#and we don't have as much backstory for them!

[utilitycaster]

Is there a place of no return you wish you could go back to answer say no stop this is a bad idea? For me, it was the 33 - 34. Either Orym should have stayed dead, or Matt should have put his foot down when Liam suggested calling Keyleth. Or why even have Keyleth be Ok with going to whitestone? If it has to be VM related it could have been Juniper. She's a cleric, she can be known by Orym. But yeah everything about Whitestone, C1 VM and how that all happened I would tell them bad idea

I mean, my initial point was that this should have had a session zero. Laudna's concept should have been drastically reworked, it might have been wise to have had Orym a little more detached from Vox Machina (Ashari from a different tribe would have done the trick), and Laura and Ashley should have been told they'd be in a particularly central and decision-heavy role and given an option to turn it down at absolute minimum; I'd also have possibly asked Travis if he'd be willing to play a person with ties to Marquet even if he'd spent time elsewhere and frankly this also might have been a good idea with Laudna. I would also require higher INT scores and that the Marquet-based characters have some understanding of the Apex War, and I'd ask everyone to think about how their character feels about the gods and weave that into their backstory and work with them if it doesn't fit into the worldbuilding.

However, assuming the party we have I agree that probably the biggest misstep was that Matt should have made Keyleth unavailable to answer the call from Orym, forcing the party to use Jiana. This brings them back to Jrusar, removes their early ties to Whitestone, forces the Delilah story into the forefront so it actually has to be dealt with, gives them a reason to get much more involved with both the Vanguard (via Jiana) and spend more time learning about the plot from Eshteross and the Starpoint Conservatory (particularly making it a great opportunity to learn about the Apex War), and even could have put them physically present during Otohan's confrontation with Eshteross. From there I genuinely think Delilah actually being a major problem that they had to deal with would have done a ton of work in terms of character development and dealing with their problems, and the party having much more information about the world around them and having a stronger connection to a place and its people would have done a MOUNTAIN of work for the rest of the campaign. It's even possible Eshteross could have survived with their assistance in a second Otohan fight, which would mean they would have had the airship the whole time as a home base (since they couldn't have crashed it), which would have given them downtime in the form of travel rather than being ferried around by Keyleth due to having no other options, and would have served as bonding time. Matt admitted in a 4SD he didn't expect them to call on Keyleth (which is WILD to me) but literally he should have said no. I don't know for sure if this is how he envisioned the early campaign going but I would not be surprised if it was.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

School Spirits Season 2 (episodes 1-3) liveblog/thoughts

**Spoilers for School Spirits Seasons 1 and 2x01-2x03

note: so last season I wrote up a lot of really detailed timeline stuff as I watched, and I don't think I'm going to do that this season, because 1. it's not a murder mystery anymore and 2. since a lot of the "mystery" elements of last season didn't tie back to Maddie at all, I can't expect all the little details to necessarily come together for the main plot. There are a couple of loose threads from that which I will keep an eye out for (honestly, I think they're just accidental loose threads), but my approach this season is more just ~vibes~

2x01

ROFL I completely forget Xavier got hit by a car at the end of season 1, like it completely slipped my mind. I possibly should have done a rewatch leading up to this, but I didn't and I'm here now, so I'm gonna go with it. I am watching the recap, though.

First question remains the same- what does Mr. Martin want? He tells Janet "the only way out is to go back in" and tells her that she needs to "go in deeper" which she does not want to do. He later tells Maddie that he wishes he had never pursued "this," though we know we can't trust him, so who knows if he actually has regrets or not. However, the fact that he runs from Maddie (and vanishes to who knows where?) suggests to me that he is genuinely afraid of something. If he were completely in control, I don't see why he would run away, what are the ghosts going to do him? Kill him?

Okay, Simon, my boy, please think clearly. Maddie literally gave you information that would have been impossible for you to have otherwise. The only reason you even found out Claire was involved in the blackmail was because of this stuff.

Lots of setup, some refreshers for the start of the season, fairly standard for a season opener. The budget feels higher already.

Unsurprisingly, it looks like Janet's past is going to play a big role in the season. Her dad seems like he sucks. I guess my immediate question is- are we getting all this backstory because it's emotionally relevant to Janet's storyline, or are we getting all this backstory because there's going to be a big plot element around it? When Janet goes to the graveyard, we see her grandmother's and her father's grave. Are those characters still in play as ghosts?

