#like literally zero defining traits

[thewhisperingtwenties]

ive had enough of these guys

[ryuuseini]

God I wanna... Say Something regarding fatphobia in media and the terms ppl use in describing characters who gain weight over time ("letting go" like bro shut the fuck up???) and how like, there's also nuance to the discussion (like, a character who starts out on the heavier side choosing to lose weight shouldn't be demonized either - as PLENTY of people want to lose weight for various reasons, and while you can point to a decent amount of it stemming from our fatphobic society, a lot of it is also just personal desire at the end of the day - but I also understand that if your ONLY fat character loses weight at the end and the other characters don't change either, then that's not good) but idk, I'm a little too tired to properly articulate what's going on in my mind? But I just... wish this was more of a discussion

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[shima-draws]

I’m still so mentally ill over the whole Luffy refusing to eat unless it’s Sanji’s food thing. Like. We KNOW how fucking feral over food Luffy is. He loves food and loves eating so much that he steals it off other people’s plates and out of their hands and is so impatient when it comes to meals that he’ll literally try and sneak into the kitchen to mooch before it’s ready. Or he’ll try to break into the refrigerator. I know Sanji mentioned putting a lock on it at some point bc Luffy literally wiped it clean. He will not hesitate to eat other people’s portions or literally an entire meal meant for a whole ship of people! He’s unbelievably selfish when it comes to food and that’s just SUCH a central part of his character that it’s become almost endearing. Even in Totto Land Luffy didn’t think for a second before devouring everything in sight, including an entire fucking HOUSE, regardless of the consequences or the people it might affect. Homie did not care!! He’s food driven first and foremost!!!

Until Sanji leaves him. Until he decides that eating—something that he loves and brings him comfort—isn’t WORTH it unless it’s Sanji’s food he’s eating. It’s been shown that Luffy has zero self restraint when it comes to food so the fact that he was SURROUNDED by food on all sides on a food themed island and utterly refused to partake in any of that? Even though he hates being hungry and will always make eating a priority over pretty much anything else?? The amount of willpower it must have taken for him to sit there and purposefully let himself starve, for SANJI. Even when food was offered to him conveniently (in the form of syrup rain) he stubbornly rejected that. Because it wasn’t Sanji’s food. Because it wasn’t Sanji who made it, who always puts so much thought and care into the food he makes, who always indulges Luffy and prepares extra because he knows how much Luffy eats and how much he loves to eat. Luffy literally took one of the most defining traits he has and tossed it out the window. For Sanji. I’m going to fucking blow up

[zeldadiscussions]

The repeated use of the specific word imperialism in fandom discussions of TotK really bugs me because like… we know what imperialism looks like, right?

Genocide either by murder or assimilation, leadership that is either of the conquering race or loyal to it generally for personal gain, control of the conquered’s resources, and a social climate where the conquerors are considered superior.

But in this Hyrule none of the other races had their cultures erased, they aren’t governed by Hylian leaders and the local leaders’ first priority is taking care of their people, they manage their own trade affairs, and Hylians don’t constantly subject others to put downs about their race.

If a Hylian man dares enter Gerudo Town without the Chief’s permission, they kick him out or put him in jail. That’s how much control the Gerudo have over their own territory and how little being a Hylian matters if you mess with them.

Rauru is accused of hoarding power but he literally gave his secret stones out to the other races and they remain in possession of them to this day.

Basically the only time the other nations seem to actually follow Hyrule’s lead at all is when facing common threats or working towards common goals. Hyrule only ever meddles in other lands affairs either to lend them aid (Link and Zelda fighting for everyone, the folks at Tabantha Bridge Stable providing disaster releif to the Rito, etc.) or requesting aid from them (Rauru and Zelda asking the Sages and Champions to help them fight Ganon[dorf].) They lead like a team leader leads.

Sonia and Rauru didn’t found an empire.

They founded an alliance.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here but to my eyes at least (for now) there is zero solid evidence of Hyrule exerting control over the daily lives of non-Hylians or stealing their resources, two major defining traits of imperialistic rule. Hyrule is at the head of the alliance, yes, but an empire isn’t the only system of governance that has one group or individual at the helm of a coalition. The difference is in the details and the details here are that Hyrule leads the others but it does not dominate them, and that is key.

The only empire in the game would have been the one Ganondorf was trying to force on everyone and that was pretty bluntly depicted as being a bad thing. How can we say it’s pro-imperialistic if the main conflict is preventing the rise of an evil empire?

