#A lot of them also just look a lot better with some melanin. can we do dakota next

[anotherdragon]

Every so often I run into the old jrwi designs and a deep fear is instilled within me. guys who are these people ccan somewrone get them off my screen giuys im scared

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - known Character Creation info Part 1

[LINK TO PART 2]

This post is just a dump collection of info and snippets that came out about CC (& some related topics). if you've been following the news or reading posts here, it's not new info or anything, I just put it together in one place here for convenience. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

if you notice anything missing, pls lmk. there's a bit of repetition of info in places as prev posts on the topic overlapped.

---

CC is vast [source] and immensely detailed [source]

We will enter CC straight after Varric’s opening narration [source]

You are given 5 categories to work your way through in CC: Lineage, Appearance, Class, Faction, Playstyle. Each of these has a range of subcategories within them. There are 8 subcategories within the “head” subcategory" in “Appearance” alone [source]

Lineage dictates things like race (i.e. human, elf, dwarf, qunari) and backstory [source]

Backstories include things like factions. Factions offer 3 distinct buffs each [source]

There are dozens and dozens of hairstyles [source]

There are separate options for binary and non-binary pronouns and gender [source]

“BioWare’s work behind the scenes, meanwhile, goes as deep as not only skin tones but skin undertones, melanin levels, and the way skin reacts differently to light” [source]

CC has a range of lighting options within it so that you can check how the character looks in them [source]

There are a range of full-body customization options such as a triangular slider between body types and individual settings down to everything from shoulder width to glute volume [source]. There are “all the sliders [we] could possibly want”. The body morpher option allows us to choose different body sizes [source]

All body options are non-gendered [source]

They/them pronouns are an option [source]

Rook can be played as non-binary [source]

Individual strands of hair were rendered separately and react remarkably to in-game physics [source]

Special, focused attention was paid to ensuring that hairstyles “come across as well-representative, that everyone can see hairstyles that feel authentic to them, even the way they render” [source]

The game uses strand hair technology borrowed in part from the EA Sports games. The hair is “fully-controlled by physics,” so it “looks even better in motion than it does here in a standstill” [source]

The ability to import our choices from previous games is fully integrated into CC. This will take the form of tarot cards - “you can go into your past adventures” and this mechanic tells you what the context was and what decision you want to make [source]

In CC we will also be able to customize/remake our Inquisitor [source]

A core tenet of the game is “be who you want to be” [source]

There are presets for all 4 of the game’s races (human, elf, dwarf, qunari), in case detailed CCs overwhelm you [source]

It is the best CC BioWare has ever made in a game [source]

The faction we choose will determine who we as protagonist Rook were before they were recruited to put a stop to Solas [source]

Certain conversation options are only available to Rooks of certain factions. For example, Grey Wardens get conversation options that are focused on the Blight, as they know more about it from other people. It also impacts how people talk to Rook (reactivity from characters and then faction reactivity from plots relating to that faction) [source]

Faction choice affects a lot of things [source]

There aren’t unique missions (I think this means like the playable Origins in DA:O), but faction choice does set the course for Rook for the rest of the game [source]

“body customization and morphing. From more muscular characters, to curvier builds, and just about any shape you want to give your character, there are all sorts of toggles to adjust so you can give them any figure you want”. “There’s even features that let you choose proportions, so you can alter their height, give them wider shoulders, and much more” [source]

There are makeup options [source]

There are tattoo options [source]

The hair uses a “Strand system” to “make them behave and move in a believable way for the different races” [source].

There are 4 voices to choose from for Rook: two feminine and tow masculine (one American, one British for each) [source]

In CC, 'Lineage’ is the game’s parlance for race i.e. human, elf, dwarf, qunari [source]

We can pick Rook’s name, but the dialogue calls them 'Rook’ [source]

In CC we can “make a few key decisions that will impact how The Veilguard begins” [source]

“I really do think its our most feature-ful character creator ever.” [source]

All armor and clothing options will scale and mesh to any body type [source]

The character creator has lots of sliders for body parts and overall shape, none of which are tied to the voice or pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them) that you choose [source]

“Epler took special care to show off the extensive curly and textured hair options in the game, including several versions of braids and locs, noting that increasing these options in particular was very important to the team” [source]

You can change your character’s physical appearance at any time during the game, but not their class or backstory [source]

“Each individual class has some variability, too; even the mage class has some up-close-and-personal attacks, since a mage player character could still conceivably have an assassin backstory and would therefore need to have some attacks to accommodate that sort of career path” [source]

“ "We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about skin tone,” Corinne said. The character we made, a Black elf, seemed to glow in the bluish light of a nighttime scene, and under bright sunlight, I could see the richness of his color. Corinne: "We want to make sure that skin tone is reflected authentically” “ [source]

” “We have dozens and dozens of hair types,” she said. “And they’re fully affected by physics.” The quality and variety of choices I saw delighted me. The rows of bouncy, luxurious-looking hair of all curl types and textures (and yes, the annoyingly ubiquitous “Killmonger cut” was among the options, what can you do?) brought the biggest smile to my face in the hour I spent with Busche and The Veilguard.“ [source]

BioWare confirmed that even if you make your Rook a short king, the team has done work to ensure animations fit any character build [source]

“Dragon Age’s character creator has seen a massive glow-up” [source]. “The volume of choices you get here are frankly insane. As Epler noted, “you could spend forever here,” and he’s not kidding.” [source] The art and graphics teams spent a lot of time trying to make hair look amazing [source: the Discord]

In CC we can customise our “bulge size” [source]

Some more detail on the new lighting options to see how Rook looks like in CC when you make them: you can view them in “blazing forest sunshine versus the glare of an underground temple” [source]

“newly mobile, extra-hairy hair” [source]

Faction choice has statistical boons. For example, Shadow Dragon Rook deals extra damage to Venatori blood cultists [source]

Faction choice basically determines why Rook has been called to help in the fight against Solas [source]

All pre-determined character models in CC can be adjusted [source]

You can make a really tall dwarf if you want [source]

“Setting your previous world state is fully integrated into the character creator for Veilguard” [source: the Discord]

Inquisitor appearance will be re-created, there is no way to carry their appearance from DA:I into the game [source: the Discord]

Classes for Rook are not restricted in the sense that you can play any almost class, lineage and faction combination that you want. For example, a mage Rook can be a Crow [source: the Discord] (Fel note: it sounded like Rook cannot be a magic-wielding dwarf, even though the exception of Harding now exists) (Fel note: there is a mage Crow in one of the books)

“The diverse body and gender options make it an industry leader by a signifcant margin” [source]

“BioWare was keen to highlight the hair strand technology that looked very similar to that seen in FIFA and EA FC, also made under EA’s roof” [source]

“Fine tuning sliders that allowed for microscopic adjustments of nose angles, it was clear that a lot of options exist to get the smallest possible body parts exactly right” [source]

“There’s no specific genital customisation to be oversold as CDPR did but, much like Saints Row, there is an option for bulge customisation” [source]

Pronoun choice, gender identity, body type, and voice choice are 4 separate options, not tied together [source]

Height is customised on a slider [source]

Size is customized on a triangle like in Saints Row: the 'points’ are fat, slim and muscular [source]

The different lighting options are 4 different settings: clean, bright, dim, sunset [source]

In CC you can also try out what Rook looks like in their starting rags, in typical mid-game armor, and some level 50 gear (class appropriate for each one) [source]

There’s a way for you to modify your character’s look once the game has started if you want to make some tweaks [source: the official Discord]

You can be any class and choose any backstory/faction, any race, any gender [source]

The opening cinematic Varric narrates at the start of the game plays before CC. “Following character creation, Varric’s narration continues, revealing that he’s put together a group to stop Solas, having recruited our character and a handful of others so far.” [source]

Faction choice affects in-game moments between other factions and locations, as well as characters [source]

Re: using body sliders in CC - “It looked incredibly easy to maneuver around and create a body that is either close to that player’s real personage or their ideal fantasy self” [source]

“Our presenter said that each specialization was pretty much as deep as a job” [source]

“Many fans were subject to the horror of DA Inquition’s special green light, so BioWare made it where players could shuffle through a handful of backgrounds to see how their character looks in different lights. Body sliders for fully customizable bodies, other appearance changes like tattoos, and everything fans would expect from a modern Dragon Age character creator seemed to be there.” [source]

Rook always shares a background with 1 of the companions. Makes sense, the backgrounds are Wardens, Crows, Shadow Dragons, Mourn Watch, Veil Jumpers, Lords of Fortune, and that’s Davrin, Lucanis, Neve, Emmrich, Bellara, Taash respectively [source]

The CC team and character art team spent a lot of time working on making sure that hairstyles behaved appropriately, in a realistic way, and on representing a lot of different hairstyles [source]

“We were told that one of the three key pillars of the game was ‘Be Who You Want To Be.’” [source]

“Numerous selections for a wide variety of body types & skin tones” [source]

There is faction-themed gear to wear, like if you chose Grey Warden as a background, there is GW gear. [source: The Discord]

“As a faction, the Inquisition doesn’t really feature prominently in the story - your appearance options are more reflective of the factions and styles you’ll encounter in The Veilguard.” [source: The Discord]

body sliders + “a triangle for gradients of body types” [source]

“The team heard us loud and clear on hair styles”. Frostbite engine updates served them well. Hair moves with your body and reacts to the wind [source]

For pronouns and gender selections, everything you select is used in the game and in cutscenes [source]

They were asked about the customizability of Rook’s backstory. Rook has 6 different backgrounds that you can choose from. Each of them is tied to one of the major factions in DA:TV. “Each one sets up who Rook was before they were recruited by Varric. Well that sets out the broad events. As you go through the game, as you have conversations, either with members of your faction, other characters, you can define not just what those events were but what they meant to you. What was your motivation, what was the kind of person you are as you build up Rook. Because again, we wanna make sure that roleplaying is at the heart of this experience, and taking Rook, giving them background to ground them in the world and then letting you decide what that means, what that says about you, is also a big part of it.” “A lot of opportunities to really define who your Rook was and who they are now, so.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

They have taken a different approach on how we import our decisions into the game this time around. This is now fully integrated into the character creator. The devs believe that this serves a dual purpose. Corinne said that she playfully thinks of it as ‘last time on Dragon Age’, though it isn’t actually called this in the game. She noted that it has been ten years since the last Dragon Age game was released, so this aspect serves as a refresher on critical events as well as allowing us to remake those decisions that are critical to us. The system for doing this is very highly visual and uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic. “It’s a very visual and playful experience as you go through it.” It was very important to them that this system was built into the client, so that you can play this game entirely offline. No online connection is required, no linking to EA accounts is required – this was a big fan request.

