Ak Goes Insane - Tumblr Posts

the magus situation, or, "ak remembers log horizon exists and it exacerbates the brainrot"

(gonna be a long one)

so to the surprise of absolutely nobody i did in fact watch log horizon at one point in the past, and also tried reading the light novel but never ended up finishing it. my opinion on it is mostly "solid and had good potential, with some unfortunate quirks to how it's written". the anime is better than sao's, but the novel is worse

this isn't what this post is about

it's instead about a certain *spinoff manga*

the fuckign west wind brigade manga in all its janky beauty. it's a story that takes place in parallel with (and overlaps with) the main story while focusing on different parts of the world and a completely different cast of main characters. it tends to be somewhat more light-hearted than the main story (but not by a lot)

it's also technically a harem story, but in the same way UQ holder is, which is to say that soujirou seta has that touta konoe charm that makes me go "yeah i fully get it this guy is impossible to hate"; he's more the guild dog than the guild leader half the time (affectionate)

*anyway*

spoilers for the west wind brigade manga incoming

so the afformentioned soujirou seta (middle character on the manga cover) is in fact the very first person to die after the catastrophe, and in the process he proved that even after the world became real, *respawning was still a thing*

which suddenly made the prospect of pk'ing much less ethically daunting, leading to a massive explosion in guilds of bored disillusioned trapped people with nothing better to do starting to kill and loot en masse, as was already a massive plotpoint in log horizon proper. some are big guilds, some are smaller

and some are technically solo

which brings us, finally, to magus

*fucking magus* (affectionate?)

edgelord in a longcoat with the cringy speeches

but it's not exactly sincere is it? it's all forced, constantly like he's talking as much to himself as to his "audience"

like he really *wants* to believe what he's saying

"it's all a game anyway, i can do whatever i want! definitely! right? RIGHT?"

it is, in fact, a coping mechanism

because to admit it's real would mean it matters. would mean you're not actually hidden away anymore. no walls to hide behind. no mask

because it's all mask

it was the whole time

because it's easier that way

the persona and the longcoat an the fancy explanations for why it's totally correct and real, trust me! definitely not fucking desperate over here, no sirree!

it's the beater again. there's a beater in log horizon but you never meet them in the main story. because for this beater, the game doesn't end because it's over. but because they finally admit to themself it was never a game to begin with. which was of course the only way out, because log horizon doesn't have a win condition

if you can't "win", you need to stop playing

but that's not quite the whole story, is it?

because you know how it is with beaters

there's always a little footnote at the end

this funny little common thread that all examples ive found so far seem to share

yeah there's a massive very explicit gender angle to all of this because it's just part of the package at this point

and that is how magus' redemption arc also has her turning into a girl

it's frankly amazing, the thematic parallels write themselves, it's so delightfully on the nose!

this whole thing is in fact one giant transgender allegory that's barely an allegory at all

the "edgy longcoat-wearer with terrible coping mechanisms" to "cute akward goth girl" pipeline is real

the seed engine gender situation

(i found a fascinating little tidbit that massively adds to an earlier observation re: the transfem kirito situation)

ok so *about volume 5*

ive already talked about the whole situation with alo having manual character gender choice while later games such as ggo use brainwaves, and the implications this has for character generation

^volume 3 (note the word "chose")

^volume 5 (egg-cracking character generator)

and the fact the avatar from the former got converted to the latter game with the knowledge that the gender was almost certainly a "stuck" variable when the ggo engine got to work on it

^also volume 5

ok so all of this is established stuff ive posted about before

but id go a step further actually, specifically because of a certain little inconsistency i found

ok so, when the guy tries to buy the account for the rare avatar-type, right, there's this exchange

^the sheer reaction here; this avatar type is *extremely* rare

^and then this exchange; but hold on! that doesn't line up with what's said 2 fragments earlier!

and indeed! the account *isn't* 3 years old at all! it's not the sao one, it's the alo one!

^end of volume 4! it's not the original account! its only playtime is the time she played in ALO! it's only a couple months old!

so why the rare as fuck avatar?!

well!

i theorise that the M-9000 type avatar is a failsafe, specifically for converted accounts from manual-gender-choice games that don't align with the brainwaves

it's not a "reward for playtime" at all, its rarity comes from how weirdly specific the generation criteria are

it's an avatar literally *only* transfem eggs from converted accounts get!

it's been right there the whole time hidden between the lines!

^dense fucking egg

ok that "of course that's the character i get obsessed over" post has got me thinking about fuckign dokuga again

like of all the varied cast of dorohedoro that's the deeply repressed tragic twink i latched onto

of fucking course

the kirito-kinnie gets attached to the emotionally distant ed(/g)gy repressed twink with the unhealthy coping mechanisms and tragic backstory who's been actively drowning in the sunk cost fallacy since before the story even began

who also looks liks this

... yeah

oh and of course this happens at one point because of course it does thank you hayashida-sensei

hmm yes im normal about this

i don't know if i should be glad or disappointed that ceruledge only came out after i stopped playing the newer pokemon games

id have been fucking insufferable about this thing look at it

thang giving me borderline gender envy even now, if 14y old me had been exposed to this there'd be no survivors

instead i just get gender envy from kuroyukihime's black lotus avatar

she did it better anyway