#but they’re similar just with some swapped traits

[digitalmyyth]

Recolour girlsssssss :P

Not portrayed very well but blue’s head is meant to be like a GIANT pompom

And red bird woman is obviously not a duck— she is in fact a woodpecker

[fumifooms]

do you happen to have that page that talks about the beauty standards of each race?

Yeah sure. While scavenging pics for this I found this neat reddit compilation & chart & theory talk too. I had um, way more to say than I anticipated (I know you only wanted the one page. I have nothing to say for myself. Like most topics in Dunmeshi things snowball because they’re so interconnected. Mercy…) so, many races and observations are only mentioned near the bottom.

Beauty standards and race in Dungeon Meshi

Not pictured there’s also how elven society is harsh on visibly disabled people, and how the demon took away Mithrun’s silver eyes and ears to take away his pride. There’s also how Senshi might have fit in with the orcs more easily because of the dwarven wide body shape, and how they tend to have more body hair too I suppose. In the extra on orcs we see Senshi living with the orcs and he gets judged because of the hierarchy rather than his looks.

What is fashionable also differs from culture to culture, and there’s how tattoos only seem common with elves, though dwarves and others do also sometimes have some. They seem to not raise much brows, which makes sense since for many essentially they’re for professional (magical) purposes especially with elves. Gender roles also differ in type and importance, but generally they are similar to irl ones for the races we see. Elven society seems to be the least gendered, which would be an unsurprising logical outcome of having lesser sexual dimorphism aka they look more androgynous. Comparing fashions and gender roles and how they affect beauty standards would be a whole other compilation and conversation. Kui has great worldbuilding partially because she’s got such a good grasp on sociopolitics and geopolitics. History affects cultures and beauty standards greatly. Kui’s oneshot Distant Utopia was very eye opening on her way to worldbuild and the consideration she gives these things, I do really recommend reading it.

Out of the big 5, we know the least about gnomes, but their sheet does say both culture and region are similar to dwarves’ and they end up being confused together often, so we can imagine the beauty standards are similar to dwarves’ as well.

I wanted to touch on this in a post eventually, but how one daydream hour page said half-foots tended to be curvaceous like in the artwork below puzzled me for a long time, all the half-foot characters we see during canon are rather slender and lanky after all, Chil’s succubi also being more curvy than plump. Economics are for sure a factor in that I imagine, the half-foots characters we see are all implied to be some flavor of poor or malnourished, as are half-foots depicted as empoverished oppressed minorities in general. Even comparing the artwork with the half-foot sheet’s depicted average half-foot, the ones on the left seem bigger. Wouldn’t it make sense though, if unlike dwarves half-foots don’t have similar naturally wide bodies, yet due to idolizing dwarves they work towards having a similar body shape/type to emulate them?

It’s said half-foots tend to stick to pretty ethnically homogeneous regions (aka half-foots-only communities) unless they move to the big city with ambition to try and make it big (like Chilchuck and his wife & kids did), and that’s interesting imo because then that would mean that in a ton of half-foot communities, they rarely see or interact with dwarves whom they try to emulate. Of course, one thing about beauty standards is that when they get adopted, at one point it stops being "this is how dwarves look and so this is how half-foots should look" and just becomes "this is how half-foots should look", most people feel as though beauty standards aren’t learned but innate, so I figure the half-foots wouldn’t have any problem still seeking dwarvish traits when there are no dwarves around.

There’s also stuff you can glean here and there if you want to extrapolate more. Like how in the race swap artworks, Mickbell is only smiling in the dwarf portrait, and Rin’s elven portrait looks very close to her elven one- Rin who is stated to be beautiful in her profile blurb. Benichidori’s extra does teach us tallmen can definitely have harsh beauty standards, but also since the text portrays her as very dysmorphic that’s likely reflected in her thoughts to a much more intense degree than is common, not an accurate strict baseline to go off. Ah, Kabru’s blue eyes are also why he and his mother lived a rough life in Kabru’s hometown, but that seems to be regional. Good post here on the topic of Kabru’s blue eyes and ties to irl history. There’s a lot to be said about Kabru being a man that in many ways is close to elven beauty standards, and how that might have affected or been affected by his upbringing with elves + his persona as someone that can effortlessly charm most people. Marcille’s section here in this essay also goes into Marcille’s struggles to fit in with the ideal image of an elf.

Looking human

Also notable are beastkins and demihumans: Demihumans are all dehumanized which makes people treat them worse. So if you differ from the visual idea of "human" (an in-world subjective categorization just as much as demihuman is) most people do judge you negatively. Elves and dwarves get to fight about which type of human is considered the prettiest, but demihumans are below tallmen and half-foots, they are considered as simply below the beauty contest, incompatible with it.

Onis are perhaps the demihuman people we know of with the least cultural influence on the dunmeshi world, and with the least intensely different appearance than other demihumans—they seem to be technically categorized as human to people not from the eastern archipelago?— but even them are treated as lesser than human, treated as beasts to slain for reputation points or useful strength to have around and command. It’s said their "magnificient horns" and fangs are often shaven off when the oni lives in tallman towns, so you could easily make the argument that onis are denied the right to have their own beauty standards, having to conform to other people’s and going through mutilation to take away features they might otherwise have taken pride in. Inutade was bought by the Nakamotos from a dangerous sumo fighting ring that got one of Inutade’s tooth broken on her first and only fight, and kept as a low ranking servant ever since. Remember when I said different fashions existed in dunmeshi and how those could also affect beauty standards? Like the elves, if you look at the portraits pages which include a lot of characters that aren’t in the story you can see distinct cultures within the same races, for example one young elf is bald which is in sharp contrast with the usual elven long luscious hairstyles, and that’s especially true for onis I think. Maybe not only from different regions but different eras as well… They have a bit of population in the very north of the western continent, so I like to think some of the ogres live in very cold, maybe even subarctic or arctic conditions. The point I’m getting at here is that within a race, culture/ethnicity like with Kabru will also influence them it isn’t just tallmen as a whole, different communities will have differing beauty standards. The oni history blurb and third row first collumn portrait remind me of Mongolia (which historically was a lot of different nomadic communities with different cultural identities as well. Something something, the oni empire experienced a decline and then tallmen overpowered them, and now they’re governed and split apart by stronger social classes & slavers and the richness of culture was hurt for it especially if they have no real community left of their own), but obviously many of them are dressed and look rather japanese, makes sense considering living in/close to Wa, and first row second collumn portrait reminds me of ainus which again would be logical considering geographical placement, though I’m far from an expert. Interestingly, ainus are indigenous people both in Japan and Russia- Perhaps the northern western continent ogres are meant to be closer to Russia than Canada like I imagined? Ok tangent over.

The kobold sheet says they’re especially sought after as slaves because they’re "adorable", but locally in the western continent they’re repeatedly said to be seen more as ferocious and dangerous. The dehumanization is most apparent in the first comic below. The language barrier and conflicts no doubt worsen this by a lot, but I think it’d be hard to deny that their canine appearance makes the dehumanization worse. "They’re ferocious beasts, they’re demihumans, they can’t be communicated with". Most characters in Dungeon Meshi’s world are desensitized to slavery and most characters are prejudiced one way or another. Point being, kobolds are fully removed from human beauty standards, but no doubt for kobolds, other kobolds are more beautiful than humans are. They’re assumed to be an uncivilized bunch, but just like any other people they like to adorn themselves with nice clothes and jewelry and keep themselves clean and groomed; they too take care of their appearance and take pride in it.

And the orcs! This one we have the most contact with in canon, with not only there being foreigner characters from the ethnicity or hearsay of their homelands and culture but full on contact with a community. We get to see up close what they’re like and what they think, and of course in turn they’re our introduction to how demihumans are harshly looked down upon and seen as inferior, less human and thus less worth valuing and less dignified. It’s text that orcs are ugly to most humans and humans are ugly to most orcs. Since I judged they didn’t need accompanying explanation the pictures showing this are in the pictures dump at the top.

God forbid you sell vegetables to orcs my god- but then again they do basically mandate adventurers to kill any orcs they come across so yeah the world isn’t above that even a little bit.

So yes, my main point here is simply that orcs are yet another evidence of the physical ideal of "human" being an important beauty standard for human societies globally.

Izutsumi is our glimpse at how beastkins are treated in the world, and in Wa at least that’s ending up being caged and mistreated as part of a freak show. Izutsumi hates her appearance and wishes she could leave the feline part of herself behind to only be human. Interestingly, not that we have a lot of info on them so this is very much a take with a grain of salt situation, but there seems to be less stigma around artificial beastmen, those who can shapeshift at will. The main difference is of course appearance, that most of the time they simply look like average tattooed humans. Artificially creating humans is an illegal practice, and no doubt it’s not well regarded, but being able to hide that makes them less likely to be discriminated at any moment, or even just discriminated less intensely. Again, looking human is important, not only for belonging but for safety’s sake. Beauty standards rule the world with harsh hands.

