#he's not The Kind Of Hero That Is Self Sacrificing specifically. but like. he is a hero. just like if you look at what he does. he is.

[akechigoroactual]

see you could say as much as you like that luffys dream isn't gonna be heroic bc he's not a hero or w/e. but luffy always does heroic shit Constantly. even if he wouldn't consider it heroic himself it's probably going to be some incredibly admirable shit. you can't take luffy at face value when he says that like. just look at him. boy's a hero innit

[greatwyrmgold]

What would Yoru from chainsaw man where to posses Taylor herbert

I will assume this is "what would happen if this happened?" and not "what would make Yoru do this?"

It's no surprise that you thought about this; Taylor and Asa have a lot in common, in both personality and circumstances. Their moms are dead. They're both girls in high school, introverted, isolated from their classmates. They're both self-sacrificing, or possibly just depressed. They both end up finding creative uses for the superpowers they end up with. They both get superpowers from an inhuman creature living in their heads. (If you haven't read Worm, forget I said that last part.)

Oh yeah, and the inciting incident for their story is a moment where they think they could make friends, that their isolation and bullying might be over, only for it to get so much worse. The big difference there is that Taylor was the victim of her bullies' plot, while Asa was the victim of her two left feet.

The biggest difference is that Taylor is less misanthropic. In Asa's first chapter, she has a monologue about how the city is corrupt and she wishes all devils would die, even beloved hero Chainsaw Man and classroom pet Bucky. In Taylor's first chapter, Taylor says she wants to "go Carrie on the school," but chooses not to because "I was better than that." (And to a lesser extent because her dad would be ashamed when he saw the news, but mostly it's her not wanting to stoop to that level.)

Assuming that devils are a thing Taylor knows about and not an outside-context problem, Taylor probably wouldn't agree to Yoru's offer unless she was on death's door like Asa was. And remember, Yoru can't just forcibly possess someone; she needs to make a contract.

This brings us to two crucial unstated parameters: When and how does this happen?

The obvious answer is "the locker incident," but it's not a good answer. Despite fanon concerns about getting infections from used tampons, canonically (and logically), the kind of trash that was actually dumped in the locker would not pose any immediate threat to Taylor. Her trigger event wasn't about physical danger, but isolation. That's not enough to make Taylor accept a devil's bargain, especially since a dinky devil talking to her directly alleviates the isolation.

If Taylor doesn't get a parahuman ability, you could just copy Asa's origin, substituting the nameless class president for Madison or Emma. Or maybe Julia. Not enough fanfics remember Julia. In this case, Taylor makes a contract impulsively to save her life, then feels torn between a moral imperative not to help devils and a moral imperative to do what she promised. The latter is backed up by supernatural power and a threat on her life, so she'll cave eventually, but she'd probably drag her feet more than Asa did even after caving.

Canon Taylor had a vague goal of superheroing, which adapted with her circumstances. She went on a patrol, then she changed her mind and decided to infiltrate the Undersiders and sell them out, then she changed her mind again and decided to rescue Dinah. Yoru's presence means Taylor's more likely to focus on one specific goal, a goal which isn't terribly congruent with joining the Undersiders.

There's a lot more going on in Brockton Bay than CSM!Tokyo, though. Depending on what happens to be going on in the month that Taylor starts trying to kill Chainsaw Man, their story could go in many directions. The direction Asa's story went seems unlikely, if only because I don't see Taylor making a miraculous transformation into a confident charismatic young woman under the Chainsaw Man Church. Then again, I'm not sure how Asa did that either.

If Taylor follows the same path as in canon, one place to stick Yoru's offer would be 8.6. Leviathan's gone, but Taylor's body is broken, she's stuck in the hospital, no one will talk to her, except a nurse who keeps apologizing for not being allowed to say anything. And Panacea, eventually, but once that trainwreck of a conversation is done Taylor's taking things into her own hands. Yoru would push Taylor to break free, escape these untrustworthy bastards, deal with the consequences of your contract after you've escaped.

Again, Yoru's demands aren't congruent with Undersider activities. In this scenario, the temporary break caused by Taylor learning about Dinah and the other Undersiders learning her initial plans is likely to be permanent. Taylor's tensions with the Undersiders are liable to be a major part of her story going forward, wounds hardening to scars as Taylor's continued distance prevents anyone from healing properly.

Taylor's first priority is liable to be her and her father's safety. Maybe she ends up doing the "benevolent queen of the boardwalk" act in her own neighborhood, but that was at least partially reliant on Coil's funding, so at minimum there would be fewer cookouts. If she does, this would definitely cause conflict with whichever of Coil's minions is supposed to control her part of the city. In canon, that seems to have been Grue, but you can probably justify distributing it to another Undersider, since Coil's plans would need to change without Skitter.

Anyhow. Another good alternative would be that time Bonesaw had all the Undersiders at her mercy, paralyzed and depowered. Taylor would take the devil she didn't know over the devil gleefully plotting her mutilation, and while Bonesaw would probably survive whatever insect-weapon-based vengeance Yoru dealt, the Slaughterhouse Nine as a whole would suffer setbacks. (Maybe Yoru even smashes Burnscar's head open, like Brian did in canon.)

Once again, Yoru's demands are not congruent with the Undersiders. But at this point, Taylor's too firmly enmeshed in the team to abandon them. They need her and she needs them, so everyone just has to deal with it. This almost certainly causes tension between Taylor and Coil; as soon as Dinah recovers, he's likely to use it as a justification to cut Skitter loose. In all likelihood, this leads to the Undersiders rebelling against Coil.

At that point, either Coil eats shit and dies, makes a risky Devil contract and causes trouble while dying, or possibly both. Probably both. Possibly he also releases Echidna for good measure. Coil is a sore loser.

After that, the Undersiders consolidate control over Brockton Bay and Taylor can focus on Chainsaw Man. You know, aside from all the reasons that she couldn't focus on Undersiders stuff in canon. "Cut ties" and all that.

I hope that answers your question!

