#I think more fitting personality wise

[lunarin64art]

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

[luniviravosshipper]

So what if I said season 1 and season 7 of TDP are my favorites. Can you blame me?

And I'm tired of having to pretend those are some of the worst seasons of their retrospective arcs.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[blood-orange-juice]

Spicy take: I'm starting to think that the concept of "trickster" is about just as meaningful as the concept of Hero's Journey.

Sure, you can fit a lot of stories into it and some were written with that specific archetype in mind but also it conflates Joker, Odysseus, Br'er Rabit and Slavic folktales protagonists and I don't think these should belong in the same category.

Boundary crossing can be done for many reasons and in many ways. The need to lump all such characters into a single category says more about our over-reliance on rigid structures, the lack of play in our culture and a desperate need for something else.

[y2kbugs]

Sam and Max villains are wild

(explanation in tags)

[darabeatha]

[clowfish]

I usuuually don’t care for heathers aus but this one piqued my interest bc of how well it fit,,,,

[sundayrobin]

going thru my screenshots from 2.3 while waiting for the update (because i stupidly didn't pre-install them) and this might be my favorite part of the tb mission.

himeko is telling us that at its core, humanity is rooted in storytelling and the nameless’s mission to travel across the galaxy embodies this spirit. their journey centers around exploring new worlds but the significance of their travels goes beyond mere exploration; it's about encountering diverse stories from different people and places. it's in the "miniscule". it's in the individual tales that contribute to a grander tapestry of human existence which they strive to remember and honor. it's in how the nameless creates a shared experience that they carry along with them to other planets they visit. it's how they're able to create connections that transcend the vast distance it probably takes for the astral express to traverse from one planet to another. exploration becomes merely the means to achieve their true goal: to forge connections via the star rail through stories they encounter. it's why i think it's very fitting that the trailblaze is considered the one closest to humanity. in a world that extends as vast as the cosmos, they choose to ground themselves in these stories, to remember them when no one else would. because it's these individual tales and the ongoing dialogue between them that creates a continuous, living narrative that binds living species across the galaxy together.

[wackywatchdotcom]

something i genuinely adore about tadc is how painfully flawed everyone in the circus is. and not in a small way

everyone does SOMETHING that negatively impacts the others. but it makes the fact that you are supposed to sympathize with and really connect with them all the more potent. because its easy to want to put a bunch of characters in a bad situation together and to just have them all be nice to each other and everyone and never make mistakes because theres no reason to hurt each other, and most of them dont TRY to, but the way they cope is so, so realistic for each of their personalities, and it doesnt always mesh with the others, and sometimes it exceeds self destructive and Just Hurts Others, Too

they still generally care about each other and the mistakes they make and the ways they end up hurting each other dont lose their weight but like. it doesnt take away from their humanity and the fact that they are all trying so hard to manage in an awful situation

and the characters seem to have sooome sort of understanding of this too. not fully, because the characters dont tend to be 100% communicative, but when they hurt each other, it often makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. because these are the only people they have. these are their friends. and theyre all coping. but it doesnt change how much it affects them (best illustrated by ragathas lines at the start of ep 2 or gangles 'i love her, but after a while it gets kinda hard to tell how genuine shes actually being'). its not all like this, theres a good amnt of variety, but characters knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it is very painful in an effective way

(i think a subtle example of this is how zooble handles gangles situation in ep 4- they were so genuinely trying to help her because they care. but could tell as the day went on that oh, this is not working at all and its making things worse, and they leave gangle alone- something that very genuinely couldve been the moment she abstracted, because of the mask zooble gave her- and we dont get to have a super blatant explanation of zoobles thoughts on it, but they reach a fairly healthy conclusion about it that helps both of them, and i like that a lot, because on paper zooble could be placed at fault but the narrative doesnt dwell on it excessively, because thats not the point. i dont know if that tangent makes sense but i think about it sometimes. i think zooble wasnt 'to blame' but it was still a mistake, which is a hard balance to strike, and having them help at the end feels extremely effective at rounding it off!!!)