Mermaids and fishmen

Ok we’re done now right? Right-! But wait… Wait…! Mermaids and fishmen are said to be demihumans too, special separate cases to the main three demihuman species however, which is also represented by how mermaids and fishmen both are in the Adventurer’s Bible chapter Monsters meanwhile ogres, kobolds and orcs are in the chapter World. They’re an interesting topic because they directly tackle this topic, not only in a meta way for the readers but also making characters themselves struggle to quantify their humanity with the goal of knowing wether they should be eaten or not, especially Chilchuck. Chilchuck’s "is it really just a matter of feelings?" mini arc.

The party asking themselves "Should we eat this?" is very common, and often they end up playing a little loose on morality, like eating the red dragon’s meat despite it having digested Falin. Not unsimilarly Marcille freaks out a little over the vegetables they harvested having been grown with fertilizer, aka largely human poo. Half of the motivation of "should we eat this perhaps sentient creature" is out of consideration and compassion, but more strongly and more often, the characters struggle with a sense of taboo at eating something too closely related to humans. Even, feel uncomfortable because of the deepseated impression that eating it would dirty them in some way. Cannibalism is an interesting and relevant topic in many ways, but what I want to mention is how there’s the more or less universal belief that committing cannibalism inherently taints you as a person and turns you more monstrous, morally but also literally depending on some myths such as w*ndigos and onis in some cases, like in Touge Oni. Marcille and Izutsumi both express a fear of eating monsters turning them monstrous. Maybe this is part of what Laios was hoping for, honestly. There are two fears here, if eating a demihuman monster constitutes as cannibalism or not, and so, will eating it taint you because it’s a human, or will eating it taint you because it’s a monster? You are what you eat, until it’s a little too literal. You morally are the means by which you get your food, and you physically are the result of your nutrition. Dungeon meshi manages to mix an exploration of humanity with the theme of food because our relationship to food is very deep and complex, psychological as much as physiological.

In the end, the characters sort of shrug and accept that they’ll never quite understand the world of mermaids and fishmen and how they operate, and what that means about them. Laios is the one always challenging these notions other characters take for granted, it’s not obvious to Laios why people are softer on mammals than other animals and plants, it’s not obvious to Laios why people would be afraid of eating a monster just because it’s a monster, it’s not obvious to Laios why some food is gross to Marcille but not fish testicles, it’s not obvious to Laios why you should immediately regard orcs and kobolds badly.

"Cows are probably closer to humans [aka closer to being human] than fishmen, though they’re clearly intelligent", dehumanization to lessen empathy towards them to be able to eat them. Meanwhile, mermaids seemingly have a less noticeable "civilization" or intelligence, they hunt in groups like fishmen, but they don’t use tools and such, they feel more primal and similarly instinct driven, and yet… Do they attract sympathy more? Mammals, humans, is it because of their nature or because of their appearance?

Both the nature and appearance of fish are ones people don’t typically sympathize with. "Fish don’t feel pain", "goldfish only have 5 seconds of memory", "it’s okay to keep fish in completely empty bowls too small for them until they die from it", so many lies and misconceptions exist that make people less considerate of them. The average lifespan of a goldfish is 10-15 years, the record is 43, but they’re not seen as lives that really matter, so a lot of goldfish die in a few weeks of bad aquarium conditions. There’s a lot of research on animals evolving to look cute and appealing to make some predators want to kill them less and parents want to care for them more, including humans. First good google research result gave me this credible short article on the topic. In Chilchuck’s weighing wether a fishman is far enough from being human or not to eat, "face is 100% fish" is his biggest argument for it being more acceptable. The face, the most important thing for empathy and recognition. The face, the decapitated fishman one that falls into his hands next chapter.

To quote @room-surprise: "Chilchuck can't explain why it's wrong to eat the merpeople, even though it's NOT complicated. But the problem is Chilchuck would have to accept and acknowledge that the merpeople might be people? And that's outside of the worldview he passively believes, so he can't just say that, because he doesn't think that's true. But that IS why he "feels" it's wrong. And it's all you'd need to say for Laios to understand! But it would require acknowledging that maybe the way they're treating and talking about the merpeople is wrong."

The idea of Chil not being able to grapple with how maybe some monsters are more humans than they seem, him who had been an advocate of half-foots rights, half-foots who get undermined and treated as inconsequential sacrifices… Grappling with how he could relate to the merpeople’s situation almost, and pulling away because it’s so existentially horrifying. I do not want to see myself into an hostile fish-faced warrior I can’t communicate with. In a way this also relates to Chilchuck being the only party member who doesn’t see Izutsumi as a cat in the relationship chart, the only one to treat her with full human dignity. He knows the struggle to be taken seriously, he knows being infantilized and he knows what it’s like to be treated as less than human.

Below, you will see Chilchuck draws the line of where they become not okay to eat as when "they already look like mermaids". Above, there’s speculation that the algae hair is partly to mimic "the mermaids’ beautiful female form". Is it because mermaids are their enemies and the ambiguity might give them extra seconds to attack or flee? Is it to trick adventurers instead? It’s striking to me that this is what works, with the adventurers. Sure the fishmen are intelligent, but explicitly here, what makes them no longer acceptable prey to Chilchuck is that they look close enough to a mermaid, close enough to human. Mermaids who of course themselves have this form to entice and seduce and charm the adventurers they prey on. Chilchuck considers the intelligence due to the tridents, but most of his internal debate centers around their appearance, and the image of a fishman skewered sickens him. The power of mimicry… Mimic being a beautiful human woman. Mimic being cute, babies being wired to make us feel protective and softened. Half-foots, sometimes pretending to be children for scams or help or avoiding trouble.

The mermaids are only concerned by their differences and not their similarities, and have no trouble treating the fishmen as food rather than peers. To an outside perspective like us, the audience, all these categorization of "more human" and "less human" between onis and orcs and elves and tallmen etc seem stupid and unfounded, but to the people living in Dungeon Meshi’s world, elves may as well be mermaids while onis are fishmen, not alike at all, unworthy of empathy and thus fine to eat.

Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi promotes unity. It’s about seeking to understand the unknown and the misunderstood, the dehumanized and the inhuman. It shows the good that comes from seeking to understand what you do not, even when that’s one another.

[danganronpa96]

Dangaronpa 69/96 AU where everything is the same except the Brians swap games.

No. No that is cursed (proceeds to make a post about it anyway)

Brian Griffin in DR96?

Could you imagine the ego boost he’d receive from a company literally calling him the Ultimate Author? Bro would shut up less about it than in DR69 /hj

I think he wouldn’t complain about the imbalance of humans to animals since that’s what he’s used to back at home

He would definitely have some sort of dynamic with Bojack. Is it good? Bad? You can never tell. One time you see them drinking together, another they’re avoiding each other like the plague

I could see him befriending Retsuko and Jesse as well, however again I don’t think it’d be the most perfect friendship

Brian Pasternack in DR69?

If Brian was allowed to give himself his own talent, I think he’d pick anything that wasn’t a witch hunter. Maybe Ultimate Crafter since that’s his hobby :-}

Lord help him why are there so many talking animals here

I think him and Luigi would end up being good friends since they share a lot of similar traits. I can imagine him helping him out during trials and such

And of course the obligatory Ashley mention every time the two cross over. Although here if Brian did chose a different talent, I’m not sure how Ashley would even know he was a witch hunter. However I’d like to think she can just feel that aura from a mile away lol

[whiplashisthinkingaboutbakugan]

One thing I think sucks is how the Bakugan seem to have less personality as the series goes on. I’m not touching the third reboot with a ten foot poll I’m a full grown adult. I only have the patience for one reboot. I say this to say I can’t speak on that one. But I watched both Battle Brawlers and Battle Planet.

When I got to Mechtanium surge I got sad that they switched Shun and Marucho’s Bakugan again. Marucho hasn’t had a compelling Bakugan since Elphin. And while I like Elphin…Preyas was the best Bakugan personality wise in the whole series. Nobody made you have more fun on screen. Aquamos was fine. He had a distinct personality just less of one? When they actually made him pretty much only say ‘cool is the rule’ I knew it was Jover. Whoever Marucho has now, their entire personality is just being angry and I’m not a fan!!! Don’t give Bakugan just one personality trait. Preyas had it allllll ugh.

Shun and Skyress’ dynamic was special. The way she left the show was special too. She came back on occasion as well which felt more real. I remember Shun having to adjust to Ingram. Hawktor and Ingram were kind of similar to me but also yooo Ingram was transmasc? Real. Whoever Shun is with now is just his personality again which is less interesting. At least Hawktor seemed to have new opinions.

Runo, Alice, and Julie never switched Bakugan but what happened to theirs?? I await Mechtanium Surge to answer. But all of them had banger dynamics with their Bakugan.

Every new important character has some kind of dynamic with their Bakugan. That I can say. The arc with Rubinoid in Gundalian Invadors really got me. Even Anubius has a dynamic with his Bakugan if I recall correctly.

I think instead of swapping out Shun and Marucho’s Bakugan, you either give them multiple Bakugan or just do what every season does; add more characters with new Bakugan.

