#every time theres a new canon character account i have to go to my friends and be like who is that

[thatsuccessfulpokemontrainer]

People in the rotomblr community who think I'm experienced and like a pillar of the community dont even know. that

I don't know what happens in Kalos. Or Galar. Or Sinnoh. Or Alola. Or-

I pirate all the games off my laptop (have have played gens 2,3 and 5) literally started sprites account with surface level knowledge of gen 2.

[rodismancave]

A reminder to new folks because I feel I need to say this. It's a few specific rules and more of a 'this is how i roleplay' thing. It kinda got away from me fast but alas, I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable for any reason so I just said what I feel i need to say to make that happen.

My muse is mean. It's usually nothing personal but he is Mean if provoked. There is a line and it is Thin.

This extends to his friends, mostly as a show of ease around them and as jokes, its just how he is. a little jokey joke. he says things without thinking and sometimes that leads to misunderstanding or an otherwise "cruel" comment. He normally doesnt mean it like that (unless he does)

this account is like 80% crack. i am here to have fun and be silly. if you take me seriously and get offended by it then I'm sorry but frankly, I have stated this many, many times. I do roleplay serious stuff, I do focus on a little bit of storytelling every once in a while, but for the most part I am silly and quirky. My portrayal won't always be 100% ic, sometimes a little ooc is healthy, for the bit. I stay committed to the bit, always.

Of course. if he's mean to your muse and you don't like it then you can let me know and I'll tone it down. I'll never be an asshole to people I dont know are 100% down to it or who aren't familiar with how my muse acts. However, sometimes being mean is in character with my muse and theres no other way around it. But the more intense, "i want to cause psychic damage" convos I will always ask if its okay for my muse to go hard on yours.

Rodimus is aware of the multiverse. This does not mean he's aware of the history of each multiverse. He may be aware of them, briefly, but he is really not going to dwell on it much and if you expect him to know it he just. wont. He doesn't really care all that much. This is also to say that he may confuse your muse for someone in his crew because of looking alike, and will treat you as such unless proven otherwise.

There are no people who are "canon" to Rodimus' crew, not at the moment. The only ones who I can say with confidence who are in his crew are @weavingmemoir and @stealthfeline, who are also my muses. This is for practicality. If your muse is part of the Lost Light crew in general, though (brainstorm, whirl, megatron, etc) you can respond to my lost light posts as if you were a member of his crew, I dont really mind. Like I said: commitment to the bit, always. The bit is always funnier when more people join.

Don't pretend like your muse knows mine and vice versa without talking to me first. This is mostly about muses outside G1 and IDW, or even people in IDW that Rodimus never really met, as well as OCs. It isn't really towards muses who HAVE interacted with Rodimus at least a few times. It is Awkward having to figure that out, and I'm not particularly a fan of having to dig around for people's relationships to understand what's going on between your muse and mine.

I don't really care if your muse is banging another Rodimus, or anyone else from his crew. Like I genuinely do not care, and neither does he.

I'll always make adjustments if you ask me to. I'll create new verses to fit with your muse, but that requires communication first and foremost. This also goes for events, if you want in on an event just talk to me and we'll see about it together. My events are never 100% thought out because I like leaving space for other participants to have a say in what happens. I just think its fun, like a group project (but less stressful)

When interacting with me I ask to lay off on the quirky colors and varying different fonts in one single reply. I have a lot of difficulty reading things like that and it strains my vision and it gives me a headache. Just, always have the same font throughout, and if there are different fonts, please let them be at least readable. The standard tumblr fonts are fine, except 'lucille', and the small font tends to me specially frustrating sometimes.

This is a g1/idw based blog. I take stuff i like from g1 and stuff i like from idw and i slam it together until I have something I like. Rodimus does not like the prime title, he does not miss being a prime, and he absolutely does not appreciate being called one, unless its doing things for his ego or to make himself look greater than he is. He is an Ass.

[carcinized]

hi!! i know you said you dont watch ranboo that much but im just starting out and i wanna find out where/how to watch?? or at least how you watch?? and not just ranboo, any of the dsmp or minecraft community in general! im very new to this so sorry if it sounds like im dumb ^^

oh my goodness of course!!! i am always happy to help o7

the website most of us use to watch mcyt is called twitch. it's a website designed for livestreaming, which is how most of our content is made! you can make an account for free, and all streams are free but have some ads. however you can pay subscriptions (or be gifted a sub) to not have ads, but only if you want to! ranboo's channel is RanbooLive if you want to watch his stuff!

edit: i go on to tell you a LOT of background info in case you need it and it got long so theres a cut now!! :D

some other channels/people i highly recommend (and what servers theyre on if you want to get into those! and if you need what that means explained feel free to ask because i am MORE THAN HAPPY to explain them and why theyre cool to you :])

tubbo (dream smp, bear smp, origins smp, big dig smp)

sneegsnag (origins smp, big dig smp)

ponk (dream smp)

jack manifold (dream smp, origins smp)

aimsey (bear smp, big dig smp)

niki (dream smp, origins smp, bear smp)

wilbur soot (dream smp, origins smp)

hannahxxrose (dream smp)

captain puffy (dream smp)

quackity (dream smp)

connoreatspants (dream smp)

and lots more!!! i tried to include my personal favourites + some less well known ones who i think deserve more attention so. a bit of a biased list but once you figure out how twitch works you should be able to find the others pretty easily!

then of course there's some videos on youtube, but most of them arent for if you want to get into the story aspects of the mcyt community. there's a great youtube series called hermitcraft if you like more chill (well, more chill than the dream smp) minecraft shenanigans with actually good builders and people who know how to play the game. you can start on any season, each season is just a new server. i recommend falsesymmetry's pov because shes my favourite but theyre all lovely. there's not roleplay on this server (that i know of?? i havent seen all of it) so it's more chill.

if you want to watch the dream smp, i highly highly highly recommend this carrd that puts the series into a cohesive order you can watch + some extra content!! the dream smp is high energy and engaging with livestreamed lore that's made up almost entirely of improv with basic, basic, VERY basic plot points to hit. it's. honestly it's fascinating because of the way it's told but that's a story for ANOTHER TIME!! this WILL make you laugh your ass off and it WILL make you cry (if you watch certain bits). however because of the sheer AMOUNT of content for the dream smp you'll never be able to watch it all. so many povs and they're LIVESTREAMED,,, there are some things you'll have to learn just by hearing about others who watched them talk about, and that's the nature of the fandom. which is ok :] but. yeah the dream smp is really fucking good jaskdjf

the last big smp i personally can tell you about is the bear smp which is literally COOL AS FUCK and it's probably the one i would recommend to an outsider--it's newer, and there's a REALLY good cohesive video that brings you up to speed on nearly everything that's happened, which you can find here :D also it has beep who is my favourite character in anything ever possibly he rivals kronk... i could talk about beep for hours but i wont JDSFJ anyways the bear smp is all about found family and a dude named bear learning how to like,,, be friends with people and not controlling and also not a complete recluse and its rlly sweet :] also the worldbuilding my GOD every smp (and real life??) is canon to the story ITS SO COOL HOLY SHITTTT anyways. i will not nerd out about the bear smp here but i REALLY recommend it.

the origins smp was (is?) a server where everyone had cool powers and goofed off!! no cohesive story.

the big dig smp is a VERY new server where its just modded minecraft!! no story here except for the Great Chokobo Incident (damn you sneegsnag)

then also!! i have not seen the empires smp or 3rd life smp but they look INSANELY cool so if you want to get into those i am not the person to ask but they seem rlly cool so worth looking into if you ever want to!!!

anyways. thats the basics i suppose!!! :D if you have any questions PLEASE ASK i literally would love nothing more than to help you out SDFJDS

[relaxxattack]

ayo! (wait this might be a bit of a jumpscare dishdks i apologize) i’m op of That Post and was wondering what your opinions were on the whole woobification thing? /gen

because it’s a Tiny Bit widespread within the dream apologists to sort of,, overdramatize stuff like l’manberg hurting him. like they’re not a 100% wrong but if you look at it subjectively you can see some sort of bias going into that sort of thing that makes the character’s mistreatment a bit more blatant and intentional which,, it really wasn’t? and there wasn’t That Much of it either. especially on twitter (tumblr is much better about it) people just jump to conclusions it seems and yeah. since you brought it up i was wondering if you wanted to write a bit about it from your perspective!

we’re kinda from different corners of the fandom but i still notice that once you are too attached to a character you start taking certain evidence and giving it more weight than it actually has. there’s a blurry line between “taking away a character’s humanity” and woobification and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance when said character shows pretty much nothing of his emotional life (e. g. putting up the intimidating villain act in front of only c!tommy, pretty much everything he does making rational sense with no emotional subtext) and a lot of the fandom instantly jumps to one side or the other while it’s like.

we don’t know by far enough to say “he’s traumatized” or “he isn’t traumatized” or “he was villainized and it hurt him” or “l’manberg didn’t affect him at all”

as a very analytical person people constantly jumping to conclusions grinds my gears, but that’s about it for my own view of the situation - sorry for the rambling.

in general i agree with you that both dehumanization and woobification is Bad and i really hope getting Actual Context sorts this out (e. g. him saying he was betrayed by his friends doesn’t mean it wasn’t partially his fault or that they were allowed to leave him, but it also shows that he did care about that happening. mentioning the cat doesn’t mean anything about what happened to c!tommy but it also shows that he did care about what happened to it. it’s just always interesting to get more information about the way he feels because he usually does a very good job at hiding it.) because man.

it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if you also are attached to the character and are expected to automatically agree with everything the people on “your side” say. it just ends up with everyone being mad and the character being mischaracterised overall.

oh wow hello! i didnt expect the op of the post to find me you’re right lol

and yes i agree! you seem to have a lot of very good thoughts tbh.

and by woobification, i mean exactly what you’ve already pointed out— the people who will say l’manberg purposely villainized dream, the people who will say wilbur faked his mental illness to manipulate dream, the people who are pretty much always talking about how badly dream was treated by people who were acting only fairly for themselves, usually.

for example people who act like dream was a perfect peacemaker before tommy showed up, or that tommy started most conflict. these are just actual lies that are told by c!dream himself to justify his abuse of tommy, and people fall for them incredibly easily because not a lot of people watched early dsmp and know that truthfully it was chaotic even then, and that dream was chaotic too. not to mention wilbur soot tried very hard to secede peacefully with l’manberg and dream jumped directly into war with no warning. and then people say he was forced into their war when, no, he started it.