You can’t effectively analyze a narrative by completely ignoring everything about it and its meta that contradicts a knee-jerk viewpoint. What is even the point of analyzing it at all at that point?

[metalichotchoco]

Robots and their voices

Get ready because this is a long one ;]

A lot of the time characters are defined by their voices but with ai/ robotic characters this works overtime since it’s usually the only outlet into their emotions or character. They can get away with being an off screen presence since they typically aren’t psychical in nature. For all purposes in most cases they are nothing but their voice

Like with Hal, the only way we receive information about this character in visual mediums is his voice. It’s soothing like a lullaby, careful with even tones,smooth.Prideful in the sense of confidence not arrogance. You can hear his ego at being a perfect machine but it’s not boastful there’s no smirk when he says that. It’s how he views himself. You can imagine Hal with a soft smile for most of the movie, trying not to alarm staff. Only at the end does his voice get small, when he pauses for more time than normal as if to take a breath you cannot hear and that he does not need.

Edgar is loud and brash when feeling intense emotion which is a lot. He’s screechy and almost awkward in tonality. When he’s in a better mood he’s still peppy and small sounding. A sense of confusion is what a lot of lines read as but once he looks it up or figures it out, he’s much lower and monotone. With the Cinderella dialogue it sounds like he’s reading the information straight off the website he found it from.hes hot and cold he’s immature. A pest more than a true menace, due to his “newness” he doesn’t talk down to the humans in the movie but he’s underhanded and petty, craving love and attention and begging to be heard. A lot of the time you can hear his voice sort of breaking. It’s probably an audio issue from the time the movie was made, a filter over the actors voice but it works incredibly well for him.

Glados and her lines ooze sarcasm. She talks down to you more like you’re a nuisance she has to deal with than an equal in any sense (until potato glad but she’s almost a completely different character,not quite though) you can hear the exact moment she lies to you directly, diegectically it’s as if she needs to find a loophole to lie to your face so there’s a slight disconnect. Glados has a very singsong voice, her pronunciation going into higher and lower registers to express emotion rather than actually putting in actual anger or happiness into the monotone. It does a good job of selling this robotic lady who doesn’t view you with any sort of respect until she has to in the second game.

Whealtey by comparison is very non robotic in his voice or manner which makes sense since he’s a personality core and none of the standard robotic traits like objectivity, rationality, intelligence or indifference are present in him specifically on purpose. He’s anxious but optimistic, he rambles to sound like he knows what he’s talking about but it makes it even more apparent he has zero clue what he’s doing. You can immediately tell he’s incompetent at his job from the second you first really talk to him and it makes him all the more endearing.his power trip doesn’t exactly change that either, just attempts to self aggrandize, look and feel important. He sounds “confident” but he talks to the point where you realize just how insecure and unsure he is about anything. The British accent is also weirdly enough feeding into his fake intellectualism since Americans tend to view people with said accent as smarter even if they aren’t saying anything particularly smart.

The narrator is what you’d get if you crossed glados and Whealtey’s attitudes to character voice work but that’s reductive to him and the Stanley parable in general. The whole game is predicated on whether or not you listen to him/ mess with him. It’s an interactive story in the most basic of descriptions. The narrator is literally trying to talk you through a story and gets more distressed and annoyed as the player tries to exert and wrestle control from him. When you think of a narrator this type of voice comes to mind, a British masculine monotone that ebbs and flows with the story. This whole game is a meta narrative so it’s a very smart choice for this to be the case. There’s no robotic tone to his voice because that’s not the point, he’s basically the only real character in the game which makes him feel more human than the actual human we control who cannot speak, only act. He’s the one that makes us feel anything about the game. More the most part the narrator conveys a self assured calm tone, a blank canvas to react to the players weird actions.