So far it does seem like the ghost characters are going to get the majority of the emotional weight. Rhonda, Charley, and Wally all already feel like they've been set up for some character development, while Nicole, Claire, and Xavier (until the end) don't have particularly clear set up for anything. Simon and Maddie have always been central, so no surprises there.

Okay, tbh, I did not think the car hitting Xavier looked that bad, but I'm going to assume he suffered a head injury or like that thing where if you get hit really hard at just the wrong moment it stops your heart, or something like that until told otherwise, because otherwise I can't figure out why he literally died for a minute.

So, my big question for the end of episode 1 is- how will this tie Xavier to the ghost world? Will he be able to see ghosts now? (I can see them not wanting to do this because Simon being the only person who can see Maddie is portrayed so heavily as a special bond, but also linking Xavier to the supernatural seems like the obvious reason they would kill him briefly, so....) Maybe it's just to get him onboard with everything because Claire is clearly not going to buy this story and Nicole seems pretty skeptical, too. I guess I'll just have to keep watching to find out.

Also seems important to mention that Janet is clearly pretty messed up from both what she's been through (and possibly her life before her death) and she appears to have been locked in a basement for like a year and I didn't miss all of that, I just don't have much commentary for it other than- I can't blame her.

2x02

Okay, so far it does feel like Xavier's brush with death is mainly to get him to be more open to everything, but I think it would be cool if he has some sort of lingering supernatural effects of the experience. Having a character die and then be brought back feels like the sort of thing that majorly changes them. If this weren't a supernatural story, I would assume that would be emotional/metaphorical change, but this show is about ghosts, so I'm kind of expecting something more than that.

I hate to say it, because I adore Wally and I hate love triangles, but it's making me itchy to watch all the Simon/Maddie/Wally scenes where Wally very clearly feels threatened. It's not there for no reason.

New additions to the cast, Yuri and Quinn. I wonder why Yuri never thought it was odd that Janet could make permanent stuff? Does he also have that skill? Because if not, surely he would notice that his stuff resets and (at least some) hers doesn't? I do like Yuri so far, though. I'm about halfway through the ep, don't feel like I know much about Quinn yet.

So we now know Janet's dad definitely sucked a lot. With that confirmed, and with the scene of Janet hiding under the stairs (as Maddie) with the person going up and down, do we think that's her father's ghost? (It wouldn't surprise me at all if Janet sees ghosts even though she's technically alive now). And... How did he die? did she (or her grandmother) kill him?

Xavier, my dude, I know I was tough on you last season, but cheating on Maddie does not mean you deserved to be hit and killed by a car.

Mr. Martin is engaged? (well, was) Interesting.

I hope someone realizes how triggering the Mr. Martin & Janet stuff clearly is for Rhonda. Obviously (so far) in the flashbacks we aren't getting the impression that it's an exact reflection of Rhonda's experiences, but close enough.

Okay, I wasn't expecting the Wally conflict to directly come up so soon, but I hope this at least means that we'll get some happy-go-lucky glimpses of him this season because it's one of my favorite elements of his character and (as Maddie basically called out) it's been very lowkey recently. I understand why he's upset/struggling, I like the layers, I just hope that's not the only side we see of him this season.

Alright, they just said Xaiver has a concussion. I'm no MD, but I did do some sports medicine training (unfortunately saw my fair share of concussions, including a couple that required ambulances, paramedics, and a trip to the hospital) and I do not think if you actually almost died of a head injury that anyone would let you back in school like the next day, even if you aren't expected in class. The lights alone would be problematic. But that's probably just me nitpicking.

So what you're telling me is Yuri saw a ghost with extra abilities and he was just like "eh 🤷‍♂️"? honestly, kinda valid. I'm glad Charley is addressing that.

I just had a thought that probably won't happen, but could be interesting, since Simon & Xavier are headed to the house that Janet is burning down, is it possible that Xavier will see Janet (Maddie) as Janet and not as Maddie? That would be an interesting effect of his death that's different from Simon's ability to talk to Maddie's ghost. I don't know how it would be helpful, but it could be cool.