theres also people who will say like, dream and sapnap for example are such good friends. i’m sure they cared for each other, but dream on multiple occasions has done horrible things to sapnap with no regard for his feelings (like leading fundy to sapnaps pets during the petwar, leading tommy to sapnaps pets during the other petwar and encouraging him to kill them, handing mars over to tommy to use as leverage against sapnap, etc). george he’s been less awful too but he certainly spoke over him and ignored his feelings enough that george felt hurt. he had places in his hall of attachments for beckerson and mars. george and sapnap were right to walk away from being treated like that.

there’s also what you just said here — “dream puts on a villain persona for tommy”— but honestly he acts like that around quite a few people (example: eret) and it’s usually when he’s revealing crucial info, which leads me and many others to believe that ‘persona’ is actually a more truthful version of him.

there’s the fact that he really isn’t safe for people to be around (or at least he wasn't before the prison) because he was planning to come up with ways to control every single person by stealing and threatening their attachments (some of which were not items but were living animals, or a real breathing person).

and then people will say dream was doing exile to enforce rules, or to keep the peace— when it’s very clear in canon it was a deliberate plan to get tommy on his own and into the prison. (from the way he was framing tommy for multiple crimes, and having sam set up the prison, and kidnapping tommy instead of correctly exiling him, all at the same time).

not even going into how he wants to kill and revive people for fun or make tommy immortal.

it’s just— ignoring all these actual facts and saying “oh he misses his friends, let’s get him some friends now” reminds me of like. when people would put flower crowns on pictures of serial killers. and then, there’s hardly anyone on the server who wasn’t subject to dream’s plans, so there’s absolutely no one i would be okay with him interacting with.

just remembered about the torture thing, and wow i still hate it so much. it’s someone’s sick revenge fantasy twisted into a way to get a manipulative villain sympathy, and it’s just gross to me on every account. i do think dream is traumatized-- just not by l’manberg, which was a conflict he started on his own terms. i would think l’manberg did affect him, because he was scared of losing control.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again— my ideal ending for dream would be for him to be sent far away from dsmp to an island full of therapy animals and super strong therapists who have never met him before. and for him to get a shit ton of therapy until he becomes a halfway normal person. and then eventually he could get integrated into society again; but a different one with new people. (although maybe dteam + bbh + puffy can visit him, they might still like him.)

none of the people on the server (who have all been affected by dream) should be burdened with befriending him or rehabilitating him— look how that turned out with sam! sam had a personal grudge towards dream and it ended with the poor dude being tortured every day; and sam himself falling into corruption and literally cutting off his boyfriends arm. like we can all see thats fucking awful right?

no one who was affected by dream should have to deal with him ever again. and contrary to popular belief, that includes a LOT more people then just tommy. dream isn’t just tommy’s antagonist, hes almost everybody’s.

the only person on the server who might also be able to stand to help dream is techno, and that’s from sheer lack of ability to give a shit. but techno is probably THE furthest thing from a good therapist there is lol, and dream needs better then that.

this kind of just ended up being a rant about my thoughts on c!dream, so im so sorry op. especially since it was probably negative for you. i hope you’re doing very well.

i guess in the end it’s true what you said— people will highlight or ignore things based on what characters they like, and it’s especially easy to do in this fandom, where half the content doesn’t even get watched and then we become a big echo chamber of half-truths.

considering dream has hurt so many of the characters i care about, i almost can’t understand how he could be someone’s favorite or comfort character— but he is nonetheless, and it would be unfair of me to be rude about that.

essentially it just bothers me to see someone who was a perpetrator of accurately portrayed abuse and manipulation (using both those words in their actual definitions, not just as random buzzwords lol) being given the flower crown edit effect. especially since he’s hurt the characters i care about a lot.

ANYWAY all of that being said (this got LONG im so sorry op) i am so so excited to get dream’s pov, because although i disagree with his actions strongly i actually find dream’s character very interesting and cool, and watching his POV is going to insanely fun. i cannot wait to see what theories get confirmed or denied

ALSO incase it wasn’t clear this is all /nm at you! you seem lovely and smart, and neither of us can help what characters we get attached to :]

[gutmeats]

Fuck It i am going to talk about my lovelink mcs now <3 i was kinda waiting for someone to send an ask but actually i dont care for waiting to see if something will ever happen

this is pel

and this is harvy (i havent drawn him yet so hes a sim)

abouts under the readmore bc i just know its gonna be kind of long

pel is in his 40s, and hes a welder and an artist. he can also do a bit of electrical work but he sticks with welding bc its what he likes best. his full name is michael-tyler pelman & hes a middle child with A Lot of siblings (im not gonna say the exact number bc me and my friends like to play fibbage 3 as our characters to help flesh them out and i want to drag out using his number of siblings as much as i can <3)

hes the mc i play as to romance sheng, oliver, mamoru, and dr vile and i consider him romancing them all one at a time to be one universe (theres canonical multiple universes right??????). the story that i have is that he dated sheng up until sheng’s coronation, when he panicked and booked it from the airport bc sheng declaring his love for him on live tv was Too Much Too Soon, rebounded with oliver until the date where oliver ignores the safeword, wherein he punches oliver in the face and blocks him <3 mamoru was the next rebound and they were pretty close until the part where mamoru has to go to pallay, and pel admits that he was actually lying about not knowing anything about pallay bc he panicked and didnt want to admit He Boned The King Of Pallay And Then Ghosted Him and they decide to slow things down a little. and then all the stuff with dr vile happens <3 (im still trying to decide if pel should actually be the heir to meneki or not bc on one hand it doesnt make sense for someone with as many siblings as he does to be the heir but also at the same time i think itd be funny if the lost heir of meneki appears for a week, talks about how stupid he thinks monarchies are, and then fucks off to do evil shit in space) (also i do think that pel, vile, and mamoru would be a cute thruple <3)

ingrid, nicholas and garrett are also his li’s, but “non-canonically”

---

Harvy is in his mid to late 20s, canadian (hes from vancouver, spent most of his time on hastings) , and an “ex”-hooker however unlike my boy avalon (who was a very classy gigolo and only did the weird stuff if the price was right), harvy will do the weird stuff for $10 and a burger from some shitty fast food place. (i feel like this song is a really good description of him). he also used to be a part of a gang but something happened and the gang leader helped him go into hiding. also hes trans <3 and has every sti <3 also a bunch of fake identities. like liam/min-jae, he changes his hair color every few weeks

his “canon” li is austin in the sense that hes the one that you match with, but bc of his history as a hooker who did the weird stuff he’s really into gross dudes while he does try to help austin out he has considerably more feelings bennie (the feelings being disgust and horniness <3). i think after he gets the dna evidence from bennie (which does not involve bennie getting stabbed but instead getting consentually laid) and turning it into the police, he convinces bennie to go into hiding with him by saying that he himself did sometihng to get the police on him and that he wants bennie to go to canada with him (harder for cops to do things when country lines are crossed). it does get austin off of death row. thats about as much of their story as i have planned out. mostly the whole point of it is sometimes its fun to write about fictional characters who r toxic to each other (meaning that. bennie and harvy r toxic to each other, his relationship with austin is pretty okay except for the unreciprocated feelings)

his noncanon lis are emmerson, liam, phillip, alex and mayyyybe tiros? im still trying to decide if i want to make a new charcacter specificially for tiros on account of you literally Cannot go back to sleeping with regular humans after being with a centaur. it wont be the same

[the-fair-maiden-of-fandom]

I posted 5,271 times in 2021

51 posts created (1%)

5220 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 102.4 posts.

I added 231 tags in 2021

#i f o u n d i t - 143 posts

#my art! - 35 posts

#wrong blog - 14 posts

#personal reboop - 9 posts

#tim drake - 7 posts

#star wars - 6 posts

#oh my gosh - 5 posts

#mcu - 4 posts

#again - 4 posts

#son man - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but!!! stuff like the new brown eyes romanticism thats been going around and the celebration of darker skin tones and stuff just!!!! really

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

me: *picks up doritos instead of cheetos*

the TVA:

40 notes • Posted 2021-06-22 02:27:14 GMT

#4

OKAY so this idea just hit me. so, we all know how leia says she only remembers a bit of her mother? and that doesn’t match up with padme’s actual death at all? (does the lack of continuity on that subject bother anyone else? no? just me then)

WHAT IF LEIA ISN’T ACTUALLY REMEMBERING PADME??

what if she’s remembering one of her mother’s handmaidens? we know most of them aren’t dead at the end of the prequels. and they look so similar to padme (and therefore leia), so maybe she just assumed they were her mother?

what if they took care of her for a few days before she went to alderaan, as a last act of service to their now deceased sister?

guys what if?