[banamine-bananime]

meets an encouraging, patient, fatherly commanding officer that chooses tucker specifically for an assignment and takes him under his wing. he’s actually a secret operative for a sinister military project recruiting tucker as a target practice guinea pig orchestrating the next couple years of his life to be a lie.

meets an alien that tells tucker he’ll help him fulfill the quest he’s the legendary hero of. he chestbursts him and steals a getaway vehicle given upon the “end” of the quest.

meets some weird computer program programmed by the culture the prophecy came from, pretty much the only remaining source of information about this “quest” that’s upended his life. it’s actually the ai of the freelancer trying to kill him and kidnap and use his kid to end the great war… uh, with slavery of the alien species

meets one of his best friends, an acquired taste and kind of an ass, but they give each other as good as they get and they’re a team. she leaves them to make the plan to capture junior and use him to enslave his species succeed. and tucker feels like can’t even be mad about it without feeling guilty because in her mind she was sacrificing herself and junior to save humankind from a losing war for survival, and immediately after he thinks she fucking dies and takes his kid with her!! they were friends and then for a few minutes they were almost enemies because she did the worst thing for the best reasons and then that’s it!!! how do you even grieve and process that. apparently tucker opted for watching reservoir dogs instead of therapy and i can’t blame him. that’s not the sort of grief you can find a self-help book for. HELLO I’VE BEEN SCREAMING FOR YEARS. never over it they make me insane.

meet some humans on the desert dig-team, charismatic down-to-earth soldier guys. breath of fresh air after he’s been stuck for months in complicated political situations with a species that has just recently decided to perhaps not kill all humans, as a reluctant religious figurehead in diplomatic corps that i’m sure just loved his way with words and women. bet he made a lot of friends there. the dig team kills them all except him and he proceeds to spend the next months in a psychological thriller slash survival horror.

meet church again. church leaves again (and then again) and tucker’s left furiously picking up the pieces of blue team with caboose and some blond guy they rescued from the pound. we needn’t talk about that blond guy and whether tucker knows he both set up and hit the Original Church Killswitch lest tucker doesn’t know and hears us because i think he doesn’t need that extra complication in his life tbqh.

meets a charismatic mercenary with a rough exterior, but a heart of gold, right when tucker and caboose have lost all of blue team’s charismatic mercenaries and/or assholes with a rough exterior but a heart of gold. he. well. he stabs him in the back, guys. you know. i can’t get more on-the-nose than that.

meets church again. he seems like maybe he kind of gets that he was an ass and won’t go off killing himself this time. immediately after reconciling he sees the siren call of martyrdom and kills himself instantly after simulating several ways it could go very, very extremely badly for tucker, not even counting the previous evidence from how this went for some blond guy (sorry i’m committed to just calling him some blond guy in this post now for no reason except that i think it’s a mildly funny bit).

meets church someone else who’s been fucked over by project freelancer. he’s been manipulating them to get close enough to freezermurder their friends and implicate them in terrorism charges.

meets yet another young stray asshole with Issues and a heart of gold who needs some guidance, maybe someone he can be the kind of a leader he wishes he could have been to green team. she also stabs him again.

at some point we have to let tucker just start stabbing people. like a lot of people. i don’t think he’d enjoy a villain arc once he realizes that’s what’s happening but he deserves the sheer free joy and clarity of just solving problems with pure simple stabbing before he comes to that realization.

[anthurak]

A thought: But what if Winter were to sacrifice her independence to bring Penny back?

Like, she joined the Atlesian Military to get away from her family, and so it's pretty clear that her ability to live without them is something she values quite a bit.

But now that she's started to reconnect with them, imagine if the cost for Penny to win again was Winter sacrificing enough of her Aura that she'd never be able to live independently again?

Yeah, I can kinda see that. Though I also have to question how 'sacrificing enough of her aura' directly equates to 'never being able to live independently again'. Like are you suggesting a situation similar to Pietro's where sacrificing that much of her aura leaves Winter physically disabled in some capacity?

Because if that's the case, I do feel like Winter isn't the most interesting character to explore that idea with, rather it would be WAY more interesting to see this explored with Jaune.

Not necessarily in that Jaune might become specifically disabled himself, but more that in order to bring Penny back, Jaune sacrifices the very strong aura reserves that allow him to be a strong, frontline fighter. Which would be kind of the perfect conclusion to his story of learning that the 'strong hero guy' archetype he thought he wanted to be at the start of the show ISN'T what he really wants/is meant to be. Essentially a 'sacrificing an important thing I've nonetheless realized I don't actually need' sort of moment.

Not to mention that, going back to Winter, I feel like it's pretty likely that 'big self sacrifices' are something that Winter might be dangerously drawn to in the coming Volumes and will have to be talked out of by her friends and family. Very much a 'learning to value yourself' arc.

[lunarblazes]

while i’m xmen posting i do have to mention that post-secret wars 2 arcs of xmen are absolutely insane. they’re really dark, with tons of character darkest hours and breakdowns, and specifically the way they explore kurt’s insecurities and character flaws are just so incredible?

like first he pushes amanda away because he’s having a crisis of faith in everything he believes and he can’t believe she would want to be with him for real, without manipulating him or any kind of ulterior motive. he nearly gets lost in murderworld trying to chase a heroic fantasy, because everything is so much simpler in a fairy tale, while amanda has to deal with the fallout of his callous words. when his team returns from san francisco, he’s forced to be serious again, and he immediately overcompensates, trying to be as daring and bold as he once was, to the point of recklessness—he tries to teleport nimrod, against storm’s advice and all the information they know about nimrod being able to learn from prior attacks, and loses his teleportation for a few days, is chased by a mob, and has to be tracked down and rescued by kitty and piotr.

then, while he’s still incredibly weak from that, to the point of fainting on logan when he teleports to say hi, he chooses to go on the x-men’s mission to rescue the morlocks from hunters that have been ravaging their tunnels. he intentionally overtaxes himself to get rid of one of the hunters, who has been incapacitating the rest of the team, and gets critically wounded by riptide due to his overtaxation and strain on already present wounds he sustained due to his recklessness.

kurt is unable to stop playing the hero. when he doubts his role in the x-men, he becomes reckless and self-destructive, falling back on his idealized vision of a heroic individual, the movies he watched as a child. because it’s so much easier to just get hurt making sure nobody else is—because then, you never have to think about all the hurt you’re causing others. he was raised as a performer, so it’s no wonder he immediately reverts to bravado when he’s cornered. none of the wounds he took were his teammates’ faults—in fact, ororo and logan explicitly told him to stop pushing himself so he could heal—and they didn’t need to do it (at least, not the first one, which would have made the second injury a nonissue). and he’s the x-men’s field medic with banshee in retirement. his self-sacrificing joyride actively puts the others in danger—nobody else thinks to check piotr for wounds after the morlock fight and it nearly kills him when he shifts from his metal form. i just think about him. like a lot. it’s really a wonderful execution of a common character flaw that gets overlooked—because selflessness is good, right?

not when people rely on you. not when it’s destructive.

this flaw is also partially why he’s not a good leader of the x-men—but i could write a whole different post on that so i’ll leave it here for now. i will explode. thanks

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Different nonnie, but how do you imagine that things would’ve played out if Nino had been given Stompp in “Anansi” and forward with Fu keeping Wayzz and Ivan getting the Mouse instead of Mylene (she doesn’t get a Miraculous at all in this scenario)? This idea came to me after realizing that Nino is also color-coded for the Ox Miraculous and that the symbol on his shirt can also be seen as a bullseye, plus the fact that Resistance is an upgraded Shield in practicality. The part with Ivan and Mylene was inspired by your recent worthy-of-a-Miraculous tier list where you mentioned that, based on their dialogue when offered their canon Miraculous, the writers could’ve had more compelling character arcs with Ivan having some Stoneheart trauma or something more complex while Mylene could represent the type of strength it takes to know when you genuinely aren’t qualified for a specific demanding role and need to say "no" with the understanding that there can be different types of effective heroes.