Also was I right and Janet's father's ghost was actually there, or was she just imagining/remembering him? Clearly we don't know the extent of her abilities, or how the other ghosts factor in, but considering Janet's love of science and all the documentation, it would follow that she was running different experiments and she needed a bunch of different test subjects to do so. The big question being- what negative effects did she know/assume this had on them, because if it didn't have any, there would be no reason to hide it and they might do it voluntarily (they have very little to lose). Is it just that she was actively keeping them from crossing over? It seems like it would be something worse than that.

Mr. Martin is afraid of something "bigger," so clocked that. I do have an idea of what the red light means from the trailer, so not going to pretend to be super confused or speculate a lot, but not gonna explicitly say here because in case people haven't seen the trailer that addresses this.

2x03

So... do we think Claire is going to get an actual storyline, or?

Ah, there's some Wally lightness I was looking for.

Just got to the scene with Nicole's brother who I do not believe existed last season & I could be wrong, but he very much feels like a character that's been introduced to provide Claire with a new love interest and I am questioning if this would have absolutely anything to do with the central plot.

Janet's quite possibly a genius, but also she managed to leave her bag in a bathroom and lose all the money she stole, so brains aren't everything. I can't even laugh at her because I left my purse in a public bathroom a few months ago and didn't realize until I had driven an hour and half away and then had to drive an hour and half back (luckily it had been turned in) and then an hour and half the other way again.

I didn't realize I wanted more Xavier & Simon detective squad scenes until just now, but I do. I think they're really funny together, the actors bounce really well off of each other.

Okay, wait, wait, I immediately take back what I said about Nicole's brother because Janet's just been offered a ride to a college, and they just told us five minutes ago that Diego is in college, so what are the odds on "Diego sees his sister's missing best friend"? High, I'm guessing.

Well. That happened a lot faster than I was expecting it to, but okay. lol.

Can someone explain to me how the hell is Mr. Anderson is not in jail?? Stealing that much money is definitely a felony.

I can't tell if we're setting Nicole and Xavier up for a legit romance or just absolute horror and hilarity, like right now I could honestly see it going either way.

I just had to pause for like ten minutes from the secondhand embarrassment of the Wally/Janet scene. I know that's not the important part of that, but omg.

I don't understand how everyone else thought what Rhonda relayed about the party made Janet look bad instead of Mr. Martin. She literally says "no more experiments" and it seems like she wanted to give back the objects taken from the other ghosts, and I don't really get why Rhonda had to spell that out for everyone, like exercise some common sense my guys. I'm not saying that I fully buy that Mr. Martin is the ultimate evil (the man is scared of something) or that Janet is the ultimate good (setting aside the whole "stealing Maddie's body" thing, she was willing to kill Xavier with a car, so not a paragon of good morals, but still), just that I don't get what they missed about Rhonda's story to see Janet as the bad guy there.

I'm back to "Diego exists as a character solely for Claire" even though they technically used him for the plot briefly.

How did five of you lose Janet? She was literally right there.

So is it (the "hellscapes" so to speak) like a "you have to confront your death before you can move past it" kinda thing, or??

Unexpected MVP dynamic Simon & Xavier! But also Xavier should not be driving either and the girls really should have dropped both him and Simon off.

I'm not sure where Janet falls on a morality scale, but approaching Maddie's mom is rough if she doesn't intend to try to give Maddie's body back, because she has been through enough and like... oof.

It took me several hours to get through these episodes because this show has the misfortune of being on the most buggy streaming platform of all time, so my brain is tired at this point. I'll start a new post if I have any additional thoughts.

[jadeazora]

With Volo, I'm guilty over it in the past, and thought he's more evil than he actually is, since his tenure as a villain is so short and with how manipulative he is, it left me with a lot more questions than answers and wondering how much of what we saw was real. Like, I know people refer to his friendship evolutions a lot, but the only one we know he's had from the base form is Togepi (non-Alpha Lucario and Roselia can be caught wild, and his Lucario and Roserade are only on that team for the final fight), and it's hinted he experienced some tragedy in his past, but the severity of it or if it warranted such an extreme reaction is unknown. Masters fortunately elaborates a bit more, he actually does love Pokemon but due to the emotional walls he built around himself, is unable to recognize that himself, or that his own Pokemon really love him. (They also implied he's like this because he was used in the past, forming a "use them before they use you" mentality.)