Last for today is am and oh boy is he a doozy. Mr Ellison really does his creation justice on how powerful his performance can be. Am in the game and radio drama are actually sort of different characters but it makes sense since in the game he’s literally playing a game with the survivors whereas in the radio drama we get closer to the actual book. For a lot of these characters, the protagonists tend to be silent or reclusive but for am to still be as dominant of a presence with 5 other speaking roles is a testament to the type of character he is. For game am, he sounds almost like a car salesman. He talks down to the survivors, even very obviously flirting with them. You can imagine the mile wide grin on his face when he pulls something. But he’s not exactly desperate, more just like he’s playing a sick little game. Am does things that not even the most human sounding ais do, blowing raspberrys, coughing, laughing, crying. His cadence even makes it feel as if he’s breathing even though you cannot hear it. He’s very intense and visceral. He can go from relaxed and playful to manic and deranged so naturally and it’s what makes him so scary. This computer is far far too human. Everything he does also reminds you that he cannot move or breathe, he cannot scream or cry but it’s clear that he should. The reality of what he is looms over this performance. For as sad as he gets, no tears will flow.his chest will not move because he does not have one.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i find it so absurd how nate could say literally anything about the characters and the fans just eat it up. like how he said that catra was a hufflepuff and adora was a slytherin.

why do fans never question this? this classification makes zero sense. let's start with adora.

slytherins are said to be cunning, ambitious and resourceful.

adora is far from cunning. she is very hesitant to cheat or take a short route to something. catra is the one who is willing to take any route possible to achieve her goals. she's the one who is willing to play dirty during a fight if it means that she wins.

when was adora ever ambitious? she never had a goal of her own. back in the horde, she just followed what shadow weaver told her. and after she became she-ra, she just wanted to protect people. that is the furthest from ambition or a slytherin trait. slytherins can be good people, but ambition is the thing that defines them.

resourceful is.. ehh. adora is not dumb, at least not in the beginning, but i can't think of a single moment when she was resourceful. when faced with a situation where she can't use her she-ra powers to win, adora usually just loses. there's no instance where she makes the best of a bad situation and utilizes her environment to get benefit.

if anything, it would make sense for glimmer to be a slytherin. i think she fits the house really well. she's a good leader, she's cunning when she needs to be, and she's definitely ambitious. she always felt the need to prove herself to everyone and unlike adora, this was not fostered by an abusive parent or a forced destiny.

let's move on to catra. hufflepuffs are known to be hardworking, loyal and friendly.

catra? hardworking? she was known for slacking off in the horde. and then out of the blue, she becomes perfect at everything. even when she makes plans and leads the attacks on etheria, she doesn't exactly come off as hardworking. she's just shown to be smart enough to get everything done immediately and to get out of any situation.

loyalty is absolutely not a word in catra's dictionary. she's perfectly okay with throwing away her friends like they're nothing. she mistreats and abuses them and then cries when they leave her.

i don't need to explain the friendly part. not only is she not friendly, but she's also unnecessarily rude to everyone around her.

[1moreff-creator]

Happy Birthday Eden Tobisa!

Turns out our favorite clock girly has her birthday on New Year's Eve! What a nice date for such a nice girl! Let's do a character analysis, fun facts, and songs!

-We know relatively little about Eden's backstory. The most notable thing we know about her life before the killing game, apart from her fascination with clocks, is what is revealed in her chapter 2 secret: "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendships." Which is pretty straightforward; she's canonically a lesbian and is worried it would negatively affect her friendships.

-Literally the only other thing we know about her backstory is that she lived in Japan for a small period of time when she was younger, before moving back to the US. This was revealed in a Q&A.

(... You know, I made a deranged theory in my Mai post that maybe the girl that Eden kissed was actually Mai. It wasn't very serious, since it was just a silly way to try to explain what the hell Eden's quote in the Mai page could mean. But... we know Teruko was in Japan for a while when she was younger, and it's theorized she knew Mai before being separated from her at some point. Combined with Mai's name being seemingly Japanese, it could imply Mai also lived in Japan at some point. And if that's the case, it's possible she met Eden there? To be clear, that's still an insane possibility, but I do find it a funny possibility, which is why I'm sharing it)

-Apart from that, Eden's defining trait is her optimism and her trust in others. She sticks to Teruko's side even after she starts pushing everyone away in CH 1, and confesses to her that she believes "not caring about others is the worst way to live." She's importantly not naive, she does know their situation is horrible, but still she constantly searches for an exit and tries to build good friendships with the others.

-This includes baking with Min, Rose and Teruko in CH1, inviting Teruko and Arei to make clocks on CH2, etc. Basically, she's awesome and nice and mature.

-Also she loves clocks. Regular Ultimate stuff, she can apparently spend hours and hours working and losing track of time.

-Although for such an optimistic character, her secret quote is quite ominous. "You can't go back, no matter how hard you try." We have zero clue what this means at the moment, but at least it does fit the symbolism of time always moving forward.