I liked Battle Planet. S3 or Geogan Rising was rough but I liked the other seasons for the most part. But the only Bakugan I can say that had personalities was Pharol, Nillious, Drago, and Trox on occasion. We’re going to put aside the Bakugan that were villains in the series cause they kind of don’t count for what I’m talking about. Of course Viloch and Tikko have personalities they’re the villains. But I can’t really think of an iconic villain and Bakugan duo. The reboot does a lot more Gus and Vulcan kind of pairings rather than Barodius and Dharak yknow? I can’t really think of what’s unique in the dynamic of Hydrous and reboot Shun. Or if Hydrous really had a personality. Drago in this show seems way more laid back and less…there. In the reboot they brawlers hardly spend time bonding with their Bakugan minus that one season they got new ones, and it was a little disappointing. Drago and Dan’s bond felt right because it’s always Dan and Drago. I do see them have a dynamic sometimes in the reboot but it’s so much less pronounced. Pegatrix and Lia just have the same personality and Trox is usually the same with Winton minus when they disagree. Honestly with Dan’s other friends they don’t really go past “mmm I don’t know about that,” when their Brawlers are being a little silly. I could be wrong as I said I watched it all when each season dropped.

Magnus and Nillious Dynamic is significant because of the whole age thing. Magnus had to push to bond with Nillious to understand him. It was compelling! Pharol’s personality had always been compelling. He’s inquisitive and competitive. He guides Ajit emotionally and Ajit tells him about the world. These two are my favorite reboot characters so I am biased but I think this is at least some of the reason why. They feel like they really fit Bakugan.

The most compelling villain in the reboot that isn’t Magnus was Haavik but Haavik’s Bakugan didn’t have a personality!

The reboot got one thing right, not replacing the cast or brawlers or Bakugan. What they got wrong was not putting depth in their dynamic. I fear the worst of this trend continues.

TLDR never trade out your star of the show (Preyas.)

REAL TLDR: I love these shows most when Brawler and Bakugan share that bond of friendship that the show’s all about. Make sure I can feel it. Dan and Drago changed my life. I wanna make sure that if Bakugan can do that it does with those feelings it gave me.

THATS WHY YOU SHOULDNT TURN THEM INTO BEYBLADES. Goodnight Tri-state area.

[gingersp1ce547]

Equipe e is understandably cautious of the more unconventional islanders after everything that happened with the inhabitants of the holy cradle. Some like Cesar being cold or even downright hostile.

The islanders try to give them patience, though these new arrivals don’t speak much about where they came from it’s clear to the more seasoned fights on the server that they’ve been through hell.

Maybe thats why equipe e’s first ally on the island is fit. Liz and thiago feeling like they’re almost looking in a mirror while the golden trio hope they’re looking at their future.

One where their continued fight has left scars but not left them broken. One where they’re still able to be kind.

Fit helps arthur get used to not having an arm. He bonds with cesar over hacking. Him and liz and thiago swap stories of the horrors they’ve seen.

Joui doesn’t know how to feel about fit. He seems to good to be true. He knows the other members of the team feel it too, but they put it aside for the sake of information gathering.

Its just that he has a feeling that’s exactly what fit is doing too.

He corners him one day, sword in hand. Fit calls him kid and he bristles, there are very few people left who can call him that and fit is not one of them. He demands fit explain why he’s gathering information on not just them but the islanders as well. What does he hope to gain by lying to everyone around him?

Fit takes a deep breath and tries to put away the thought that joui is so similar to a younger him that it hurts. That the scars he gained during the his first real war feel fresh and aching.

He decides to tell joui the truth. That he was sent here on a mission much like them. Joui asks if his mission includes anyone purposefully getting hurt. Fit responds no, or atleast he doesnt think so. Why would you ever accept a mission like that is the first thing out of joui’s mouth. It takes a second before fit tells him there are somethings worse than death and understanding floods through joui’s mind.

“Let me help,” he eventually says.

“Joui,” fit sighs, “this is dangerous and you’ve been through enough”

“And you haven’t?” He was stubborn, it was one trait of his that fit wished him and joui didn’t share. “Let me help, at least for the peace of mind that if you can’t stop people getting hurt. I can”

Fit relents, and if after a while joui starts calling fit fit-senpai when its just them and occasionally ramon. Well then no one has to know.

[dreemurr-skelememer]

Question for u— what do u think of fanon and canon dream? Do u think they’re two completely different characters as well as one or the other is mischaracterized more? I read ur opinion on ink and I agree and as a dream sans stan I gotta know

this is one of those instances where i........don't exactly enjoy both? LOL

a lot of dreamtale chapter 1 is good! the concept is fantastic but that's the most of what i enjoy about canon dreamtale and dream. like that's it

fanon dream, on the other hand, have a lot of problems that's similar to fanon papyrus and fanon blue (swap sans) so i don't exactly mind it but i don't enjoy it either

i've always been annoying (apologies to everyone who had to deal with my dreamtale "takes" at age 16. i know some of yall DETEST me because of my terrible "takes" then) about writing my own interpretation of dream and dreamtale LOL

but here's the kicker.

i don't think they're two different characters at all. i think canon dream is the same as fanon dream because i think canon dream was influenced by fanon and totally tainted him forever

if you think papyrus or blue is infantilized, god you are lucky because at least they're not canonly infantilized.

i have gripes with both canon and fanon but they share many traits and the infantilization is definitely one of them.

i think that's why i constantly just. analyze dream as tired and jaded and a bit of an asshole who wants to be the good he should be (along with a walking anxious white knight machine) because in canon he IS a hero but also for some reason the damsel in distress and also a itty bitty wittol baby???? there's a lot going on.

THOUGH. HERE'S ANOTHER KICKER.

i think fanon has two dream categories. crazy, i know.

one category is feminizing him (in very much an insulting and degrading way) and the second category is just making him the biggest asshole on earth just to make nightmare look better and more justified in his anger and hatred.

I HAVE A LOT OF OPINIONS ABOUT THE SECOND CATEGORY. OHHH BOY DO I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT THAT AND THE FLAT CHARACTER WRITING THAT COMES WITH IT.

that's all i have about this right now i think

[flyrobinflyy]

hi! i'm asking for elaboration on what dog jason todd would be if you're willing :)

(i'm also violently asexual)

tw for hunting and that type of stuff

hi!! yess!! buckle up 🫡 my credentials are being someone that’s been obsessed with dogs ever since they were very little

going under the cut because i blabbed a lot more than originally intended

jagdterriers are bred to hunt basically anything, originally for (mostly) smaller things underground but nowadays a lot of people use them for boars, coyotes, foxes, etc (wild boars are surprisingly dangerous, which is kind of funny to think about). this comes back up further down with an actual tie to his character i promise

they’re actually pretty small, like 20ish pounds as adults — and yes yes yes i know jason came back from the dead built like a brick but! he also, like, conditions and exercises to stay that way and properly worked jagds are also built like bricks (plus the whole being a terrier thing works in their favor). the standard for the breed describes them as well built and robust, too

the tenacity is absolutely off the walls, especially when it comes to something that they set their mind to (aka hunting/their job). like, they’ll allow themselves to be torn to shreds if it means they get to do what they want to do/what they were made for. this is pretty much shared by all the bats, as they’re all pretty covered in scars, but bro literally came back from the dead with a mission 😭 jagds are also clearly filled to the brim with energy, athleticism, and drive

in most cases, they don’t play well with others at all. which, yes, bruce has eight hundred other children and in current comics jason is on a lot better terms with most of them. buttt, it’s pretty hard to ignore titans tower and every other time that similar things happened.

‘jasons been with the outlaws and works along side the bats’: in situations where they are hunting and actually working, it’s not rare for them to be in a group in order to successfully complete whatever they’re doing. (aka, working together with the outlaws or the bats or whomever to take down larger villains)

and, just like every other genetically prone to aggression breed, they don’t always start that way and it’s rather something that is developed over time/as maturity occurs. choosing to tie this into jasons differences pre and post pit

with proper introductions, stimulation, fulfillment, etc they can be decent family dogs in some circumstances. which also ties back to working alongside the bats i guess? but also all of the other times that theres swapping between him despising them and referring to them as family members

i know a chunk of the ‘red hood protects kids’ is fanon but, (once again) in select situations, they can be pretty alright with kids. protective nature is also kind of a given with all the stuff already covered too lol

bonus: they can have some pretty silly hair and the breed standard allows for a small amount of white (going along with jasons white strip perfectly 😌)

i totally see the comparison to an am. pit bull terrier (the breed most people ive seen compare him to) as well, as they share a good chunk of these traits, but. ya know.

(asexuals unite!)