Lysandre, from what I've seen, a lot of people take his clunky, weird "beauty" dialogue and his team's obsession with fashion literally, and think he just wants to kill all the ugly people, rather than him seeing most of humanity as greedy and how overpopulation and greed will lead to shortages of resources and violence as people fight over whatever scraps remain, which is the thing he actually finds ugly. (Also, while he does show remorse and cries over innocent Pokemon having to die, I see a lot of people claim he shows remorse over innocent people dying too, but I don't recall any moments like that???)

Cyrus is a mix of people thinking he's more evil than he actually is (he feels like he has less conviction towards wiping everybody else out compared to Lysandre, considering that, once he gets something similar to what he wants, he tends to leave others alone, like deciding to chill in the Distortion World with Giratina in Generations or backing off from the player's world in Alola after he's defeated while all the other villains still have the desire to continue their schemes despite losing to you, and he has shifted his views towards completing spirit rather than eliminating it entirely in Masters), and also tend to take his whole "emotionless" facade too literally. Tho tbf, there's a lot of characterization differences between DP/BDSP and Platinum, and his backstory and elaboration on his motive is tucked away in out of the way areas (including one originally locked behind an event), and some more humanizing portrayals like how he's depicted in Masters are more niche.

[alice-the-demon]

Some Heavenly Spire designs doodles

So

While Pizzelle, Rosette and Marble's designs won't change much in the future, I can't say the same for The Painter and Pizzano, mostly because I don't have many ideas for their background in this AU and as I'm writing this we still don't know much about the bosses (especially the final one), which is why I want to wait the completed game's release so that I can analyse the character better and make them fit better in my AU.

That doesn't mean I won't draw them at all until Sugary Spire's release of course lol, at most I'll draw some silly scenarios with these characters, especially Pizzano (which I kinda already have in mind an idea of his backstory and why he's helping to destroy Hell in the first place)

Also, mini fun facts:

Pizzelle's hairstyle is based on the one made by @/KappaKiddo on Twitter

Rosette's design is inspired by Brooke from "Ice Age Collision Course"

Marble in Heavenly Spire is a Llamhigyn Y Dwr (yes, that's its actual name), a frog-looking creature with bat wings and lizard tail from Welsh mythology

[maxdibert]

Your explanation on the Weasley's being aristocracy makes so much sense and puts into words why I never really related to them as a child. I grew up poor and my parents scraping by as much as we could. And reading the books growing up the Weasley's seemed just much better off then me. I thought though that JKR didn't know how to write a poor family or about children growing up poor, people don't tend to talk about it after all. But the Snape's and even Tom Riddles whole backstory I could relate to at parts. The Weasley's felt like their poverty was performative. And it's entirely because they are aristocracy.

They’re like those typical rich people who think they’re poor just because they can’t fly on a private jet and have to take the subway like everyone else—only to turn around and comfortably make it to the end of the month, with enough leftover to blow their lottery winnings on a vacation. I mean, what family that’s actually struggling financially would use prize money for a trip? A family that’s truly in need would use it to pay off their debts.

[tgrailwar-zero]

Before we depart...

[quietly make prayers over the dead Valkyrie]

She- she was an enemy, Saber, but it really wasn't her fault. Her mind was part of a network, and something really really scary got into that network. More likely than not, she and her sisters... won't be nice anymore.

...

Oh- right, before we forget, there were some hornet-lookin' Attack Programs in the lobby, when we passed through, so it could be a good teambuilding exercise. Plus they probably don't have some tragic backstory so destroying them is relatively guilt free.

RICHARD: "Hm. Is that so...?"

RICHARD: "I do too. Come, let's sally forth!"

You returned back to the main hall, just in time to see the white attack program about to exit the building.

It stopped, turning towards you.

GIL: "...Hm."

The young king snapped his fingers, a portal manifesting behind the program as a chain lashed out, aiming straight for the neck. And then--

--You saw as the chain clashed against a barrier, cold and sturdy-- eerily similar to the one that had composed the barrier trapping Berserker. Another cold, long stare from the program as it raised it's sword, and you saw droves of those white insect programs manifest out of thin air.

The white attack program turned, walking and heading towards the exit of the base as the swarm of insectoid enemy programs surged towards you.

GIL: "Ah, they've multiplied."

RICHARD: "Then we'll just have to smash through! Consider this warm-up for our next enemy. Sir Lancelot takes the ones on the left, I take the ones on the right, and you simply watch and learn, o' child king."

GIL: "You really just keep talking, don't you?"