Corinne added, “I don’t want to spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, but I will say that this [thinking about the decision import system and what decisions to include] has been a really interesting creative intersection for us, because on the one hand, this is a whole new adventure”. In this game we are in northern Thedas, in locations we have not been to before. This naturally affects “some of what will matter and what decisions they’re not using this time around, as far as decisions. But obviously there are some very, very clear connections to existing characters.” “It’s no secret that the Inquisitor is going to show up, so that’s a factor”. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

In CC, Rook’s pronouns can be chosen. You can select both pronouns AND gender, as as Corinne noted, these are related concepts, but actually not exactly the same thing. Rook can be non-binary. The pronouns available are she/her, they/them, and he/him. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

The Character Creator is very detailed and very deep. The team focused a lot on doing good hair and doing hair and skin tones respectfully. There is full body customization. They are going to show us a lot more on CC in the future, but at a time when they have the time and space to do so. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

Q. How extensive are Rook’s decision trees for companions and NPCs throughout the game going to be?

A. “Huge. It’s a Dragon Age game. We wanna make sure you have choices, we wanna make sure you can choose your roleplaying but also choose outcomes of conversations, choose how events unfold. We wanna make sure that we also react to decisions you’ve made. So, for example, you may be talking to a follower who is an elf, and if you yourself are an elf, obviously you’re gonna have a different perspective on events than someone who is not an elf. Sometimes that means different conversation options. Sometimes that’s going to mean entirely deep dialogue trees. As well as based off decisions you’ve made throughout the game, so. Again, making sure that the game feels like the it’s noticing what you’re doing is a huge part of how we’ve written out the dialogue trees in this game.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

 “There are quite a few, easily more than we’ve done before I think, tattoos from various cultures. We’re bringing the vallaslin back of course. There are a ton of different options, especially when we’re going into all of these new regions. Each region has its own kinda visual language for that. But yeah, we are bringing the vallaslin back, and then a couple of the characters have them, but we’ve kinda customized them a little bit, they’re a bit more specific to their personality.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

Corinne’s favorite thing other than the companions is the CC. “That CC, the makeup options, the range of sliders… I’m a qunari fan, so even just the way you customize the horns and combine that with the really great looking hair”. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

The Inquisitor can be customized, “include some of our new customization options”. “Yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

We will get to see the Character Creator before launch. “They are laying out a roadmap for what we are going to show and when we are gonna talk about it. So, yes, you will see it, as we get a little bit closer to launch.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

In CC, the body customization can be done for humans, elves, dwarves and qunari. Qunari hair options and horn options are rad. They acknowledged that it was hard to have nice-looking hair for qunari in DA:I. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

“Related to this, your Lineage (human/elf/dwarf/qunari) gives you a lot of really unique dialogue options, so that’s a really lovely aspect of choosing your lineage as well.” “Each lineage, depending on the lineage you choose and the background you choose, there are some specific call outs to. For example, if it’s the Mourn Watch, them being a faction from Nevarra of mages, obviously your experience as a dwarf there is going to be different than say a human or an elf, so, there are also specific callouts tailored to those combinations with again, the intention of giving each lineage their own little flavor as to how they fit into that faction as a whole.” [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

“Rook’s last name is defined based on their faction, again, we wanted to tie that into your backstory, but also, there’s a name generator that can give you a selection of first names. Obviously if you want to make your own first name, that’s definitely something we support as well.” But if you always struggle during CC and name all your characters like 'Bob’ or something, you’re gonna be okay thanks to the name generator. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

"some of what I saw behind closed doors, as well as the way the devs spoke openly about the passion for diversity, gave me a lot of hope for this installment." [source]

"A New Peak For Progressive Character Creators. My first thought as I watched the dev take us through Dragon Age: The Veilguard's character creator at Summer Game Fest was 'okay, everyone can shut up about Cyberpunk 2077 now'." "Dragon Age, as I've written about in more depth in my full breakdown, cares. It takes elements of Cyberpunk 2077 and Saints Row, plus its own creator from 2014's Inquisition which was then best-in-show and remains a contender even today. It acknowledges the trans experience in a multitude of ways, likely owing heavily to game director Corinne Busche being a trans woman and therefore able to inject a personal perspective that most other games lack." "The dev also made a Black woman during our gameplay demo" [source]

The world reacts to Rook’s lineage and backstory. There are unique dialogues or conversation options based on backstory and lineage. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

There are glorious, fantastic dwarf beards. "I don’t know what magic the character art team did with the beards”, but they feel/look like how beards should. [source: June 14th Discord Q&A with devs]

On the slider for body type selection: “It looked incredibly easy to maneuver around and create a body that is either close to that player’s real personage or their ideal fantasy self” [source]

“Our presenter said that each specialization was pretty much as deep as a job” ((job - class)) [source]

“sliding a cursor across a triangle that can make your character stocky and chubby or tall and muscular or anything in between” [source]

[drops-of-moonlights]

Next with the redesigns we get to the WarioWare cast! which oh god there's so many people here what the fuck! anyways! Here we have basically the cast of the og with two from later games. The Warioware cast designs are peak so not a lot is changed, but hey, I still changed some things, so let's get to them! (shoutout to the official WarioWare website it was so useful!)

Mona and Joe are the easiest since they keep themselves more or less the same - still the deliverywoman extraordinaire and her lovable boss. Mona here like everyone else is a bit older - a college student, majoring in archaeology, and has upgraded from a scooter to a motorcycle (quite literally upgraded, Crygor took her scooter and turned it into a bike). Joe keeps himself more or less the same, except a bit afraid of losing the best employee he ever had.

The man with the beat Jimmy T and the silly lil alien, Orbulon! With the former I just added some stars on his pants and also gave him melanin, because frankly the bright colors work better with darker skintones and the Mario cast is pale as milk, some variety is nice. for Orbulon I just put him in his human disguise's cute little minidress, because we stan a gender-non-conforming king. Fun trivia: Jimmy has beef with Waluigi over who has the better dance moves. They get along otherwise but if there's dancing happening it is ON. SIGHT.

Diamond Taxi's speed demons, Dribble and Spitz! I similarly didn't change much, just more detail on shoes, Dribble wearing his coveralls differently, and their earrings, which are actually their wedding rings, because look at me in the eyes and tell me these two aren't fucking. that's right you can't. Spitz finally got to publish his novel! It's doing better than Dribble expected.

Mad Scientist and Beleaguered Karaoke Robot Assistant Duo, Crygor and Mike! The levels at which Crygor is a cyborg vary SO OFTEN I just gave him the full helmet, a robotic left hand and a robotic foot. Mike I only changed up a smidge and changing his face to an LED display for better emoting. Still Penny's loving grandfather, he's gently trying to steer her towards a focus on the mechanics rather than chemistry, believing that she can achiever her idol dreams without having to rely on questionable homemade beverages. Mike on the other hand encourages to focus more on chemistry out of the selfish desire she can make a drink that will give HIM a perfect singing voice lol.

Nintendo Fanatics 9-Volt and 18-Volt! For fun I gave them the real names of Nikola and Edison. Now middle schoolers, they still enjoy skating and Nintendo games. I did the same with 18-Volt as what I did with Jimmy T. 9-Volt's helmet is more clearly a firefighter helmet - it's his dad's old model that he gifted to him.

And to finish it off, Kat and Ana! I wanted both of them to have more unique color palletes, and as a further distinction Kat has freckles. Like the rest they're a bit older, now elementary-school kids, and while he's not in this post they also get along a LITTLE better with Leo.

[shiny-jr]

I also think Falena might not be all that either. There's an episode in the lion king talking (singing?) about Scar's past and I can clearly see that Mufasa was at fault for what happened (I mean the other lion and Scar's actions were wrong too but Mufasa was kind of like the trigger)

It made me really frustrated with how everyone blames the villains and never the heros. The same thing in the live action of Alice in Wonderland as the white queen was totally responsible for how her sister ended up and yet she even hesitated to apologise to the red queen at the scebe were they were taken to the sisters' past

NAH, OKAY LETS BE FOR REAL. This event I'm hearing about (only hearing about because it's only on the Japanese server right now so maybe everything I hear isn't true now keep that in mind), is making me rethink a lot of things about Leona. Long rant below.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm low-key hyped to finally see Falena (he better have a good amount of melanin, I swear to god), I'm personally hoping he's a bit of a himbo but I realize that probably won't happen. Anyways, I've been hearing a lot of theories from people who are able to play the new event. Here are a few that I really want to believe so I'm choosing to believe until proven wrong:

I saw some people upset that when we finally got a Savanaclaw event, Leona and Jack were in it, but not Ruggie. I thought it was a little strange, until I saw someone suggest this: What if the reason Ruggie didn't come, is because Leona knows that Ruggie probably doesn't like the royal family due to how they rule the country and forget his people, the hyenas? That makes complete and total sense to me. I'll come back to this point in a second.

If you analyze Lion King lore, apparently Scar was often regarded as a weak and sickly lion and was thus not fit for even hunting. So he was kind of seen as useless, no matter how much he tried. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a similar dynamic with Leona being disliked for not being as strong as his elder brother Falena. Which is messed up, because there's more to a person than just physical strengths.

Apparently in the new event, Leona mentions how he wants to use his fourth year at NRC to look into technology that might be used to improve the lives of people in his country. Which speaks VOLUMES. Especially when it's also mentioned that Falena, the current king, thinks the opposite. He thinks people should be focused on connecting with nature again. This brings me back to point one. I think the people Leona wants to help are those most in need, aka the hyenas, but as a second prince never listened to, he has no power to help with this. And maybe that used to torment him a lot and might've been a role in his overblot. Please tell me, is Falena even concerned for the hyenas? I seriously think he doesn't even care for them. In fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if Falena doesn't really approve of Leona and Ruggie's friendship.

As for Alice in Wonderland, I didn't even like the White Queen in the first one. Turns out my dislike towards her was totally valid. Like, if the White Queen had just told the truth the Red Queen would've never gotten that head injury, countless people wouldn't have died, they never would've had that huge conflict and war. You're telling me that after watching her sister get tormented, become kinda crazy, all this due to her mistake, and she never said a word? She never even apologized? Nah, be for real. The White Queen was so wrong for that. I totally get why the Red Queen was angry, because her sister's lie literally ruined her life.

[ren-rambles-often]

Hi...Do you know what anime you'll watch this season?

My top 3 fav this season are :

- Tadaima, Okaeri (wholesome BL, also one of my comfort read)

-Black Butler : Public School Arc (yes the ship is problematic but you cannot deny the shipper when you watch it. I'm not shipping SebasCiel but I'm not anti too. Their canon relationship is complicated but great story)

-Wind Breaker (bucchigiri but way better and loveable mc)

Hope you'll like them.....

Hey hey ( ◜‿◝ )♡, Literally following all of these already.

Black Butler was definitely a must, since the announcement dropped sometime last year I've been unable to keep it out of my mind. It's understandable not everyone will ship them but I personally have missed Sebaciel shenanigans so much and seeing favorite characters like Soma (although with less melanin than I remember lol what =_=) in the recent episode just made me so happy.

As for Tadaima Okaeri, I was looking forward to it for a long time, so far I'm not disappointed and it's definitely so fucking cute. All I'm saying is...if any country needs to push baby making propaganda they should go for this instead of the trashy het stuff, I don't make the rules.

