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Y’know i will yell about the va change tomorrow I am thinking about it too much again

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ok i love the new patch so much and i'm so happy with how vivian turned out BUT. THEY CHANGED KOLEDA'S VA. I AM FUMING. HER VOICE IS NO LONGER RASPY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY GIRLLLL???? why does she no longer sound like she has a sore throat 24/7 ohmygoddd, her voice was one of my favourite things about her😭😭

also to clear this up: obviously i am NOT. blaming the new va. i have nothing against them, i am just so utterly disappointed with hyv pulling the same shit again. they could've at least picked a va that could do a similiar voice to the previous one ugh💔💔

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forgot i made this thing last year

og video

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Zzz…

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Ok very slight addendum bc it’s funny

Apparently Koleda gets her height from her mom??? That sucks for hollow corruption theory but that’s objectively very funny and I cannot get over it

Okay I have to yell about Koleda Belobog Zenless Zone Zero because I feel like I love her in a very specific way that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about. More under the cut because I have,,, so many thoughts.

Koleda is such a good portrayal of someone who struggles with their perception as an adult. A pretty easy conclusion to make with the first thing she usually says on the character select screen being “Hey, don’t look down on me!”, but it definitely goes a lot deeper the more you spend time with her. Specifically, she seems to struggle in her perception of herself as someone much more mature than her younger peers, but still not on the same level as the adults in similar positions of power as her. I kinda. Hate zenless for not explicitly stating how old she is, but given she rose to her position at Belobog “when she came of age” (which honestly, I still can’t give a concrete answer to what hoyo means by this? Some searches I found claimed the working age to be 16 in China, I’ve seen others online claim 18 but that’s not reliable. Hoyo I'm begging you put official ages on your characters it's a cool and based practice), she waited for a significant amount of time before taking up her role as president. She is an adult from what the game implies, and a core part of her character is fighting against the constant infantilization she faces due to how she looks.

Let’s start with her love of desserts (and a honestly this is the reason I started writing this). It’s her most highlighted character trait (it is also the first known attribute in her trust rank profile when you unlock her), and most of her trust events on 6th street revolves around them. Initially, she hesitates in proclaiming her love for them, likely to avoid being perceived as childish.

Her rank 4 trust special event is, admittedly, my favorite, but it’s one of the best breakdowns of this.

In order to maintain her image as a mature adult, she uses her position as company president to get around having to request a special dessert drink by name (in her defense, "Sweet Girl Fluffy Marshmallow Lambkin Milk" is an insane mouthful of a product name). At the end of the event she admits that saying its name “wasn’t as bad as she thought”, but her initial kneejerk reaction was a complete rejection of even entertaining the idea of doing something that could put the image she worked so hard to create and maintain at risk. Despite this, she still refuses desserts that aren't tooth-rottingly sweet, even if they are seen as the more mature or "refined" option. It's only around people that she really trusts does she allow this part of herself to be known, because she knows they wouldn't misconstrue this behavior as childish.

I also think her perception on the differences between kids and adults is interesting ("thank you agent story quest" we all say in unison). She doesn't ever feel like she fits in with other kids, probably due to all the responsibility she had to take on as the eventual heir to her father's company. But she also holds a vocal distain for many of her adult peers. Her declaration of "When I was younger, I thought the whole world was rotten, trying to make people just as rotten when they grow up." is a reflection of how she struggled to find her place in the world as she was forced to suddenly transition into adulthood, while still trying to understand the actions of the adults around her.

Her relationship with her father becoming strained contributed significantly to her world outlook as well, and may have caused such a specific distinction of what she deems "the world of adults". I don't want to dive too specifically into that because spoilers and the game is only a few weeks old so. Pin that for another time maybe? It definitely matters in the sense that the loss of her father is the catalyst for the loss of her childhood, but a lot of the specifics in how that affected her are speculative (and I don't wanna get too headcanon-y in this particular post) and she explicitly chooses not to discuss it too in-depth with the proxy (which, girl. Valid). But she's slowly learning to cope with that loss, at least it seems that way by the end of chapter 3. Honestly I could probably find more to add about the agent story in particular, but I would have to replay it to get a better idea.

To me, Koleda Belobog is very solid representation for women who had to grow up too fast, struggle with the perception of being seen as an adult, and hold guilt about indulging in acts that can be perceived as childish by their peers because they never fully got the chance to just be a kid. It truly did resonate with me, and it feels like such a specific "if you know, you know" kind of experience that I don't feel is talked about as much in media, especially with people who identify as female during their youth.

Also, also! I hope they dive in a bit more on how she got/has so much hollow corruption at a young age. Because they imply that she is so short as a result of this hollow corruption. Like that's so damn interesting conceptually and I know they delved on it more in Rina's agent story but. It was more of a mental affliction than a physical one.

Anyway I've been working on this for like 2 days now but that's all I have in terms of like. A canon-compliant character analysis.

TLDR; Koleda is such a perfect example of "God forbid short women exist" and I love her for that. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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Koleda sticker redraw bc I thought it was cute

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I'm always looking away from Grace's M6 because they made her Feet Girl of ZZZ so I never realized she had a tattoo...

And then I remembered that Anton also has a tattoo...and so does Billy. Big fan of these tatted up autistics (*looks at Seth* 👀🙏✨️)

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It has been done

Honestly thinking about making one of those Koleda daily/ semiregularly accs on twitter bc my insanity is overtaking me again

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Honestly thinking about making one of those Koleda daily/ semiregularly accs on twitter bc my insanity is overtaking me again

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KOLEDA

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"It's 5:00pm, guys. See ya!"

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Thinking about how some official sources (such as materials that come from Yasunori Nishiki and the stuff published in tandem with the Octopath orchestra concert last year) like to emphasize masculinity as one of Partitio's stand-out character traits and what that means for him, a character I see as a good example of masculinity in a positive sense

It's evident in some ways more than others but one I'd like to point out is the way he exercises his privileges—and his strengths/talents—in ways that uplift other people, particularly the disadvantaged. He's in contrast to Roque, who is the kind of industrial-age tycoon who (until the end of the narrative) sees the subjugation and dominance over others as his right; he is simply inherently deserving of his position and everybody else deserves to be below him (exemplary of a toxic kind of masculinity, in other words. There are plenty of notable IRL examples of this type of person but I'm not interested in naming names). Partitio on the other hand sees his own privileges and strengths as things that are *meant* to be put to use in service to others. To him it would be a waste to do nothing with them but ensure his own success and leave everyone else behind. His sense of identity is fueled by this principle, even. Obsessed with this

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Treasure the moment

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“The president will speak with you now.”

Redo of this old doodle

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Chapter 2 Belobog intro scene redraw but with memes

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OH MY GOD SO UH

I LOOKED AT EVELYN ANIMATION LEAKS AND I WAS COOKING. BC THE DEVS ARE GONNA DO IT TOO

I gave my zenless oc a knife on a string as a weapon basicallly. Like it was a retractable scalpel on razor wire. I am validated in my ideas being cool but also. I want it to be known I did not just copy shit from the devs we were parallel sautéing on adjacent stoves

Anyway say hello to Amalthea McGrath, Belobog Heavy Industries’ newly hired Medical Services manager!

I would honestly just recommend reading my fic “We Build Homes” on ao3 to learn more about her. A lot of her stuff is still in the works tbh but i want to just. Post her now before Evelyn comes out lmao

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Merry Christmas | Terry005