-Meanwhile, her quote in the Mai page is "She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up." This is even more incomprehensible! Eden, what in the world are you talking about?

-Alright, David MV. She doesn't have a color in Color Theory, but her numeral is XII (twelve). Go to 1:48:28 in this video for an explanation. God it's so convenient to have that lol.

Alright fun facts!

-As stated, her birthday (December 31st) lands on New Year's Eve. Maybe representing new beginnings or change, which certainly goes well with her character. How nice!

-Like most of the cast, she's American and right-handed.

-She's one of the only characters with dyed hair. Her hair was originally just brown.

-Her favorite color is daffodil yellow, because it's happy, and her least favorite color is blue, because it's "kind of a downer color." Areden shippers in shambles.

-Her favorite ice cream flavor is honeycomb. I didn't even know that existed but go off queen.

-She enjoys cute fashion, but also enjoys wearing androgynous style clothing.

-She likes food which is fun to make or prepare. How nice!

-She's biracial; her mother is black and her father is Japanese. This is why she spent a bit of time in Japan when she was younger.

-Her name in kanji is 飛佐【とび ・ さ】楽【いーでん】. Gonna leave any actual meaning as homework, but it's worth noting her name was anglicized. I think that would translate to "Iden", but her mother liked the name "Eden", so they went with that instead.

Finally, songs that remind me of her!

-Positive Parade by DECO*27

-Gone Fishing by Ghost & Pals (friendship!)

-Aura by Ghost & Pals

-In Iolite by Ghost & Pals

-Magnet by minato

-Those Who Carried On by Ghost & Pals

-I'm Glad You're Evil Too by PinocchioP

And Happy Birthday! And a happy new year! Well wishes to all you Tumblr peeps. Take care!

[murderluv23]

I hope the fandom doesn't start infantilizing Fizzarolli due to his lack of combat experience and being kidnapped this episode. Fizzarolli was tough as nails and still had his usual guts to bite back and be sassy despite clearly being scared out of his mind. Fizzarolli showed some impressive bravery and I'd hate it if people start acting like he's this dainty damsel in distress that can't stand up for himself.

When literally all we've seen from him is him having zero qualms about getting up in people's faces and verbally tearing them to shreds, especially if they start it. I mean, even if Fizzarolli isn't combat oriented, he fucking held his own against Blitz for a good minute. (Blitz might have been holding back but still.) And sassed and screamed at Striker to his face while tied up. My boy is not fragile. And it'd be super annoying to see anyone try to make that a trait of his just because of his softer emotions, especially a defining trait.

This isn't talking about anyone in particular- I'm just crossing my fingers for my man Fizzarolli's sake.

[ihateedwardnygma]

please elaborate (ignore how i voted i thought about it for 2 miliseconds only)

info dump time yay!!

i’d like to preface this by saying what i believe abt ed is likely a personal thing and up to interpretation… for starters he’s a fictional character + also. as with the majority of characters i enjoy, a lot of the things i love / find interesting about him tend to be things i headcanon. i don’t think my perception is necessarily the correct one and i also think the original poll has a lot of right answers… like you said lust and even if you put no thought into that vote i actually think it makes sense… at least in my opinion it ties into his pride, which is what i voted.

anyway! i believe that ultimately his biggest sin- and his fatal flaw overall- was his pride. his downfall is caused nearly exclusively by his own sense of pride and inability to let go of his ego. whether directly or indirectly, pride was at the centre of the majority of poor decisions he made: most of the time he acted out of a need to keep up his ego and save face, desperate to earn the respect of others around him.

i think ed had a very fragile self image- throughout the show, we see him sort of project things onto other people- denying them their own personhood or autonomy and acting as if this can both save him and perhaps save them too, if he gets it in his head that they need saving. he might view himself as smarter and superior to others on the surface, but this disguises a HEAVYYY case of low self esteem… the guy literally can’t function without his ego being stroked. he doesn’t particularly know who he is, and tends to define himself by arbitrary traits such as power and intelligence. when his inflated and distorted view of himself is challenged, he becomes angry and prone to lashing out. this can and does lead to him inadvertently torpedoing the rare few good things that actually do happen to him, which is, even if he is kind of an asshole, really sad to watch.