I have almost no thoughts on Wind Breaker. It's definitely an upgrade but after the disappointment that was Bucchigiri, I've began to keep my expectations for Delinquent shows low (Tokyo revengers and IWGP are yet to be topped for me). It's not bad but do feel like it's lacking substance in some areas and trying too hard. The main character isn't a bitch tho so I know there's hope for it yet.

To me this year's winter season had way more exciting stuff but there are a number of other anime I'd love to recommend for this spring.

Karasu wa aruji wa Erabanai (The Raven does not choose it's Master) Is almost like the apothecary diaries, but with magic, and without the herbs and medicine...but it has the court politics so yay (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ taking place in a world where people can turn into three legged ravens called Yatagurasu, Yukiya after causing some trouble for his family is taken to serve the most special of specials crown prince who is to become the next Kin'u after picking a bride from the four daughters of the clan heads sent to him. So basically every gay historical romance Wattpad story lol. Unfortunately this isn't a bl and though you can probably tell the prince will get married in future episodes, from these three eps, I think it establishes the focus will be on him and Yukiya, which, I couldn't ask for more.

Another Recommendation is Kaijuu no. 8, I have no words (in a good way). Just spacial forces slaying gigantic monsters while the main character suddenly becomes one of those monsters and has to still join the special force that at some point will kill him if they find out, or if they have found out they realize he's different from other monsters and can help them win the war for humanity *aot flashbacks ಥ‿ಥ* What I'm trying to say is that... it's good. I think it's funny with characters that have to potential to reel you in. I've been told the manga is pretty average tho but we'll see.

Touken Ranbu Kai is...something, I don't watch anime just for pretty boys but even if I didn't like the plot of this one I'd stick with it just for the guys. Beautiful character designs, the lore feels very fresh and intriguing and as well. There's a lot of philosophical topics I think the show has potential to dive into and I'm excited to see where we go moving forward from the three eps out currently.

Last but not least, there's Sentai Daishikkaku (Go Go Loser Ranger) I really don't want to spoil anything but let me just say, it's a brilliant subversion of the Power Rangers narrative. The sound track is fun while also hitting hard, and the characters definitely leave you wanting to know more about them and the world they're in. Definitely give it a try, I don't think you'll regret it.

Got a bit carried away with this one hahah, welp that's all my recs for now. Aside from my shipping stuff I'll probably talk about any of these every now and then, my top three right now tho are definitely Black Butler, Sentai Daishikkaku and Karasu wa aruji wa Erabanai. Anon has amazing taste but I'm a very big action and supernatural fan at heart so I'm based.

Depending on how disappointing or exciting things get along the line this list might change but unfortunately my feelings don't help the state of my FAL ranking so yeah wish me luck (〒﹏〒)

Feel free to leave YOUR current top 3 for this season in the comments, or if you joined FAL like me or just what you think of any of these of you're already watching them (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤

[roguemonsterfucker]

Uhhh a Zebra is white with black stripes :D

WRONG!

Zebras are bay dun.

The ‘white’ is a very very lightened brown. And the black stripes are what can be called ‘primitive dun markings.’

Dun in horses is a gene that lightens part of the body, leaving behind darker stripes in certain areas, usually confined to the legs, a dorsal stripe, and sometimes a shoulder stripe.

Arguably, you could say zebras are black with lightened areas because by default equines are black with certain areas where the melanin turned off. Though any simple description would be oversimplifying the genetics behind it.

But regardless zebras have three genes at play causing their black and white effect. They are black based, with the agouti gene (causes bay in horses), and dun. The bay and lightened areas of the dun probably cause the white effect. I suspect that if a zebra didn’t have the bay gene, the areas that are white would look much more grey, like a grulla (black dun) horse. And if it didn’t have the black gene, the stripes would probably be a nice red like a red dun horse’s stripes but I would guess the white would stay white.

Praying one day we find a zebra that carries chestnut/non-black. 🥺

Anyways I came up with this whole theory (and yes, it was a theory) based on looking at pictures of horse-zebra hybrids. The reason I was doing that is because the maker of Horse Isle 3 made some strange choices for the genetics of zebra hybrids. They for some reason decided the black gene in zebras is recessive to chestnut in horses, meaning that even if a zebra had two copies of black they could have a chestnut horse hybrid foal. Which just. Didn’t sit right with me.

So I scrolled through as many pictures of zebra hybrids as I could find and I realized… they all look like bay duns. Like yeah, they have some zebra stripes but the coloration looks black based with the agouti/bay gene. And the stripes on the hybrids had similar patterns to the normal dun stripes in horses.

So I came up with this theory about zebras being EE, AA, DD. E means black. A means bay. And D means dun. So in theory all* zebras have two copies of those genes, meaning they can’t have a foal that doesn’t have at least one copy of them as well. Ergo every zebra hybrid is a bay dun.

* there are probably exceptions somewhere, but that should be the general rule in a wild population.

And I needed to figure out reasonable genes for zebras because I want zebras in The Ultimate Horse Game. And that seemed like a good way to make them work. No way to know for sure, of course. Who would be out there doing gene tests on zebras, right?

Welllllll

As I said, I was scrolling through zebra hybrid pictures and I found an instagram post in another language. I didn’t have anything better to do so I got the translation and low and behold.

Someone did a gene test on zebras and zebra hybrids. And you’ll never guess.

I was fucking right.

EE AA DD.

Zebras are bay dun. At least in horse color terms.

So I was right. Horse isle 3 was wrong. I’m a genius. And zebras aren’t (genetically) black and white.

But also they are visually black and white. 😂 So you’re not wrong. I just think the genetic answer is a lot more fun. 🥰

Now anyone wanna know how I’m right about quaggas?

[blnk338]

Could you share the issue regarding the inclusivity poll please? The one you said was resolved? Just so it helps other writers. I think it's important to share such information<3 or maybe do some notes us other writers should be aware of?

I didn't vote because I am not a poc but since we're on the topic of reader insert: the one thing I felt a bit uncomfortable with was "your mom's name" when reaper was visiting her mom. I personally don't have an issue imagining myself as an oc persona such as a ripped reaper but my mom is so nice and that part bugged me. For example, I feel like parents' names shouldn't be inserted or mentioned at all. OR give them a random name at the beginning as a starter disclaimer. Just a personal thought. Everything else is very much well thought through. Kudos as always 😉

hello!!

so the issue that was brought up from the poll was solved here, but i have so far not gotten a response for the "not good" answer. i suppose it could have been a misclick or perhaps someone just wanted to see the answers and didn't read the title first, but if there was an issue (or issues) that caused them to genuinely pick that answer, i'd love to be able to fix it!

some general notes when it comes to writing a race-neutral mc:

don't describe showers (or really, certain morning/night routines); it's important because a lot of people don't wash their hair every day. whether it be for preference, for hair type, or for how they wear their hair, it can be alienating to detail every shower as "washing your hair."

this mistake was actually corrected in the tagged post-- but be aware of how some skin scars! it had slipped my mind that not all scarring ends up pinkish-- it'll just be a dimmer version of the person's skin tone.

don't use major descriptors for hair. "billowing in the wind," "[your ponytail] pulled at your scalp," "curling around the face." all of these can be linked to a certain hair type, usually.

when describing skin, use vague terms. for example "the light from the shades dappled across your skin," instead of "the light sheened off your pale skin."

"your cheeks grew pink," "your face went red," can't always be applied to people with darker skin tones. but yk what can? growing physically warm, sweating, getting goosebumps, or feeling rushes of adrenaline! if you're gonna write something fluffy, make sure everyone gets included.

sometimes eyebags aren't easily seen, either. a lack of melanin means the purple under the lids sticks out more, but eyebags are also sometimes visible with creases, puffiness under the eyes, or a slight droop.

don't go into major detail with facial features. when describing reaper's facial scarring, i keep it general and try not to describe how lips look, whether freckles are cut up from the scarring, etc.

also, when i talk about reaper's mask, i don't talk much about her nose. obviously, larger noses might stick out more from the base of the mask, but plenty of people have flattened noses, so that wouldn't really work. instead, i used a general description (not verbatim) "fits perfectly to your nose."

bonnets and durags! people wear them all the time! in the house, out of the house, but for sleeping, too! mention them as an option for your readers to better immerse them.

really try to remember, especially as a white person, that most fanfics (intended or not) use white people as a default. there're probably a lot of people who will enjoy your fic more if they can see themselves in place of the mc. if you don't sit back, reread your chapter and think "yeah, i could picture anyone in this position" (unless the fic is specified to be black!reader x character or something of the variation), you might want to change it up.

thank you for the comment on reaper's moms name! i sort of can't change that much considering how far we are into the series, but I've removed the times where specifically "your mom/mother's name" (or a variation) was mentioned. (let me know if i missed anything).

sorry about dissing your mom, I'm sure she's lovely :) (/gen)

i also partially didn't add any details on reaper's mom's name because i didn't want to allude to any specifics on reaper's background

thank you so much for the support!

as a small disclaimer... i'm really grateful to get this kind of feedback, from my readers of color and not, it's great to hear how I'm doing because i want to make a fun fic for you guys! if the change is something quick and easy (like this and the tagged message), i don't mind it!

[fluffykitteninabox]

My thoughts on MHA s6 ep17:

⚠️Spoilers (obviously) ⚠️

Alright let's get all my emotions about the episode out of the way first:

OMGFXFJCJFXGJGXUC THEY WERE SO CUTE OMG GUYS DID YOU SEE BABY NATSUO?? HE WAS THE MOST ADORABLE LITTLE THING AND FUYUMI WAS SO CUTE WITH HER LITTLE DRUM AND FXFJXIGCGJCU BABY SHOUTO OMG HE WAS SO ROUND!! AND TOUYA'S LITTLE FEET TAPPING WHEN HE WAS EXCITED😭😭HE WAS JUST A CHILD OMG 😭THEY WERE ALL JUST CHILDREN!!😭😭I'M HEARTBROKEN!!

ok...

Now about the episode. I think it has some of the best cinematography I have ever seen in my hero academia!

I'm going to gush a little. Bones decided they wanted to start experimenting with the animation and I'm here for it!

First they gave us A GREY SKY last episode and then this episode we get shots like these:

I am LOVING these Dutch angles and the camera spins.

THE COLOUR CONTRAST OH MY GOD IT'S SO GOOD!!!

It looks like Touya literally opened the door to hell in that shot!!

It's fucking amazing!!!

I hope they continue to experiment with lightning and creative angles like this in future episodes too, It really elevates the scene.

The one animation thing I will complain about (which is a real nitpick) is the single blood tear.

Hori gave us this nicely composed shot of the blood tear dropping as we transition from the panel of Dabi on the couch to a panel of the Todoroki household.

The way they animated this it shows the blood flowing down his face but then we cut to black hearing the sound of the droplet, before cutting to the shot of the Todoroki household.