53 notes • Posted 2021-01-04 07:04:13 GMT

#3

Teen Titans Headcanons pt.1

gonna start this one off with social media hcs too so:

barts posts are always blurry. always. no matter if he's on his kf acc or his personal acc. no matter what platform. they're always blurry

bart makes a ton of spelling and grammar mistakes when he's typing because he types too fast for his phone to pick everything up. he's been studying phones on and off when he gets bored so he can build one that works at his speed

cassie mostly just uses her public accounts but she does have privates so she can interact with her friends out of costume

her instagram is full of that fitness wellness vibe complete with early morning snaps of green smoothies and yoga poses

after making a post with her pretending to drink a kale smoothie, she gags and hands it off to tim, who was waiting patiently for her to finish posing with his drink

conner's superboy accs used to be full of shirtless mirror pics and the like. now its just chaotic selfies around the tower. once he just snapped a pic of a bunch of takeout containers with the caption 'kf got us lost in singapore. the jet is missing. we lost red in an aquarium' the comments were just ???? for a week

his personal acc is still full of silly pics around the tower but theres also more chill ones of him playing with krypto or washing the dishes

tim's social media habits are explained here

rose doesnt have any accounts at all and neither does raven

but raven DOES occasionally appear in gar's posts, especially since they started dating

i think gar's canon habits are better than anything i could've come up with

kiran has appeared in (1) official teen titans post and it was a group selfie, full costume, announcing her as a new member of the team

the team actually doesn't spend as much time hanging out together as people think they do, which is why its so special and fun when they actually end up having a movie marathon or a day in the pool

bart and conner have the 'turn down your music or ill slam my fist through your computer' fight at least three times a week

gar has two drawers of the main fridge full of nothing but greens. some are expired. some are so far past expired its almost funny.

he likes to go shopping but he hates cleaning out the fridge

tim doesn't even bother buying veggies since he can just take gar's

tim actually eats really healthy, since he read once on google that a certain diet helps with asplenia. he lives by it except for his frequent 'cheat meals'

he has one cheat meal a day, so.....

they started out coming to the tower once a week but now that cassie lives there and bart splits his time between there and wherever else he decides to crash, its become a free-for-all. sometimes tim will appear in the kitchen and scare the living daylights out of conner because he wasntt supposed to be there for another week but apparently he hasn't left the tower in twelve days

it's basically a giant dormitory but instead of frat parties, the weird part is that you might see a girl floating upside down down a hallway eating ice cream and carrying a live horse

83 notes • Posted 2021-08-21 21:28:57 GMT

#2

Batfam Headcanons pt.1

steph does a lot more social media than anyone else. she takes a lot of selfies and has a moderately popular account under the handle steph.brownie

back when tim and steph were dating, tim made a private instagram account he kept a secret just so he and steph could be THAT couple online. think selfies of them laying on the couch with a romcom playing on the tv, and one of them is asleep on the other. think mirror selfies with them cuddling each other. that was them.

dick WOULD do more- he likes it- but he's a busy man

he has instagram but not twitter

tim has a public twitter he uses for work only, and private instagram and snap accs that are only visible to like,,, three people. he goes for three months without touching sm and then spends three days going through his feed. there's no in between

tim was an avid vine user back when he was in boarding school and he spent a lot of time on tumblr

damian has a public instagram that steph made him. he's never used it. there's not even one post.

cass has insta, snap, and twitter, all made by steph. she never uses twitter but she's made one or two stories on instagram and uses snap all the time. she loves sending three second stories to steph from hong kong or wherever she is atm

cass actually really likes wearing nice clothes. she likes all clothes really, since she's still developing preferences, but she finds dresses fun and easy to fight in as long as there's not too much excess fabric

steph introduced her to boba tea and she's never looked back

tim has watched everything. tv shows, movies. he used to spend a lot of the time he was alone in his house just watching anything and everything. someone mentions a movie at school? he writes in down on the corner of his notes and watches it when he gets home. someone makes a reference to an obscure sitcom made in 1978? he googles until he finds what he's looking for and watches all twenty seasons in two days.

that mostly stopped once he became robin since he got busy but if he had a few days off he’d try to binge something to fill the time. he doesn’t do it anymore once he becomes red robin.

cass' stan twt is basically the same as zendaya's. yeah. you heard me.

each person in the batfam has their own locker in the batcave with extra clothes, spare masks, old case files they didn't bother to put away, etc.

steph got bored one night and basically vandalized all of the lockers. the designs she out on them are bright and obnoxious but no one bothered to change them, so they're still color coded and glitterized with their codenames and goofy sharpie doodles of bruce

tim's apartment has four rooms he uses for various guests once he started reconciling with friends and family. cass, bart, cassie, and conner are the most frequent visitors after things finally settle with the titans

damian's phone is full of pictures of the most RANDOM things, all taken so well they look professional. it'll go from a perfect shot of Dick mid-flip in civvies to an old milk carton left abandoned on the sidewalk. he refuses to offer any sort of explanation.

that's all i have for now but i come up with more on the daily and its five am

163 notes • Posted 2021-06-25 10:17:01 GMT

#1

the new voltron should be smth like What If or maybe we find out that s8 was a shared hallucinations the paladins had while they were suffering from 'space madness'

789 notes • Posted 2021-08-28 18:11:49 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[lewlthea]

The Actual Thing Going On With Edelgard Von Hresvelg.

 Spoilers: It’s not fascism, nor racism (at least not in the way people think). Also, actual spoilers for the game.

If there has been a controversial character in Fire Emblem Three Houses, it’s Edelgard Von Hresvelg, one of the game’s main three lords, the house leader of the Black Eagles, the princess and sole heir of the Adrestian Empire, and an antagonist in every single route but hers. She has been a polarizing figure within the community: Some people think she’s an irredeemable monster, others think she’s a misunderstood leader. When it comes to Edelgard, theres hardly a grey opinion towards her; She’s either black or white. Today, I wanna talk about Edelgard’s actions towards the 4 routes, what they actually portray, and how and why the entire discourse towards her was caused deliberately by Intelligent System’s incredible mishandling and mistreatment of the character.

I remember Nintendo’s 2018 E3 conference quite well. I was at with a group of friends, watching at one of them’s house because he had a bigger TV. I remember making jokes about how “there was going to be a new Fire Emblem” because loving Fire Emblem when Intelligent Systems is Like That is a living nightmare.

And then this happens.

Words could not express the joy I felt when the trailer was over. It wasn’t just a new Fire Emblem game: We were going to have another lady lord, and an axe-wielding one at that - something the fanbase had been desperately craving since the recent surge in Hector’s popularity - and for once, it was like when I first found out that there would be a new female character in Shadows Of Valentia with Faye, and it was the tipping point for me to finally buy a Nintendo Switch.

Of course, just like Faye, things weren’t that simple.

Because some months before E3 2019, which promised to reveal more info on Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Reddit exploded. All because of someone who goes by the username Thanibomb, who claimed to have leaked info on the game, saying a lot of information about all the characters, some of them very questionable (With things such as Lysithea would die due to her crest complications, and it would cause the major 5-year war, and other things like Claude being the one who shot Dimitri’s eye off), while other info being oddly specific. A part of it that made me particularly chuckle was when such user said that Dimitri would have lost an eye, and would cover it with an eyepatch. I found it so silly and, along with some friends, claimed it to be fake and carried on.

And then E3 2019 happened.

And Dimitri had an eyepatch. 

And still, even after Thanibomb, things remained optimistic. All lords looked nice, they seemed to have their own ideals, their own paths, and no fights were breaking out within the fanbase yet. But then early copies were sent to reviewers. And then 4chan got a hold of one of those. And then the main leaks started. And by the time the game got released, it was too late. The amount of hate comments towards the character was so overwhelming; some calling Edelgard a fascist, others claiming that she was racist, others even saying that she gives racist remarks towards Claude ingame (a blatant lie). A personal favorite comment of mine was how Hubert and Edelgard looked like the perfect alt-right couple. 

(Should I remark that these kinds of comments stopped as soon as they found out that Hubert could A-support Ferdinand, and most of them moved on to fetishize the relationship between the two of them instead. Ironically, before that happened people despised Hubert in general solely because of his unusual appearance and shady behavior, but that was soon seen as ‘nuanced’ the moment he could be paired off with another man.)

And so, a fight between the fanbase begun: (Mostly) Blue Lion fans bashing Edelgard’s character, Black Eagle fans defending her vehemently, and Golden Deer fans between either on any of those sides or just making memes for Joe Zieja’s rally campaign for the GD. Mostly the latter. But that’s beside the point.

A (Kinda) Brief Summary of Edelgard’s Presence In Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, And Silver Snow.

Throughout the game’s second part, unless you’re playing the Crimson Flower Route, Edelgard will always be an antagonist who cannot be spared, and she cannot survive unless it’s in her own route. However, the way she is percieved changes depending on each route you are making, with each route leaving small fragments depicting Edelgard’s past and shaping her character in full scale. 

In Verdant Wind/Silver Snow, Edelgard isn’t the final boss. She is one of the bosses before the big fight. (Nemesis in Claude’s case, Rhea in Seteth’s). She’s one of the obstacles, but not the main one, therefore there is not much insight on her character; However, there is still one element present in those routes that is curiously omitted from Azure Moon that is the reason why she doesn’t really have too much focus, that being Hubert’s final letter.

In both routes, Hubert seems to highly respect Seteth/Claude’s prowess in the war and their cunning mind. (Especially Claude; Throughout both Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower, he commends Claude’s tactics and strategies multiple times). In the letter, he gives the location of where Rhea is confined and asks them to eliminate Those Who Slither in the Dark, the game’s true villains and the ones behind most, if not all the game’s tragic events. Even more curiously, though, is the fact that the letter does exist on the Crimson Flower route, and can be seen briefly on Hubert’s B support with Ferdinand, being the reason of their argument throughout the conversation. Not a single mention of the letter exists in the Azure Moon Route. (Of course it would not make sense for it to exist gameplay-wise due to the player having already murdered Arundel/Thales earlier in the game but. It’s still something to be accounted for).

Speaking of Azure Moon, this is a much more trickier route to talk about. Not only due to the fact that Edelgard is this route’s final boss, but also because all of the things we discover about Edelgard within it are never mentioned in any other route, only brief mentions about the time she spent in the Kingdom; nothing more. 

In here, her time spent on the Kingdom is expanded: Both Edelgard, her mom Patricia and Arundel were sent off to Faerghus due to exile, with Patricia being set off to marry King Lambert. There, she meets Dimitri, and they both become fast friends. By the time she has to leave, Dimitri gifts her with a dagger (Which, in Faeghus, are important gifts that mean ‘to cut a path towards a better future’), and she returns to Adrestia. Some time after she leaves the Tragedy of Duscurr happens, caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark. However, due to a misunderstanding caused by eavesdropping on a conversation between Thales and the Flame Emperor, Dimitri mistakenly believes that the Flame Emperor was behind it all, and once the Flame Emperor’s identity is finally revealed to be Edelgard, she is instantly demonized and called a ‘witch’, even though she openly declares how she had nothing to do with it. This goes on until Rodrigue’s death and Cornelia’s reveal that Patricia was the one behind the Duscurr Tragedy so she could return to the Empire and “reunite with her daughter”. (We never find out about what happened to her and she is not mentioned during the Crimson Flower). Dimitri tries to talk Edelgard off their final confrontation, but Edelgard insists that it is far too late for her to back down for their ideals are far too different, and she refuses to live in a world where the Church of Seiros exists. Dimitri then hands back her dagger (Which she accidentally dropped before the timeskip), and they both retreat to prepare for the final battle.