with this being said, i believe the fandom do tend to characterise him in black and white- either this pride and innate selfishness is a flaw set in stone that cannot be fixed, and this therefore makes him 100% evil and irredeemable- alternatively, people will go the opposite route and suggest he’s some kind of innocent little guy absolved of all responsibility for his actions because of his evident issues. and i believe it should be looked at with more nuance than that- yes, he’s not a good person, and yes, he’s done some downright evil things. but at the same time, ignoring that he was a deeply unwell and mentally ill individual with zero support system or help- i mean he got thrown in fucking ARKHAM when he was caught- does a disservice to the character. i doubt he could ever have been normal- i view him as CEN-coded (childhood emotional neglect) and also having multiple mental illnesses- majority of these are my own so it’s not like. Stereotyping lol- that may make it harder for him to navigate life. but i do think characterising him as purely evil or purely good are both takes that lack comprehension skills.

i went off on a tangent there and i’m really sorry!! but i wanted to clarify what i mean when i talk about ed + pride- in no way am i villainising the character nor am i saying everything’s okay bc he’s got like. 12 gazillions disorders or whatever- i just think he’s a very fun and interesting character to analyse… ^_^

[rassicas]

(I don’t feel like rewriting it cause it mostly gets across what I’m trying to say but the first paragraph is just a rant stemming from liking splatfest law as an idea, preferring a more malleable understanding of cannon, and how even good non contradictory things the NOA translators do are often discredited for not being simply 100% accurate [cause it’s often more interesting when it’s not imo] so sorry in advance)

I get being the jp translation lore purist and translator is like your entire brand but I feel like some of the “misconceptions” are just popular headcannons or not bothering to check the NOA translation against the JP one for every line. (Revising this it’s literally only splatfest law this gripe applies to I was just feeling ranty) I get really hammering on the “no there aren’t any more mammals” one because that is an important contradiction but when they don’t directly contradict (like splatfest law [again this entire paragraph is just the product of me thinking splatfest law is a fun idea and specifically disliking it being framed as a “misconception”]) it feels kinda weird to treat taking the translation you have at face value as a “misconception.” (Specifically when it doesn’t contradict established cannon or alter characterization in a major way [this has actually just become a mini rant about how treating any information exclusive to translations as non cannon on the simple basis that the JP translation is the only true cannon is something that I personally am conflicted on {wow the mentally ill genderfuck homestuck prefers a mailable and more flexible idea of what is “cannon” who would have known}]) <=(writing these parentheses sets made be realize I’m kinda just spinning a word salad over one specific gripe)

I also cannot view the Frye thread yet so perhaps there’s more of a thesis to it than Frye not being confirmed to be a vampire squid like them being some other species of squid but it seems like a stretch to include that as a “misconception.” Is your underlying argument is that no cephalings inherent traits from specific aquatic ancestors? Is this just to say the art books and interviews have nothing that directly confirm it? (All of that to say what was the reasoning for including it on the misconceptions list?)

Looking back at the list now those two specific ones are the only ones I’d like to know the reasoning for including (this was not well thought through before I started typing it) all of the other ones I definitely get including and have solid sources to back them up and are good to put out there as definitely not backed up by cannon. The list is over all very swaggy and a great resource I’d just like to hear expanded thoughts and reasoning behind these two being it.

The reason for the "splatfest law" inclusion is how often i'd see it brought up among fans, taken seriously, and incorporated into genuine theories about the future of splatoon's plot (i saw this in theories about splatoon 3's plot, and now i see it with side order).

if it's just a localization funny moment then the odds of it potentially having bearing on the plot/worldbuilding of a game made by japanese developers is next to zero. for people like me who put highest importance on the JP side and want to seriously speculate on and understand splatoon's canon, people want to know what is and isn't just a product of localization! funny thing, i was also a hardcore homestuck fan but i am Like this (obsessive over the established Lore) and have always been. i think its my brand of autism LOL Different pieces of media are going to have different standards to how they treat their canon. individuals will have their own standards to how much they want to adhere to that canon and how they define it. splatoon is looser in some places but parts of it less so once it becomes plot relevant. "splatfest law" is objectively funny and if you believe it based on how you perceive what is splatoon's canon i cannot and will not stop you. i personally choose to believe its not actually part of their legal system and something people will say in-universe as a joke. as for the frye thread you should read it before jumping to conclusions about what point i was making with it. I'll go and post it after this. What happened was that right after frye was revealed in the nintendo direct, someone made a thread speculating that frye was a vampire squid, with points of evidence being that she has fangs (all inklings have fangs and weve seen different shapes of them) and long ears (we've seen normal inklings with different shapes of ears), and then the rest of the "evidence" being based on stuff that was intended to be based on her connection to eels or indian culture. this thread blew up and soon after people were stating, with certainty, that frye was 100% intended to be a vampire squid. it is one thing to headcanon something, but its another thing to tout it as fact, which is what was happening.