Again this is a real fucking nitpick. They still shot it in a creative way, it's just not how I would have preferred it. I wish we saw the droplet landing or something. Especially because there's multiple other instances in this episode where they cut to black for dramatic effect, so taking out this one wouldn't change much.

They also changed the doctor. I remember everyone theorising that in the scene where Endeavor and Rei go to a doctor about Touya's condition that it was Ujiko.

And in the manga where we only got one not very detailed shot from behind, he really did look like that. However in the episode they changed that completely.

In the manga he looked bald, so I can see why people thought it was Ujiko. And personally I like that idea more since it fits with what we learn later about Touya in chapter 350.

AFO and the doctor would need to keep a close eye on him for AFO to appear and take Touya when the Sekoto incident happened. They were waiting for this. So showing "maybe Ujiko" as the doctor that Endeavor and Rei consulted was a neat little bit of foreshadowing.

They also reanimated the ball scene. In the season 2 version of the flashback they made Touya's hair red (even though it's white in the manga). I think that's why there was so much confusion about his hair colour in the fandom.

In the new version of the flashback they changed his hair back to white to fit the timeline of his loss of melanin better. I'm wondering if they're going to change the season 2 flashback too now or if it's just going to stay in as a continuity mistake.

I mean obviously the DVDs for season 2 have been out for long, so it would cost them a lot to fix it now. So they're probably not going to, which is understandable.

Something I didn't expect to like this episode was Hawks!!

I mean, I still don't exactly like his decision to help Endeavor. I don't like how Horikoshi keeps inserting him into the Todoroki side plot in general (as I've said many times)

But I liked the comedic relief he kind of provided. I think it wasn't as good in the manga, but here when they added the silly robot voice and him furiously typing on his phone! I think it worked a lot better in the episode.

Overall I really liked the episode, I think its quality is a lot better than the average my hero episode, even if there's not a lot of "premium treatment" scenes. That's what I like to call when the animation gets really smooth which usually happens in fight scenes, or in the intro.

The cinematography was visually intresting and that made panels that aren't really anything special in the manga, look absolutely amazing.

Again the scene where Touya opens the door to go outside.

It looks cool in the manga but I didn't think the animators would do anything other than colour these panels and slap some generic background behind the door. But they exceeded my expectations this time.

Even the shots of Touya training in the forest

LOOK AT THAT! WE HAVE A DARK NIGHT SKY IN MY HERO ACADEMIA!!

Not as shocking as the grey sky we got last week (OMG STILL HAVEN'T FULLY PROCESSED THIS) but still impressive by bones standards!

I mean I was half expecting them to just make him train midday with a bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds in the background!!

But look at how interesting and good my hero academia looks when the animators get some creative freedom and play around with the lighting and angles and the colours.

I wish every episode could look like this.

ok ok I'm done gushing about the animation now! 😂

Loved the episode

episode good 👍👍

more of that please!!

[sunsetsands]

Questionnaire Answers: Akada

General Anatomy

LIMBS

Akada have no legs, but they do have two arms, which are their primary manipulators. Even with how few fingers they have, their hands are extremely dextrous, much like an elephant's trunk or an octopus's tentacles. Also like these other animals, their arms, being made out of solid muscle, are incredibly strong, much moreso than you would probably expect by looking at them. 

BODY COVERING

Most of an akada’s body is just plain skin. This skin has a bumpy, wrinkly texture, similar to Earth gastropods, and is covered by a thin layer of mucus. All that needs to be done to keep this skin healthy is regular bathing, just like what humans do.

They also have their shells, which have a similar chemical composition to silicate stone, but are fully organic. These shells must frequently be polished in the same way we humans brush our teeth, or else they may soften or become stained. 

HABITAT AND ADAPTATIONS

Akada are terrestrial, mostly living in the tropical areas of their planet where their species originated. They have since spread out to the rest of the world, though they tend to avoid overly cold regions, only ever going there for more temporary visits like vacations or research excursions. 

Similarly to melanin in humans, the pink pigmentation in their skin helps block out UV radiation, which there is a lot of in equatorial areas. Further north or south, populations of akada tend to have less of this pigment, leading to a more purpley or bluish coloration.

Fun fact: The above image was created in MS Paint, whereas all of the others were made in procreate. This is because I created it during the third revision of this post and didn't feel like going through the process of uploading any more photos from my phone onto my computer. Please excuse the general bad quality.

TEMPERATURE HOMEOSTASIS

Akada do not have the ability to regulate their internal body temperature. Instead, they use technology, such as clothing, heaters, or humidifiers to maintain their ideal hot, humid conditions or just live in areas that are always like that, such as tropical marshes and rainforests.

EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY

The creature on the left is the closest extant relative of akada. It is descended from the same social burrowing species as akada are, but unlike their cousins, never emerged above ground. As such, their bodies are built for a digging-centric lifestyle. For example, their flatter bodies are better for fitting through small crevices, and their paddle-like arms are better for tunneling through dirt. The chemical composition of their shells is also a bit different, being more similar to limestone than silicate, a difference owed to a slightly different diet. In terms of intelligence, they do have more brainpower than most creatures, but quite to the point where they can be considered sapient, being more comparable to a chimpanzee than a human.

The creature on the right is an extinct ancestor species to akada which had only recently moved from an underground habitat to the surface. While their bodies were very different, having lower heads and shorter arms, their brains were more or less the same as their modern counterparts, being capable of complex language, originally used to coordinate movement through and creation of tunnels, creative problem solving, which helped protect their soft, vulnerable bodies from predators, and abstract thought, which they used to just appreciate the beauty of the world whenever they had a moment of free time. 

NECESSARY RESOURCES

Akada require a lot of water to survive, as their skin loses moisture very quickly. Most of this water is consumed through drinking, though some can also just be absorbed through the skin.

Additionally, due to the composition of their shells, they need to consume high amounts of calcium and silicon to stay healthy. What exactly they eat in order to meet this need will be described in more detail further down.

COMMON MUTATIONS

A common mutation akada can have is the formation of patterns on their shells. These patterns are the result of minerals not being evenly distributed throughout the shell during its formation, the same way certain stones can have colorful bands in them.

There are many different patterns that can form depending on how exactly the minerals are distributed. Below are four examples, though there are many more than this.

INJURIES AND HEALING

One of the most common injuries an akada can incur is a broken shell. Due to the size of the shell, it can take a while for any cracks to heal, but it doesn't do much to limit their mobility, so they can still live life fairly normally in the meantime.

Their soft parts, however, are much more easily healed, thanks to their powerful regenerative abilities. They can regrow any lost body part within a matter of weeks, no matter what part or how much they lose, though the regenerated flesh will always come back scarred and discolored. After the first regeneration, that particular part of the body will be a bit harder to grow back, a fact that will stack with each subsequent injury. It takes about five or six losses for a body part to become fully unregeneratable. 

If you're wondering, that white circle is a nerve cord, not a bone. Akada do not have bones.

Senses

SENSES

Akada have all of the same senses that humans have, but rely a lot more on smell and vibration detection. This is a holdover from their days as a burrowing species, where sight wasn't as important to being able to tell where they were going. Their sight is not as good as that of humans, with most akada being at least a little bit nearsighted, but they do have corrective lenses they can use to make seeing things easier.

Movement

MOVEMENT METHODS

Akada move by slithering on the ground. It's slow and doesn't offer them a lot of agility, but they can do it for long periods of time without getting tired.

Because this is so slow, they often make use of vehicles to get from place to place. Individual akada often use small scooters or hoverboards to navigate streets more quickly than they could on foot, while groups will travel around in bullet trains or carts pulled by animals. Blimps are also quite popular, even with how slowly they move, as akada tend to have higher tolerance for long travel times than humans. Their slow movement and long lifespans make them naturally very patient.

Reproduction and Lifecycle 

SEXES

By default, akada have both male and female reproductive organs. As such, most societies have no conception of gender, and the ones that do base their genders off of something non-sex-related, such as occupation or political ranking. It is possible for imperfect (male only/female only) akada to be born, but they are the exception rather than the norm, and this does not have any bearing on their gender identity. 

COURTSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP

Akada attract mates through a method commonly known to humans as "asking politely". Typically, akada will form couples of three, all of which have the same roles and responsibilities, although tasks will typically be split between them for extra efficiency. Courtship is a mutual arrangement, and all participants must consent for it to become official.

BEAUTY STANDARDS

Things like shell hygiene, eyestalk length, and physical strength are taken into consideration when judging the attractiveness of others. Shell hygiene especially is seen as important, considering how immediately obvious any blemishes will be. Outside of that, it's hard to describe anything in exact detail, since beauty fads come and go about as frequently as they do on Earth, and often make just as little sense.

LIFESPAN

Akada live, on average, for about 120 Earth years/200 Almud years, at least with current medical technology. Future life expectancies will likely be much longer. 

CHILDBIRTH AND CHILDCARE

Akada hatch from small eggs incubated in pools of warm water. In the early days of the species, these pools would usually be ponds or lakes, but in modern times, most groups use artificial vats.

Very little care is put into the aquatic larvae, which lack consciousnesses and are as a result not yet seen as people. Many of these larvae will die from either starvation or being eaten by other larvae, so only the largest and strongest will be able to metamorphose and emerge. Once they emerge from the water, however, younglings are pampered, raised with the help of the entire community, lasting from emergence until adulthood, with the town acting like an immense but ever-caring family. In short, akada use r-selection for their newborn young and K-selection for any that survive past infancy.

After emerging from the water, there are a few more changes that an akada's body will go through as they age, primarily just an increase in size and the enlongthenizing of their proportions. Outside of that, their shells also become harder and more deeply segmented, starting out as a smooth sheet of cartilage and becoming six fully distinct stony segments by mid-adolescence. The deepening of these grooves is often considered a sign that an akada is coming of age.

SEXUALITY

Nonreproductive sex between members of couples is common and expected. It is considered somewhat unusual for an akada to not have ever had sex, but it is not as frowned upon as it is among humans, since the more group-based society structure means less pressure is placed on the individual to produce offspring.

Diet and Foodchain

DIET

Akada are herbivores, primarily eating fruit, roots, and mold. They may also eat the discarded shells of clamlike creatures that wash up on shores as a way of supplementing more calcium into their diet, though this is frowned upon in some cultures, where the idea of eating any part of any animal is very taboo.

One important source of minerals is a crop called sukolo (or at least, that’s its name in the only language I’ve bothered creating so far), a sort of hard, dusty, mold-like saprotroph that grows in tall pillars. It has the texture of chalk and the flavor of drywall, but supplies so much nutritional value that it remains a cornerstone of most akada's diets regardless. 

When this isn't enough to meet their mineral intake needs, some akada will just straight up eat rocks and crystals. Their teeth are strong enough to make this not impossible, though it's hardly a pleasant process. Condiments may be used to alleviate the process.

EATING HABITS

In most cultures, food is consumed in small portions at irregular intervals. There are no standardized times where one is expected to eat, nor is there any conception of “early day” or “late day” foods the same way we associate certain types of food with breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. 