The way the temp heroes are used in canon, nothing would really change. There's no clear reason why they get the powers they do outside of the writers being like "oh, an artist! Let's let him make things!" or "Oh, a big strong guy, let's make him an Ox!" And the powers themselves are basically used like Ladybug's special powerups with her almost always telling the temp heroes what to do. They have very little involvement in planning or anything that makes their powers feel uniquely chosen for them. To make these changes matter, you'd have to design the characters around the powers in a much bigger way.

The Ox power is the easiest one to do this with because self defense is an interesting power that you can have thematic elements with. It works well for a character who is a pushover and who needs to work to prioritize themselves or even a character who has some fear of being hurt, though I'd be hesitant to make that kind of character a hero. They seem like they're just not qualified, but you could make it work if they have some other skill that makes them needed such as Max's technology talents. The Ox also works well for a character who is already fine and just needs a power that lets them rush into battle without getting hurt.

For example, I don't think it's wrong to view Adrien's self-sacrificing streak as concerning, but at the same time, Ladybug needs to survive to win the day or else everything is lost, so it's hard for me to view it as a character flaw when he's usually doing a thing that truly needs to be done. If you don't view it as a character flaw, then you can just give the Ox to Adrien as a second miraculous and bam! Problem solved! (Canon 100% should have done this, btw. It's one of the many problems with the expanded power set and why I don't like to use the Ox. It's a little too OP. Like if you're off your five-minute timer and activate the Ox, are you just perma untouchable?)

As far as Nino goes, I don't really see him as a match for the Ox. He doesn't seem to have any issues or talents that match the power. Then again, the Ox is so generally useful that it wouldn't be a bad power for Nino. It's not a bad power for anyone! I'm just more inclined to give it to someone else as a secondary power than giving it to someone as their only power.

The mouse is a lot harder to work with. There's no real theme around the power that lends itself to a specific person, so almost anyone can use it. It's also not a good power in most situations. It's a highly situational one. Not a bad power to have on the roster, but not something that you want to bring to every fight. I'd once again be far more inclined to have it be a secondary power for someone. Something they always have on them for when it's needed, but that generally isn't used during a fight.

[see-arcane]

Everything is happening so much in today's entry and while the Bloofer Lady bloofing all over the place is meant to be the co-star of the show, alongside the Great Document Exchange of Vampire Lore between Mina and Van Helsing--or, specifically, Mina entrusting Van Helsing with her husband's private diary and a desperate hope that she can trust this man with this and her own turmoil over the subject and that of Lucy--listening to the @re-dracula version kind of veered my focus off track. Hearing the dialogue in action will do that.

And now I'm left fitfully, unhappily re-chewing on some of Van Helsing's least sparkling attributes in the novel. Not the worst! Those are coming, and all of them still very much well-meaning! But the well-meaning does not take away from the fact that a lot of his commentary has and will continue to make me want to grind my teeth into dust.

Now, does the narrative manage to take all his benign sexism/secret keeping from those who need info is best! bullshit in its very sharp teeth and ragdoll it mercilessly with The Consequences of Acting Like This are Very High, Actually repercussions? Yes.

Do I hope with every fiber of my being that, when Certain Events happen, and Van Helsing has to contend with--

SPOILERS BELOW

Jonathan going full ice cold Fuck You, Fuck This, Fuck God for letting this happen and then burning her for it, come October 3rd,

and Mina being the one to take the brain reins of the operation out of his hands,

and Jonathan Blowing Right the Fuck Up at the old man for saying Mina has to come along with him to Castle fucking Dracula, with zero explanation, assuming everyone will just go along with this decision sans explanation, complete with Jonathan cementing himself as Not One of Van Helsing's Ducklings if he, like God, does not start pulling some sound logic and results out of his ass right this fucking second,

--that the Re: Dracula audio hammers home that VH is not only a flawed character rather than the Mega Genius Does-No-Wrong Scholar Vampire Hunter Hero, but has to reconcile with the Harkers existing outside the mold that we'll have come to find the Suitor Squad locking into (and that the Harkers themselves very very grudgingly squeezed into for a time, grating against every minute of it) because the Harkers do in fact have equal or greater intel/ability on their side than he does.

I don't say any of this to crap on the character of Van Helsing. He's honestly a great vessel for all the pluses and minuses of the Elder Generation That Means Well, But Fumbles Details. The man is genuinely self-sacrificing and earnest in all his efforts to help these young people he barely knows, and then works with the tools and people he has on hand to try and root out an unthinkable supernatural peril before it can start drinking the whole country into the grave. We'll see in much later chapters how down he is to throw himself and his life on the line to give someone else better odds. And even if it's only by (still period-accurate sexist) inches, he does learn a little better eventually.

...But god damn, does his quirky sexist/secret keeper/Follow My Orders No Questions Asked, Silly Incapable-of-Understanding Children mannerisms need their fucking teeth kicked in. I sincerely pray that Isabel Young and Ben Galpin get to deliver on flipping the table in audio drama format with all the thematic tune bells and whistles they deserve when the time comes.

[samobservessonic]

StC Post-Mortems: Vermin the Cybernik

Every angst-ridden hero who’s trapped by their own powers against their will but also couldn’t fight crime without said powers needs an enemy with a similar skill-set to play off. And for Shortfuse, Vermin was that enemy. Let’s take a look at how the other cybernik fared during his short career in the comic

How it started

In issue 90, we’re introduced to a character who initially acts as an informant letting the Freedom Fighters know about a new super weapon Robotnik’s been working on. It probably isn’t surprising to find out that this rat is a rat - planted there to lure the heroes into a trap - but what might’ve been a bit more surprising at the time is that this rat was part of the trap in a more direct way, having volunteered himself to become a cybernik and work for Robotnik

Unlike Shortfuse, Vermin was every bit willing to become trapped in his powerful robotic armour. Plus, being made after Shortfuse meant that Vermin had abilities that Shortfuse did not. The team managed to beat him during their first encounter due to Amy’s quick-thinking and sharp-shooting, but he’d remain an occasional threat for Shortfuse for a while after that

How it went

Despite his time in the comic only spanning just over 30 issues, Vermin still managed to cause a fair amount of bother for a while. In his next appearance, he encouraged Shortfuse to give into his worst self by putting Johnny in danger instead of backing down from a fight - a decision that would end Shortfuse’s short-lived career as part of the Freedom Fighters and leave Amy feeling kind of “eh” about Shortfuse from then on out

But with Robotnik’s reign coming to an end in issue 100, Vermin also saw his own defeat when the electromagnetic pulse wiped out all the badniks. Sonic might’ve never met Vermin before this moment, but he saw him get led away by Tails. This would be the last we’d see of Vermin until his final defeat some 20 issues later

How it ended

A rat once more. I just covered this story in today’s update, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but after breaking out of prison and having one final battle against Shortfuse, Vermin found himself back how he started when Shortfuse sacrificed the technology which granted him freedom from his armour so that Vermin would be forced out of his armour instead

We don’t see Vermin again after this, but it’s safe to assume he probably found himself back behind bars without any Robotnik there to offer him another chance at being a cybernik

Were there any unused future plans from the StC writers?