[kiwibirdlafayette]

I think Tom (and all his alts) strive for freedom…

OH ABSOLUTELY

I totally agree!! I think just like- the nature of Tom and his alts (who ofc meta wise were all written after him) is that they’re all dependent people of some kind, usually as the result of their circumstance of existence

Whether that be like in Tom's case because Dianite (or Mianite in Godswap, albiet different dynamic) is the one to grant him reanimated life, making him sort of indebted to him- or Cassell who isn't necessarily bound to his god moreso that he's bound to his creators (Flash and Ianite). Mot also sort of has that tether element to him because Dianite technically also saved his life from the creeper spore infection iirc but I think it makes the principle of freedom a little different to him esp. because it turned into like a business partners to unrequited crush to sorta lovers kinda thing depending on your post canon

All of this translates to me into their kind of devotion as champions, and again how that's like different from Ianitee flavored devotion (based on the guidance of Ianite and trusting in her judgement to lead them the right way so she can keep them safe), or Mianitee flavored devotion (Like knights to a king, similar to Ianitees follow orders for order, kind of follow his principles rather than specific instructions from him). Dianite being Dianite and the elements of chaos being how it is, Dianitee devotion is like being an extension of him, not via principles or guidance but by intent like being mercenaries in service of him while still being tethered in fear of punishment if its not done right. And maybe yknow they don't mind the implications that come with that title (Mot's case, for example) I think that's where that desire for freedom comes for- a want to have an existence that isn't tethered to their god

side note this could not apply as much to Dianite and Cass in Aitheaca because Dianite takes the Ianite role in terms of swapped god positions (and Cass runs off Dianite's guidance in the same way as Jordan would to Ianite) as Flash and Ianite are more similar to Tom and S1 Dia but bear with me xD

So kind of like extrapolating from that- their more specific desires for freedom are all sort of tied to Tom's need for spiritual freedom- I want to like refer to the whole thing of the Thauminomicon-y traits Marsh had mentioned before, and how Tom has 'fabrico', which stands for craft/repair. It connects in the sense of yeah he's a zombie he's stiched back together but. ok hear me out. Who would have stitched him back together? It was implied in an episode of Isles that c!Tom doesn't remember the Minecraft Project- (because they're memories he can't return to, just big empty void in his head), or when he was alive/ill from zombification, but he hadn't died yet. The person that arrives on Mianite with Tucker is that Tom, he is all that chaotic goofy Tom is, but at the same time he's partially someone else's creation, sewn together in intricate ways to be the bringer of chaos for the god he serves- but beyond that? His humanity. At his core, he's human, not someone who'll just take orders blindly and him striving for his freedom from that tether is refusing to deny the things that makes him alive. And I think the other alts like ya said follow suit, in Mot maintaining his humanity regardless of his ailment through choosing to care for Alyssa rather than being just a ruthless chaotic killing machine when Rux!Dia dies or in Aitheaca the way I want to write Cassell as someone who was born as a weapon for Ianite but loves collecting vintage human things and views his innermost self through music. The visual I kind of go to is the idea of Tom literally crafting and repairing the parts of himself that make him feel trapped by breaking them apart, burning it, adding new things when he takes the hands of friends and yeah!! And I think this sort of aspect could also tie into him becoming Mecha Dianite as well in finding freedom by choosing the person he is, and owning it

[plural-affirmations]

Hiya so I don’t have any idea who to contact but I’ve been starting to think that I (we?) maybe could be a system. Here is a few traits I’ve noticed:

I forget A LOT of crap going on throughout my day, especially when its related to past trauma | Ex.: Yesterday, my therapist had asked me to describe a day living with my mom. I kinda forgot what happened during that conversation? She tells me that I swap how I act a lot, and don’t answer to my name as much.

My childhood is mostly forgotten, and kinda mixed with things that happen now. | Ex.: When I was trying to think of a specific childhood story, I started talking about something I did last week. I couldn’t remember the story after that.

I have, like, really complex stories and world inside my head that I can’t control very well that I see in the first person. These people try to talk to me but they’re voices sound misted.

There are voices in the my head that give me instruction, and I hear them more right before I disassociate and forget what happened. | Ex.: I have never fixed a computer before but my head started to tell me how and now my computer isn’t broken anymore.

A lot of the time I will go to bed and then wake up on the couch with a movie playing 3 hours later. | Ex.: I somehow watched half of Falcon And The Winter Soldier last night.

When I was younger these symptoms were much worse, and I would go to school and come home from school in seeming the same hour, but I could remember what my teachers taught me? | Ex.: There was this one day where I made an entire new friend, and she talked to me about stuff I didn’t like. I had 0 memories of her, except passing her in the hallway a few times.

I used to think this was just weird PTSD stuff but I’m starting to think it might be DID or any other kind of Dissociative Disorder. I haven’t done a crazy huge amount of research yet but a decent amount. These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head. I’ll continue doing research, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts?

So... I can't, in good-faith, say (over the internet, nonetheless,) "yes, you're definitely a system".

I will say that, to me, those do not seem like ordinary experiences a singlet would have.

That doesn't mean it's impossible; you very well could just be forgetful or have some other condition(s) going on.

But! In my honest opinion... the things you listed sound similar to when my dissociative symptoms were at their worst. They're not like that anymore, though they definitely were at one point. I think you should definitely do more research. I'll link a post @/multiplicity-positivity made:

Research by itself can be beneficial, but I think if you start seriously considering the possibility of being plural, you should reach out to a local mental health professional.

As stated in the linked post, it's best to rule out traumagenic/disordered plurality before anything else. If you do it in the reverse order, you could have the possibility of assuming dissociative features to be non-disordered plurality, and that would be a pretty messy situation to find yourself in.

That's just what I think. I hope you find what you're needing to, anon!

Good luck! /gen

🖤💜💙💚💛

[hellohimawarihana]

My Analysis about Binan Koukou Transformation

Do you remember magical girl? Being female and has superpowers from aging up to fighting baddies weren't a rarity in the genre today. But what if we gender swap them and make some parody about something?

That's where Binan Koukou comes in. Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu (or "Boueibu" for official short name) is the series where the male quintet from Defense Club are forced to fight the monsters created by people with negative minds, and there's a villain trio (or duo in one case) that were responsible to this. If you watch Binan Koukou franchise until the end then you'll know how those teams will end up. And it's one of the anime series where All characters are boys! Even children are boys too! Whereas there's some characters mention girls on it, there's no single female shown in this Binan Koukou universe.

*cough* Well that aside, let's jump into the transformation part, shall we?

First off, are you familiar with Sailor Moon? For me, yes since it’s one of the anime I watch when I was young and it’s the first anime to have stock footage henshin. Unlike Sailor Moon, Binan Koukou has five members start transforming all at once in the first episode, so what will the staff do then? You’ll find out soon enough...

Protagonists

First off, Battle Lovers from LOVE. The red one, Yumoto has to kiss the bracelet after saying ‘Love Making!’, and the scene goes of him naked, he then creates glazes and start forming his battle suit step-by-step, before introducing himself as Battle Lover Scarlet (those familiar with GoPri that aired on the same year will compare him with Cure Scarlet by name). Notice these scene one by one?

How about the rest of the team? Just look at them, they just form a glaze to surround them, and burst off in full cloth, unlike Yumoto. Long story short, they make a similar case to Sailor Moon’s member. They even keep their hairstyle and even glasses for Atsushi/Epinard (green). The main point of this henshin is the dark-colored background turned lighter upon the completion and the colored naked bodies. Out of all the kissing scene, Ryuu/Vesta (pink) has the best one because of happy face and open eyes during kissing. Anyway, does these scenes remind you of Sailor Mercury’s transformation? Yep, because they’re showing back by the revealing the clothes instantly.

Now you understand? Then let’s move onward to the second season of the first series.

Even with less step, Yumoto still show that he’s the only one with step-by-step henshin. Now with expression to put the cherry on top. The henshin was completed with the formation of the ribbon.

The rest of the team are still shortened and it’s not even good. They surround themselves with the glaze in different way and without any revealing sound, they appear in full cloth. The main point of the henshin is the colored line of their naked bodies and the sparkles in kissing scene, which has different fist pose before kissing. They keep both henshin sequences from here and the first series in the OVA.

Now we'll move on to the second team: Karurusu Knights from HAPPY KISS. Given the same studio that animate the previous season, they kept the traits of: theme color lined nude body, and the activeness. But this one has a weird start.

(unlike previous seasons, these transformations from HAPPY KISS were darkened a LOT, so most pictures are corrected by me. I know that the BD version will fix this, but I can’t find the torrent anywhere...)

The mascot transforms into human and lands to create a wide water barrier. Then the user enters the barrier without getting wet and the mascot reveals a symbol on his hand to be kissed by the user, with no incantation! Although not pictured, there are 5-colored rays of light surrounding Kyotaro/Fiore before activating his transformation.

And in the stock footage, the red leader, Kyotaro, appear naked alone and perform magic by the rod to form the suit step-by-step, starting with right boots. I kind of not liking the one with short shorts because only showing navel at first, and a rising shoulders before summoning gloves. Like Yumoto, Kyotaro completed his henshin by forming a ribbon.

The rest have almost the worst shortened henshin. With similar method (minus the rays of light). They spin their rod (except Ichiro/Spazio [pink]) and encase their naked body in ice shaped in respective theme and quickly breaks. As the scene fades in, they’re fully clothed, keeping their hairstyle like Kyotaro and even glasses for Taishi/Neve (blue). Sailor Moon fans will notice they’re similar to Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus henshin from the first anime. Sailor Neptune and Sailor Pluto are also the same as the four from Happy Kiss, but without lip scene. Does Ichiro’s full cloth scene reminds you of Atsushi’s from the previous season?