This route’s final boss is an Edelgard who was absorbed direct power from Those Who Slither in the Dark, and adquires a grotesque, corrupted form. No other character in the canon possess such a thing, and only Edelgard can assume such form. Once she is defeated, Dimitri tries once again to spare her, only for Edelgard to stab him with the dagger, making Dimitri realize that she would never give up on her dream, and finally kills her.

An Even More Brief Explanation of What Does All of This Means.

Okay, all of that info was nice, fun, good, yadda yadda. What does this mean and why was it needed.

Well, for starters, let’s ask ourselves a question: After reading the summary, can you say that you know what drives her to seek out the destruction of the church?

What is her reasoning behind the unification of Fodlan?

Do we get anything out of her other than “Scary dictator” or “An obstacle that had to be sadly removed” or “Under better circumstances... We could’ve been Allies (tm)”?

We don’t. Because Intelligent Systems did not bother to show Edelgard’s motivations, despite her being the villain in almost all the routes.

During Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, Edelgard herself does not matter: she’s solely important because she is threatening the church, she is your scary big bad dictator that you have to beat in order to rescue Rhea, only to find out that in reality she was just a stepping stone to the real villains, Those Who Slither in the Dark. (In game it is said that Hubert came up with this name. In my humble opinion Hubert can go fuck himself because this is the shittiest name I have ever seen and I am tired of having to type this five word long thing every paragraph or so). As soon as you read the letter, suddenly Edelgard, the Empire, and all the questions you had as to why she Did It dissappear because now you have another objective, another goal. 

This is even more offensive during Azure Moon because she is the focus, the final boss, but it doesn’t matter why she did all of this nor what her ideals actually are despite them being the reason why she cannot be spared. The game would rather focus on getting reactions out of the player when the intimidating big meanie does something that makes Dimitri go angry than actually focusing on the clashing of Dimitri and Edelgard’s ideals, why they cannot go back to what it once was, what happened to her to change this way, why did ‘El’ actually die. All you have is a dictator in red which does things for no reason other than “I will destroy the Church and unify Fodlan so I can govern over all of it”. Nothing more, nothing less.

....Of course, you do realize that I have avoided to talk about a certain thing.

So, About That Crimson Flower Route...

If there is a way to truly understand a villain, one must walk on such person’s footsteps. Most people criticizing Edelgard were the ones who hadn’t played her route yet, or had only played Azure Moon and was led to believe that all of Edelgard’s actions are unwarranted or pure nonsense. 

There is a reason why people sing their tune differently as soon as they experience the Crimson Flower.

For starters, to be able to fight for Edelgard, you have to first have her support up to C+, go with her to Enbarr once she asks of you, and then defend her from Rhea at the Holy Tomb. The reasoning behind that is so that you fully understand what Edelgard has gone through and the reason why she cannot agree with the existence of the Church.

The Azure Moon route tells you of Edelgard before she returned to the Empire.

It never tells you what caused her to change after she went back.

Edelgard was part of the crest experimentations caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark, alongside all her siblings. Her father, the emperor, was unable to do anything about it, as the real people in control of the Empire were Arundel/Thales and Duke Aegir. Being the sole survivor of such things to return to society and see how everything is defined by whether you have a crest or not and finding out that the Church, who instead of breaking down such system to favor equality would rather turn the creatures who run it into figures to be worshipped is. Something.

There’s another reason for Edelgard’s sudden betrayal, a more sinister one, and why she feels like everything needs to be done in a quick pace. In her C+ you find out she has a second crest, The Crest of Flames, just like the player. People who bear two crests have a shortened lifespam, however.

When Edelgard declares war against the Church, and to unite Fódlan, it’s not solely because ‘Church bad’: She declares war against the unfair crest system, against the hypocrisy of Rhea’s dragon entourage, and of course, to destroy Those Who Slither in the Dark later on the road.

  However.

Just because Edelgard’s behavior is justified, does not mean she is 100% in the right. She herself admits that the path she follows is one drenched in blood. But there are several times in the game that makes you stop and think for a second that she can still make bad decisions, and that sometimes her decisions might have horrible consequences. One of them is for example to never take away Brigid’s status as a vassal to the Empire and return it back to it’s former glory as an actual country, which shows how the entire Brigid kerfuffle is something akin to colonization. We should also point out that when she unifies Fodlan, in some endings she remains the Emperor, completely missing the point of what she fought for.

Another case that shows one of Edelgard’s biggest flaws is with the Silver Maiden incident.

Edelgard had just conquered Arianrhod, the Silver Maiden, and due to murdering Cornelia, enrages Ariandel/Thales, whom causes the situation above out of a show of power. She knows it was Those Who Slither in the Dark, but she needs to give explanations fast and she can’t reveal their identity or else they would slip away and it would be impossible to locate them and destroy them. So what does she do?

She says it was Rhea who did it, actively lying to her closest allies, one of them being the Prime Minister of the Empire.

For Edelgard, the ends justifies the means, and as long as she gets the results she wants, she will do what it takes. Even by alienation. And that’s a dangerous way to go on.

...So, where do I want to go from here? Who is to blame for the hatefest Edelgard is receiving?

Intelligent Systems Kind of Didn’t Know What To Do With Edelgard.

Now hold on. That sounds a bit too harsh, don’t you think? She was the first lord shown in the E3 2018 trailer, they have placed a very big emphasis on Edelgard everywhere hell the game’s main theme is about her, why would you claim that??

Well, first and foremost, I should start by saying that Crimson Flower is the game’s shortest route, with the total of 18 chapters. From those 18 chapters, there is only one cutscene, with most of the route’s major events being shown with either the game’s basic models or still images.

For comparison, Verdant Wind has the total of 8 cutscenes, counting the final one before the timeskip, with 3 of them being unique to its route.

Azure Moon has the total of 5 cutscenes, 3 of them being unique to its route. 

Silver Snow has 4 cutscenes, having 2 unique ones to its route.

The other two main lords have several support options with people outside of their respective houses; Edelgard only has one.

Remember when I said that one of Edelgard’s main enemies are Those Who Slither in the Dark? The game never lets her deal with them personally. You never truly fight them during Crimson Flower.

In a way, the game feels as if while Edelgard is the focus, you shouldn’t side with her. It really makes it feel as if someone at Intelligent Systems just snickered and said ‘Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we could let our players side with/date our villain?’ without even considering or respecting such villain’s motivations, her ideals, and what truly makes a character unique.

In the end, all they truly cared for was if Edelgard was romanceable enough for the player, not if she made sense or was appealing as a character, whether as a villain or a savior.

And considering how the fanbase is behaving towards Edelgard, they succeeded. 

[romantichopelessly]

The Seven Chakras and Sanders Sides

(AKA I have a Theory and decided to share it against all of my instincts, so buckle up kiddos)

So, last week I was rewatching the second Cartoon Therapy episode, “What AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER Can Teach Us About Self Worth.” Theres a part in the video (47:33-48:02, if you would like to watch the segment) where Picani and Kai talk about embracing all parts of themselves and reference the seven chakras from ATLA while doing so. Now, when I was rewatching last week, I had to pause because I noticed a pattern with these seven chakras and how they sounded suspiciously like the Sanders Sides.

So, here I am to provide details as to how each one of the chakras, and what each chakra is blocked by could describe each of the five known sides and give us a bit of insight as to what the remaining unrevealed sides could be.

Before I get into which chakras align with which side, I'm going to clarify a few things that this theory sort of relies on. The groundwork before we can theorize.

1) There is no such thing as “dark” and “light” sides: We know from canon that the name “Dark Sides” is something that Roman made up. In “Can Lying Be Good?” Roman actually says so, saying “I made that name up, pretty cool, right?” Now while it could be said that the sides that we do not yet know about do have darker functions, as suggested by Virgil’s blatant fear/distrust of Deceit’s ‘friends’, overall it seems as if the distinction between the dark and light sides is arbitrary at best. As Deceit says in “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” he too is just ‘looking out for [Thomas]’. Each of the sides is a little bit gilded, with “good” and “bad” characteristics. They can all be gray characters at times. Like Patton said in “Accepting Anxiety Part 2″, Thomas listening too much to any one of them could be a bad thing.

2) Virgil was once what Roman would have considered a “dark side”: Now there are plenty better, more in depth analyses on this theory from others, so I won’t get too deep into the indicators of this (Virgil not rising up, how he was first perceived by the others, etc.) but it is obvious that Virgil did have to slowly gain his place among Patton, Roman and Logan, as directly seen in the “Accepting Anxiety” arc.

3) There are at least seven sides in total: Okay, I’m sure lots of people have picked up on this, but I’m going to explain my reasoning anyway. Firstly, there are many theories that each “dark side” is the direct counterpart of one of our other sides. Commonly, Deceit is seen as Patton’s “dark side”, so there must be “dark sides” for all of the other sides, right? Except, if we continue with the idea that the line between “dark” and “light” sides is arbitrary as best, that idea cannot really hold up. So, how do we know how many unrevealed sides there are? Well, we know for a fact that there has to be more than one. In “Accepting Anxiety Part 2″ Roman comments that Virgil is “nothing compared to the others” suggesting that there is more than one other unrevealed side at that point. However, since that was before Deceit was revealed, it could have been that Roman was referring to Deceit and one other side. But, then again, after Deceit was revealed in “Can Lying Be Good?” Thomas asks if there are any other sides that he does not yet know about, and Roman again says that there are, the “dark sides”. Emphasis on the plural nature of the misnomer. In “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” Virgil comments again that Thomas should never let Deceit or any of his “friends” to stick around again. This makes two times that it is suggested that there is more than one unknown side remaining to be revealed, meaning that at the very least there are seven sides total, which just so happens to line up perfectly with the number of chakras. (Also the number of colors in the rainbow, but that's not what this is about right now)

Now that we have the clarifications out of the way, lets break down each of these seven chakras and how each one of them (and what they are inhibited by) represents one of the sides.

Insight/Illusion and Logan

Logan taking the role of Thomas’s insight was a pretty obvious choice. Logic is insight into hard facts and direct choices of action. Logan is the character that often provides the “explanatory exposition” into any episode’s given conflict. He offers charts, facts, and lists--reasoning--to anything that he wishes to tell the other sides or Thomas.