None that I could find! I just think that Vermin was made for the one specific role that he filled during his time in the comic and there wasn’t much need to add him to stories beyond that. Shortfuse’s own story will also come to an end and with Vermin being a supporting character for Shortfuse, without him, there’s also not much need for Vermin :( 

Y’know, I make a point of being in fandom to not bother the creators, but Stringer does have a social media presence. I should send him a chunk of cash after I get paid and be like “Hello, did you have any more plans for Vermin the Cybernik and if not, can you just make some up?” I’m joking, of course, but still

What would I personally have liked to see next for him if StC continued?

Allow me to share with you my unrealistic slash fanfic idea for Vermin and Shortfuse!

So, spoiler alert, but Shortfuse’s arc does end with him eventually getting out of the armour for good. How Shortfuse could continue to be used as a character after this is a longer topic that I’ll cover when I get to his Post-Mortem, but for the sake of this one idea, let’s say there’s no a magic way for Shortfuse to get his cool armour back and Shortfuse struggles with this. His freedom is what he’s always wanted, sure, but we’ve seen before that he just can’t manage to be a useful hero in the same way without it and that bugs him. Amy & Tekno are both leagues ahead of him and they’re his friends, but somewhere deep inside he feels inadequate that he can no longer keep up with them now he’s just Shorty the Squirrel instead of Shortfuse the Cybernik

But there is one person on Mobius who knows what it’s like to be a cybernik, even if Shorty is loath to admit it, so he ends up visiting Vermin in prison. And it goes badly! Vermin’s motivations for wanting to be a cybernik aren’t remotely similar to what Shorty went through and not only that, but Vermin resents Shorty for taking that away from him. They argue, yell at each other and then Shorty storms out

…Then he comes back to see Vermin again the next week. And the week after that. Until uh-oh, it’s become a regular thing and neither of them can quite be sure why

It could go a few different ways after that. But one idea I had in mind was that something causes a malfunction at the prison and, instead of getting away, Vermin ends up stopping some villains who are much more dangerous than he is from escaping. Shorty’s nagging influence got to him eventually, he supposes

After that, Shorty is conflicted, because Vermin did the right thing, what?? But also, Vermin is still in prison and now Shorty has to second-guess if that’s right or not and he hates when stuff isn’t black and white, like how come this guy who was tailor-made to be his enemy is morally grey now??

Anyway, I don’t have anything more than that in mind and obviously such a slowburn enemies-to-(maybe?)-lovers story would never actually be something that would happen in StC, but that’s the premise for my silly fanfic that I’ll never get around to writing

What if he was in other Sonic media?

The thing with Vermin is that him and his role as a cybernik are so exclusively tied to Shortfuse’s character that, for him to appear in any other Sonic media, I’d first have to decide if or how I’d want Shortfuse himself to appear in other Sonic media. But having said that, they are fated yaoi rivals, so any universe where Shortfuse exists, I choose to believe that Vermin also exists. They’re worsties forever <3

[wetcatspellcaster]

7 and 8 for the Tav asks. :D and congrats on the thesis!

Thank you for the questions! Sorry for the long answer!

7. Describe their arc. How would a player help resolve it? What choices can be made? Can your Tav be turned down a dark path, or pulled to a lighter one?

So I thought about this a lot, the Good Ending for Rosalie is she's Just A Person, the Bad Ending is that she volunteers to become the mindflayer at the Orpheus decision for ENTIRELY THE WRONG REASONS (feeling like a liability, believing it's the only way to cure her mental illness, seeing herself as the weak link in the group, being depressed, etc. - this ending bought to you by me staring at that decision screen for an hour KNOWING she'd turn herself into a mindflayer in a heartbeat but feeling physically ill over her logic behind that decision). This is the 'exalted mind' ending.

So there is a bad path for her, but it's one bought about by being self-sacrificing to the point of absolute idiocy and self destruction. I think that Tav literally swerves her away from it by teaching her to be a little selfish and to value herself lmao. Literally the opposite of most of the other companions, and kind of what I wish you could teach Wyll in his storyline tbh!

Her arc would be her just generally being over-emotional and reckless, with lots of camp chats about morality in Act 1 (I would probably double down on the tropes that fandoms hate in female characters a la Katara in Avatar the Last Airbender just for the lols). I want her ending Act 1 feeling like a trite 'heart of the group', ridiculous Mary Sue, she talks to you a lot about how you're feeling, are you ok? Borderline annoying tbh, but with the EA Halsin Effect of "oh, you're the companion who's nicest to me!!". Then in Act 1/2 depending on approval she does something utterly stupid, like run into a fight alone unprompted (death to a wizard), or possibly have Ethel specific dialogue that pisses Ethel off if she's in your party, and the player starts thinking "god this girl is a bit weird and reckless and stupid at times actually", and calling her out on it gets the illithid tadpole as anxiety med drop.

Act 3, you start meeting people from her past (bonus comedy route for if you just enabled all her behaviour at this point to be nice to her and get her approval bc then the illithid tadpole drop happens here). Larroakan is like "aren't you that mousy little scribe who completed those commissions for me?", you can find Threnn, possibly did an infernal translation for Gortash (not canon just for story tie-in)???? and they're all like "who the fuck are you? why are you so different now". There would be a confrontation about lying about who she is, a camp conversation about the pressure they face as the 'heroes of Baldur's Gate" and how she feels inadequate. And then in the conversation with Threnn, and the final Orpheus conversation, Tav can encourage Rose to have an actually healthy relationship with her emotions and not see her every choice as a failing actually. Then you unlock real Rose personality and a final decision where she doesn't try and throw herself on her sword.

8. After Act 3, what does their life look like? What are they talking about at the reunion party?

Good ending Rosalie has rebuilt her relationships with her family, she's back at the Watchful Order but getting all their backlog of heroic deeds retroactively converted into a wizard qualification, and unromanced she'll mention that she's either considering going on secondment to Avernus or helping Halsin in the Shadowlands/feywild as her practical project for the final part of her grade. She will have visited every single companion in the six months (Wyll/Karlach as a projection). She will mention going to tea weekly with Gale given that she's fast-tracking wizardry/he needs a friend group and practice at being a normie and they live in the same city. She will name drop being friends with Tara very smugly.