PREDATORS

As large herbivores, there are many predators that occasionally attempt to prey on akada. This is, understandably, something that akada are not huge fans of, so they have developed several ways of fighting back. Many cities are encased in walls too tall for the predators to get past or are equipped with turrets to shoot them with pellets as a nonlethal deterrent. Other groups have attempted to drive their predator species to extinction, mostly unsuccessfully. Most of the time, though, they just avoid areas known to have predators present or use repellent spray to get them to leave them alone. 

RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER ORGANISMS

There are a handful of small parasites that may infect akada, such as digestive endoparasites or worms that burrow through their shells. All of these creatures are just considered to be mild annoyances, and many treatments are available to get rid of them.

On a larger scale, several entire ecosystems are reliant on the presence of akada-built structures, just like how cities on Earth have become havens for certain species. These urban ecosystems are even more complex than their Earthen equivalents, as most large Almudian cities being built primarily from clay means plants are able to grow on and around them uninhibited, providing many more areas for creatures to make their homes. 

Body Rhythms

SLEEP

Similar to their eating habits, rather than having one long period of sleep at one specific time of day, akada have several short naps throughout the day. A side effect of this is that the scheduling for most other parts of their lives, such as work, are very nonstandardized, since there’s no possible time that could work for everyone. People are just allowed to customize their work schedules to best fit their sleep schedule (or lack thereof).

Communication

LANGUAGE

Akada, like humans, communicate mostly through vocalizations, though some cultures rely more on bodily movements or other nonverbal cues. A few settlements use exclusively nonverbal signing as language, mainly extremely cold/dry areas where their faces are too heavily covered up to speak.

BODY LANGUAGE

Most akada body language is in some way based around part of their body recoiling/retracting inwards or stretching outwards. This is especially noticeable in any fear/surprise-based expressions, where their entire heads may compress inward. Other behaviors include arm gesticulation, antenna wiggling, mouth scrunching, and neck lowering/raising. I have not yet mapped out exactly what these gestures mean, but I'll get around to it eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.

Society

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Akada are very sociable and tend to live in intricately interconnected communities. These communities range wildly in size, with smaller ones having only a few dozen akada and larger ones having tens of thousands. The larger a group is, the less intimate they are, but there's always some degree of connection.

Most of the work done by an akada is done for the sake of their community. They are naturally inclined to put others' needs before their own, and any purely selfish act done at the expense of others is immediately shamed.

There are no strictly-defined nations on Almud in the same way there are on Earth. Cultural associations, trade routes, and political alliances may tie smaller collections of cities together, but they aren’t surrounded by borders. Territorialism between groups is low to nonexistent. 

DISPUTES

Due to how slowly they move, akada lack the athleticism required for any sort of large-scale war, leaving diplomacy as the only viable option. When a dispute occurs, long discussions will be held in order to find the outcome that would best benefit everyone involved. These discussions have a tendency to move along at a snail's pace, though.

If battles do happen, they are performed either entirely with ranged weapons or on the back of Almud’s closest equivalent to a horse. Combat such as this has become increasingly rare in recent history. 

IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP MENTALITY

Akada are typically more welcoming of outsiders than humans, thanks in part to the aforementioned intrinsic drive to help and be kind to others, but they aren't immune to bias by any means. Exactly how prone to bigotry akada are varies between different regions of the globe. Generally, societies with an abundance of resources, like those near the equator, are typically more accepting, since they have less reason to push away others, while far north or far south groups tend to be slightly more paranoid and xenophobic. These are not universal by any means, however.

BONDING

Akada live very community-oriented lives, which necessitates forming strong bonds with others. There is a wide variety of types of bonds they may form, encompassing really any type of connection you can think of a human forming on Earth, like distant family bonds with townspeople, closer family bonds with those they spend most of their time with, friendships with people from other towns, romantic bonds with mates, and associations with coworkers. All of this leads to day-to-day life being very dynamic and complex.

SENSE OF IDENTITY

Most of an akada's sense of identity comes from which town they reside in. As mentioned before, a single settlement of akada is functionally a massive family, so the place they grow up has a huge impact on how they act and view the world around them.

The most widespread naming convention in akada society is one or two given names, then a surname denoting their hometown. For example, if an akada was named Talo Vozenalk, it would mean "Talo from the city of Vozena." The "-alk" suffix is typically used to denote residency.

DOMESTICATION

Akada have domesticated a wide range of creatures over their history, including large herbivores to pull carts, small carnivores to ward off pests, and a variety of docile animals kept as pets.

Of these pets, one of the most popular is the zhay (again, name in the one currently existing language), an eel-like creature in the same order as akada. Zhays were originally domesticated to scare off aquatic predators and keep pests out of lake farms. They fill a similar societal role to dogs, sometimes being considered as much of a part of the family/community as an akada would be.

ART

The artform given the most importance in most cultures is ceramics and clay sculptures. Clay, as a whole, plays a very important role in Almudian society, being not just the material most buildings are built out of, but the medium of the early writing styles most modern scripts are derived from.

There are clay sculptures dating back to the earliest days of akada civilization, depicting all sorts of things, mostly culturally significant animals and historical figures. A good chunk of archaeological information about early societies comes from these sculptures.

Modern sculptures tend to take more abstract forms. There have been innumerable art movements over the years, each with their own substyles and subsubstyles, as well as snobs proclaiming their preferred style to be better than all of the others. These sorts of debates get heated very quickly.

That's all there is to say for this questionnaire. It took a very long time to fill all of this out, so I hope that it was worth reading.

Alien Questionnaire - A Biological Perspective

A while ago, somebody linked me a very comprehensive worldbuilding questionnaire. For most aspects of a fictional society, it was great, but I noticed it assumed that anyone using it was making up a fictional human society, or at least a society of beings very similar to humans. As such, there was almost nothing in the biology department, which to me is one of the best parts! Thus, this questionnaire was born.

These questions are designed to help people worldbuild from a biological foundation. As such, the questionnaire only touches lightly on other aspects of a fictional society, and is more of a jumping off point. I wrote it with the aim of using it to develop aliens, but it should be suitable for any project with non-humanoid species, such as sapient terrestrial animals.

Have fun! I'd love to see your answers :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General Anatomy How many limbs do they have? Do they have limbs at all?

What are their primary manipulators? Where are they located? How does this affect their tool use, building ability, etc?

What kind of body covering do they have, e.g. hair, scales, feathers? How do they clean it? Do they shed this covering constantly, or all at once at certain times? 

Can they maintain a constant body temperature? If not, how do they deal with changing environmental temperatures? 

What kind of habitat do they live in? Both specific habitat, and broader such as on land vs in water.

What adaptations do they have for living in this habitat?

What kind of creature did they evolve from?

What are the similarities and differences to their closest living relatives? 

What resource(s) is the most necessary and urgent for them? E.g. for many animals, but not all, it’s water.

What are some common mutations? E.g. eye colours, ability to digest lactose in humans.

What injuries or illnesses are considered disabling? 

How is their healing ability? Can they regenerate? If they can, is that limited to certain body parts or a certain number of times?

Senses What senses do they have? E.g. sight, smell, electroreception, etc.

How good are those senses?

Which of their sense/s do they use the most in everyday life?

How might this choice of sense impact the way they interact with the world? 

Can they detect things that Earth creatures cannot? If yes, how and why?

Movement  How do they move? Do they walk, crawl, fly, etc? 

If they have multiple modes of movement, which is preferred, and why?

Which part/s of their body do they use to move?

What is their speed and endurance like? 

How agile are they? 

Do they rely mainly on their own bodies for travel, or do they use pack animals and machines? 

How often do they move around? Are they mainly sedentary, do they move a lot within a set area, do they migrate, etc?

Do they have different levels of mobility depending on age, sex, or other biological group? E.g. young barnacles are able to swim, while adults are anchored permanently to a surface. 

Reproduction and Lifecycle  How many sexes are there? 

Are there differences between the sexes (ignoring the reproductive system)? 

Are there different castes, such as in honeybees or naked mole rats? If so, what is the function of each caste? 

Are differences in sex or caste used to justify discrimination or hierarchy? How might these ideas differ in different populations? 

Do they have a concept of gender? If so, is gender affected by sex, caste, or some other factor?

How do they attract a mate? Do they release a chemical into the air, do an elaborate display, etc?

Does one individual try to actively woo another, or is courtship more mutual?

What do they find attractive in members of the same species?

What is the usual reproductive partnership? E.g. two individuals, one main reproducing individual with a harem, no set partner, etc. 

How long do they live?

How are young brought into the world? Live birth, eggs, spores, etc?

Is producing young a painful, dangerous process, or is it easy?

How much parental investment is there? Are there many young with little investment, or few young with a lot of investment (r vs K strategy)? Or is it somewhere in the middle? 

How many offspring are produced at a time? Think about how attitudes towards children may differ between a species that produces one or two, and a species that produces dozens or even hundreds at a time.

How do they grow? Are they born looking like miniature adults, gradually growing bigger? Do they have specific phases of high growth, like puberty? Do they have a larval phase, metamorphosis? 

How self-sufficient are they as young? Can they move around and feed themselves as soon as they are born? Do they require parental care? 

What is the usual structure of childcare? Single or multiple parents/related individuals? Communally raised? 

Is sex purely for reproduction, or does it serve other purposes?

What kind of sexuality is considered the norm? This doesn’t just refer to same/other sex pairings, but the culture around sex in general.

Diet and Foodchain What is their diet? Are they carnivores, omnivores, frugivores, insectivores, etc?

Do they feed off an unusual source, for example rocks, metals, or (in appropriate settings) something like magic or souls?

What physical adaptations do they have for this diet? 

Is their diet very restricted, or can they have a wide range of foods?

How often do they eat? What is the culture around mealtimes, if any?

Are they prey for other organisms? For each other?

If they are, how do they deal with it? Do they fight back, have barriers, or do they accept it as a part of life?

If they are hunters themselves, what is their attitude to killing other organisms? Are they respectful? Prideful of their kill? Is it completely trivial? 

If they are hunters, how do they hunt? Are they solitary or packhunters? Are certain members of the group designated to hunt? 

Are the results of foraging or hunting shared, or is it everyone for themself?

Are they parasitic, parasitised, or in a symbiotic relationship with any other organisms? 

Body Rhythms How often do they sleep?

What time of the day are they most active? Are they nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular? 

Do they generally sleep for one long period a day, multiple shorter periods throughout, or something in between? 

Do they sleep to cope with extreme temperatures or bad conditions, i.e. hibernate or aestivate?

Do they have any biological processes that disrupt their life e.g. moulting, reproductive cycles, etc?

If yes, how does their society accommodate for these processes? Does it accommodate them at all? 

Communication What is their main method of communication? Sound, visuals, scent, etc? Think about their main sense and how this would affect communication.

What is their body language like? What small moving parts might aid their body language?

If they have multiple methods of communication, are they all given equal weight, or is one considered higher than others? 

Society How sociable are they? 

If social, what is the usual social structure? 