However, Logan is severely hindered by his own illusions. I don’t mean illusions as in lies, like Deceit represents, but falsehoods. Logan is always the one to point out the other sides’ delusions, which is why ‘falsehood’ has become sort of a catchphrase for him. He’s quick to see through and pick apart illusions, whether it’s Deceit in Patton’s clothing or Patton telling himself that he is only Thomas’s happy feelings. But I think many of us have noticed that he is not so good at doing this when it comes to himself. Logan consistently denies having feelings, despite every piece of evidence to the contrary. Thomas (not character Thomas) even confirmed that Logan does actually have feelings, he just won’t admit it.

“Losing My Motivation”, the episode in which Logan’s name is revealed, revolves entirely around Logan and by extension, Thomas, fooling themselves into believing that productivity can be achieved at the very last minute. Logan himself is so thoroughly against the idea of procrastination that he can’t even see that he himself is at the root of the issue. Thomas says himself, “So many times I finish a project at four in the morning, my eyes tired, my brain exhausted, and I’m so proud of myself for doing so I develop this faulty logic that I can tackle all of my projects like that.” Thomas creates this illusion around his system of doing things that allows Logan to go on believing that he can’t possibly be the problem.

Truth/Lies and Deceit

This connection is pretty obvious. Deceit is lies. That is his function within Thomas.

(Now, I feel like I should explain my thoughts as to why Deceit is named after what blocks the chakra that he represents rather than the chakra itself. I think that the “dark sides” are named this way for one of two reasons. Either they exemplify the trait of what blocks the chakra more, or they are equal parts chakra and inhibitor as each of the other side, it just takes a bit longer to see their “light side”. Until they get accepted. But more on that later, with Virgil.)

The trickier part of this parallel is seeing how Deceit could in any way represent truth. Many elements of the Sanders Sides episodes suggest that Patton or Logan would better represent truth, but here’s the thing--there are different kinds of truth. Patton represents universal truths. The ultimate, completely boiled down, this is the raw, golden truth. The Moral Truth, if you will. Logan represents factual truths. Truths that have evidence to back them up. Empirical truths. Things that could be disproven if new evidence were to come up, but now, through judgement, experimentation and data, are considered true. Deceit is Thomas’s truth.

In “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” Deceit spends a lot of time trying to make his voice heard in the courtroom. A place that both Thomas and Patton consider to be “where the truth comes to hang out”. Deceit laughs at this because no, The Truth (i.e. Patton’s version of truth) is not what courts are based on. Courts and juries do not always rule based on the truest form of what occurred, rather, judges and juries make decisions based on what they perceive about a case, taking into account the motivations of all parties present. Similarly, Deceit makes it clear that he is not trying to vilify Thomas, he just knows his motivations and what he truly wants. He directly says, “The point is, Thomas is an unconscious egoist, and this dilemma is actually between something that serves him verses something else that serves him. Between looking feeling like a good friend and a dream come true. If Thomas wanted to be seen as a good friend more than he wanted the role of a lifetime, then I’m all for that, but I just don’t buy it.” He knows what Thomas really wants, deep down, even if, eventually, that isn’t what happens.

Love/Grief and Patton

Patton fitting with the love chakra was another obvious fit. He’s Thomas’s heart. Emotions. “He has a lot of love to give.” As Thomas said in “Fitting In.”

As for Patton being grief, this is also rather easy to see. Patton is not only Thomas’s good emotions, but his more tumultuous ones as well. This can easily be seen in both parts of the “Moving On” episodes, as well as in his part of the song in “Learning New Things About Ourselves”. Patton is directly affected by Thomas losing people close to him, and while he sometimes has trouble dealing with the sadder emotions like grief, he has to because he is the center of them. Patton is quite possibly the side that has come the furthest in embracing what could be seen as the two sides of himself and growing from it.

Willpower/Shame and Roman

When it came to Roman, I probably had the hardest time determining which chakra best represented him. I almost went with pleasure, but ultimately, I feel like willpower is the best parallel too Roman.

Roman is easily the most willful of the sides. He is Thomas’s passion, he’s a very emotional character, and he is extremely driven. He makes no secrets of the things he wants--from his own Crofter’s flavor to the role in Psycho Godfather Wars. Though his will has sort of weakened over time, Roman does always fight for what he wants. At the beginning of the series, that was often for Virgil to go away, but as the series has progressed, and more and more of the things that Roman wants become unattainable, we can see his willpower waver. When “Accepting Anxiety” takes place, we see Roman begin to question what he is putting his princely willpower behind. He notices his faults and begins to falter. Then, in the immediately following episodes, “Fitting In” and the “Moving On” episodes, Roman continues to question his decisions. Putting Virgil in Slytherin, trying to call Thomas’s ex, and then in the “12 Days of Christmas” episode, his creations are belittled, which is followed by him being used by Deceit in “Can Lying Be Good?” This is amplified by his later interactions with Logan in “Why Do We Get Out of Bed in the Morning?” and “Crofter’s: The Musical”. He is always the first one to apologize, despite both of them being shown as equally hardheaded throughout the series. I’m sure that there are plenty better, more thought out analyses on Roman’s changing character throughout the series, but essentially it boils down to Roman’s willpower dwindling piece by piece. As he becomes more and more shameful.

Roman has always exhibited a bit of Thomas’s shame, as shown in “My Negative Thinking” when he was out of the conversation because Thomas messed up an audition, or in “Accepting Anxiety Part 1″ when he is visibly upset by the state of Thomas’s hair on camera. However, Roman’s shameful side is best shown in “Selfishness vs. Selflessness.” Roman is downright ashamed to be associated with Deceit, even though he would rather go to the callback than the wedding. Every time one of the other sides suggests that Roman is siding with Deceit, Roman gets defensive. He sputters and stutters his way through excuses, denying it right up until Deceit directly calls him out for lying. He’s so ashamed of being possibly seen as selfish, or as the bad guy, that he goes as far as to tell Thomas to go to the wedding in the end.

Survival/Fear and Virgil

This is where it gets interesting. Virgil is Thomas’s Anxiety. His fears and worries. As mentioned in the Deceit explanation, the “dark sides” (which, again, is totally arbitrary) are named after the element that blocks their chakra. This name doesn't really mean much, though, because although anxiety and fear are seen as the negative traits, we all know that Virgil encompasses more and has grown from being seen as a “dark side” by Roman, Patton and Logan. In a better light, Virgil is Thomas’s fight or flight survival.

In “Accepting Anxiety” many of the upsides to Virgil as a side are discussed. The point that immediately comes to mind that links Virgil with survival instincts is the bit when Logan throws a laptop at Thomas’s head. Without Virgil, Thomas does not even react to it until it is too late. Without Virgil, Thomas is “Unalert and without his natural defensive reflexes.”

It isn’t until the positive points of his character that align with the survival chakra are pointed out that Virgil is accepted.

Pleasure/Guilt

Here is where we get to unrevealed sides. Since the unrevealed sides are considered “dark sides”, at least by Roman, we can deduce that under this theory they would be named after what blocks the chakra that they represent. Therefore, I believe that the next side revealed will have something to do with Guilt.

(Ok so I know I read a post somewhere where someone suggested Guilt as the next side, but for the life of me I cannot find it, so if you know the post or it was your post, send me a link and I’ll link it here.)

There are many instances throughout the series that Thomas experiences guilt. Not that the character of Thomas is a bad one, or really has concrete reasons to experience this guilt, but he does feel a lot, and sometimes that manifests in guilt. During the second “Moving On” episode, Patton says, “I feel guilty for still feeling this way after so long.” Thomas spends a lot of his time feeling guilty for his feelings, rather than using the nostalgic time in Patton’s room to revisit the pleasure of his memories with his ex, which explains why he would be more likely to have a side centered around the guilt aspect rather than pleasure.

The most overwhelming pieces of evidence for Guilt being a future side comes from “Selfishness vs. Selflessness”. This entire episode centers around, like Deceit said, two things that serve Thomas. Or, more simply, two things that give Thomas pleasure. Looking like a good friend or attending the callback. Since the video, a lot of posts have been circulating detailing why Thomas should have ended up going to the callback instead of the wedding, and although I do believe that a better conclusion could have been reached, I think that a lot of these posts leave out one important thing that is only discussed at the very end of the episode, between Patton and Thomas. Patton describes the reason why Thomas would ultimately feel better going to the wedding as his empathy, but it obviously is not just that, or Thomas would have never truly considered lying to his friends. Sure, he imagines himself in their place, but he could have spoken to them about the callback and arranged another solution. Instead, Thomas’s entire dilemma hinges on his guilt. Thomas would have felt guilty (probably far more than is healthy) if he had missed the wedding, even if he had told the truth to his friends beforehand. So much so that Virgil even sides with Deceit and declares Thomas guilty. The pleasure of going to the callback and possibly getting the role of a lifetime was not even enough to assuage the crushing guilt of going back on a promise and missing his friends’ big day.

Cosmic Energy/Earthly Attachments

For this last chakra, I admit that I do not have a concrete idea. The idea of “Earthly Attachments” is rather vague in ways that it could be applied to a new side. Greed? Gluttony? I can’t see Thomas having an entire side dedicated to either of those, but we’ll just have to wait for new episodes and evidence to appear...

I can't summerize this well enough to write a TLDR, but I do have some final closing statements. The Seven Chakras and the elements that block them have far too many parallels with the sides for me to see this as a coincidence. Heck, both Patton and Virgil’s arcs center around the elements that they encompass that have to do with what blocks the specific chakra I have connected them with. So, maybe Roman’s arc is coming, centering around his growing shame. Maybe Logan’s is next, diving deeper into the illusions he’s letting himself fall for. Or maybe our next side, one defined by Thomas’s Guilt, will be revealed.

Tags of people who expressed interest: @fanders-unite @lazyscouts y'all are great hope this wasn't a disappointment

[hackedmotionsensors]

Im not updated enough w the ships but did stony get wincested? I mean like. In the SPN fandom the biggest ship if not only at first was wincest, and then a new ship appeared called destiel and totally overpowered it? Thered be the common drama of ship wars but i wanted to know if thats what happened?

lol I guess!?!?! Kind of. I don’t think it was so much of an overpowering as it was a massive butting of heads. SteveTony is still a very big ship but Stucky is also a very popular ship though fairly new since most of it stems only from MCU. Kind of different than a ship encompassing only a TV show.