Bad ending Rosalie is a mindflayer and will talk about the magic she's capable of and the power she's unlocking, now she's no longer letting emotion cloud her judgement. You can ask her about her parents and if she's gotten back in touch and she says, "oh, right. I used to have those."

tav ask game! :)

[nightmarist]

more zevwyll propaganda:

Wyll is the Blade of Frontiers and of course will help anyone he can. he grew up in a city surrounded by stories of essentially fairytales that were real, heroes and villains, his own father is a hero who now leads a city guard, Wyll must absolutely love to think about the Flaming Fist as heroes and protectors.

Zevlor is a commander of the Hellriders, another infamous group of city guard who are known to have actually gone into Hell to fight devils alongside an angel (Zariel). While this event was before Zevlor's time, it is the factor in their infamy and many people in Elturel grow up being Horse People(tm) because they want to get an upper hand in trying to join the riders. He is an older man in position of power over the very kind of fairytale hero knights Wyll grew up with.

Zevlor passes no judgements to anyone, or at the least is very smooth about not making his judgements known. He is very pragmatic and straight forward as an experienced commanding officer and as a Paladin, even without an oath, he takes on the tieflings as his charges to aid them with a deep sense of community - who else will help them if not their own kind?

Wyll goes out of his way to help the tieflings. I also HC that he had likely hoped to find his father among them, since Ulder was sent to Elturel and thus descended into Avernus with the purpose of Baldur's Gate being left to defend itself.

I LOVE the idea that Wyll, exile of Baldur's Gate, is helping the tiefling exiles from Elturel. From one exile to another. Unwanted by the people they thought would care the most.

They are both deeply earnest and have strong resolve over helping others to the point of self-sacrifice and martyr complex.

Wyll being good at helping children, he was so gentle with Umi and the other kids and even wants his own someday.

Zevlor was specifically worried about the children in the attack, which is a fair concern for anyone, and while we can sit here all day about the ifs and buts of removed or changed content, I want to point out he used to be a school teacher before he was changed to a Hellrider. I like to imagine his retirement from soldiering begin one he can have his own school in Baldur's Gate, especially for the disparaged or underprivileged. If they have children together they would have the sweetest, caring, protective fathers.

Wyll is basically a prince of Baldur's Gate. please imagine a Prince x Knight dynamic between them. Fiercely loyal. A devil-touched prince with a "devilkin" at his side for the haters.

Zevlor being a much older man and closer to Wyll's father's age would probably make Ulder even more mad. <3

Finding calm, solace, and comfort in each other after having to bear the burdens of their exile, putting aside themselves for the sake of others, sacrificing so much to save and help people, and with each other they can finally just Be.

Being enthralled!

Wyll tricked by Mizora to give up his own soul as a teenager to save another child, being forced to make a horrible decision that rended his exile, and again by Mizora to nearly kill an innocent tiefling - Karlach - and upon refusing to harm an innocent he was punished, forced to undergo painful transformation, the utter humiliation and the extreme lack of of autonomy and trauma to his becoming a fiend. He would rather undergo mutilation and harm and punishment than hurt the innocent.

Zevlor is a tiefling. But he’s an old tiefling. He didn’t undergo the transformation but it was barely a generation before him, his own parents probably, that thousands or more were forced undergo change at Asmodeus’ hand in dnd lore. The book about the event is by his bedroll. He was forced to break his Hellrider oath of serving Elturel when Elturel exiled him and it thus broke his paladin oath. A part of him was lost, hollowed out. And he was tricked by the Absolute, believing the one thing that could make him whole was within his grasp, that if he succumbed to being its thrall then his people could be spared.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

How do you think Volo would interact with the FSA boys?

oh YAY thank you for this ask >:)

i'm going to mostly answer this with both the manga characterizations and my personal characterizations in fics (in my fics they're adults, not related or clones, shadow and vio are characterized how i like them, etc.)

i'll do the easy ones first. i think in general, volo would dislike the four links on principle for being the goddess's chosen heroes. obviously. either volo is jealous, or just overall resentful and uncomfortable with the entire situation post-game.

he would almost certainly keep up the fake merchant act with green, blue, red, and zelda. privately, hero stuff aside, he would have a neutral tolerance for them, kind of how i imagine he feels about most of the people in hisui. not particularly interested or attached, and oftentimes annoyed, but mostly just not paying them much mind at all. he's got more important things to think about.

conceptually, i think that volo would vibe with manga shadow's entire premise. he would relate to shadow in his dealings with vaati and ganon (giratina), but he would disagree with shadow sacrificing himself to save the heroes. volo would have tried to dethrone ganon in shadow's position, not destroy him, and he wouldn't have cared about helping the other links or princess.

i don't think volo would have any strong feelings about the shadow i write in my fic. my shadow doesn't actually have a very big ego or god complex or anything, he's usually characterized as desiring attention and belonging more than any kind of power. the subversion of his dynamic with vio, in my writing especially, is that shadow is a pretty chill guy with conventional moral values, and vio is... vio. if shadow was to be assigned a role in a story based on who he is alone, he would be the hero, not the villain. a strange and theatrical hero, but a hero all the same.

volo is strange and theatrical too, and i do think a core aspect of his character is his desire for attention and belonging. however, he wants to acquire those things in a very different way from the shadow i write, and he does not possess conventionally heroic qualities at all. so much of the volo we see in the game is an intentional deception, which means we don't actually know a lot for sure about his true self. however, based on his mask-off moments and the way he went about his plan and constructing his fake persona, i don't think "fixing" him as a villain would work in the same way as "fixing" shadow typically does/did in the manga and my fics.

volo would fucking despise manga vio. specifically, he would hate the fact that vio does ultimately attempt to break the mirror and abandon shadow, and that he (and the others, but specifically vio) reform link at the end. a couple reasons for his hatred of the character:

he'd really like vio from the forest scene to the confrontation at the volcano. he'd probably be like "holy shit this is the realest bitch i've ever read, fuck being a hero, let this theatrical nerd go apeshit with the evil demon"

but then he'd basically flip his perspective when vio fakes killing green and continues to lie to shadow. volo says in the game that he resents the way the world is unfair and causes pain--i think it's safe to assume that some part of that is due to the way other people have treated him in the past. i can definitely see volo relating to shadow's attachment and trust of vio, and the sort of high he got from having vio on his team. the devotion of it all. so to see this heroic character balance his conflicted interests and ultimately choose his destined responsibilities over the stuff he'd gotten up to with shadow, would piss volo off. after all, volo is the guy who got so engrossed in his unique hyperfixation, and doing it in his own way, that he chose to work retail part-time instead of joining the survey corps under people who thought they knew better. the man genuinely believed that he could do a better job being god, than god itself. he'd see the way manga vio enjoyed being around shadow, and doing non-heroic shit, and then the way vio eventually kinda just gave up and lost that part of himself, and hate it.