[conanssummerchild]

i finally gave in and im making some rick and morty oc's >:))

we have:

Rick Sanchez A-26M

Morty Smith L9-DD

Summer Sanchez X-1217 (she changed her surname to sanchez after escaping her dimension. maybe her jerry was abusive or something. in reality i just want her to be summer sanchez. might find a way to make morty morty sanchez too.)

Beth Smith N0T (thats a zero but it is reffered to as dimension not or the not dimension or smth)

Jerry Smith N0T

and they all live on Earth dimension N0T

backstory:

(ignore that i refer to summer as summer x-22 in the ss, i changed my mind or her dimensional code, it is x-1217)

ive never made an oc before literally ever in my life (let alone 5) but im working on the lore rn and maybe sometime this month i'll do character designs but im really busy rn. definitely by the end of summer tho

additional info:

rick has paranoia depression anxiety adhd and autism (but he refuses to go to therapy so most of these arent actually diagnosed, but im literally his creator so i know, with the exception of paranoia (due to his psycotic break he was briefly forced into citadel therapy or whatever) and depression. i dont think he knows about the anxiety/he refuses to acknowledge it and he self medicates his adhd. he knows about the autism) hes also still an alcoholic (like most ricks i think) his beth jerry and summer's whereabouts are unknown (at least until i think of smth better 😭)

morty's rick is dead but when he was alive he was lowkey kinda nice (if overly and unhealthily dependant on morty) so morty misses him dearly :( morty tried to help his rick recover from dianes death and stop him from destroying himself finding rick prime but he couldnt and he blames himself for ricks death, he has a lot of abandonment issues and maybe some ptsd too. hes a bit more prickly than your standard morty until he really gets close to someone, hes less immediately trusting. after his rick died he ran away from home to the citadel, trying to find another rick but after a few years and about 5 ricks he realised it was useless and he would never be able to really replace his rick. his family was assigned another morty after he split and they're fine. he hung around the morty town locos for a while until finding summer x-22

summer's whole family is alive still but she ran away from home due to her jerry being abusive, as i mentioned earlier. she stole ricks portal gun and portalled over to the citadel, but the portal gun was damaged and she couldnt go anywhere else. morty l9-dd found her crying behind the creepy morty and tried to steal her portal gun (bcs the morty town locos fw portal fluid) but she pinned him against a wall and told him she'd slit his throat out if he didnt help her so he agreed. they bonded after that and became pretty much inseparable.

summer confided that she hadnt had a good relationship with her morty bcs he always turned a blind eye to the abuse and excused jerry. morty told her he spent so much time trying to keep his rick from spiralling that he never formed much of a relationship with his summer

when they get to dimension N0T beth and jerry seem perfect but they soon find out that the rick of this dimension was dead of suicide or smth and that beth tried to commit to after his death maybe. beth here is also an alcoholic, like c-131 is and jerry is in charge of keeping up appearances, which is harder once you have 3 new people living in your broken home.

im not sure a lot of this still might change it needs a lot of work

defining traits (both personality and physical):

rick: more quiet, often zones out and seems like hes not even there, but still bitchy when he does talk. when they first get to N0T he barely leaves his room for 2 months and beth keeps panicking bcs shes worried he'll kill himself like her rick. even tho she doesnt know him he looks so much like her rick did (bcs theyre both ricks duh) and its just stirring back up some stuff for her. his hair is a little flatter than c-137. perhaps he has a fringe. maybe he wears a soft wool jumper. je has self harm scars but always wears long sleeves, so theyre not visible

morty: his tones a bit sharper, hes more skeptical of ppl than morty prime is. hates rick prime almost as much as a-26m does. darker yellow t shirt (like the mortys in mortytown) scars across his eye (I KNOW IM NOT ORIGINAL OK i didnt want to put the scar down his lip bcs i didnt want to assosciate him with evil rick and morty, he has nothing to do with them) maybe the scar is across his cheek idk