So here’s what happened. The full damned story. Probably fft. its gonna be a long one folks so strap in. This isn’t really a call out but if you were curious as to why there’s so much damned fighting in the marvel fandom over really dumb shit this is an unbiased as possible explanation. Beware. I think the whole thing is dumb but I got some extra time right now.

Back in 2006 and 2007 Marvel Comics decided to have an event. You probably heard about it and they made a big movie about it. Civil War. Civil War was promoted as being a huge rift that cut down through the lines of the Marvel 616 Universe. Do you register and be accounted for your actions as a super human, or do you protect the privacy of yourself and your loved ones in an effort to fight without the limitations of government and the fear you might be policed and punished just for having powers AND put your family at risk of Supervillains (many who are tech geniuses) accessing your information and attacking your loved ones.

That was the premise. What it ended up being was a huge divorce between Steve and Tony. Like LEGIT it read as this HUGE divorce. They’ve fought many times before but they always sort of end up back together as buds. Now as fandom we took that full stop as they are clearly in love. They are divorced.

And now Steve is dead. LETS FIX IT. So since 2006-2007 a huge wave of new fans started writing fanfic. Started doing fanart. We got horny Commander Rogers when Steve eventually came back. Tony wiped his brain and we got fics from that. Steve creates his own team and refuses to give Thor and Tony to Luke to use as Avengers.

Then in 2008 Iron Man 1 is released. A bit later Captain America is released. Having known about the comics before and the rift between the two this is where yours truly gets involved. *Smash bros voice LYDIA HAS ENTERED THE HORNY GAME* 

Captain America being released is also I believe the start of Steve/Bucky. Because in this universe Bucky isn’t a small child/teenager (A Robin to Cap’s Batman) so its less gross. (All things being honest I definitely drew bottom steve with young Bucky hohoho ho)

So then in 2012 Avenger 1 is released. And there’s a fresh wave of MCU fans. A lot came over from being 616/Ultimates fans but a lot were brand spanking new fans. 

And then Winter Soldier was released. And it was a big gay romance between Cap and Bucky and the power of LOOVE!!!! AND FRIENDSHIPP!!!!!! Like in the WInter Soldier comics Steve has to use a cosmic cube to free Bucky’s mind and in the movie all it took was Steve Can-do attitude and his pure kokoro.  Its great.

However. This is when TENSIONS RISE. Stucky being a relatively new ship and SteveTony being a fairly old ship have one common denominator and that’s Steve. And its the typical well this ship is better than that ship. This ship is older than that ship. This ship has more MEANING than that ship. This ship is PROBLEMATIC. And its been going on to this day. It escalated again when Civil War came out. Becaus Civil War is supposed to be a Steve movie but reads as an Avengers movie. But the big point of the movie is like in the comics the splitting of Steve and Tony. A big damned divorce. Now is that divorce a divorce because they can’t find a common ground, or is it that Steve’s love for Bucky over-rides his rational thought and makes him fairly hypocritical because well shit he just loves Bucky so much. He says it to Wanda “Rumlow said Bucky and I...”

It was a movie just asking for shipping wars to happen.

So that’s WHERE this stems from. But here’s the issue. I have no doubt there are plenty of SteveTony fans causing just as much shit as anyone else. But at least from my experience, the Stucky fans have been far and wide more aggressive in harassing artists, even artists who don’t speak English as a first language, harassing the actors, harassing the comic book writers and artists who don’t have anything to do with movies, claiming that they’re homophobic for wanting to have a story with Bucky (who is still in love with Natasha [and that’s a whole other ship war there]) team up with Hawkeye (who is also still mostly in love with Natasha) to hunt down Natasha. When the author said “Hey this story doesn’t have gay people in it unfortunately but here are a list of comics that have gay characters in it” they ignored them and continued saying they were being transphobic. Because the person happened to be a trans man and disagreeing with them was transphobia. Which had nothing to do with what had happened at all. They’re the same fans that in person and over radio harass Sebastian Stan so much that he has to hide who he’s dating. 

They’re the same types of fans who call me a hateful cunt (which..probably true lbr) but I haven’t done anything recently. They’re the types of fans who come up to me at a con and whisper “Are you a stucky or a stony fan” And I (Because I was raised right) tell them “Oh I like both but I have a preference for Stony”. And then the person walks away. I’ve had friends tell me of their own horror stories at artist alleys where Stucky fans will open a book (clearly labeled as stevetony) go “UGH GROSS” and then put it down.

They’re the types of fans who refuse to watch an Iron Man movie but will say things like “I wish Tony would get captured and tortured by Hydra so he would know what Bucky felt like” (Which...omg that’s literally the first 20 minutes of the first iron man and the start of the MCU my dude)

They’ve attacked Thorki (and other ships and don’t get me wrong I get why people would complain about Thorki. Thorki;s generally know and don’t care about those complaints)

They’ve made entire articles on CBR, on Polygon on other internet news pages, as editors they’ve had some feisty tweets that causes some fans to worry that storylines they were enjoying (ex: Bucky/Natasha’s relationship) will get lost and destroyed in favor of a ship.

Now generally. This isn’t anything unusual. These fans exist in every fandom. And I have Stucky friends, (My BFF, one of my coworkers) and we get along just fine. Because we’re old ass ladies who realize that a ship doesn’t define our life. I think Stucky has some of the most jaw droppingly beautiful artwork this fandom has produced.

They just unfortunately have a lot of bad apples that seem to have only time to hassle other people and try to tear down other fans and have the loudest voices.

Also I’m 1000000% not saying that SteveTony fans probably don’t start as much shit as the rest but from my experience and from what I’ve seen SteveTony fans only ever bitch about Stuckys after the fact. After they’ve been hassled or saw something that was really rude or very non-canon complaints (if that last bit makes sense)

Oddly enough it kind of died down a little with the MCU killing half of the cast including Bucky (he’ll be fine I’m sure). But occassionally someone gets a lot of built up energy and wants to come into my ask box and tell me that I’m an elitist shipper.

PERSONALLY. I like to think of SteveTony and Stucky as Coke and Pepsi. You’re going to have a preference for one or the other. And you’re either gonna tell the waiter “I’d rather have a water” instead of the opposite one that you like, just agree and order what they have bc honestly who cares its basically the same or you’re going to be rude to the waiter, complain the entire time, leave a bad review on yelp and not tip him.

[brotherzachariah]

"#the last hours #not gonna lie #i want nothing to do with this series if matthew and james aren't canon" really? wtf?

yes, i said it.

first of all, james and matthew are very gay/bi/pan-coded in nothing but shadows, the book from shadowhunter academy where they meet and basically follow the classic enemies to friends to lovers trope that we all love so much. there are so many quotes that made myself as well as my best friend (we are obsessed with this otp together) believe that james and matthew were into each other in a non-straight/bro way. here are a few:

“That was when Matthew Fairchild said, “Sir,” and smiled.

James had forgotten about The Smile, even though it was often broken out to great effect at family parties. The Smile won Matthew extra time before bed, extra Christmas pudding, extra anything he wanted. Adults were helpless to resist The Smile.

Matthew gave his all to this particular smile. Butter melted. Birds sang. People slipped about dazed amid the butter and birdsong.”

okay sorry but does one really wax that fucking poetic about some guy they’re not attracted to? no.

then later, to further prove this point:

“Matthew glanced at him and smiled: it was The Smile, gradual and illuminating as sunrise, and James had the sinking feeling that he might not be immune after all.”

ha. not immune to The Smile. james refers to matthew’s smile as a proper fucking noun. that’s not gay at all, folks. also, referring to your bro’s smile as being akin to the sun, just bros being bros.

“I was jealous of you first. I was jealous of everything about you, and I still am.”

“Wait,” said Matthew. “Wait, wait, wait. You don’t like me because I am so very charming?”

He threw his head back and laughed. He kept laughing. He laughed so much that he had to come and sit beside James on the step, and then he laughed some more.

“Stop it, Matthew,” James grumbled. “Stop laughing. I am sharing my innermost feelings with you. This is very hurtful.”

“I’ve been in a bad mood this whole time,” said Matthew. “You think I’m charming now? You have no idea.”

James punched him in the arm. He could not help smiling. He saw Matthew noticing, and looking very pleased with himself.”

THIS IS GAY.

“He found Matthew looking at him. Matthew had known, all the time, exactly where he was.

“Jamie,” Matthew said, sounding unsettled but impressed. “That was terrifying.”

“It’s James, for the last time,” said James.

“No, I’m calling you Jamie for a little while, because you just displayed arcane power and calling you Jamie makes me feel better.”

James laughed, shakily, and that made Matthew smile. It did not occur to them until later that a student was dead, and the Shadowhunters feared and distrusted the demonic—that somebody would be blamed. James did not discover until the next day that his parents had been informed of everything that had transpired, and that he, James Herondale, was now officially expelled.”

to quote my best friend and roommate “when ur gonna be expelled but it’s chill bc ur crush smiled at u”

“Father, please,” James said in a quiet voice.

“Mr. Herondale, please!” said Matthew. “We cannot be parted.” James braced himself for the explanation about truth and beauty, but instead Matthew said, with devastating simplicity: “We are going to be parabatai.”

James stared.

Father said: “Oh, I see.”

Matthew nodded encouragingly, and smiled encouragingly.

“Then nobody should come between you,” said Father.

“Nobody.” Matthew shook his head as he said “nobody,” then nodded again. He looked seraphic. “Exactly.”

HMM INTERESTING. CAN’T BE SEPARATED FROM EACH OTHER. BUT DIDN’T ACTUALLY PLAN ON BECOMING PARABATAI, DID IT ON A WHIM. SOUND FAMILIAR? YEAH ITS THE SAME EXACT SCENARIO AS EMMA/JULIAN. BINCH

now here comes the gayest quote

“We don’t . . . have to be parabatai,” Matthew said, his voice quiet under the sound of the blast. “I said it to make your father take me with you, so I could execute my new plan, but we don’t . . . have to. I mean, unless you . . . maybe want to be.”

James had thought he wanted a friend like himself, a parabatai who was shy and quiet and would enter in on James’s feelings about the terror of parties. Instead here was Matthew, who was the life and soul of every party, who made dreadful hairbrush decisions, who was unexpectedly and terribly kind. Who had tried to be his friend and kept trying, even though James did not know what trying to be a friend looked like. Who could see James, even when he was a shadow.