volo would feel less hatred, but not much else, about most of my fanfic vios. especially in the fics that are mostly just ab ship stuff with shadow, i don't think he'd give a shit. i don't really see volo as a person who thinks often about romance, given the fact that his only real friend is a sentient egg. he would hate my vios less, because i don't think i have written a single fic in which vio ended up exactly how he did in the manga, but he'd still kind of just be like whatever about him.

corruption but it's unchill au vio could probably give volo an existential crisis. that vio has crazy beef with god, but his solution isn't to defeat and subjugate god and then become god himself--instead, he and his friends tell god that her creations could do better, and then use the power she gave them to banish her from the realm entirely.

i don't think volo ever considered that an option during his storyline, because he was so convinced that the world wasn't worth saving, and he had no one truly on his side. like, it must have been so deeply isolating for him, to share his true self with no other human beings at all. vio in cbiuc has shadow, and as i repeat multiple times in the fic's prose, it matters. i think volo would be a little jealous of that. maybe if volo had been less of a misanthropic freak and teamed up with some people, he could have found himself in a world worth living in, with people who understood and loved him. one of the fic's main themes is "misery loves company," and volo spent his story both very miserable and very alone. so maybe seeing vio's arc in cbiuc would make a post-canon volo realize that it's the company he's really missing.

(maybe eventually i'll tackle that in a fic about volo, but i'm still kinda detoxing from the process of writing cbiuc even like months later. that shit tormented me.)

[unfortunately-obsessed]

I'm obsessed with the logistics of the Spider-Society so here goes nothing

My hc is that Miguel dethroned his father. I don't think Tyler Stone would willingly give Alchemax to Miguel, and wouldn't put him on his will either.

But all that equipment we see in the movie is expensive, even for 2099 where they have an orbital lift and flying cars. The size of the building alone must be a fortune, after all, it is New York.

So, Miguel probably dethroned his father and got Alchemax, and that's where his money came from. SS building might been listened as a subsidiary of Alchemax with a bunch of classified projects no one (private sector or otherwise) dares to bat an eye.

Now the fun parts!

We have not only humans on the societies but also all kinds of sentients species. A T-Rex, a pork, cats, and even Lego! Do you think he recruited one by one? Oh, so many types of bathrooms...

Miguel had to design a DTD (that's what I call their "watches", Dimension Travel Device) for each of them, to deal with their specific molecular vibarations. Or maybe he lets Layla do it while he deals with other things? I can't take the image of my head of Lego Peter waiting for his DTD, watching a 3d printer work on it like the hand of the creator, and he's star-struck.

Having to make a full battery of exams when the physiology is different, to make sure the DTD works like it should but also that they are capable of taking the strain of travelling across the multiverse.

There's probably an infirmary somewhere that most resembles a hospital. Fully equipped. Employing nurses and physiotherapist and every type of doctor in every type of speciality.

A rotatory shift with Spider Doctors from different realities, and Layla tries not too overwork them but still all of them with a headache for having to deal with not only a bunch of injured self-sacrificing heroes but!! Different anatomies!!

Do you think non-human Spiders have to bring medical encyclopedias with them?

Spider Scientist (and medical doctors too) that are so glad and excited to finally have resources to use, but still need to go through Miguel and get their researches approved (it's hard for him to say a no tbh, he's a scientist too after all)

Physics and engineering and biologist and all kinds of scientist

Mechanic workshops. All kinds of different technologies interacting more and more. The SS equipment improving with each passing day because of Spiders from universes that are further in the timeline sharing their advanced tech.

It's so many departments to have. Logistics and TI and Security. Do you think it has a daycare? Teams that deal with holes in the multiverse (like that one in Mumbattam), the Strike Force itself, which probably is divided in squadrons with its leaders. And– so many people

Soooo much food. Spiders are constantly refueling. It's insane. And SS probably caters to all kind of tastes, nutrition necessities and allergies too. Spider Chef working overtime.

Probably has some temporary dorms. It has therapy offices!

Do you think Miguel would pay the workforce? He looks like he would want to pay, even those that are working part-time.

Probably gives them something valuable instead of actual currency, something they can exchange for currency and may be universal but not hard to find, like diamonds.

And Layla? She's a Supercomputer not only running SS but probably managing Alchemax too, not to say being Miguel's personal assistant and still giving support to any Spider that summons her (like Jess in that scene with Gwen)

Underground the building there are levels and levels, floor to celling with servers and servers and processors for her.

I don't think it would be all – in the tech sense – free 24/7 access, though. There's a limit there to prevent Heroes from spending too much time there, or from getting gadgets that they could bring to their home and accidentally (by butterfly effect or even directly) prevent a Canon event.

Even the infirmary probably only deals with heroes that got injured on missions, too. Again, to prevent a Canon event from not happening. It probably doesn't treat the common cold.

Oh, gosh- can you imagine if there's an epidemic of a powerful cold that knocks out them? Can you imagine the headache of coming up with a vaccine????

[theasterous09]

its ninja-o-clock! A couple of asks/q for a bored bud if you want them ;D

Did you ever want an episode with specific scenario/trope in the show?

Did you have any ideas for another villain for Randy to battle?

If you have to choose: would you prefer Randy giving up his ninja mantle early in a self-sacrificing moment or him holding on until he is in a risk of being corrupted?

Any ideas about Randy's family?

First Ninja: blorbo or meh? if blorbo: any headcanons about him?

;D

THANK YOU ANON, I AM SO HAPPY WITH THESE QUESTIONS I CAN JUST KISS YOU

Did you ever want an episode with a specific scenario/trope in the show?

Yes! I have a lot of scenarios/tropes in my mind (and drafts) that I wish were in the show. Some of the scenarios and tropes were us finally seeing more First Ninja dad moments when Randy is feeling down or Randy and Howard going to the future and help the current ninja of that time (like the time travel episode, but the future-).

Did you have any ideas for another villain for Randy to battle?

Honestly? Yeah, I've always wanted to see Randy fight Howard as an actual monster (not like the soupsicles one, but like a stank'd one). We never got that, but that's fine! If we're talking about like an actual villain, like main antagonist kind of villain, then I've always wondered what if Randy gets sent into the future, only to find out that the current ninja of norrisville was THE villain. That would have been such a twist!

If you have to choose: would you prefer Randy giving up his ninja mantle early in a self-sacrificing moment or him holding on until he is in a risk of being corrupted?