In case of the name, I've been wondering upon watching it: since the series named HAPPY KISS, why they need to have ‘Kiss’ in their warrior name? (like Fiore Kiss, Stella Kiss, Luna Kiss, Neve Kiss and Spazio Kiss) But since they kiss the mascot’s hand, it makes sense, however at that time they felt unmatched for me at all.

Villains

How about the villains? Well, let’s see... for LOVE, there’s Caerula Adamas. For Kinshiro (Chevalier Orite) he scans his right leg and he’s done. The rest of the trio (Ibushi/Argent and Akoya/Perlite) aren’t even a sequence at all aside of roll call and pose.

They’re pretty much the same in terms of the two version of their battle costume (S1's black and S2's white) so I’m not gonna say much, but Kinshiro’s pose with his ring in S2 are very badass at least.

Season 2 introduces the singer duo Haruhiko/Salty Sol and Akihiko/Melty Luna from VEPPER. Where Sol handles the arm, Luna handles the leg. Then there’s split screen then another separate scene for them.

HAPPY KISS introduces Edelstein with the same treatment as Caerula Adamas and Karurusu Knights because their mascot must be in human form to activate their battle form. Ata (Ritter Diamant) has the full body ping while Taiju/Rosenquarz and Masa/Amethyst aren’t even a sequence. But posing-wise they’re better than the previous trio, especially Masa/Amethyst.

And their pose with the rings are cool too, and I especially love their transformation phrase. "Die Verwandlung!!"

Now can you realize the similarities? If you’re familiar with Sailor Moon then yes, the trio are alike Outer Senshi while Beppu siblings are alike Sailor Starlight. In my opinion, among all villain transformations in the franchise, Beppu brothers from S2 are the best one.

Others

Aside from those, there's some transformations where it occurs very short with just posing, though it's reasonable for a number of reasons.

Battle Lovers are forced to de-age into kids that their battle outfit were oversized for them to wear. And the group roll call at the end is simple but cute.

Karurusu Knights reversed this as they become grandpas! I can't imagine them actually transforming in that state, but I really like Taishi/Neve's pose here, it's so funny.

Okay, guess I covered the entire thing from the series and let's end this session with ''Happy Powder!''

In conclusion, these two series has only the red leader performing like the regular transformation do, and the other four and almost all villains just do something to be instantly appear in full cloth afterwards, just like the rest of the member of Sailor Moon. While LOVE members can transform by their own, Happy Kiss requires their respective mascot in human form which it felt a bit like PriMagi (for beginning part, at least). I’m feeling the rest of the four’s transformation animation are just getting worse season by season, but the flow without worrying about it is still awesome, though. But give this franchise a pass if you want all members including the leader have longer step-by-step henshin because you might be disappointed if you watch Binan Koukou and even Sailor Moon’s transformations (because I'm a fan of step-by-step transformation and that's why the males from non-magical girl shows had one of the best transformation in my opinion). That’s enough analysis for now and I’ll see you in my next post!

[larnax]

tentative ochette rework with unfucked formatting

so ochette is a little different than throné in that her problem is fundamental and so basically everything but the bones of her story is Bad, for one simple reason: the implementation of the beastlings sucks ass

now that being said i am not going to sit here and explain why the beastlings are handled very poorly bc 1) ive already done that and 2) it's actually a really easy fix. just make beastling a trait you gain becoming a hunter and the rest of toto'haha are just normal fantasy pacific islanders. they did this with tropu'hapu and it was fine so they clearly can make a normal fantasy pacific islander region if they want to, so just. do that. and then because beastlings are just humans who've become hunters, treat them like humans. they speak the language they're already all native speakers of fluently and they are just people do not be weird.

but you may ask, how would becoming a hunter give you cat ears? and the answer is very simple, deus ex subjob menu. in ot1 the subclasses are literally blessings from the gods, so you can just imply that a similar thing is happening here where draefendi blesses you with the power of kemonomimi once you join her hunt. or a wizard did it who care. beastlings 100% exist primarily so the hunter class can make your characters catboys bc thats awesome so its better for everything if we're just honest with that

how does this fix everything?: well 1) as the beastlings are no longer infantilized animalistic caricatures, there is less racism in the game, 2) this makes the hunter subclass no longer technically racefaking, and 3) it means that the 20 year old woman who is the only protagonist from toto'haha no longer has to be treated like a toddler

yes i know this breaks temenos' chapter 5. i dont care. skill issue.

so anyway ochette. unfortunately ochette's entire character is noble savage/toddler so she needs an overhaul

my proposal is to make her more autistic keep her caring a lot/focusing on her interests, which are now: hunting, cooking, and languages.

these were mainly chosen based on her existing mechanics, except for languages which is tied into the fact that i want to change her night path action to be swapped with hikari's so befriend now gains you information. (yes i know this would make bribe identical to hire so you would have to change what mechanic it relies on. idk which one im not a doctor). this is mainly because ot2 already does a lot of interesting things with path actions even outside of character stories and i wanna push the thing where some NPCs can only have certain path actions just a little farther and make it so that not all NPCs can be info-gathered by all characters because some of them only speak other languages. yes ik this would require them to create some conlangs but it doesnt have to be Every character and creating one fairly simple conlang for ochette's story and maybe like 3 more for random NPCs to have 1 line in seems fully possible. they already made a couple different writing systems. actually they could literally just keep the writing systems and just write romaji/english/etc sentences in them if they dont wanna do a real language.

why ochette? Because I Said So. i told you guys i held back on throné ochette not having much of a character means i get to enter silly mode

anyway so Ochette Autism activate. she will now love cooking. she invents new recipes and likes finding ways to cook complicated stuff with only things she can gather in the moment. she has extensive knowledge of every edible plant in toto'haha. her first thought when she sees an elemental spirit with no physical body is "yeah i could make a mean fucking soup of that creatyre". she would hunt regardless as the main hunter for her village but the reason she Loves hunting is that she loves finding her own ingredients. she also really loves languages. no longer is animal language automatically translated, now she just learned how to speak the languages of animals from toto'haha and some others from juvah. she likes talking to people and is academically interested in languages. this partly comes from convenience bc shes had to get used to learning languages to speak with the village and her animal companions but its also partly because she has trouble communicating with people and its one of the ways she tries to account for that. also more on that in the story since its what ill be focusing on. she cares a lot about sustainability and is fundamentally against killing what you won't eat. her main flaws are that 1) despite her love of languages she often has difficulty communicating with people even if she can understand them, 2) she doesn't really care about anything outside her interests, and 3) due to her living her entire life in a small village of people who all knew her she's kind of unfamiliar with the concept of a stranger who doesn't immediately get her and can sometimes be overly familiar or opaque to people who don't understand her

her extensive cooking knowledge will mostly be used for jokes and in travel banter while her language skills will be the driving force of the story

also due to this im rewriting her relationship map lets just go in order. so as she and castti now are both knowledgeable about plants and meat(most of the human body is meat) the two of them keep finding things they have in common, and also because ochette's prepared food grants a bunch of positive effects she and castti end up talking about the benefits of healthy eating and medicinal properties of food a lot. she and throné initially have an awkward relationship because ochette is very satisfied with her life and she. isnt, but as throné goes through her story where she's worried that a killer is all she'll ever be and she's a permanent net negative for the world, ochette provides her with an example of someone who has a sustainable relationship with life and death and gives her hope that she might eventually be able to find an occupation where she can use her skills to benefit herself and other people, and also they are gay. osvald and she are initially very awkward because ochette talks a ton and osvald is completely unreceptive but as their stories progress osvald decides that ochette would probably make a pretty good scholar if being a hunter ever falls through for her and shes like yeah haha maybe in another life. partitio and her are mismatched despite being similar because despite both of them being singlemindedly determined about their interests but coming off as endearing because one of those interests is befriending people means they get along on a lot of fronts, partitio is very focused on progress and increasing in scale whereas ochette simply isn't and couldn't care less about inventions that don't have anything to do with her specialties. agnea finds out in her chapter 2 that ochette actually has a really good singing voice and spends the rest of her story trying to get ochette to contribute a verse to the song of hope but hijinks ensue as ochette only knows how to write lyrics in languages agnea can't understand and in the case of a bird language can't replicate. temenos and she spend basically all their travel banters fighting about theology because ochette could not give less of a fuck about any gods besides draefendi and temenos is like What do you mean "tell aelfric to call me back when he can give me awesome cat powers" and "if my religion was existentially threatened by the existence of other religions i would simply not lmao". she and hikari are just kind of on the same team because she's very against killing without purpose

now onto her story. the basic structure will actually be the same, i'm keeping the night of the scarlet moon and her journey to be finding and bringing back the three guardian beasts, However the how will be different

chapter 1: i'm removing the territorial dispute entirely partly bc as beastlings and humans are now the same theres no village divide and also octopath's tone and writing simply aren't equipped to handle this issue well, so we're cutting it. we are keeping the flashback of ochette choosing between the jackal and owl though, and the first scene being her hunting the king iguana its basically just that the companion is like "can we not wait until we get back to town to cook this thing" and ochette is like "no it tastes better if you cook it immediately" and then theres a little cutscene of her grilling it on the spot. she gets back to town and is sharing the jerky with everyone and then goes to speak with juvah, who tells her she's going to be the village guardian. ochette is reluctant because she enjoys her current life where she's able to only do things she finds interesting, but juvah says she's the only person strong enough to do it, and they talk about how the forest is changing. suddenly cohazeh shows up and says that a woman has wandered into the tomb of the wanderbeasts and can someone go get her, ochette says yeah of course and sets off. when she arrives the woman is acting very strangely and ochette has to provoke her. after being defeated she calms down and can be befriended to gain information about being attacked by a weird creature. after that she joins the party and they return to find juvah fighting the weird creature, with her taking over after he's injured and defeating it. after it's defeated, juvah takes her to the tombs and tells her about the prophecy and that this will be the final test of whether or not she's ready to be the guardian and then falls asleep. ochette reluctantly sets off, unsure if she'll be able to pass this trial.