Are there hierarchies? How strict or relaxed are the roles?

How are disputes usually settled? Is it more common to be violent or appease the other party? 

If not social, what is the reaction to being with other individuals? Do they become aggressive or stressed? Do they tolerate each other? 

What is the usual size of a community? Do they have communities at all? 

Do they have an in-group vs out-group mentality? If so, how strong is it? This generally relates to how scarce or plentiful resources were during their evolution, and how territorial their ancestors were.

What kind of bonds do they form? 

On the spectrum of individualistic to community-oriented, where do they fall?

Do they have a strong sense of personal identity? Think about how this might tie in with the previous question. 

What are the main things they derive identity from? Occupation, gender, family ties, etc?

Do they have names? If yes, how are these names formed? Are they given by another party or chosen by the individual?

Have they domesticated any creatures? If so, what do they use these creatures for?

Do they have any unusual relationships with other creatures on their planet (beyond predation, parasitism or mutualism)?

Do they produce art? What are their main forms of artistic expression? Think about how this will be linked to their main sense(s), communication method, and/or primary manipulators.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GLOSSARY Primary manipulator: Main body part used to manipulate objects, e.g. hands in humans, trunks in elephants, feet in parrots.

Sedentary: Inactive, staying in the same place.

Caste (reproductive): A group within a species with differences in body type and reproductive ability.

Symbiosis/Mutualism: Interactions where both parties benefit, e.g. cleaner fish getting a meal in exchange for picking irritating parasites off larger fish.

Aestivate: To become inactive during hot or dry periods, usually involving being sealed in mucus or soil e.g. lungfish, snails. 

Reproductive cycle: Regular hormone fluctuations that affect an animal’s fertility or attitude towards breeding. The cycles can range from months to years and can include things such as antler growth in male deer, heat cycles, and menstruation in humans.

[cleostoohot]

3dolc x roe results part 2

if you don’t want to read all this i posted a much more straight to the point version my instagram. this is just more detailed.

ᥫ᭡ | PRETTIER VOICE

since i’ve been affirming my voice got way girlier. i had one of those kind of deep voices and i didn’t like it because people always said i don’t look how i sound. fuck that’s supposed to mean like huhh lmao. it also got softer and my accent isn’t as bold as it was before. i’ve been contemplating on if i want to get rid of my accent completely or not but I’m satisfied with how it is now.

ᥫ᭡ | ONE TONED BODY

as a melanin gyal, i had a lot of discoloration & hyperpigmentation on my body. especially on my knees, elbows, underarms, 🐈, etc. all that shit is gone now. i never seen my body so perfect like this, if only i had a man to show it off to lmaooo. now i can finally wear shorts without thinking everybody looking at my black ass knees 😅.

ᥫ᭡ | PRETTIER HANDS AND FEET

my fingers used to be a tiny bit curved but now they’re straight. also the wrinkles on my hands are also hardly noticeable. i never wanted to do boomerangs of my nails when i got them done cus of my hands but tuhhh my ig followers gone get tired of me, watch. and as for my feet they were already pretty before tbh. but the hard stop went a way so under my foot is completely smooth now.

ᥫ᭡ | BIGGER BUTT

this is my favorite! my butt got bigger and i got my desired shape too. i love the upside down heart shaped butts because they just look so damn nice. booty shorts gone be looking 10x better mm.

ᥫ᭡ | THICKER EYELASHES

i’m an eyelash puller and my eyelashes would fall out easy. i touch my eyes one time and boom, there go ma lash. since i’ve been affirming all the gaps are filled out which and it’s brings more attention to my eyes which is so flattering. someone even complimented them saying they look like boys eyelashes because we all know for some damn reason boys be having the most voluptuous eyelashes lol.

ᥫ᭡ | MAIN CHARACTER MOMENT

me and my sister went outside lateee last night and there were these fine ass boys riding motorcycles. one of them caught my eye though and man oh mannnnn he was something. wearing all black MM he knew what he was doing. anyways lmfao he asked me if i wanted to get on the back (he chose me out of allll the girls in the area) i guess to just spin around the block or something but my sister said if i did she would snitch to my mom lol. i guess cause he was older or because she’s scared of motorcycles idk but i didn’t end up riding.

ᥫ᭡ | LIGHTER BROWN EYES

i ended up taking this one off my list since i didn’t really like how it looked. i like having dark brown eyes i think they’re so sexy even though it’s very common. but i seen the difference after just an hour of affirming.

[sk3tch404]

.. Yeah

I didn't even know naib is south Asian🥲

Oh I know them.

Yeah Naib is from Napal, and I do agree that he should be darker. Though, trust me, there are a lot of pale asians, including south east asians. I don't think there should be been a 'white washing problem' with your post.

Bro how can you white wash a character when they're already that skintone? 💀 it's not like you went out of your way to make him even paler because you think paler skin is better or smth.

It's pretty common knowledge that Naib is a pale character despite being from Nepal (I hate Netease for this every single day of my life) but I don't think that person should have came at you like that? Especially because skin color does not equal race/ethnicity (not saying that people can claim to be a race/ethnicity when they're really not)

Yes there are varying degrees of skin color people give Naib, and there is no denying that the character design team fucked up. Though I can't speak for Southern Asian people, I can tell you that some of my fellow brother and sisters are fucking GHOSTS (Not european looking because um yeah...) My sister of course has melanin, but she is more pale than most.

I was real PALE in quarantine. I was born very toned because I have most of my father's body genes. I did still have tan and yellow undertones, but I changed a considerable amount.

Especially when I moved and winter rolled around, I started to look even more different. Then the warmer south temperatures came around and I was tanned again. (Though not too much because I did a lot of physical labor inside) After I quit that, I started to do online school and went back to being paler.

This is my hand rn (I tried to keep it in the shadows so the white light wouldn't interfere much)

Don't say anything abt my nails, I HAVE MAD ANXIETY.

I was way tanner than this. Let me tell you, when I was younger, I always said I was the tannest kid out of all of my family members after leaving the beach. Nowadays I'm more of a in between looking type of gal.

You're very obviously not a native English speaker (/gen /nm) and I'm sure where you live, colorism is incredibly rampant. I understand that you may be uneducated and dissimive of these sort of things because you grew up around these kind of ideals.

I can totally help you understand and educate you on colorism and the issues of IDV. There's always room to grow and be better, especially with these types of things.

I may not know you personally, but I know you're not the type of person to purposefully act with bad intent. I trust that you are a good person and genuinely want to learn about the difficulties of representation in media to better yourself.

You also have no issue with drawing my skin tone, soooooo I don't see why you would try to 'white wash him' when you're alright the one I had at the time.

I personally prefer when people do give Naib more realistic representation, but I don't really mind it when people draw him pale? Idk I guess I'm just used to seeing him pale. From now on, it would definitely be nice and more realistic if you started drawing Naib with tanner skin due to his lore and cultural background. (Not saying that there ZERO PALE NAPALI PEOPLE)

Eh I don't really rock with that person anymore anyways. No shade, just saying we ain't buddy buddy.

[gamer-paramnesia]

i was gonna this in the tags but formatting is getting me in the ass so long post :P

PREFACING! people can do what they want and i am allowed to not like it! people are also allowed not to like what i like!!

however,, today i am a hater. so.

1 deeply dislike fitpac idk why I'm just not hugely into the ship sorry maybe bc it feels like now any mention of either character is only in shipping context. unfortunately did make me watch fits stream less. maybe I would've liked it more if the fandom didn't treat it the way it does shrug

1.5 the way some of yall treat ccs is insane.. esp like pac. he is a grown ass man yall.. i see a lot of 'omg hes sooo small 🥺 so baby so little here 🥺🥺🥺like be so fr. dont baby him!! hes a silly guy! HES LIKE 28 YEARS OLD!! this applies to other ccs too cough grian jimmy etc cough (the way yall treat pac vaguely reminds me of... no.. i shant say... gogy...(obvs one is good and the other one is ge*rge but. yeah))

2 crying begging throwing up people have body hair every time a character gets drawn without their facial/body hair an angel dies btw.. I see this so much with like joel smallishbeans n cellbit n jimmy solidarity n forever n phil n just so many other characters it drives me insane give that man his hair back!!!!!! also he is not a twink!!! do not draw him as such!!!!!!!! (also body hair on women but I think general fandom would die if I even suggest we draw a lil armpit hair on a woman…)

3 the way some of y'all see found family…… some of y'all only see nuclear families as the only style of family and it shows. a family isn't just oh this 'guy is my brother this is my wacky wine aunt haha!' a family is a bunch of people who find safety and home and love in each other, people who can kiss and people who can cuddle with and people who they can find solace in. it's not just 'so She's like my Mom and He's like my Dad and there's no other way.' it's kinda just.. an indescribable feeling of love between some people. yeah

4 mostly qsmp related here but my god put some melanin on those fellas when you draw them.. like. etoiles is not a white man. neither is forever. or pac, or bdubs, or ironmouse, or jaiden, the list goes on.. same with the eggs!! there's 14 eggs and how come u are drawing them all white 🤨 also this is just an artist ick in general but when you draw darker tones don't just. make them look like a white person with ashed out slightly-tinted-brown skin. please just go outside and look at some people I am begging you

5 at the end of the day.. this is minecraft youtuber/streamer roleplay we are talking about. it's never that serious,, there's no reason to absolutely hate a character or wish them ill will or any shit like that, esp if u see a design you don't really like or a hc you don't enjoy or think is stupid. it's ok to get invested, obviously, but like. take a step back sometimes. if you're just having a bad time then it's probably time you take a break <3

5.5 but also. if you hate a character so much that you legitimately wish ill will on the cc. then probably touch grass

6 if a character has a canon sexuality, please dont. ship them w the gender they explicitly do not like. this is about bagihalo btw,, she is lesbian, she canonically does not like men, be better. obvs you are free to do so but i will just quietly judge u as i block u thanks <3

7 one last thing i just thought of, also very qsmp-heavy. i love hybrid/creature characters, but some fellas are just funnier to remain human to me. morning crew comes to mind,, forever (although i do love werewolf hcs for him too). scar is so human to me,, just a dude, just a fella..

Okay I'm curious. Since the MCYT fan space has a tendency to unanimously agree on certain headcanons and make a lot of things widespread fanon, are there any popular headcanons, interpretations, or portrayals of characters that you really don't like? I genuinely wanna know. Any popular ships you dislike? Any creaturifications that you dislike? Or even just the way people talk about a character?

[cassolotl]

Testosterone, Day 1,544

That’s 4.2 years, somehow?? 1.5 pumps of Tostran per day, which is 15mg testosterone, a pretty low dosage - I’m typically just under the masculine range and way above the feminine range.

I have two events to report today!

Event the first

This evening I was just bumbling around on the internet and poking my own chin in a kind of stimmy way, and found a weird sensation like something was stuck to my face, couldn’t work out what it was, went to look in the mirror but couldn’t see anything, all very odd. After a second or two of trying to grab it to remove it, I realised that it was just... a hair. :D Growing out of my face! So there you have it, folks - low dose T, does eventually cause at least one proper beard hair on the chin, like a little palm tree all alone on a desert island.

