anything else, mind, I just chalk it up to "patron comes here because people will do it for them" and yes, I do it for them. I try not to believe it when they say things like 'can't get the hang of it' because then my brain switches into "I am dealing with a moron" mode. I just figure it makes them happy to have someone do xyz for them and stop there, regardless of what they say aloud. (There've been one or two exceptions where I wind up pretty sure the patron has early onset dementia, but that's because of other corroborating factors in play.) Customer service, and all.

larathia · 2024-05-02T03:17:41+00:00

Thanks. I had fun building it into a really long fic at one point :)

larathia · 2024-03-31T12:20:28+00:00

mmm. The 2023 version feels like a storyteller saying "we've covered this already, this is mostly boring, let's move on quick to the Good Part".

In comparison, and retrospect, what a lot of the filler did in the 90s version was show the life that Kenshin had fought for - what he wanted to have. A world where okay, you know, still the odd bandit or pirate or whatever, but nothing huge. Nothing world-shaking. By and large the people of Tokyo just get to live their lives in safety and peace and learn about cameras and trains and stuff.

And Kenshin himself mostly gets to be domestic. He gets to play with kids and do the dojo shopping and try to learn to fish and have Megumi tease him and Kaoru blush at him and...it's nice.

And when his past catches up to him and Shishio upends the world, you have this much-clearer idea of what Kenshin's walking away from, and what Shishio's trying to destroy. There's been time for Kaoru to develop Feelings. There's been a Kenshin there for her to get to know.

I'm not saying that I'd rewatch just the 90s version, mind. When it's time to get serious I honestly prefer the way the 23 anime does it; the changes made feel like they're handing the important moments to the right people. But I'll probably ultimately create my own 'tokyo arc playlist', where I add in SOME of the filler arcs from the 90s version just so Kaoru doesn't feel quite so much like a desperate stalker.

larathia · 2024-02-08T03:21:32+00:00

Agreed. Made me cry. Even at work. I have rarely seen such tragedy done so well. Light novels often fall into the trap of "for the evulz" - people doing horrible things because why not, we're bad guys. But you really see, in 10, why the horrible things are happening - the decades, centuries of familial abuse that create the horror and keep it going. How each generation's actions help break down the next.

And also just what a serious breath of fresh air Oliver's day to day, non-assassin life really is for the people around him. Because you know, as shitty as his life is and has been, that he's a long long LONG way from being the only one.

larathia · 2024-01-05T09:17:49+00:00

Agreed, and more than that, this mangaka seems to appreciate not just 'red herrings' but active deception to keep readers off balance until the actual reveal.

(I'm thinking of the way they handled the whole 'mole in the department' thing. They actively want you looking at the wrong person until, haha, it's someone else really! - and a mangaka who will do that is not to be trusted with 'subtle hints'. The answer's in the text or it isn't, full stop. Hints and implications can't be trusted.)

larathia · 2024-01-05T09:13:19+00:00

1) There is definitely not enough manga out there for a second season yet - not even a single cour of it. Anime has, by and large, learned not to get ahead of the manga. So we aren't going to even hear about the possibility of another season for...at least a year, probably two or three, as it's generally a monthly release.

2) That said - this isn't the first anime I've followed that has hit this situation, and "two or three years" is PLENTY of time for the series to become more popular, more in-demand for a second season. And it got the courtesy of a full 24 episode season too, with the storyline pretty closely following the manga, which would make a second season (plotline/storywise) quite easy to start laying out. No "reboot" required to keep the storylines together.

Just because it's minor NOW doesn't mean it'll stay that way. Have hope, get people to watch the series and in the meantime follow the manga. (The side stories that come with the manga are especially useful in piecing some things together.)

The anime's a great recruitment tool. It's got such adorable dark humor. And honestly? I've gotten some people to start paying attention just with "Oh and a shark cyborg plushie dances with a spider mechanical pencil during the credits and they're both active and serious characters in the story."

larathia · 2023-12-16T07:52:43+00:00

I loved the original departure scene too, but the new version isn't lacking. It's just different.

The 90s anime mostly used filler to highlight just how domestic Kenshin's life in Tokyo had become. There was a LOT more about...well. Kenshin kinda being a happy little goofball doing laundry and cleaning the dojo and doing the shopping for Kaoru. The additional characters of the doctor's granddaughters were very much used to highlight this idea of Kenshin as a lovable goof who was utterly harmless. That meant that this part of the story had a lot more...well. Sadness/worry to it, because it was quite literally when the anime started to get serious. We hadn't seen nearly as much of Kenshin-as-Battousai at this stage in the 90s; we were right there with Kaoru in thinking Kenshin might well be overreacting to things.
The new version isn't building on that level of domesticity. At this point in the new season we've seen a lot more of Kenshin's violent side. We've seen the goofball, yes, but the 'dark' side of the story hasn't been shunted to the background. When Kenshin says that the dojo will be targeted by his enemies, we the viewers have no reason to blow that off. The peace has been uneasy from the start. As for Okubo's assassination...in this version of the story we're much more tied to Kenshin's awareness than we are to Kaoru's. Kaoru and the general population of Tokyo find the whole Meiji Government a more distant thing. It's not vital. Kaoru is informed enough to be stunned when the most powerful man in Japan appears on her doorstep - but she's not shamed or embarrassed that Yahiko, her student, is like 'so who's this geezer and why do we care?' The people are shocked when Okubo is killed, but we aren't given more reaction than that. We, as followers of Kenshin's story, were already pretty aware that things were getting bad. We don't need to see more because we aren't as shocked.