but like. in general its complicated balancing making characters in a bad situation act flawed because it can run the risk of seeming like the story is scolding them or blaming them for the situation theyre in, or like youre expected to not sympathize with them despite it (though the inverse also has complications- if characters in a bad situation never mess up, it feels unrealistic and hard to relate to, and can imply that their innocence is why whats happening to them is bad at all), but the show handles it so well

even the characters who are genuinely trying all try in different ways- some of them have similar outlooks or attitudes towards these thing but theres vital differences for ALL of them- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. in fact some of the more painful mistakes characters have made in the show have come from them so genuinely trying (like the thing i mentioned w zooble, or basically Everything Ragatha Does, or pomnis first attempt at helping gangle, etc), which hits harder than if every mistake characters made had wholly selfish and cruel goals.

i mean, there is a selfishness to many of the characters' actions but imo not in a way thats not warranted. because all of them are in a horrible setting. its uncomfortable to watch characters be selfish. but it is a natural instinct to survive. its not the foundation of most of their actions, but when it is, its uncomfortable but hard to completely disparage them for in a way that makes you feel kinda conflicted

and like. it hurts to be doing your best and for that to make things worse, but its what happens often in the show. because no one in a bad situation is gonna handle it well. by the very nature of trying to survive something is gonna give, but it makes the themes of the show so much more powerful. that making sure the people around you dont feel unloved, cherishing them and finding meaning with others is no less important just because everyone is fucking up. it complicates things, for sure, but it doesnt make those characters exempt fromt this. theres a reason pomni tells gummigoo that she doesnt want "anyone" to feel like theyre nothing, and that kinger doesnt add ANY quallifiers to making sure people feel wanted and loved (not that i think either of them were thinking SUPER super hard, but it conveys smth from the perspective of the narrative

it gets complicated when you add in jax for sure, since i think on the surface he IS the exception to this concept- none of the characters like him, including pomni or kinger. but i think this is something thats gonna be examined further down the line, bc hes the main complicating factor in this reading of the show, but i feel like thats on purpose. hes universally disliked (and so is caine, in a different way) and his actions arent mistakes. they are him coping. the show has made it clear that he can be a complex person AND also a piece of shit. his actions dont detract from the fact that hes a person and the show reminds us of this. so it makes things so messy, but im genuinely super excited to see how the show examines that. where his character goes is, imo, going to be a massive piece of how this show fleshes out this concept

[nopecho]

Thinking about a DoL x Heathers Musical crossover

Ughhhhh

[cent-scratchnsniff]

doodle dump

[muninnhuginn]

okay but I do really like how the revelation/confirmation of how the twins' powers instantly reflects back on shiguang

Passive vs enactor dynamic

Each pair has a passive player (Lu Guang and Li Tianxi) and an enactor (Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianchen). The passive player can see/feel for relevant information but is unable to change anything by themselves. By contrast, the enactor can use their power to change things, but without their passive it's much more difficult for them. For CXS, he has to dive blind and risks altering nodes and/or being unable to fish for info without LG's framework. For LTC, he can't possess anyone from a distance and has to both get in close contact and maintain that close contact for the duration of the possession which heavily limits what he can do.

Which leads onto the next point...

Synergy

LG&CXS and LTC<X's powers are massively more useful when used in combination. I don't know if we'll ever find out the origins of the powers, but honestly, it's like they're made specifically for the pairs to complete each other. Any other combination of the powers doesn't seem to be anywhere near as useful and the fact that LG&CXS's are based in the past and LTC&LTX's in the present is only part of why that is the case.

The synergy in both cases is activated by touch. LG can communicate with CXS when he's in a dive because they activate their powers together. LTC can use LTX to possess and actively control puppets by maintaining touch as she uses her powers.

(Side note: I think the way that LTC possession is more like puppeting than possession is how he was able to make Liu Min commit suicide. If the person actually *in* the body tried to commit suicide like that, as Xiao Li explains to us, the body's defence mechanisms would kick in and it wouldn't work out.)