This question made me remember an old fanfiction that had a chokehold on me. Anyone who knows "Randy Cunningham: Shadow of the Future" by not-a-cop on FF.net? Yeah, that's the one that reminded me of this question. To answer it, I would prefer if he gave up the mantle. Sure, it's a cliche choice and almost every hero chooses it, but this is Randy Cunningham we're talking about here. He is literally chosen as the ninja because his heart is pure, and it was stated multiple times (in and out of the show) that he is the best Ninja in the past 800 years (and he's just in his freshman year too)! I'm pretty sure he would choose to give up his title rather than let it corrupt and turn him into something that he's fighting against.

... Unless he becomes super evil then the Ninja of the future has to go back in time to stop Evil!Randy from turning his past-self into an evil version of himself too, which leads to a war between the two Randy's and becomes one of the greatest battles in Norrisville history—

Any ideas about Randy's family?

Yeah! I actually wrote a few headcanons about them and posted it, like, yesterday! But now I can talk about it more:

- Mrs. Cunningham is Althea Kaida Cunningham (Half-Japanese, half-Filipino (I made a mistake in my first hc post where I wrote that it was his dad that was the half-half)). Mr. Cunningham is Calin Cunningham (Pure American).

- They work at the same job (which takes up most of their time).

- They spend time with Randy once a day as a sort of family day and Randy relishes on that day a lot.

- Randy and Calin share the same love for music and video games, while Randy and Althea share the same love for meditating and volleyball (because I hc that Randy's fav sport is volleyball).

First Ninja: blorbo or meh? if blorbo: any headcanons about him?

ABSOLUTE BLORBO! And yes to headcanons!

- Outside of the Ninja suit, his name is Yuto Norisu. He was born in Norrisville with the rest of his brothers.

- When we first met him in the time travel episode, he was a 31-year-old ninja.

- He had a wife and a son, forever lost in time (no spoilers for this first, because I want to rant about it in a different post).

- He was a master of controlling his emotions. When the Sorcerer was still out and chaos can happen easily, he was taught by his older brothers how to control his emotions with ease so that he wouldn't be stank'd like the innocent people.

- When Randy goes inside the Nomicon, First Ninja would show himself to him on ocassion (rarer times Randy had seen him without the mask). During those times, he would help Randy in his ninja training and learning the new life lesson the Nomicon has for him.

- Randy sometimes calls him "Finja" despite the numerous times he told him not to.

- Finja sees Randy as a son (AND YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE).

- He hates the smell of smoke (from a trauma experience or he just really doesn't like the smell of it idk), which is why the smokebombs smell like farts rather than actual smoke.

THESE QUESTIONS WERE AWESOME!!! Thank you so much for them, Anon!!! If anyone has more, don't be shy to tell me about them! I would love to talk about this show more ahhhh

[invinciblerodent]

64 for any/all of your characters!!

64. What Tarot Card best represents your Tav?

Oh, I'm almost ashamed of how long I spent looking into this lol- I tried to work mainly off the Antonella Castelli "Art Nouveau" tarot deck (which is the one I have), but that booklet is very tied to those specific illustrations, so I kinda tried to go sorta off those, but also kinda interpret the cards myself lol (I'm, uh. not good at it, but it's fun!)

Iona Raedir: The Devil

Maybe not in the most traditional sense, but in the booklet I have sums up the meaning of this card as "magnetism, sensuality, magic, deceits, allurements, fascination, and suggestion", which I think is very apt for Iona- she is, at the end of the day, a straight-up dangerously charismatic person, who is also very deliberate about controlling people's perceptions of her.

Being a sorceress just coming into her power, not only is instinct generally just a big part of her relationship with magic, she is also overall a pretty magnetic personality, and while not evil, she was... probably closer to becoming a villain than even she would think. atm I'm kinda fascinated by just how close: like really, examining her a bit, it would have taken very small nudges in the wrong direction early on for her to go at a completely different angle with her character arc, and I could have easily seen her shifting from a more neutral/good-alignment to a straight-up evil one. Like this was already a period of upheaval in her life, and had she not been thrust into the position she is in as the "leader" of this band, it would have easily led her down an entirely different path.

I like to kinda credit Karlach and Gale with keeping her on a good path long enough for her to realize that she can relax, that she doesn't have to play her cards so close to her chest that even she forgets what they are, and that she can allow herself to be vulnerable. (she and Astarion in a relationship is really the one-eyed leading the blind, kinda. They are sort of two sides of the same coin who are very similar but also opposite, which, honestly kind of just makes me all the more fascinated with them lol.)

Arvid Trygg: 9 of Wands

My booklet's summary is a little weird on this one, but as far as I'm aware, this card mostly symbolizes perseverance, courage, and an ongoing struggle- which, as a war cleric, is kind of Arvid's bread and butter lol. His story overall is about sort of an inner conflict that's both moral and religious, and this... constant, ongoing struggle between what is right and what is fair. His character arc sort of boils down to him... learning to distinguish between duty, need, and justice, and essentially learning to put himself and his own wants and needs first.

He's a seasoned warrior right from the beginning, somewhat weary and worn like the man on the card, a mercenary-priest in a way, and as a worshiper of Tempus, tenacity and honor in combat are some of the values that he holds the most dear. His belief, it's sort of a deification of a struggle, which can... really easily become self-destructive. (I mean, had he not played the hero, I think he could have even evaded capture by the mind flayers.)

It really seems like Gale is overall just a very positive force in my characters' lives, because his love is pretty much the main thing that got Arvid out of that "holy struggle" mindset and into his own skin lol.

Petyr Wildbrook - 8 of Cups

He's not as detailed a character as the other two just yet (I'm only a couple hours into his playthrough lol), but I already know that the central theme for Petyr's game is going to be disappointment, and him learning to go against his immediate kneejerk response of withdrawal and escapism by just... trying one more time. He's kind of holding up a thematic mirror to Arvid in that that guy needed to learn how to let things go and give up being so damn righteous and self-sacrificing all the damn time, while Petyr needs to learn how to stand up for something, and not to hit the bricks at the first sign of hardship.

As much as I have of his backstory is basically that he is the son of druids and was raised in a Circle, but he is without magic himself, so rather than staying and trying to learn or finding another avenue to make himself "useful" to his community, he just... left. Abandoned everything. Rather than facing his feelings of inadequacy, he chose to become sort of that "lone ranger" archetype, just deal with the loss and the bitterness that left in his heart, and live in a way where he only ever had to answer to himself.

I think for him, act 2 is going to be a pivotal moment of character growth. Like, the Petyr from the beginning of the game would not stand by Shadowheart and support her as her world crumbles around her, but by that point, he's probably done enough growing to not run away at the first genuine human emotion???

Thank you for this question, I went entirely too deep into it lol!