chapter 2: the structure of 2 is actually mostly fine it's just ochette as a character that's changed. when she shows up she's frustrated by the way conning creek differs from the village and has an awkward confrontation with a food stall owner because she doesn't understand the concept of making food when you might be making more than you need before being stopped by her companion and reminded what she came here for. she goes to the coast and finds alpione who blocks her path and tells her that she'll be encroaching on sacred land if she goes to the island, ochette insists she needs to go and is confused by alpione not trusting her even though ochette knows she's not going to do anything bad, but fails to communicate this effectively. alpione has to be challenged and after her defeat ochette goes to find the island completely empty. at the tail end of the little spiral alpione shows up. she initially refuses to talk but can be befriended, at which point she'll share that cateracta was killed by a strange hunter and left to rot. alpione and the other guardians made use of her remains out of respect. ochette is angered by cateracta's death but is relieved that she at least wasn't left to decay, and alpione finally realizes that ochette holds the same respect for animals that she does, at which point she asks why ochette wanted to meet cateracta. ochette explains her situation more clearly and alpione is like. why did you not say that before. and mentions that there's one piece of cateracta that remains, and that it too shouldn't go to waste, giving her cateracta's egg which hatches into acta. before leaving, ochette is again conflicted and reflects on what happened. she still doesn't really get why alpione took so long to understand her motivations and wonders if she could ever be capable of being the village guardian when she feels like she'll never really understand people even if she can talk to them. she'll especially never understand people like the hunter, and doesn't know what she would do if she ever came across someone like that.

chapter 3: ochette shows up in crackridge to find the earthquakes and goes around asking about tera but everyone refuses to talk to her about it, except for an old woman speaking a language she doesn't understand but who reacts to the name 'tera' by speaking a lot. ochette has to go around befriending people until she finds the woman's son who when befriended will share the location of a [language]-solistian dictionary which ochette can use to understand how to befriend the woman, at which point she gives ochette directions on where to find tera. ochette finds the sleeping tera and tries to wake him up but nothing works until the old woman from before shows up and shouts something in [language], at which point tera wakes up, but attacks ochette. after being captured, he calms down and recognizes that ochette is from toto'haha and figures out what's going on. he says that the old woman is a descendant of the first inhabitants of crackridge and that she's been waking him up to feed him while he tries to recover from a fight with the hunter. ochette asks why he attacked her and he says that the hunter tricked the woman's ancestor into revealing his location and he thought this was another case of that. ochette is like ohhh i see, and tera says he's healed up enough to accompany her back to the island. tera also teaches her how to thank the woman for her help, and he explains what's going on to her and that she won't need to feed him for a while. on the way back, the townspeople get angry at her for all the earthquakes but ochette says that she subdued tera and he won't be back for some time and also will be calmer when he returns. the old woman's son finds her and says he's surprised that anyone actually bothered to understand his mom, saying that although plenty of people have tried to calm down tera all of them gave up when they realized she didn't know any solistian. ochette says it's lucky she's good at learning languages, but the son says that it's probably also that she realized ochette was trying to help. he wishes her luck on her journey. ochette stops to think about things. she's still conflicted, now aware there are lots of kind of miscommunication, but found it satisfying to actually use her skills to talk with someone she otherwise wouldn't have been able to . she still doesn't want to be the guardian if it means she can't just do what she wants, but wonders if she might get to feel this satisfaction over being able to help resolve an issue using her skills if she did take up the job.

chapter 4: ochette arrives in stormhail and after befriending a townsperson is told that glacis lives on the peak of the mountain, but the townsperson warns her that the blizzards have been so intense that trying to climb it will be extremely dangerous. ochette says that she doesn't really have a choice and sets out for the mountain anyway. she's blocked by the sanctum guard and although she tries to explain why she needs to get past the guard refuses to listen to her and she eventually resorts to knocking him out. just before she starts up the path, she's stopped by heig who Again warns her and ochette, now very annoyed, snaps at him that for the last fucking time she just needs to see glacis, heig insists she'll die just like the others, ochette says she's built different and leaves anyway. on the way up the mountain she finds several frozen corpses which she and her companion figure out must have been caused by glacis. heig shows up and is like "see? all these great hunters were felled by glacis' fury. you're fucked". ochette realizes he's trying to help her and befriends him to figure out his perspective, he explains that this is his old crew and they were trying to hunt glacis. ochette asks why, he says for glory. ochette's disgusted that they were just planning to take her head and leave, and says she doesn't have any sympathy for the dead hunters. heig admits they were acting selfishly and says that he only survived because he hesitated, and then fled while glacis was killing the rest of his party, so now he tries to atone by making sure nobody else makes it up the mountain. ochette says she has no intention of killing glacis and that he's actually preventing anything from getting better by just locking her away instead of actually trying to make it up to glacis herself. heig is like.... shes a bird, and ochette explains that all animals are sentient and can be reasoned with if you're willing to learn their language, and that he should apologize to her personally. he leaves, but ochette notices that he's going up the mountain instead of down. she thinks that just leaving the bodies here is wasteful, but eventually decides it should be up to glacis who hunted them what to do. she gets to the peak to find heig unconscious in the snow and a furious glacis who attacks her. after being subdued ochette asks glacis what happened and she says that heig started shouting at her. ochette explains that she told him to apologize for he and his comrades' selfishness. glacis is surprised, but allows ochette to get heig, and when he wakes up glacis says she'll listen to ochette if she translates for him. heig apologizes on behalf of his party for attacking glacis and says that he's spent the years since then trying to atone, but that her blizzards are wrecking stormhail and killing innocent people and it may be time for both of them to move on. glacis is suspicious that he's only apologizing because ochette made him, but reluctantly accepts that he actually never attacked her earlier and was just talking in a way she couldn't understand. she agrees to accompany ochette back to toto'haha, and says that when she returns to stormhail she will protect it instead of attacking it. she also says that if heig learns how to speak to her, she'll allow him to atone for the attack by becoming her helper, which he agrees to. ochette asks what glacis wants to do with the bodies of the fallen hunters, and glacis replies that now that the blizzard is gone they should naturally be consumed by the animals of the mountain. heig is resistant to the idea until ochette explains that it's a sign of respect to allow them to return to nature in death and should be their way to make up for their actions since they're not alive to do it themselves, which he accepts. ochette leaves the two of them and returns to stormhail to think. she's still angry on glacis' behalf at heig and the hunters, but this has shown her that there are cruel or selfish people who can be convinced to change if made to understand the problem and people who appear to be acting cruelly who just don't have the full context. she also realizes that understanding people means considering the perspectives of people she's diametrically opposed to even if she never comes to agree with them. from her experience with juvah she knows that being the guardian comes with the responsibility to protect the entirety of toto'haha, even the parts and people she doesn't particularly care about, and thinks that she would probably have to change as a person to achieve that level of understanding. could she do it? does she want to? does she have the obligation to even if she doesn't want to?

chapter 5: ochette returns to toto'haha with all the guardians. juvah is relieved, saying that the amount of weird beasts in the forest is increasing and that people were starting to get hurt. he asks her if she's ready to take on the mantle of guardian, and ochette admits that she's still not sure. suddenly, night falls and the blood moon is out. that sequence is mostly unchanged, you're fighting tons of Weird Creatures and using the guardians to bust through until she comes upon the companion she didn't choose and gets thrown into the ocean. she's rescued by the might of her current companion who channels the same force of draefendi that gives ochette her beastling power and they drag her out to the beach where she comes across the darkling. the climax is already very good so i'm leaving it unchanged except for ochette befriending the darkling and getting an info window that mentions that the darkling can now rest. the epilogue is juvah asking her the same question as before and ochette realizing that it's worth it to be the guardian and she's willing to grow to fill that role, deciding to continue on her journey until she's gained enough experience to confidently be a good guardian.

ochette's crossed paths is actually mostly good and in fact her translating the dourdour boar is one of the reasons i thought of the language thing for ochette, basically the only change is that ochette and castti have a different dynamic so no milf jokes(29 is too young to be a milf anyway. sorry) and the joke is instead that ochette is like "hmmmmmm. i wonder if i could cook the shadowy being" and castti is like "i feel like that would at least give you food poisoning"

[pageseo2022]

Back 4 Blood’s Deck System Adds Depth with Unique Builds

Back 4 Blood doesn’t front like it’s anything more than a chaotic zombie shooter. You’ve got four peeps, aka “Cleaners,” who are basically forced to turn into total badasses after a world-ending event, battling hordes of Riddens (aka zombies) in a co-op bloodbath. If you're looking to buy Xbox games with a similar co-op experience and relentless action, this one's a solid choice. It’s got the same vibe as the old-school games, but Turtle Rock knew they couldn’t just slap a new coat of paint on Valve’s stuff. These aren’t just random dudes with guns—they’re seasoned pros with unique skills that boost the squad. Take “Mom,” for instance—she’s clutch because she can revive teammates and give them extra lives. Each survivor has their own traits that hint at their role in the squad and what they should be doing. Plus, there’s a fresh twist: you can now build a deck of up to 15 cards each run, unlocking them as you smash through missions. These cards don’t just give you cool perks; they also let you specialize and play with different character builds, kinda like having separate classes.