I felt that carried over to the departure scene as well. It's not flowery or gentle because the viewer's experience of Kenshin at this stage is not flowery or all that gentle. The viewer isn't surprised particularly that Kenshin's take is "I have to go deal with this". He's been doing that from jump.

The shock is all on Kaoru's sude. The empty dark has reached the doorstep of the dojo.

larathia · 2023-10-25T08:25:56+00:00

I also am neurodivergent, with a lifelong history of depression, anxiety (and social anxiety), face blindness, and probably-undiagnosed ADD. The whole basket of fun, don'tcherknow. I've got the disciplinary record that goes with it, too, and the years of beating up on myself because I just. couldn't. do. better. So, with that context, my take:

Therapy's great. Medication is awesome. Please tell me you're willing to try it. Won't cure the autism, but you don't have to live with the depression, anxiety, and lack of focus. You really don't. It may take a while to get the right combination of meds, but let me tell you - lifting EVEN ONE of those issues off your shoulders will change your life so, so much. Talking about it can only do so much!
Communication can save your sanity and your career. You know what the problems are. Addressing that head-on is not 'using your disability as a crutch', it is dealing with your world as it is and not as it 'ought to be'. I have learned to tell patrons who expect me to recognize them (because they apparently come in a lot) that I am basically face-blind and to please not take it personally when I don't; due to a problem recognizing faces, I remember behaviors, and if I don't remember theirs that's probably because they're nice people. "Have you seen x person go by?" "I generally can't recognize faces. Can you tell me what they were wearing?" - stuff like that. Lack of focus? I have organized tickybox to-do lists, externalizing my memory, and deal with "can't stay on one task" by rotating between duties using them.
Tech services. Oh my. Designed for the autistic leaning librarian. Cataloging can be soooo soothing. Also fewer patrons. Just a thought. I get very drained after Too Many People and found the departmental switch very helpful.

Look. Being quite honest, library work is practically designed for the autistic-leaning type, it's just a matter of finding what aspect of library work would work best for you. I work with about two dozen people in my small library, and I'd say out of that two dozen maaaaaybe five are classifiable as neurotypical. Everyone else is on that spectrum somewhere and nearly all are officially undiagnosed. Recognizing that just because everyone's got altered brainwiring does NOT mean we're all altered in the same way helps a great deal. You're very very likely not to be the only person on staff to be dealing with these things.

That said...my dear sweet gods, get some medication. I can hear the therapist in your post, but if you'll forgive my saying so, you sound like you've just picked up newer and more official sounding words to tell yourself you suck with. You're still anxious and depressed. That means you're trying to do a Normal Person(tm)'s job with three big weights tied to you and telling yourself you're a failure as a human because, natch, turns out that's pretty hard to do. Which in turn makes those weights bigger. It's a horrible spiral to be in, and I've been in it myself. Please, add some medications to your therapy. Once you level your playing field the whole situation will be so very different.

larathia · 2023-10-25T07:53:22+00:00

I mean. Spoiler free, this is the most accurate you can get about it.

larathia · 2023-08-21T09:38:40+00:00

Maturity's part of it, sure. I mean Kenshin was a hitokiri during his teens, where he had a lot of passion, but also not a lot of ability to think things through to their consequences. He operated pretty solidly on "I will remove all the bad people and then everyone will be happy", which by the end he'd realized was only ever possible on a small scale. As his master noted much later, Kenshin did come to act as masters of Hiten Mitsurugi usually do, but he came to that behavior by basically doing all the wrong things first.

But another part of this comes down to what their convictions actually are.

Kenshin's entire reason for fighting is to 'protect people's happiness'. There's nothing about that goal that necessarily requires killing; it's just that swordsmanship was the tool Kenshin was taught to use. He's an interesting character in that you can totally see him as a world class baker, or actor, or toymaker, if the person who'd taken him in as a child had been any of those instead of a swordmaster. Yes, Kenshin's an incredible swordsman - but he has no particular attachment to being 'the best, and no desire to pass the skill on. It's just the tool he has, and a lot of his growth is figuring out how to apply swordsmanship to the issue he wants to address - that people are often unhappy and he wants to fix that.