“Yes,” James said simply.

“What?” said Matthew, who always knew what to say.

“I’d like that,” said James. He curled his hands, one around his father’s coat sleeve, and one around Matthew’s. He held on to them, all the way home.”

GAAAAYYYYY

moving on to my actual points.

i feel like it’s important to take into account that so far, emma and julian are the only parabatai relationship that’s been canon. (unless you count michael and robert, but since they never acted on those feelings in canon, and it never actually came to fruition bc robert had his Big Gay Panic, i’m not counting it for the sake of this argument.) if cassie is really telling us that in her four main series, as well as her side novellas and miniseries, etc. the only parabatai relationship we get to actually see be together and fall in love is a cishet couple, i will fucking scream. that’s really homophobic and gross, considering. but honestly cassie has never been into qu**r-baiting, that’s not her style. and homophobia has never been her thing. which is why i have to believe that matthew and james will be canon.

also, matthew is obviously not straight. and i’m not going to search for the ask, but cassie was once asked about matthew’s sexuality specifically, and she was like “i would rather… wait… till the books come out… for you to know.” or something to that degree. like, fam she would never say that if matthew was straight. like i said, not a qu**r-baiter. matthew is obviously into james, and their relationship as i said before was gay/bi/pan-coded in nothing but shadows. BUT you say, MAYBE james is straight and matthew’s love for him is just one-sided! and then he just ends up with a random dude side character!! um, no. that’s the same thing that happened with alec-jace-magnus in the mortal instruments. it would be lazy af to run with that same storyline again, and i honestly would fucking lose my mind if i had to deal with another unrequited gay parabatai love story ever again.

next, and honestly this is REALLY important to me as someone who’s not straight. clary, tessa, and emma. the three /main/ characters of the last three series were fucking straight. they were written straight in the books. canonically straight. yes obviously we all headcanon them as lgbt bc why wouldn’t we, but the point is that the narrative painted them as straight. (disclaimer, i have not read lord of shadows yet, so if emma and christina somehow got together in that book, i take this statement back.)

with her fourth and possibly final (??) series coming out, how could she pass up the chance to make the main character lgbt? the world has changed since she started publishing her books ten fucking years ago in 2007. readers and publishers are much more open and willing to accept lgbt main characters and main relationships. she made alec gay back in 2007, which honestly seemed groundbreaking at the time, but having a side lgbt relationship in your novel is hardly groundbreaking in 2017. everyone’s doing that. but, she has a chance now, with all her popularity and money, and the fact that her books no matter what are instant bestsellers, to finally make her /MAIN/ main character non-straight. she can do anything she fucking wants. so!!! why!!! not!!! make!!! james!!! fucking!!! herondale!!! bisexuall???

and another thing, while i’m ranting like the crazy person that i am. yes, clearly james and cordelia get ~married and have kids or whatever the fuck according to that family tree we saw when clockwork princess came out. BUT keep in mind that at the time, cassie herself said that the family tree had purposeful inaccuracies and she left out the fairchild family line on purpose.

cordelia imo is obviously going to bi, pan, or a lesbian, and end up with anna. that’s just my two cents, and honestly i’m really happy about that because in all her fifty or so books, the amount of wlw is astoundingly low. obviously theres helen/aline, but they are background characters and a background relationship, and we didn’t even see them get together. so i’m glad there will be a wlw relationship in the core main group of the last hours. STILL though, still, that just means that cordelia and james got fake married so they could be with other people. but back to my original point: it makes more sense for that person to be matthew, rather than grace.

another thought to consider is that tlh and tda are meant to parallel each other in multiple ways. i know this seems obvious, but i have to believe that one of these parallels is the whole falling-in-love-with-your-parabatai-making-you-both-monsters drama that jem brought up. JEM, who had a very close relationship with his favorite nephew james and tried to comfort him when james thought he was ‘becoming a monster’ in nothing but shadows. i haven’t even read lord of shadows yet but idgaf bc this obviously still holds up.

SO

tldr; obviously james and matthew should and can be together. and like i said in those tags, if they aren’t i have no interest in the book series.

[memedokies]

(almost) every anon ask since fall 2016

if u havent noticed i am BAD at answering asks so here’s a Big Dump of most of the asks i’ve gotten in the past few months

ps; i’ve excluded pokemon suggestions bc i plan on getting to them at some point

Hihihi!!! What brushes do you use in fire alpaca??  i dont do much in firealpaca (esp not lately lol) but when i did use it a lot i just used the fill bucket and the standard/default brush to fill in gaps n such lol! i dont really draw in it, i used flash/adobe animate for the lineart and just fill in color in firealpaca :3

when did you start animating?   uhh when i was around 11 or 12 when i started digital art i guess? i just used photoshop for the longest time then got flash when i was like 15 or so

 How did you get flash?  i got the creative cloud dealie, its technically required for my school :—-0 

 hello!! what are you majoring in in vcu?? im thinking about going there for college  im in communication arts! omg cool lmk if u come here ill tell u where to get the best bubble tea

 how many fps do you use for your wiggly animations? i work at 24 fps in flash on twos but just end up using photoshop’s 0 second frame delay/ “no delay”?

 Hey love your animations! What do you animate with?  adobe animate 2017! (previously flash) 

You mentioned a YouTube channel but I can’t seem to find a link to it? Do you post processes on there? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCovvoZxlQjFaIA7A3w_94Zw theres not much atm but i plan on posting a lot more, including process/speedpaints! 

i really like your art style gosh darn!!! everythings so fluid and stylized and nice aaa (also ur animations are goals) do u have any tips for someone still developing their artstyle????  WAH TYSM!!!!! compile art you already like and incorporate aspects from their styles into yours, BUT dont limit urself to one style! if u like something then try it out! do straight up copies (as PRACTICE, DONT CLAIM IT as your own ofc) of stuff you like to see how they work and what you’re clicking with. spending time on fundamentals is MEGA helpful so keep going back to that too! USE REFERENCES!!! draw …from ur soul…what makes u ..FEEL good

 how do you make that burn effect on your lineart? it makes it your pieces look sharper and even more interesting, it’s super cool!!  when i used to use flash for lineart and firealpaca for coloring a lot, setting the lineart layer on BURN with the coloring layer seeping a lil past the lineart would get this effect automatically 

(like on the whiskers. u can see it gets a brighter brown(?) and the warmer yellow on the ears)

but since then i’ve been using sai+photoshop more so i just do it manually! i’ll use this funny pic of me and my cat as an example lol

^i select the lineart/everything i want the funky color around

^slam that INCREMENT button a couple times

^make a new layer under the lineart

^fill that puppo with ur preferred color! something brighter works best, or even straight up white

that’ll give you something like this

then i open it in photoshop

and i mess with the pink line layer’s blending mode..color burn usually does the trick but depending on the Look you’re going for, saturation, multiply and overlay have some similar effects that look cool. 

i also usually get rid of the outermost edge of pink line that’s visible around the lineart, just so it looks a little cleaner? to do that you just select around your lineart, increment/expand selection, and delete/erase in the selection of the pink line layer

uhh yeah! lmk if anyone needs clarification on this, i have some other #TIPS on makin ur art look crusty and funky so…lemme know if you’re interested :—3

What do you use to animate? And, a more specific question, how do you make transparent animated gifs? adobe animate 2017! (previously flash) i export my animation from flash as a png sequence then open it in photoshop, where the background will be transparent and save it as a gif from there nyaaa

if anyone needs more clarification lmk and i’ll make a proper walkthrough :-0

 Hello!! Ur art is rlly pretty and so inspirational and nice to look at!! 💗💗 I was wonderin’ if ya had any tips on choosing shapes for characters? Like, when you draw shapes for a certain character, it looks rlly like it fits with the character’s personality n stuff!! ( e.g: Your Love Live! drawings!! The characters look so good in your style.) I’ve always admired how u did that n was hoping for some tips maybe?? Anyways, have a good day!!💛💖💟💜💝💞💖 HOOGA!! TYSM!!! and YEA you basically guessed it, i mainly just think about the character’s personality and translate that into a shape or Pheeling… 

especially for anime characters i look at the Very Subtle differences in the character’s original design..or possibly canon implications…for example kotori has slightly different eyes (it also says on her wiki page she has soft droopy eyes!) so i make sure to incorporate that Detãile

 anime wiki pages that have details like that is nice, for love live they have cute lil “charm points” which is really cool n helpful! listening to how a character is described in their world can give clues to what differentiates them which you can make more clear in your design

taking into account each characters context is good too, what they do/hobby/personality and how that could affect their appearance/posture/attitude

 YEAH its really fun to figure out certain characteristics and make it evident in their appearance! or. idk thats just what i do lol. hopefully this helps!

Have you ever seen the anime jojos bizarre adventure? alas i have not..i have some friends whom are into it so i’ll prob end up watching it sometime lol

sorry if this is obvious but!! are you the creator of Fork and Knife: Food Fighters?? your gif of fork is super cute btw!! yes i am!! wah tysm!!

Hey my little sister found your animation on an online art gallery and she really loved it! omg cool, thanks so much!!

Your style is so lovely!! OHG thanks!

your blog is so precious i love it a lot! your art is so cute too ^u^ waa thanks!!

Your art and animations art really cool! Keep up the good work! You are amazing!! aahg thank you!! :’333

 your art is fuckening amazing hh broe…tysm

 Oh my gee, I used to follow you on Deviant Art, and now here I am, finding you on accident. You’re still as talented as ever. =w= b hUIOpugh deviantart, my homeland..my origin.. thank you!!!

- O mg I love your art! 💕💕💕 thank you!! heart emojis!!! 💖💖💖

- your art and animations give me so much inspiration, thank you! everything about your style is so fun and it cheers me up omg this validates my top tier goal in life, im so glad!! thank you SO much!

Your style is so charming and adorable ;__; thank you!!

ur art is so gross in the best way possible this is the biggest compliment ive gotten thank u so much. i love making gross squishy awful drawings

IM SO HAPPY I FOUND YOU!!!! IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU FOR AGES!!!!!!!!! I LIVE FOR YOUR BEAUTIFUL ART!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! BHOLY CRAP THANK YOU!!!

 your art style is very cute ! 🌱 oohg thanks!! thanks for the little sprout emoji, i love her

GOOD ART!!!! good art good art good art EVERYWHERE I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHHGG THANK YUO

how do ya draw such cutely its driving me nuts Nuts NUTS !!! I LOVE SPARKLES AND BRIGHT COLORS AND FUNNY ANIMALS..its my lifeblood..thank u.. 