In-Game Shop Offers Essential Upgrades Without Pay-to-Win Elements

Back 4 Blood’s RPG vibes go beyond just the card deck. The game’s weapons come with stats and can fit up to four mods, so you can really dial in your gameplay. If you're into customizing your loadout and are looking for similar experiences, you might want to buy PS5 games that offer deep weapon and gear customization. You gotta decide whether to stick with a weapon that’s modded up or swap it out for one with better base damage, which is a cool little challenge. About those cards: you “buy” them using supply points at your base (yeah, the base is now a living thing). As you play, these cards level up and get more specialized. But here’s the catch—at the start of a run, you don’t get to pick any card you want. Instead, the game gives you five to choose from, and you pick one for each node (the mini-missions). The card deck system will get easier as you play and get more cards. The tricky part is when you’re just starting out and don’t have many good cards yet. The game’s current card sorting system is kinda basic—only sorted by type—so it can be a pain to organize your decks. New to the game are corruption cards that give the horde some boosts and offer rewards for players, adding another layer of strategy. Plus, there’s an in-game shop in each safe house where you can spend currency on first aid kits, ammo, weapons, mods, buffs, bombs, and more. The good news? You won’t find any pay-to-win stuff here—real money doesn’t mess with gameplay.

Accessible Cross-Play and Smooth Performance Across Systems

These new features really level up what we’ve been wanting from the start. If you’re looking to experience this kind of progression in other games, consider using your time to buy PS5 games that deliver similar enhancements and innovations. The game’s fast pace, with barely any chill time in the safehouses, epic scripted moments, unexpected horde attacks, and last-second saves in tough spots—it’s all here. On the plus side, the variety of specials is cool, with different versions of the same elite requiring different strategies. The graphics aren’t exactly next-gen, but it doesn’t really mess with the experience. Consistent fps is way more important in a game that moves this fast than high-res models or effects. Since the game’s on Game Pass and is made to run on a bunch of different systems, its low requirements make it more accessible for online play. On the tech side, we were worried about smooth cross-play, but it works like a charm with no disconnects. Our team never had issues with gameplay. Any breaks we took were just us being lazy and not due to technical glitches.

Mission Accomplished: Back 4 Blood Delivers Thrilling Zombie Action

For PvP, Turtle Rock dropped the Swarm mode, which is kinda mid in our opinion. Players split into Ridden and Cleaners, switching roles each round, and the team that survives the longest as Cleaners wins. So, you play as both sides in a single round and see how long each team lasts. Cleaners get cards for buffs and some time to grab weapons and ammo, while Ridden get to use the Zombie Mutation System, which is like a talent tree with upgrades from earned xp. It’s cool to check out, but don’t expect anything mind-blowing. Mission accomplished! Back 4 Blood delivered exactly what we hoped for. The thrill of taking down creepy zombies with headshots and the adrenaline from those intense co-op moments never gets old.

[felixantares]

here's an ask :D

who's your favorite maraudeur character to write about?

who's the maraudeur you like reading about?

who's the maraudeur whose fanon characterization doesn't match your headcanon (stirring drama!!! :D )

answering this like 4 days late, because I’ve once again found my time monopolized by Baldur’s Gate (oops)

1. hmmmm I think of the marauders specifically, Sirius is my favourite to write. I love writing about him and his relationship to Regulus and how he views his brother (and vice versa), sibling relationships are some of the most interesting to me because they’re often so complicated and you can squeeze so many conflicting emotions into them. Also the whole family is so messed up and exploring his relationship to the rest of them is very good. (unspeakable3 does some very good sirius fics that I love, and they’re my number one author for the brothers, I was recently re-reading some of their sirius-centric fics so I’m in a bit of a black brothers mood at the moment)

2. All of them?????? How am I supposed to pick? Some of my favourite fics are of all four of them just exploring their friendship. Sirius for similar reasons as above, but also Remus. I think he’s such a complicated character and he made a lot of mistakes, especially after the first war, and I really like reading fics where authors explore his grief and the decisions he made because of them. (or fix-it fics, i do love a good fix it! I read one where Remus went and kidnapped Harry from Petunia when he was still a toddler and that was very very good).

3. I mean, I think this one heavily depends on what corners of fandom you’re inhabiting. I heavily curate my own experience so I don’t really interact with a whole lot of fics that have characterizations that I don’t like or people who talk about them much, and also I’m pretty flexible with my own headcanons so if something gets changed I’m not that thrown off. That being said — I’ve seen recently this shift with Remus and Sirius where their personalities seem swapped? and it’s very off putting to read Remus as this tall, buff, super competent casanova type, like i’m sorry that’s so wrong — he’s a wet, damp, chronically ill, closeted noodle of a man who made a lot of mistakes and that’s what makes him interesting. And in a similar fashion, this fanon view of Sirius as an irresponsible, impulsive godfather who puts Harry in danger is so weird. Like one of these two men ran away and ignored Harry for 12 years and it was not Sirius Black. I love Remus don’t get me wrong, but because he’s interesting, not because he’s perfect. Then also just like fandom’s way of boiling Peter down to a villain who betrayed his friends without a thought and acting like he was never really friends with the others in the first place is frustrating to me, or turning James into this always happy, sunshine character who doesn’t yell or get angry ever and erasing all of his mistakes and bad traits. Basically just whenever they get made into there perfect characters and have all their flaws taken away is when they don’t match my headcanons. But I have this handy red X button for when I stumble upon that kind of thing out in the wild lmao

the surprise ask was very fun, so thank you very much and I’m sorry I didn’t get to it sooner! 💚

[talenlee]

Design: Shaky Hands

This is going to be one of those ‘write up a game idea’ posts I do – if that’s not your jam, that’s okay! It’s just going to be me taking notes on an idea, and trying to explain it to a general audience. In this case, I’m not approaching a game aesthetic or art resources, but instead I’m approaching a purely mechanical idea to see what fictions can connect to it and what material components I’d need.

Alright, first up, do you know the game Mountains of Madness? I didn’t, it was a Lovecraft game that was genuinely outside of my familiarity, that’s a surprise to me. I’m used to seeing it everywhere, so seeing something genuinely new – and about a specific text! – was pretty interesting.

Let's Play MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS! | Overboard, Episode 1

Watch this video on YouTube

I got this idea watching Polygon’s board game club, Overboard, playing Mountains of Madness. In this game, players have hands of cards that they aren’t allowed to talk about and they’re trying to play cards from their hand to hit a target range. In the course of this game you acquire madness traits that mean you can’t communicate about what’s in your hand in particular ways, information being polluted by these rules about how to handle the mechanics of this communication. Again, though: You can’t communicate clearly about things in your hand.

This is a gameplay boundary that I don’t dislike in the way this game uses it, but it’s a design type I always see as something I wish I could route around. The idea that a player can – entirely unintentionally – break game rules and disrupt the game state – by just letting information slip is frustrating. Another similar problem is that players can route around communication hindrance, and it comes up to players to decide how they handle the distinction between saying things and communicating them in another way.

Basically, if I can, I want to make sure that players can’t accidentally cheat, and then find that out after it’s too late to address that or change it. That can create a specific kind of bad feeling. How could I design a game loop that:

Avoids a ‘players can’t communicate about this‘ rule

Presents a tool for players to push their luck in an unreliable way

Still allows the ‘target ranges’ design collaboratively

Avoids it being alpha-gameable – ‘why don’t you just play your N and Y into this?’

I then present the play loop:

Players are cooperating to try and hit target ranges on a series of challenge cards. So a card may flip up that needs 16-19 points of Scrungly type, then all the players need to play that many points into the pool; you want to hit it but not go over.

Each player can look at the cards in their hand, which have a variety of suits and values; some of those cards are Scrungly, some aren’t.