Disruption

Building on to how shiguang and the tian twins have massive synergy in terms of their powers it also appears that if you try to switch it up they end up disrupting each other.

In CXS's dive into the twins' backstory, he first retains his possession but loses contact with LG and then later when LTX is jumping into Liu Lan and LTC is possibly channeling his power through her's CXS gets a staticky POV from LL and then booted out entirely. I'm unsure of the specifics of which twin is affecting which angle of shiguang's powers, but I think the gist we should be getting from this is that whilst shiguang and the tian twins have a lot of internal synergy they don't have a lot of cross-pair synergy. If anything, it may be difficult or impossible to combine outside of the standard pairs.

Feelings/memories

Anyway, the idea of possession fits with how CXS and LTX are able to feel what their hosts feel and have some degree of memory leakage. CXS is active possession and LTX is passive possession, but they're truly one with their hosts to some degree (which fits with their personalities being the more empathetic of each pair).

We know CXS also carries over some physical aspects when he possesses and LTC by virtue of "puppeting" (rather than possession) is able to override the host's natural ways of working (as exhibited twice by Liu Min, first with his legs, and later with his suicide).

(I'm not entirely sure I'm interpreting the physical aspects of this along with the show's intent but this logic at least follows in terms of it making sense for me)

Photos

This is a bit of an odd one, but it seems that LG, CXS, and LTX all require photos for use of their powers. LTC... doesn't. I don't know that there's any specific reason for why it's like this, but it does stand out when nearly every other trait has an analogue in the opposing pair.

[nerozane]

I'm already thinking about an idea for my next DnD character but um. Idk how to translate them (not sure about what gender they will be) to the 5e system because its so specific to a particular lore that it doesn't exist in dnd5e.

[t0bey]

Thoughts on a hypothetical FE/IDV crossover? I had the cursed thought of Chrom as Knight for an Awakening crossover 💀 I could see them also doing Cordelia as Antiquarian, Gaius as Mercenary and Tharja as Enchantress maybe?? And then Robin...I don't know. Prisoner for M!Robin since they're smart and have amnesia I guess??? Also they zapped people to death but not really. Meteorologist for F!Robin since she's basically doing magic already.

the concept of chrom as richard sent a chill down my spine

[toonfinatic]

Fandoms of long running franchises that have been rebooted multiple times or have had a ton of different iterations are so funny because Person A can make their own fan iteration of a character and then Person B will complain how out of character that iteration is and that Person A misses the point of the character. And then there's at least a few canon examples of the character who are just as "out of character" as Person A's fan iteration.

[jamiethebee]

Fully caught up on the manga (minus spoilers for the last chapter) and..... Ya know what maybe I am a villain stan because I just.... Don't trust that anything really changes in society. Everyone outside of heroes, when given speaking parts, seems to indicate that they'll step in or do something in order to protect themselves - not out of any sense of responsibility or community, but to safeguard their lives in case the other person ends up a villain. Or maybe I'm just pessimistic? But we've seen irl time and again that this ending attitude doesn't work. Doesn't have change. Certainly not long lasting change. I really really wanted to finish the series still liking Deku but throughout the fight, every cut back to someone other than Deku, talking about his heart and how good he was and how much he was doing to fight for the person - and the cut back is just "punch". He never responded to Shigaraki's words. He never engaged with the man himself. And at the end of the day, I feel more trust in Uraraka. More trust that she'll actually work on saving people's hearts. And she's back in construction work like her parents. And of course the camera dies and no one sees Toga's heart. Because how dare anyone think a villain could be a person (paraphrased that one interview guy).

I really really wanted to end this manga happy with it. I'm not stupid enough to conflate the reality of the story with fandom. I'm not. I really wanted to enjoy it for what it is. But when they directly ask "how do we fix villains being made" the answer is "you don't. We can't" and ???? That's supposed to be what the manga was working towards this whole time? I - .....