[queenbol-of-baldurs-gate]

So I've ended up avoiding Tumblr purely so I don't get spoiled by anything but of course I'm thinking of my Tavs- specifically what they deep down, at their core, want. Or don't want. Like the kind of things they would only admit if they were super vulnerable, not in their right mind or at their most desperate. Let me know in the tags about your own Tavs!! I love finding out more about them.

Delight, despite her big push to survive on her own, to be independent and be successful no matter what anyone says about her: at her core, she doesn't want to be alone. She grew up watching her parents be devoted to one another, her best and first friend in the whole world chose her father over her, and to be a tiefling in a world that alienates her on principle she too wants to have that connection- to have someone that will choose her everytime. You would have to waterboard that woman before she admitted it though.

Briallen made me the saddest however, because for all her self-sacrificing survivor's guilt mess, her desire to be forgiven and to feel like she deserves to be forgiven she just wants to go home. She's just barely past twenty, she left (ran away from) her home at fifteen. She's become a local folk hero, she's faced danger and saved dozens of lives and now she's fighting against time against such an insurmountable power. But deep, deep down she just wants to go home. And of course, she feels like she doesn't deserve to.

And Iker, man...getting anything personal out of him would be like pulling chicken's teeth he's so closed off. But ultimately, despite all his walls and his acerbic behaviour towards others he actually doesn't want to be like that anymore. They were a different person once. They smiled and joked and had ideals to live up to. After he lost it all they changed for the worse and they don't know how to go back to those brighter days. So he'll just keep going because what else can he do but die, all the while burying the thought of "I don't want to be like this anymore" and just try to keep others at a distance.

[inamindfarfaraway]

And instead of Vanellope’s terrible arc where she abandons everyone she knows and loves to go Turbo, endangering two games full of people, she could have an arc about learning how to be a confident, responsible leader and happy, healthy, normal kid after living in isolation and persecution for so long. Ruling a society, being loved and respected by the other racers, having strong bonds of friendship and found family outside her game, regularly getting chosen by players… even with her memories back, it’s a lot to adjust to. A lot of pressure. Especially with a shorter time skip than the movie’s six years. Like, one year or less (a Sugar Rush liberation anniversary party would make a great denouement setting). She’s used to thinking of herself as a problem, a mistake, a danger. But now suddenly everyone sees the best in her. Surely everyone wants the best from her. They expect it, surely. No matter where she goes, she can’t stop being important. I can definitely see her struggling with insecurity, anxiety and imposter syndrome as she tries to turn her entire sense of self on its head after fifteen traumatic years. What if she messes up? What if she turns into a bad ruler like King Candy? What if some new villain or disaster takes everything away again? It’s happened before! You never know! She’s most players’ favourite character; what if she loses control of her glitch in front of them (I’d love to see it portrayed as both positive and negative in different circumstances, like many autistic and ADHD traits, to continue its disability allegory in the first movie) and destroys her world? What if he was right and she is just the Glitch?

Ralph has his own thematically connected stuff going on about exploring his new identity as a good, happy, loved Bad Guy/Hero, but while Vanellope is already slipping at the start, he’s totally happy with his life before the plot happens. Maybe he has confront to deeper moral ambiguity, figure out what kind of Hero he wants to be and how okay he is with sacrificing things besides himself. Like, what if he has to make a choice that mirrors breaking the kart (ideally regarding Felix or a new character to differentiate it) that’s actually justified by the definite stakes? It feels equally wrong and does tangible harm, but is that excusable when it saves everyone? What is ‘the greater good’ in a universe greater and more complex than the arcade? The idea that “Being a hero means doing the right thing, no matter what” is potent - and considering who brought it up, it would be another way to make Turbo haunt the narrative. Ralph having a more philosophically driven arc would pair nicely with Vanellope’s more emotionally driven one.

Anyway, he’s apprehensive about the internet, but she views it as an escape. Especially after they collide with the external internet plot of people researching the King Candy mystery and the Sugar Rush in Litwak’s Arcade, which massively triggers Vanellope’s buried issues. Firstly, she has to look at images of man who ruined her life, abused her and tried to kill her. Secondly, you know what else is abnormal in her specific cabinet? President Vanellope Von Schweetz. Her kart. Her outfit. Her dialogue. Her ‘power’. What if these stupid humans mess with her game trying to find answers? What if Litwak decides to reboot it? Maybe Sugar Rush is better off without her after all. The internet, aka the mortifying ordeal of being perceived, does not help her handle this stress well. (Something something strangers on the internet feeling entitled to have an opinion on you, violating your privacy and taking your reputation wildly out of your control something something internet discourse rashly assigning morality to people based on superficial interpretations that deny the nuances of reality something something filter all the first movie’s concepts of heroism, villainy and performance through those themes. Works for Ralph’s ‘Okay, but how do you stay a hero?’ arc too). We get messy trauma response representation! We get people on the internet being realistically unfair and judgemental about that! We teach children that although the internet can be a wonderland of freedom, self-expression and meaningful relationships, it’s also a minefield of toxicity that could harm their mental health incredibly easily if they dive into it without guidance or protection!

So Vanellope is the one who risks going Turbo this time. Her wanting to stay in another game is explicitly self-destructive and bad. Maybe she eventually realizes that Slaughter Race appeals to her because its dark, gritty tone; dirty, messy aesthetic; and abundance of danger and crime subconsciously remind her of being a homeless fugitive who could only rely on herself. And whether pleasant or not, the familiar is comfortable. Tracking the Sugar Rush investigation could lead her to other glitches and modified characters, giving her a community like Ralph’s Bad Guys Anonymous. That’s the upside of the internet: you’re not alone. Another plot point could be her using wifi to travel to a regular Sugar Rush console and meeting who she would be if not for Turbo… and Ralph. Imagine that conversation. It could help her make peace with her differences and internalize that she deserves to be happy and does belong in her game. Her father figure Ralph anchors her the most, of course. Calhoun can also talk her through living with trauma and how it’s worth it, despite the discomfort, to allow yourself to heal and move on. In the end Vanellope comes home and embraces her arcade life. But she keeps in touch with her online support system and sometimes visits certain areas of the internet with varying degrees of adult supervision.

Smth I’ve thought about ever since I first saw wreck it ralph is that in universe king candy is basically an irl creepypasta. Like he’s a racer that only exists in this one specific sugar rush cabinet, every other version off the game has princess vanellope. Literally no one knows he exists except for ppl who went to this one small arcade in the United States. And if the code for sugar rush has been dumped there is no trace of king candy bc he only exists in this one cabinet. I bet there’s ppl who traveled cross country just to see if king candy actually exists.

And then after the movie king candy disappears from the roster forever and is replaced by vanellope but she’s different than every other vanellope, different outfit different personality different kart different voice lines etc

It’s literally that one arcade cabinet creepypasta discussions and YouTube videos about it in universe must be crazy.