You decide how many you want to put into the common pool to oppose The Bad Thing. You put that many at random from your hand, and then you get to look at your hand, and swap one card from your hand into that pile. So if you contrbute only one card, you can guarantee what that card is. But if it’s two or three cards – which you may need to do for large target numbers – you can’t -guarantee- what you’ll give, but you can steer it a little.

If you go over the target range you fail, if you go under the target range, you fail.

That’s the rudimentary loop, but that loop is explicitly open to ensure that there can be a lot of related or complicating player experiences depending on flavour. Flavour can invite a lot of different other mechanical dimensions, too! Foooor example:

It could be a game about too many cooks where you’re all contributing food to a pot and if you overdo an ingredient it can spoil the whole experience. Food needing to be cooked in the right time frame means that you have a reason to rush through that experience. This could be very gentle, and it could invite a really varied kind of food stuff cards. This feels like it’s either a game about cooking as a job (which adds its own pressures) or it’s cooking as a communal activity and therefore more friendly, more collaborative. This would want to make the puzzle hard because there’s no tension from the players’ individual reasons.

It could be about making unstable magical potions or magitech nuclear scientists where the design relies on a flavour of something uncertain and dangerous, a brewing and bubbling problem that could explode if you fuck it up. But this may want to give credit to the person who ‘did the most’ so you’re rewarded for ditching cards out of your hand in high volume, which means that safe choices to succeed on the puzzle are counterincentive to unsafe choices that let you, the individual win. This is a meaner version of the game and should also include cards that let players interact with one another. This probably wants some randomness but it might just be an entirely doable deck of cards game.

Some fairly standard abstracted fictions for this kind of design are explorers and adventurers – going to a location and encountering a challenge of a difficulty range you’ve got to work through. This gets you a bunch of typical assets, it should be fine. It lets you add things like being injured, magical effects on particular problems, it’s a perfectly solid way to use this mechanic. Not bad, but basic. See also cyberpunk hackers and the like – basically, ‘the group are collaborating against challenges’ is already a pretty useful game form. This would want some kind of a map or grid to work through.

But hey, hey, what about limiting how many players can contribute to a thing at once? What if it’s something where two or three players at a time get to work together (like, Cosmic Encounter rules). What if it’s wrestlers? Then you have the mechanical need for cooperation, since wrestlers are working together, you have different styles for shows, you can even have the game generate random cards of players who need to work together, and you can add things like injury cards, things that get jammed into your deck. Player powers for individual special moves, too! This could also be a good version of the game where you’re advancing popularity, where players are cooperating to get points but competing on who has the most points. That probably wants some kind of a board to track points, some ways to track individual player points – and maybe even tokens for alliances and allegiances. Moonrakers springs to mind for an example.

Next step for me is to go look up resources for aesthetics I can attach to stuff!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[blackradandmad]

why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

[gaycatwizard]

I feel like "bad/flawed characters that are still likeable" are just some of the Best characters and tend to have a bit more emotional staying power, that they're more relatable and more interesting, more memorable. We need more of them, but they're really... hard to do? Not necessarily hard to make, but hard to do well. Because the amount of flaws and Badness (in a moral/philosophical sense, not quality of a character's design and personality) can vary so drastically, along with the amount of redeeming traits and their potency. It can be hard to want to "copy" or mimic the exact ratio from the character that inspired you. Tangent: it's fine to be inspired by one or more works. It's fine to allow it to influence your works. It's hard distinguishing from "I want to do x, but that's basically just rewriting one of my inspirations but with a palette swap" and "this inspires me so I want to use certain elements/themes/ideas/technical aspects of it." That's not the issue here, y'know. But like... I think the sheer variety you can have in Loveable Asshole characters like that, in the ratio of how bad and how good they are, is part of what makes them so interesting, so realistic, so powerful. Like... there are characters who are overall pretty good people, but are rough around the edges in a way that clearly makes them sympathetic and likeable. There are characters who are basically layer upon layer upon layer of mistakes, hatred, and bile with the tiniest nugget of good at the center, that you rarely get a glimpse of, but feel something raw and enthralling because of that. Like... I think Bojack Horseman is a good example, especially because it has a lot of different Likeable Bad People varieties and it does them all really well. Also Bojack Horseman is a good show and, not unlike JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I want to talk about it at every given opportunity. Bojack himself is a cynical, selfish, destructive, defensive, spiteful, jealous, vain, self-loathing, stubborn piece of shit. He's a bad person and that's... kind of the point of the show. But his entire character, his entire arc that spans the whole of the series, revolves around the diamond buried deep in that rough. He wants to change, but he's so set in his negative ways (and so used to being surrounded by such negativity and toxicity) that he doesn't really know how. Every time he wants to change, he doesn't know how and fails to keep up with his new habits. Every time he's doing well and making progress, some external factor comes in and pushes him violently back down the mountain, back to square one. But he makes an effort, it's very obvious that he doesn't like being this way, that he regrets the things he does, that he feels remorse for the pain he's caused, and he does finally change and improve, things do finally get better for him. His foil (who has such an AMAZING dynamic and relative arc with him I could write a whole essay just on that), Mr. Peanutbutter, is sort of the exact opposite. They have similar careers and positions in the world, but everything goes right for Mr. Peanutbutter. Everyone likes him, everything is handed to him on a silver platter, he's perfect, he's happy, he's attractive, he's popular, he's everything Bojack isn't, and yet somehow he's drawn to Bojack and always wants to try and be his friend. But as Bojack slowly improves over the show and the softer, nicer, Better side of him becomes more and more prominent and common, the negative side of Mr. Peanutbutter slowly gets revealed over the show. He's also selfish and stubborn and stupid and persistent and dangerously disconnected from reality and his interpersonal skills are absolute shit. He puts on that act to make people like him. As the show goes on, it's slowly revealed that he doesn't really pay attention to the wants or needs of others, like, at all. That he only ever really cares about himself and just wants to do and be everything and anything as long as people like him and it makes him happy, regardless of who it hurts. It's amazing. It's in F is

for Family, too. Netflix Adult Animated Sitcoms are very often hit or miss, but these two are absolute homeruns. Frank, the protagonist, of F is for Family is selfish, violent, short-tempered, arrogant, judgmental, ignorant... but he's remorseful and introspective and intelligent and, in a very convoluted and misguided way most of the time, incredibly caring and devoted. He is a piece of shit and he's terrible, and a lot of why he's still likeable, why he's allowed to be so politically incorrect and abusive is due to the setting. Parenting norms were different back then and, now with hindsight, we know that those norms weren't good and you should NEVER hit or yell at or emotionally degrade your kids. The show is a perfect mix of "everyone is a product of their time and environment" and "no matter the time and place, people are people and we have the same thoughts and feelings and struggles," all without glorifying or excusing the terrible actions of the characters with the excuse of the time period or due to being "protagonists" or having redeeming traits. They're human, flawed, some incredibly so, and that's what makes it so good. It's part of why I like F is for Family more than most Adult Animated Family Sitcoms. You've got the typical stupid, selfish, arrogant, etc. Bad Dad and his Housewife, but there's still chemistry. They're still unique, three dimensional characters that clearly love each other and have a reason to still be together despite arguing and hardship. Same with how Frank and Sue treat their kids. They're not great parents, but they're trying to do their best (which isn't always good) and they do clearly love their kids and want the best for them. Their kids are resentful at times and hate their parents for some of the things they do, but they do stick together at the end of the day because there's that underlying realization that none of the mistreatment is done with malicious intent. That doesn't excuse it, but they're all just fucked up and trying to do their best. And they do have sad, relatable characters that are clearly bad people and aren't likeable, despite having sympathetic traits. Like Ginny. Her husband, that she loves dearly, is gay and simply doesn't love her the way she loves him, their marriage is hollow and empty. But she constantly forces her suffering on others, regardless of whether they want to hear it or are emotionally equipped to do so. Attempting to leave the conversation or explain that other people have problems too means, to Ginny, that you're a terrible human being who can't be there for someone in pain or that you're selfish and disgusting and never stop thinking of yourself. She has every right to be upset, but she takes it out on others and manipulates them, and that's not okay, and the show depicts it that way. There are so many options for character arcs with these characters, too. They don't even have to be related to their flaws, they can be entirely external or related to something like relationships or interests. You can show someone working on their flaws, acknowledging that they're not perfect and they might be bad, but that they want to do better and actively try to do so; they don't avoid responsibility or blame others, they own up to it and do their best to improve. Hell, even just coming to the realization that you are responsible for your actions, not anyone else, and that you have to put in effort to change could be that arc. You can have someone get worse, whether an intentional path of bad decisions without regard for others or a failure to understand which decisions are right. Some people have redeeming traits, but still aren't redeemable. Some people don't get better. Some people still get better, but get worse first. There are so many real, relatable options that show the darker, uglier side of life that we so desperately want to experience and perceive (likely due to the cathartic and taboo aspects), and bringing up flaws and shortcomings and anything else in this context can start interesting conversations and challenge

us to think about things we may not have before, or from a new perspective.