LANCELOT: "AAAAAAAARRRRHHH--!!"

There wasn't any avoiding this. Time to fight!

-

SWARM BATTLE RULES:

You've been caught in a swarm battle! When it comes to swarms of easily beatable enemies, it's best to just let your Servants cut loose and provide support.

Being a Master means having a strong grip on the battlefield, providing solid orders, and catching things that even your Servants may miss in order to lead them to victory. Enemy swarms have a set amount of damage they inflict to the party's Endurance Gauges. Swarm battles also have a blanket cost of -1 Mana for each party member, which can't be reduced.

With a perfect balance of your orders (meaning, poll options), this damage can be fully mitigated.

With an imperfect balance, the group takes the set damage and the member(s) involved in the option that had the least amount of votes take an extra point of damage to their Endurance.

Since these are relatively weak enemies, the 'swarm damage' is set to simply '-1 Endurance'.

Successfully balanced swarm battles can also prompt new combo attacks as your Servants learn how to fight alongside each other! Additionally, showing strong Master skills will raise your Servants opinions of you!

-

[imthepunchlord]

If you could erase any character from Miraculous Ladybug, which character would it be? The catch is you cannot say it's Adrien.

Oh that's easy. I'll actually tell you a few I'd cut.

For characters I just do not like, it's either Tikki, Marc, Nathaniel.

Out of all the animal research I've done on mythology and symbolism, the Ladybug is just the most boring. Kinda a bummer it's the centerpiece. As for Tikki herself, she's not really a character, she's a mouthpiece, trying to play cute mascot but also be a mentor, but she doesn't really mentor or advise Marinette hardly. On one hand, you could count the actual good advise she's given. Otherwise, she's just not a great main kwami to have. They don't even do anything fun with her tied to luck and love. If there was a kwami that was to get a lot of attention, I'd rather it be someone else.

Marc is just the vague LGBT insert that isn't even defined on what he or they are, and he/they are the... 4th anxious character to be apart of the cast. And he/they only got a Miraculous cause they're good at soccer/football? And because they're in Mendeleiev's class, they're even less of a defined character outside they like to write and have anxiety. I think people only like him/them because they ship him with Nathaniel and it's the only, potentially, gay ship ML will lightly humor, as all other popular guy ships and friendships got axed by girlfriends (seriously, I think they saw Adrinino and Kimax was popular, so they gave Nino and Kim girlfriends, and then they hardly hung out with their best guy friends anymore). So Marc to me feels like a waste of a character to include. Personally I don't care about him myself.

Of the classmates, Nathaniel I dislike the most. Due to my own personal history, characters that will destroy another's property and feel entitled to do so, and offer no apology or regret over it, yeah that's going in my bad book. It's actually bonkers to me that MarcNath is so popular as their intro ep together just raises so many red flags to me.

For characters I'm neutral on, I'd say Zoe or Luka.

Zoe feels like she was included to be an answer to the want of either a redeemed Chloe or Lila. Only instead of redeeming either of them, because apparently the show needed two mean girls to be against Marinette, they gave us Zoe who's a mix of them. And with her "sad backstory", she has that Mary Sue vibe. Also nothing about her set up really screams a match for Bee for me. I don't get her inclusion at all aside from lazily skipping out on redeeming one of the mean girls. The cast was already big enough, she was not needed. If Bee HAD to go to a blonde, Aurore is right there. And she's an actually liked character.

As for Luka, while he was an amazing alternative to Adrien for Marinette and did offer her support, that was it. He didn't progress the story of things, wasn't an actual love rival for Adrien that made him realize "oh, I may like Marinette and may not like her being with another boy". He didn't progress the story at all, which, if Marinette was stressing about all her responsibility of being Ladybug or how good she was at being LB, I would've used Luka as the alternative, the "rival" of the role as everything about him is set up to be the perfect hero, especially being so mature. He also joins the "Rich Daddy issues", which, we got enough from Adrien. Did we really need more? Which also sucks as, from what I've seen, it's more about Luka and Jagged and Juleka herself is hardly included, which, why is he and Juleka even siblings if she's not going to matter as much in this as Luka does?

The other factor is that Luka feels like a repeat, that someone else could've filled that role he has. For he's a blue boy who likes music and has a crush on Marinette.

Where have I heard that before...