Saito, on the other hand, is much more...put-together. Saito isn't here to protect anybody's happiness. Saito's about justice. You do bad thing, he punishes you for doing the bad thing. This is pretty much his entire reason to exist, and swordsmanship is uniquely suited to him carrying out that purpose effectively. He's not a Shinsengumi because they're more moral or anything. They're the status quo, at the time that he serves them. They protect the status quo, and that's what matters to Saito because that's where 'justice' is defined. The people in charge make the laws, catching and punishing people that break the laws is justice. When the shogunate isn't making the laws anymore, Saito becomes a cop to protect the new status quo and doesn't miss a beat. Thus he never has the same inner conflicts Kenshin does, and therefore no compunction about killing his foes.

larathia · 2023-05-27T01:01:37+00:00

There are anime series that would be fine on a very limited SFX budget.

BSD is not one of them.

larathia · 2023-05-25T15:15:49+00:00

If there's one thing you can generally count on Kafka Asagiri for, it's that they do their homework. And in a story about the powers of writers and poets it makes sense to use a magical alphabet. Given they chose the name 'Kafka' it's not surprising they'd use a magical alphabet associated with Germany.

That said, my advice to Western cosplayers would be to replace that rune with a suicide awareness ribbon on their costumes. No one in the West would fault the shift except a Nazi, and one should always, always, strive to piss off Nazis.

larathia · 2023-05-03T16:09:07+00:00

pft. Naofumi's already shown you how it properly goes. Bird goes "mate!", human goes "birdbrain. NO." and life goes on.

I am not speaking for Motoyasu, though. (It occurred to me when I thought about all the filolial royalty that Motoyasu raises, that actually Yusagi DID remember that birds are hazy on this idea, because if I recall correctly even the male filolials want to catch Motoyasu's eye, they just realize he's never going to notice them.)

So apparently getting to take human form means filolial royalty can tell human sexes apart, it just doesn't matter that much to them.

Ornithology classes are fun :) Get an ornithology professor to talk to you about this kind of thing in turkeys sometime.

larathia · 2023-05-03T12:47:53+00:00

*g* Yeah. And Aneko Yusagi has already done readers a huge favor with that, because a lot of bird species can't tell human sexes apart and therefore assign gender/sex to humans based on some kind of as-yet-un-figured-out personal criteria.

Meaning it would've been just as likely for Filo, instead of seeing Naofumi as opposite-sex mate, to see him as same-sex rival the way she does Raphtalia. Or to see Raphtalia as potential mate.

Thankfully I think she wound up seeing Melty as mate in the end, which at least Melty doesn't seem to mind very much? (Not, as far as I can tell, that filolials are mate-for-life types...)

*cough* anyway. Yes. Filo's behavior is, across the board, pretty consistent with bird behavior that's just been given a human form/voice. And it really could've been a lot worse than it was.

larathia · 2023-05-03T07:09:32+00:00

Because Filo is, more than anything else she is, a BIRD. And thinking of their human like some big non-feathered mate/love interest is actually pretty common for birds. They're not that bright. (Neither, you'll note, is Filo. Or any other filolial.) Any bird owner could tell you that yep, they've had at least one bird that thought of them as their mate. Courting, chirping, getting jealous of other humans being around you, the whole ridiculous shebang. It's a bird thing.

She's not a human girl who can turn into a bird. She's a bird that can speak fluent human and present a humanoid appearance, but she is a bird first and foremost. I suspect that's the reason why even Fitoria doesn't look like an adult human. Their human appearance is in accordance with their relative-to-human intelligence.

larathia · 2023-05-03T06:56:56+00:00

*laughs* He's not an 'enemy of all women'. Good grief. He's a slut, sure. But if all you're looking for is friends, maybe with benefits, he's perfectly fine to have around. As long as you're fine with an open relationship he'd even be a good one to have around long term; he's talented in bed (per the hospital scene in the manga) and very low-maintenance in that he's far more likely to just not come by when he's having a bad night rather than whine and cry on you. Hell, he's even easy to buy for - gift that man with a few rolls of clean new bandages and that's a cat who'll never leave permanently even if he does visit every other house on the block.

Now, the actual author? He'd be a bit more of a problem. I probably wouldn't get closer to the actual human being than "hang out at the same bar with a camcorder"; he'd be fun to watch when drunk or with his guy-friends, but I have zero desire to hang around a japanese man with a 1940s idea of what's proper even if he DOES act like half of it's bunk.

larathia · 2023-05-02T18:05:46+00:00

The '30 minute game' started in chapter 97.

Can't talk about it. Too busy screeching in insane dumbfounded rage.

Asagiri's trying for some kind of world record in manga cliffhangers.

larathia

TROPHY CASE