Event the second

I interviewed some candidates to be PAs (the disability kind, not the office kind) recently. In the job description I put that I’m nonbinary, and I also say in a sort of “desirable characteristics” bullet point list that candidates would ideally be familiar with LGBTQ+ issues, and use of gender-neutral pronouns in particular.

The first woman I interviewed was extremely oblivious. I introduced myself as being nonbinary and autistic and ADHD and having EDS, and asked if she wanted clarification of any of the terms, and she conspicuously didn’t ask more about the nonbinary part. The first question was “what are your pronouns?” and she was very confused, so we clarified like “some people want to be called ‘he’, some people want to be called ‘she’, some people (like me) are ‘they’...” and she said, “oh, I see! Miss!” And I had to say, “no, that’s your title, we mean pronouns, like he, she or they?”

So that was a good start??? And then later on there’s a question to test whether people can fluently use gender-neutral pronouns, which trips a lot of people up. It goes, “talk to us about a nonbinary person you know who prefers they/them pronouns.” (If they don’t know any, we invite them to talk about a nonbinary celebrity, or make someone up.) It’s not to find out your attitude to nonbinary people, it’s literally just to check if you can get my pronouns right. This woman entirely failed to refer to any nonbinary people, and told us about how she’s very accepting of diversity and has worked with a lot of gay designers. :D Amazing.

Anyway this was just some of the weird stuff from the interview, she also compared herself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, it was a time. But the whole point of me telling you this story is, she talked to my PA instead of me for a lot of the interview (also got a very low grade in that regard) and every time she referred to me in the third person she called me “he/him”. This is the latest of several incidences of people guessing that I’m a “he”, which is very novel compared to the first 35 years of my life.

(The good news is, the other two candidates I interviewed automatically aced that pronoun question - one was a they/them nonbinary person, and one was a she/they person.)

In summary

My flavour of being nonbinary is, I don’t want people to think I’m a man or a woman. I want to be gender teflon. But because society is a bit clueless, the best I can hope for much of the time is for people to guess “man” and “woman” about half of the time each.

I’d say this is pretty much the case right now, and has been for maybe about a year? When people gender me it is a little bit uncomfortable, but as soon as someone genders me in the other direction I feel better again. Like, oh thank goodness, I’ve not accidentally gone Full Dude. Or, phew, maybe testosterone does work after all. :D

My voice has finished doing whatever it’s going to do, and speech and language therapy has helped a lot. My face is a bit fuzzy, I’d guess I have to shave it maybe every 2-4 weeks? (My facial hair is very fair so far, I am not blessed with abundant melanin in general so it makes sense.) My body fat distribution is more on the masc side, I’ve put on 2 kg since I started and it has stopped increasing now, and it’s mostly on my belly, which I much prefer to the more feminine shape.

It’s very funny seeing how relative strangers interpret me and Avery as a duo. My lovely accepting nextdoor neighbour seems to think me and Avery are a straight couple, because he refers to me in feminine ways and then makes friendly jokes with Avery about being a bloke in a straight relationship, and at the same time he is definitely aware that something super queer is going on, so that’s a mystery, but it’s too hard to explain it to him and I don’t really mind ‘cos he clearly means well and is very sweet, so that’s fine!

In other news

I’m probably going to have a metoidioplasty surgery (bottom surgery) sometime in the next few months on the NHS?? Scary! But the outcome I want is relatively simple, not that much of a change, and will require only one surgery. I’m also due to have another chest revision surgery sometime soonish, because one side is still a little bit uneven, and it was going to happen years ago but then it had to be put on hold due to lack of support. Everything is back on now, and surgeries are once again like buses...!

In “blimey”

I worked out I was nonbinary when I was 24, so that’d be like 12 years ago, WHAAAAAAAAAT

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Sorry but what exactly is up with the bad batch arc? I've heard people talk about the issues with echo's white skin but I haven't heard that many bad things about the arc itself? (ik you said you don't want to be negative on your blog so I would absolutely understand if you didn't answer this ask)

Oooooooooooh boy. Well I just had a long, long, LONG rant about it with someone, but I guess I’ve got an excuse to put all of my points onto a post and talk about it publicly now that I got an ask x) I’ll keep it under the cut so I don’t throw my salt in people’s face. I really don’t want to upset people who love that arc - it has redeeming qualities, but overall it pisses me off so much for so many reasons. So here:

The first issue is obviously two members of the Bad Batch (minus Echo) being being just about the furthest thing from maori no matter how much you're willing to stretch it. 

Like... yeah, nah. I wouldn’t even accept Crosshair and Tech (grey haired guy and goggles guy) as Jango’s natural biological sons, nevermind as his clones. 

The problem is that their different appearances are justified by them being described simply as clones with desirable mutations (i.e superpowers). But why the hell did the creators have to change their appearances for that to be a thing? How does that correlate? Sure, the concept of clones with different faces is interesting, except... no, no it’s not, and I’m gonna rant about it in a few secs. But basically it's like they thought giving them different faces would be a good substitute for having different personalities (another thing I’ll come back to). If they really wanted to have buff clones with super eyesight or whatnot they could have just done that, without making them lose what little melanin the lighting of the show had allowed the other Clones to keep. 

But the gigantic problem is... showing that the "regular" clones have VERY distinct identities despite their identical faces has been one of the themes of the show from episode 1. Literally, the first episode of TCW has Yoda taking time out of a mission with galactic stakes to tell the three clones he’s with (who tell him they’re all the same because they have the same faces) that they’re wrong, and that they’re very different in the Force, that their appearance doesn’t matter, that they’re all equally unique and important, and he lists all of their individual skills, strengths and weaknesses. 

And it’s not just me being bothered by that, here’s a post by @cacodaemonia​ saying the same thing. 

Introducing the Bad Batch as "unique" clones who are "different" and "not like their brothers" because they have different faces and skills completely breaks that theme of the show!! Because the entire point of the Clones in TCW is that their faces don't matter, they ARE unique! 

(Plus the Bad Batch’s character designs are so cliche and uninspired it’s just laughable to try and justify bleaching their freaking skin for the sake of visual diversity. 

This took like 10 seconds. I found the first guy by literally googling “soldier movies,” and the other two are Team Fortress characters that look a LOT like Wrecker and Crosshair. One is “Heavy” and one is “Sniper” lmao.

And behold:

The above picture is a Team Fortress reference that I found just by looking up “bad batch clone wars,” so I’m not the only person who sees it.) 

And the batchers don't even have personalities to justify calling them unique! They have no character traits beyond the most cliché american soldier tropes ever. We have a token loner sniper, a token "smart tech guy" who knows everything from xenoanthropology to biology to Separatist computers to sound waves to encryption, a token Badass Brooding Leader and a token “dumb muscle guy.”

I dare anyone to find more about their personalities than this: - Crosshair is the perpetually grumpy sniper who looks down on "regs,” - Wrecker likes to blow up stuff and doesn't like heights, - Hunter is the leader and is friends with Cody, - Tech is smart doesn't trust Echo. 

That’s it, that’s literally it. Four episodes about them and that's all we get. These character tropes are literally the least inventive ever. FFS, Hunter even has a freaking KNIFE! Not a vibroblade, mind you, like in kriffing Star Wars. A knife. Against metal droids. Why. They couldn’t make this more of an american-war-movies cliché fest if they tried. (And sure, he can feel electromagnetic waves so maybe it does make sense for him not to carry a vibroblade and maybe this is nitpicking, but he looks like a ripoff of a Predator character and it pisses me off).

Another thing is that when you introduce characters you have to make them likable - and them despising the normal Clones is a terrible way to do that! And they don't even grow from that because at the end of the 4 episodes arc they just see Rex as not bad "for a reg" and they see Echo as no longer a reg, and both of these things are infuriating! 

The worst thing imo is that Echo then becomes part of them (and irreparably loses his melanin in the process, uuuuuuuuugh) when there is nothing to justify this. 

The dialogue goes like this: 

ECHO: You coming? TECH: Not really our thing. CROSSHAIR: Accolades. WRECKER: Yeah, we're just in it for the thrill. Yo! HUNTER: You sure it's your thing? ECHO: What do you mean? HUNTER: Your path is different. Like ours. If you ever feel like you don't fit in with them, well, find us. (they leave) REX: Those are some of the finest troopers I've ever fought alongside. Echo. You and I go way back. If that's where you feel your place is, then that's where you belong.

Echo doesn't feel like he belongs anymore, okay, but why would he feel like he belongs with the assholes who up to the last five minutes of the mission thought he was probably a traitor, and also verbally expressed that he was not worth saving?? In all of the arc, Echo himself never voices that he feels he’s not ‘like the other Clones’ anymore and that he feels it’s a problem. His relationship with Rex immediately picks up where they left things off - the first thing he does upon being lucid again for the first in over a year is cracking a joke for Rex’s benefit. 

Why would Echo feel like he doesn’t belong in the 501st anymore, when we don't even see him interacting with anyone from his past life except for Rex and Anakin (who are both extremely very supportive of him)?? If there had been one scene of a “regular” Clone (ugh) looking at him with horror and disgust or something, or just Kix and Jesse cracking jokes with Echo awkwardly standing by the side not getting it, I could forgive the show trying to make it feel like he has an identity crisis, but this was so shallow!

The only thing that makes Echo and the Bad Batch’s experiences similar is that they *look* different. It’s so against the themes of the Clones I’m seething just from thinking about it. And what the hell? Echo ALREADY didn’t fit in. That was the WHOLE POINT of Domino Squad. They didn’t fit in because they thought they were better than anyone else because they had trouble getting along with their brothers, so obviously it had to be their brothers’ fault (ahem, Bad Batch?). And you know what happened? Domino Squad OVERCAME that. And Echo and Fives still didn’t “fit in” because their personalities were unique and creative, and they became ARC Troopers because Cody, Rex and the Jedi VALUED THEM FOR PRECISELY THAT. Echo having new and unique skills and a modified appearance is the most bs justification for him feeling like he doesn’t belong!! 

And that brings me to my biggest issue: Rex telling Echo the bad batch are some of the best troopers he's ever met. I'm sorry, based on WHAT? What Rex values above everything is loyalty and brotherhood, and the Bad Batch DOESN'T DISPLAY ANY OF THAT. We never see them even expressing concern for each other! Wrecker treats saving Cody’s life like a trivial issue, because it’s just ‘sO eAsY’ for him, and beyond that we never see them supporting each other or genuinely expressing affection for each other beyond boasting about each other’s skills... 

Sure they can destroy a lot of droids, but they're dismissive of Rex's brothers, and the entire Umbara arc and this arc showed what he thought of that. They keep saying things like "not bad for a reg,” don't show any trust in Rex's skills or experience (even though they can't have been fighting in the war for more than a year and a half when he’s been there from the beginning, and he outranks all of them), they are essentially guerilla fighters which has only minimal value in a galactic war, and they never grow beyond their views of what regs are, and can and can’t do. 