Instead of immediately going the DJWifi route, why not just expand on Nino liking Marinette? He even could've been a proper love rival given that he was going to get a Miraculous anyway, and that's going to be the ONLY way Adrien would have a proper love rival.

But I guess Marinette can only be paired with white boys, can't give anything more to Nino that would have him more involved. Also would've had him work off Rena Rouge more and better build up them getting together.

No, just can't have that. We gotta add another character into the already big cast.

Lastly, for characters I like, I would actually say Marinette. This show and a good chunk of the fandom doesn't like her anyway, just let her go.

[just-your-average-supervillain]

My Read on the Sinner Power Rankings

So, I've not seen any dedicated posts exploring the reason for the Sinners' individual placements, so I'd like to break it down in a way that I think makes sense.

Bottom Tier: Noncombatants (Yi Sang, Sinclair, Ishmael) - In this tier we have a trio of Sinners whose backstories don't involve them performing combat in near any role; Yi Sang is a researcher, Sinclair a student, Ishmael a noncombatant deckhand. Not much to say here, but the individual placements make sense - we know Sinclair upranked from being weakest to second weakest, which tracks due to his initial inexperience, while Ishmael is the closest to a combatant the trio had prior to joining Limbus Company.

Lower-Middle Tier: Grunts (Heathcliff, Rodion, probably Gregor) - The Sinners who, if they were part of a battle in the past, would be one of the nameless grunt foes. All of them were fairly minor members of gangs (or, in Gregor's case, a military), with them being at most figureheads or internally important but physically unexceptional amongst their cohort. I should note, while Gregor is unranked, I think he'd fall on the upper end of this tier on account of being part of a military rather than a syndicate.

Upper-Middle Tier: Midbosses (Hong Lu, Faust, Meursault) - Sinners who, in their past roles, would have been something like a midboss - named and given a unique design, but not a lot of lore importance. They were probably specifically trained for their roles and have combat experience, especially given that their pasts seem to involve semi-important positions in powerful groups, be they Hong Lu's family, N Corp, or Limbus Company itself. Faust's presence is a bit odd, but not too shocking - we know from the LCE IDs that Limbus Company prefers its researchers be able to handle themselves in a fight at the level of a Lobotomy Corporation Agent.

Top Tier: Bosses (Ryoshu, Outis, Don Quixote) - The real force-bringers amongst the Sinners. Ryoshu's past as someone influential as part of the Fingers, Outis's role as a military general, Don Quixote being a Second Kindred - all of them probably have enough sway to possibly get named an Urban Plague or Urban Nightmare all on their own at full strength, really. I wouldn't be too shocked if we also fight Ryoshu and Outis in the future, given that the Sancho boss fights have her heavily weakened by torpor or thirst, giving an excuse for why the weaker Sinners are harder foes to fight.

Overall, I think the order makes a good deal of sense, particularly in the way they ensured that we knew that all of the Sinners with Cantos still yet to come have a high enough level of power that we can expect their foes to similarly challenge us. Honestly, out of all the tiers, I'm most interested in learning more about Hong Lu, Faust, and Meursault, especially because we know (comparatively) so little about them.

[quasi-normalcy]

Let's get into it:

I don't think we really know anything about the backstories of most of the TOS crew other than Kirk (genocide survivor; watched half his crew get killed by a Dikironium cloud creature), Spock (estranged from his family), and a tiny bit about McCoy (divorced, not that that's really "traumatic"). SNW later establishes that Uhura's parents died in a shuttle accident (I think they got that from the novels), but the rest of the crew is a blank slate in terms of backstory.

On TNG: Picard (shitty home life, abusive father, later elaborated on Picard's series into a literal gothic melodrama complete with suicidal mentally ill mom (ugh.)); Riker (mother died young, father was a dick, on his one from age 15); Data (planet destroyed by his brother; abandoned by creators; forgot his early life; went 26 years before he got his first friend. Not really traumatic though, on account no emotions); Worf (family annihilated by Romulans); Troi (domineering mother; dead father; dead older sister she never learned about until adulthood); Crusher (widow; parents killed in childhood; also that whole "generational alien sex ghost" thing we're not supposed to talk about). Geordi, though, explicitly had a good childhood (notwithstanding talk in the writers' room of retconning him to be a literal Rosemary's Baby)