You’re a really rad artist! I’m Glad there’s some cool artists that are local! Have a good time at VCU! oh wow thanks!! 

Ur shapes r so good thanks i LOVE a nice wholesome shape!

I rlly like ur art style my dude thanks!! 

hi! just wanted to let u know that you’re wonderful and i wish u well in everything u do this is making me bVERY HAPPY THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

 Im love You!! IM L OVE YIOU

that meowth boy is so good. i love him as he is my son THANK YUO i too, love meowth a Lot

 I love how your art is basically lines and curves, it’s very cute oo thanks! 

i love your art style so much!! it’s so zesty? i cant think of a better word to describe but its like. zesty & refreshing & rly rly cool !!! THATS A BEAUTIFUL ADJECTIVE I LOVE IT thank u so much!!!

You seem like you would watch Osomatsu-san. I could see you drawin dem bois in you hella rad art style. osomatsu was the wildest ride of my life. tho i dont think i could physically be able to sit down and draw them seriously ever… 

 Pls make more angry cat comics theyr so halarious plllls 👀 more are on the way!!!!!!

Have you done a meet the artist i sketched one when the meme was still poppin..is it too late lol? maybe i’ll still do it

[fuckyeahbadcodocs]

Name: Mira 'Paws' Cole

As callsigns go, I don’t think Paws is half bad. It’s not as grandiose as some that stumble through this door, not edgy and hardcore... It sounds like the kind of nonsense a military faction would hand down to the new kid.

Appearance: Height- 5"9. 

There is a desperate need for more lady OCs who are not like 5′2″ every time. I can at least salute the creator for this...

Weight- 134. 

...And a sensible weight for someone in the military! A little googling tells me this BMI is in the normal range, if on the smaller side. No one has to give this OC a sandwich for her to run out and kick some tail.

Eye color- Emerald green. 

Mmm, unlike my fellow mods, I don’t think using specific descriptors for eyes is a dealbreaker or special snowflake. There’s a lot of shades of green out there. However, I would maybe pick something other than a precious gem to describe a character’s eye color. It’s become a bit of a dead horse at this point.

Hair color- Dark brown.

So far, everything is really good, very low-key. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop to explain why the hell this OC is doing on this page.

Where she serves- U.S. Army Ranger

Recent as it may be, women are slowly entering the ranks of the Rangers through the school, if not actually able to serve in its ranks. Assuming some level of research was put into what it would take for a female OC to break ground like this, we might be onto something.

Now, if you’re all prepared, the other shoe drops... now.

Position- Hired medic/Assassin

Well, medic OCs are old hat at this point, but as long as there’s real research and a plot, I’m not totally opposed to someone examining a side of canon that isn’t totally defined by missions and frontline action--

Wait.

A medic’s first rule is to do no harm... and she is an assassin. Does anyone else see the glaring lack of fundamental understanding of how the military works in that statement, or just me? I’m sure at some point in history or another, a killer has used the disguise of a medical personnel to get closer to a target, but that’s not exactly military standard, not in this day and age.

For that matter, why is the US Army hiring assassins when they have some of the most elite fighting forces on the planet? Any one of Ramirez’s team could easily take up a sniper rifle and hang out for a few hours waiting for a good shot. The Army does not need assassins in the classical sense. It would be much more sensible if this OC was freelance, PIC, or maybe even part of a CIA that is far darker than the average Modern Warfare civilian accounts for.

But for your baseline US Army attache, this is going well over the line. It renders basically all past praise I put upon the OCs design nearly moot. I can’t even imagine what an international DISASTER it would be if an American medic was outed as a professional, government-sanctioned assassin. It would change the face of warfare, totally flip centuries of regulations about medics and their role on its head. Everything would just go to absolute shit if people trusted to heal and stay out of trouble came out as paid professional killers operating with their government’s blessing. 

You can make an OC interesting without relying on secret identities or shocking swerves, or defying basic military roles that leave little hope for a character being an assassin.

History: Mira had never thought she could go to war-and at least experince anything, But now she's been sent over to work as a medic. She'll meet anyone and (oddly) enough; everyone. 

The Rangers, Shepherd, Allen, these are characters I can understand an OC rubbing elbows with, given the game and faction in question. Maybe even  a brush with Team Metal, if you want to broach MW3 and the fact both Rangers and Delta fought against the Russian invasion on the East Coast. Everyone, though? That’s pushing it. The 141 and the Rangers are never anywhere near each other in game proper to allow for meeting ‘everyone.’

Is Mira surprised? Kind of. Sure she has some crushes on certian people. But this is war, not the love boat. 

As opposed to OC/Canon shipping as many people are, so long as it’s not the focal point and overshadowing a much more interesting plot... I personally see no problem with mentioning a character might be interested in someone else. Especially if it’s buffered with the fact ‘hey there’s a war going on, let’s not worry about our alleged sexual tension and instead focus on not. fucking. dying.’

None of this excuses the walking International Shitshow Waiting To Happen, but it’s a surprising touch.

She also earned the name nickname 'Paws', from the wolf paws tatooed and her back, and two small ones on the back of her neck.

That’s not usually how callsign assignments work, it’s usually more of a callback to a memorable incident or a personality trait. 

For pure hypotheticals, let’s say Soap once slid off of something during training, or is very thorough about ‘cleaning’ out a room when on ops. Either of these things might lead to teammates alluding to him as ‘Soap,’ either due to his slippery fuck up, or his sheer ‘cleaning’ power. It’s not like teammates looked at Soap’s haircut and just decided ‘You’re Mohawk now.’ There’s more to callsigns and military culture than that.

Personality: Mira is a kind, gentle, and calm soul. But if somthing goes wrong; she; like Dunn would freak out just the same. 

For both of her preposterous careers, staying cool is a part of the job description. 

A medic has to know how to perform under intense pressure, when the lives of their patients are on the line, sometimes in the middle of a firefight. The military medic career is not one you want to freak out in. 

Assassins must master the art of planning -- entrance, loadout, the exact moment they take down the target, and an exit strategy. They have to be veritable ghosts, leaving no trace of themselves, and with the patience to wait sometimes days for one brief moment and then a quick way out. A freak out at any stage of an assassination is a surefire bullet in the chest at best and a trip to a black site in your target’s home country at worst.

Also if shes meant to be calm why the hell would she freak out when a plan goes to shit? Why does everything about this OC oppose prior information?

She has an affectionate side, but tends not to use it. Theres moments where she can be totally awkward.

Why? Why any of that? I know I harp on explanations in just about every review I do, but I’m just really passionate about OC creators explaining to their audience how and why things work. Personality traits existing at odds with one another are a good reason to have explanations in your profile. If this OC is kind and gentle, why hide her affectionate side? Is she perhaps uncomfortable with overt displays of affection, while still being super sweet and kind to people? Is there a disconnect between her professional personality and her off-duty persona?

Hell if I know, that’s all that’s said for me to analyze.

Also, how awkward are we talking here? ‘My mouth sometimes moves faster than my brain’ awkward, or ‘I was apparently raised in a cave and have no understanding of several normal every day things’ awkward? Much like there are many different shades of green, there are many different flavors of awkward. 

Secrets: Mira is a So-Called 'Assassin', as she describes herself, but is labled as a Sniper by others(As she states during Modern Warfare) but tends to lie when someone questions her. 

A sniper is not an assassin in the classical sense. A sniper is a part of many military teams, and is in fact basic in certain circumstances. A sniper is a legitimate specialist and would never cross over with medical corps.

A lone sniper might well be an assassin, but a sniper on a military team is usually just that: a sniper. Not an assassin, sure as hell not a medic, but definitely a person who is good at waiting, communicating with their spotter, and shooting OpFor as needed.

This might come as a shock, but I don’t think this OC makes much sense, guys.

On that note, why the hell is she in the original Modern Warfare? The American faction in COD4 was the Marines, not Rangers.

She comes to the Army Rangers (In Modern Wafare 2) posing as a Medic, but still serves as a Sniper, she them keeps her position as an Assassin in Modern Warfare 3, where she is seperated and is now on the hunt for Vladimir Makarov.

If she ‘comes to’ the Rangers in MW2, who was she with originally in MW? Was she supposed to be a freelance assassin that the US Army looked at and said ‘good enough for us?’ I really don’t get this bit, I’m sincerely confused by the sequence of events now.

As for MW3... That’s just poor writing and we all know it. The implication Ramirez and company are out taking the Kremlin, and this OC gets separated from the real party. I’m offended for her.

Other: She hates the way anyone treats attack dogs, she has a way to avoid being attacked by them. In this case, she carries treats to throw them off. Even the most vicious dog can be strayed away when confronted by Mira.

No. No, actually, they can’t. These dogs are broken and remade into fur-covered death machines that exist only to destroy whatever they are pointed at. There is nothing you can do to ‘stray’ them, let along with treats. Maybe if you throw them fresher meat than you, but otherwise I have no idea what would even come close to swaying a legitimate dog of war. They would eat her alive, brutally, and then turn their attention to the other Rangers.

Gory, yes. True, also yes. Attack dogs are not misunderstood babies anymore. They are straight up gone, redesigned to do nothing but kill whoever their kennel master sics them on. Kill or be killed is the only way to deal with an enemy attack dog in the middle of battle. Now excuse me, I have to go hug my own dog for a little bit.

Family: Both her parents died when she was 14, but she made friends with a kid named Chuck Seasons *Aka Chef* and the two became friends and have stayed that way ever since.

Let me guess, a member of this creators OC cadre? Did making friends with this kid cure the ache that is losing both of your parents and being made an orphan as a young teenager?

Animal Companions: Mira owns a black German Shepherd named 'Coach', after her famed basketball coach during middle school.

I’m not sure about this one, but I think this Coach guy’s parents really wanted him to be a coach.

So anyway, Mod M would like to posit this question: Why is it that the best/most down to earth designs always end up being tied to brain-breakingly out of touch with the real world OCs? For that matter, why am I always the one left holding the flaming bag that is these ocs?