None of that should make them good troopers in Rex's book. Going back to Echo not fitting in, remember who taught the Domino Squad the importance of seeing all of your brothers as important and equally valuable? Shaak Ti, true, but more importantly? 99! The guy the Bad Batch are named after. He did have value and was important and was no less of a trooper than his brothers, even though his mutations made him LESS powerful, not more. (And btw, just from a writing standpoint, the batchers don’t have any weaknesses, which is shit.) Cody and Rex mourned 99 as a true soldier even though it wasn’t his sacrifice that brought them victory (which would have implied that he had value as a soldier and a brother because he saved them, as opposed to him having that value intrinsically), because that’s what a fine trooper is to them. A BROTHER first a foremost, someone altruistic, brave and loyal. The Bad Batch distort the meaning of 99's character with their behavior. They’re not altruistic, their bravery is mitigated by the fact that they’re freaking invincible, so of course they take risks (again, see Wrecker saving Cody without a care because it’s easy to him, as opposed to Rex being ready to run into a burning ship about to explode because his brother is in there, and having to be physically dragged away). The Bad Batch denigrate their brothers for being less skilled, thinking their own abilities make them unique somehow, when 99 could barely fight and was still the one who taught Hevy about being a good soldier. 

And again the batchers don't grow from that. Which is all the more frustrating because the original ending didn’t have Echo joining them, from what I remember of the unfinished episodes, and the arc actually ended with them receiving their medals in front of regular troopers who cheer for them, as opposed to them smugly ostracizing themselves and dismissing the ceremony as trivial and meaningless. (original ending vs s7 ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1eCfzKamw) 

It’s so annoying. Do you know what characters never had an entire arc dedicated to them and still have far more personality and more interesting designs and more symbolic weight?? 

Jesse, for starters. Kix. Dogma. Cut. Slick. Keeli. Ponds. Rys, Jek and Thire. Commander Doom. Commander Fox. Wolffe. Hevy. Hardcase. 

Cody was a more interesting character just in his RotS appearances. 

Waxer and Boil had one episode about them and then only two cameos plus Waxer’s death, and they’re still some of the most memorable, beloved Clones of the whole show. And Boil was grouchy and prejudiced like Crosshair, but he has so much growth that we could make a whole thread about it. 

I'd say the last problem with the Bad Batch is that it has cash grabbing money hungry vibes. Different faces are more marketable, cliché personalities are more toy-friendly, and it's basically a big ad for the Bad Batch series. And they throw Echo in the Batch at the end for bs reasons (again, it wasn’t in the original ep from what I remember) and they tease Cody in the show to make sure fans will still watch even if they notice the lack of soul. And less melanin sells more at Disney apparently. 

So that’s my whole pissed rant. 

[elamarth-calmagol]

Some suggestions for elf skin color

I think a lot about the logic of elven skin color.  Elves were born before the sun existed, so it makes sense that they’d be pale, since sunlight is literally the only thing that leads to different skin tones.  But we don’t want all our elves to be pale, do we?  It’s boring and racist.  And the sun eventually rose, so do we have a lot of sunburned elves?  The problem is, there aren’t enough generations, especially generations after the sun, to evolve different skin tones.

There actually aren’t enough generations of Men to do that, either: Men have been around for roughly 7,000 years by the War of the Ring, whereas in the real world, homo sapiens have been around for an estimated 200,000 years.  That’s easily excused by saying that Men awoke in several places (similar to a theory that used to be believed by scientists, though I think it was falling out of favor by Tolkien’s day) and Eru created them to have the right skin color for the place they live.  It’s a bit more complicated when everyone awoke in the same place like elves.  They did wake up in different groups, though, at least according to the one story about Cuivienen we have.  (I’ve mentioned in the past that I think that’s a myth, but it probably has some basis in truth.)

Anyway, here are a few ideas I have for elvish skin color (and other racial characteristics).

1. The easiest one: forget science and just choose whatever colors you want for your characters.

2. Different races within the elves have different appearances.  Keep in mind that the Avari are made up of both proto-Noldor and proto-Teleri, so they’d be mixed.

3. The different groups of elves who first woke at Cuivienen each were a different race.  So the Vanyar (consisting of one group) were mostly all alike, whereas the Noldor and Teleri had two groups each, so they each have two different races mixed up within them.  This and #2 suggest their society would probably be racist in a similar way to ours.

4. Everyone is dark skinned because that was the first human skin color and they haven’t had enough generations to evolve anything else.

5. Everyone is light skinned because they were developed for a world without light.

6. The elves at Cuivenen had random skin colors, because there was no evolution to demand one or another.  So there are all sorts of what we’d consider mixed-race elves, and skin color doesn’t have any sort of cultural significance to it.

7. The rising of the sun triggered skin color genes within elves to express themselves, and within a couple of years, everyone had changed to darker skin tones, even though they’d previously all looked alike.  The implications would be interesting.  Would they not care because there’s no pattern to it?  Or would they prefer people who had lighter skin because they looked more like everyone used to look?

8. The genes were only triggered in the generation born after the sun rose.  If you have really pale skin, everyone knows you’re old.  That could either be good (old people are respected) or bad (you’re not adapted to the sun and burn all the time).

9. Their skin changes significantly due to sun exposure, especially considering how long they live.  It’s not like us getting tans or freckles: they can go from very light skin to brown skin if they’re out in the sun.  (I think there’s canonical evidence for elves having changes to their skin if they’re exposed to sunlight, because Tolkien specifically mentions Galadriel and Arwen having white arms.  This was commonly used to show that a lady was high class, because she didn’t have to work in the sun and could choose to use a parasol or something when she did go out.  So presumably he’s signaling that they’re nobility by saying that, which means they must tan or something?  Anyway, if the changes are big, this would matter more.)

10. Evolution happens with the cells in their body rather than on a species level, so if cells with more melanin survive better, the elf turns dark skinned over hundreds or thousands of years, whereas if they’re not getting enough vitamin D, they turn lighter again.

11. This only affects where the light touches, so they have really, really noticeable farmer’s tans.

12. Their skin is determined by how much sun exposure they get in their first few years.  People living in the woods (e.g. Maeglin, who is canonically pale) have lighter skin than people living on the coast.

13. Their genetics are triggered by how much sun their parents got just before they were born.

14. Lamarckian evolution is true for elves, so if a parent tans, their child gets that skin tone rather than the parent’s original skin tone.  A lot of elves are born freckled or sunburn red.

15. Elvish evolution goes at warp speed compared to ours, with noticeable evolutionary differences between a parent and a child.  This could relate to non-racial traits, too.

16. Laurelin’s light counts as sunlight, so the Noldor exiles have much darker skin than the Sindar they come across.

17. Laurelin’s light does not count as sunlight, and in fact, elves interact with sunlight in a very different way than Men because of their history with the Trees.  They don’t need sunlight for vitamin D (likely true, otherwise all pre-sun elves were vitamin deficient), and they also don’t get burned by it, so skin tone doesn’t matter and is either completely random or somewhere in the middle.

18. Since they have to create babies with a conscious use of their fea, elves have designer babies, where they get to influence things like height and what color their skin and hair is.  A child’s appearance is based on their parents’ aesthetic choices.  I don’t even know where to start with the cultural implications of this one.

19. Elves can change their skin color over time to whatever works best for them, because they have conscious control over their bodies.

20. The differences in elves’ skin is imperceptible to mortal eyes, and they don’t understand why we think they all look alike when OBVIOUSLY he has stripes and she has patches and so on.

21. If you really want to go off canon, you can have some wild things, like elves’ skin matching the colors of the things around them, so wood-elves have green skin and Noldor have gold or gemstone-colored skin and the Falathrim have stormy gray skin.

22. Or elves just have green or gold or gray skin, nobody’s stopping you.

23. Or they’re like octopuses or chameleons, changing skin color to blend in or communicate.

24. Elves don’t have skin, they have exoskeletons.  Or environmental suits that cover their skin 100% of the time.  Or something else sci-fi.  (There are plenty of possible explanations here for their glowing eyes, too.)

25. I don’t know, you fill this one in.

[tg-headcanons]

Okay, so I can't be very sure about this since I haven't read the manga's ending (I am deathly allergic to forced heteronormative/queerphobic endings) but why was Kaneki dying? I heard that it had something to do with him eating too many ghouls and getting rc poisoning but still.

Indeed indeed this gay ass man was hastily shoved into a straight marriage and rushed ending but at least THIS BIOLOGY ACTUALLY REALLY INTERESTING! So there’s a lot about Kaneki’s body that’s messed up, and the combination of human genes with ghoul healing abilities makes him age faster as he gets injured.

I’ll explain as best I can but the process is really well explained in this episode of game theory starting at 6:19, check it out if you can because it lays out a lot of my points better than I can

What Kaneki is going through is called Cellular Senescence. Peoples cells are created from the dna contained in telomeres, and on the ends of these telomeres is an extra bit of length that contains no dna. Why do we have this? Well if the split is incomplete or damaged, all that gets cut off is this extra chunk of nothing and the dna is safe. The next set of telomeres that splits from that cell will contain all the dna, but slightly less buffer length. Eventually after many years and many splits, these buffers get shorter and shorter, and telomeres that get cut off finally start taking damage. That’s why when people get old, their bodies start functioning worse, it’s because their telomeres have no more shield and their dna is getting chipped away ever so slightly with cellular reproduction.

So with that, we now have to take a look at ghouls. The average healthy human has to replace 330 billion cells every day. While that sounds like a lot, it’s really not. Ghouls on the other hand sustain injuries and heal from them far faster than humans can, and need to heal from more. Naturally, they would evolve much longer telomeres, giving them the ability to replace many human lifetime’s worth of cells before growing old. Hell, ghouls who don’t get injured may even live much longer than humans, but they’re built with everything they need to heal in days from fatal wounds, replacing trillions of cells in almost no time

Now on to Kaneki and, also an artificial ghoul, Seidou. They are genetically human but with an artificial ghoul healing ability, meaning they have human telomeres. With every injury they sustain, their telomeres are getting shorter and shorter, and if they are injured as often and as severely as normal ghouls are, they will age faster. Especially since they’re kakuja, the added biomass and organs give them more cells that will mutate poorly. Just look at their skin and hair, they both went pale white after repeated injury, looks to me like some melanin got cut from their dna.

Fortunately for them, unlike regular humans, they have a chance to heal from it. Ken’s hair color came back, which shows that ghoul abilities may be able to slowly heal his cells, but only if given a very long time with little to no injuries.

This problem also seems to effect half humans. Human length telomeres and a ghoul healing ability that is unregulated thanks to a lack of kakuhou causes these people to age very fast and irreversibly.

Arima and Furuta won’t live past 30 because of it, and can’t stop it since the ghoul abilities Kaneki and Seidou got come from the kakuhou. For the artificial ghouls to live, they need to stop sustaining so many large injuries and cannibalizing