On DS9: Sisko (watched his wife die at Wolf 359; that whole prophetic birth thing (ugh.)); Kira (child soldier during an attempted genocide); Bashir (basically rewritten by his own parents); Quark (everyone loves Moogie, but she is a pretty horrible mother); Odo (medical experiments); O'Brien (war-related PTSD); Dax (repressed serial killer memories); Garak (there's literally an entire novel about how shitty his childhood was)

On Voyager: Janeway (no trauma that I recall); Chakotay (ex-terrorist; I guess his home planet was taken over by Cardassians? They never really say); Torres (abandoned by her father; resentful of her mother; resentful of her own biology and cultural heritage); Paris (shitty father); Neelix (genocide survivor); Seven of Nine (holy shit, just everything that's ever happened to her). I can't recall Tuvok having had anything traumatic in his past, but I very much interpret "Meld" as showing that he's kind of a psychopath at heart and only a razor-thin veneer of logic prevents him from being a serial killer; Harry Kim had a happy childhood, notwithstanding an attempt to give him the "Rosemary's Baby" backstory that the writers had originally intended for Geordi (almost like even in the 90s, the writers couldn't think of how to develop characters without giving them trauma); Kes...had a childhood that lasted, like, a month or two, so it might not count

On Enterprise: Um...yeah, okay, I don't know this one as well. Archer's dad died before his ship could be built, which is...bad, I guess. T'Pol...um, I guess she went to that jazz club one time and it freaked her out. Reed's parents seemed awful in that very "upper-class British" way. Um... Yeah.

On DIS: Burnham's family was killed by Klingons, and then her school on Vulcan by blown up by terrorists, so, you know...trauma two-fer, I guess; Saru was from a species that was being systematically culled before puberty; Tilly's mom was neglectful; um. Book had an abusive dad; Adira saw their lover killed in front of their eyes; Owosekun was disowned by her luddite commune for joining Starfleet. Um. Airiam lost her husband and all her skin in a shuttle accident; Bryce (or maybe Rhys? I don't remember) was in a hurricane as a child; Rayner's planet was occupied by the Breen; probably some of the other bridge bunnies exposited trauma at some point during the fourth season, I don't remember

On Picard: Hoo-boy. Raffi was right about the attack on Mars, but lost her family and developed a drug problem because of her obsessive conspiracy theorizing; Rios had his father figure enact an illegal order and then kill himself in front of him; Elnor had his father figure abandon him (what the fuck, Jean-Luc); Soji's entire life was a lie, except her twin sister (who was killed); Jurati...actually seemed to have a pretty good childhood, but made up for it by having an incredibly traumatic present; Shaw has oodles of survivors guilt over Wolf 359; Jack Crusher, Jr....doesn't actually seem to have had anything particularly bad ever happen to him, but still acts entitled to run around with a giant chip on his shoulder (god I hate him); and then there's added trauma for established characters, like: Picard left Starfleet and bears the weight of the Romulan supernova; Troi and Riker lost their son because of the synth ban (and then, according to season 3, Troi telepathically suppressed Riker's ability to mourn (ugh.)); Seven of Nine was betrayed by her lover and had to mercy kill her adopted son; Crusher...got pregnant and randomly decided that her traumatic backstory was so overwhelming that she simply had no other choice but to keep her son from his father and ghost all of her friends (ugh! ugh! ugh!); something is implied to have happened to Worf, but they never said; Geordi...still doesn't really seem to have a lot of trauma, though the official tie-in materials say that he was in charge of Utopia Planitia when it got bombed. [Okay, so maybe there's a bit too much trauma on this series.]

Lower Decks: Mariner lost her best friend; Rutherford had his entire life deleted by an evil admiral; Shaxs has so much PTSD from the resistance that he'll go spare on anyone who even mentions Bajor; Billups has a shitty mother who keeps trying to trick him into have sex; um...that's kind of it.

Prodigy: They're all child slaves, first of all. On top of this, Dal was sold by his other mother figure (and doesn't even have parents); Rok (had to play the monster in an arena as a small child); Zero (separated from their hivemind; Jankom was an orphan sent off on a sleeper ship; and then woke up before everyone else and had to ditch the sleeper ship; Gwyn was raised to be a weapon by a cruel, domineering father. Murf seems to radiate peace, though.

Strange New Worlds: Pike knows his future is kind of crappy; Una lived her entire life hiding what she was; La'an was bullied for her family connections, and then had her family ate by Gorns; M'Benga, Chapel, and Ortegas have war trauma; and then there's the previously mentioned stuff with Spock and Uhura.

So yeah; going through it, I think that the only clear outliers in terms of trauma are Picard (way too much of it) and Enterprise (not enough).

#1214

Why lit of character in Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Strange New World have mostly all a traumatic past? Next step: how to make an interesting character without a traumatic childhood or a traumatic past?

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[danwhobrowses]

You know, as much as I would've loved a massive catharsis-led triumph over Athion Zathuda in battle, possibly left at the mercy of the vibrant flames of Fearne's Titan form reiterating herself with aplomb as Fearne Calloway, I actually kinda love how the narrative chose to defeat him. In many ways it is just hilarious, but also ironically in-character. Man talked all about wanting to prove himself, had a grandiose title of 'Sorrowlord' and was looking to be both a physical and mental adversary after threatening to torment Fearne into becoming Exaltant by targeting her loved ones. But then when he is pit against Bells Hells he barely does a thing; he tries to talk his way into turning Fearne again, gets jumpscared by Ira, the 'farm girl' he mocked to Fearne commandeers his dragon, he loses a leg and is thrown off his dragon, and the Hells even opt to keep him alive for some reason in 107 before kinda accidentally offing him in 108.

He thought he was the shit, but enemies of true threat like Ludinus, Otohan and Liliana (a threat before she was turned) looked down on him, and thus his attempts to prove them wrong - while also falling into the same trap as Ashton's father in seeking out a personal destiny and being willing to see their child as a tool to do it - bore no fruit at all, he was practically an afterthought through and through, his dragon really being his entire threat level. In the end, he got killed running (well, hobbling) away, and while Gloamglut's keening was a little sad in a way that a pet cannot fathom the moral complexity of having to kill their owner he still had it coming, plus following his eternal torture in the Tiki Bar of Ligament Manor, the last sorrow he wrought was his own; he achieved nothing, everything he hints he did to get to his position was for naught, and for all the fear and danger he tried to make himself possess he truly had no power over anyone, especially not Fearne - who can only pity him and, as further proof of being better than he ever was, hope that he takes the time to reflect on his sorrows.

[brofightiscancelled]

okay ill bite why do u hate kaoru sakuraba sidem aside from the fact that they went from hokuto as a main blue to downgrade to kaoru. to make it less awkward that I’m asking abt sidem on ur osomatsu side blog, what sidem idols would u assign to each matsu ?

i think sideM should collab w osomatsu-san and put them all in Beit so they can all get JOBS!!!!!!

anyways i hate kaoru from idolmaster sideM. i need all my osomatsu-san side blog followers to know that i hate this man. "i need a lot of money fast to pursue an extremely niche medical research track, which is why i quit my stable and high paying job as a surgeon to become an idol while having no soft skills, physical strength or stamina, or interest in getting along with people" are you Stupid??

he's not even using his idol clout to spread awareness of the rare disease he's trying to cure (like SEM does) so it can secure funding, he sees it 100% as a job and refuses to have fun, he is actively unpleasant and uncooperative in every interaction with his coworkers because he's trying to "rise to the top". it seems like the only thing he has going for him are his looks and that he kind of liked to sing when he was a kid. why not become a model at that point when you have the personality of a wet tree trunk. or better yet why not STAY A FUCKING DOCTOR!!!!!

also, i don't like meganes, so write that down.

[sunshine-and-her-ikevil-stuff]

*thinking about the villains' tragic fates*

You know, their routes never really talk too much about their fates and how it effects them mentally. Or how the MC feels about it, and dealing with the fear and angst of it with the slight exception of William's route

*eyes widen*

... I think I know what the sequels are gonna be about

[qcomicsy]

I have the controversial opinion that maybe, just maybe we stop wanting to go after people with pitchforks for getting characters wrong and not reading the comics inviting them to easy and accessible ways of and making our own content with comic accurate representation

people might feel less anxious about starting comics and misinformation won't spread as easily

[stardestroyer81]

So, guess who's Steven Universe trash now?

After being convinced by my fellow Starfighters to give the series a shot, I've since fallen in love with it only fifteen or so episodes in, and I just had to whip up a design for what my Gemsona would look like! MASSIVE shout-out to @stephysalcido and @minxxikuo for collaborating with me on her design— it wouldn't have been possible without them! 💚✨