summer: always a bit on edge, carries a knife on her at all times. incredibly mistrusting of jerry N0T when they got there. still weary of him and doesnt let him get too close. jerry is too tired trying to keep up appearances to really do much to try and ease summers mistrust of him. black tank top instead of pink. hot pink belt on her jeans tho maybe. loose hair bcs a ponytail is too easy to grab, sharp nails, painted pink. bruises on her arms that start to fade in the beginning of her time on the citadel with morty

beth: often out of it or drunk, more so the more time rick morty and summer stay bcs she cares less and less about keeping how shitty shes doing from them. at the beginning she seems like a perfect housewife, or someone putting on a performance of one. looks pretty much the same if not a little more disheveled, in the beginning wears one of those fancy white frilly aprons with a red heart embroidered. drops the apron as she drops the act

jerry: tired, dark circles maybe (rick and morty also have these, summer and jerry wear makeup to cover them, beth and rick have eyebags also) starts wearing the apron when beth stops lol, defeated demeanour, kinda depressed a lot of the time. lonely

anyway a lot of this is probably gonna be changed idkkkk

ooh also how long it took for a bond to form between characters:

rick and morty: about 2-3 months. both desperately missed their old partners which sped it up a bit but morty was scared of getting attached and rick at the start was too out of it most days to really form any kind of connection also he was scared of getting attatched too but for different reasons (morty was scared he'd lose another rick, rick felt like everyone he got close to ended up worse off (diane, his prev morty))

rick and summer: like maybe 5 months, they didnt interact much at first, like i said rick was too out of it and summer didnt really trust rick and saw him as unstable, but as rick grew closer to morty, summer slowly became a little less suspicious and maybe rick helped her with smth and they bonded over that idk

rick and beth: their initial relationship was not healthy, beth trying desperately to prevent rick from killing himself and rick not being willing to work on himself healthily, causing beth great panic and anxiety, but after like 6 months or so they become drinking buddies, still not the healthiest father-daughter relationship but it eases beths mind and makes rick feel less alone

rick and jerry: even after like 10 months living at the smith house rick and jerry dont have much of a relationship, both are too caught up in their own exhaustion to make an effort to bond, may change at some point

morty and summer: started to form a relationship within the first week of meeting eachother, maybe 7 or so months before they encountered rick (i need to make a timeline) probably the strongest relationship of all of these listed

morty and beth: surprisingly quickly, within the first 1 or 2 months, morty misses his mum and he wants to try and help beth a bit

morty and jerry: mutual respect for eachother, morty helps jerry out around the house and with things, started like this after anytime between a few weeks and 2 months

summer and beth: 4 months, took a while but eventually they formed a bond, its easier for summer to relax around beth and beth likes having a daughter

summer and jerry: still distrust after 10 months, will likely take a long time for any kind of relationship to form, no matter how minor

beth and jerry: pre established relationship obviously but its not a very good or happy one, maybe after 9 months they start trying to work on it again

[raitobie]

I MAY be reading too much into it, and people just don’t care about all this because he is a serial killer of enourmous proportions, but I think there is not-so-obvious problem with claiming that Light is a psychopath.

So, Light Is obviously an evil person, in colloquial sense, but saying that his awfulness is an “obvious” psychopath trait implies that a “normal” person has zero capabilities to do it to begin with and should not worry about themselves. Of course I’m not saying that “most people in his case will do the same” I actually think the minority will, but still his actions are basically a result of the same mentality: he believed that there are “bad” people and “good”, so he couldn’t believe himself to have done something bad and went out of way to make it worth it

so, what I’m trying to say, making statements “psychopath = does bad things” and “does bad things = psychopath” interchangeable badly affects the capability of properly analyzing yourself, because you can always say “well, i’m not a psychopath, so I will never be a bad person!”. And when “other person” is not yourself, claiming their behavior on a personality disorder is much more easier, which prevents as to understand others as well. Not to immediately forgive for awful things, but to actually understand the roots of them, instead of claiming that this is a “personality disorder thing” cuz “normal person would never”

You’re not reading too far into it at all, I don’t think. Well said. People are calling Light a psychopath not because they truly understand psychological disorders or what defines them, but because they want a fancy term to describe his actions that implicates something even more egregious, serious and terrible than “asshole” or “evil” and separate themselves from that. Even Light feels the need to separate himself from himself, hilariously and sadly enough:

But him simply being an asshole is far, far worse than him being a psychopath. Light KNOWS better. His actions go against his innate AND engrained sense of right and wrong, and his conscience pricks him hard to the point of nightmares, rapid weight loss, nervous laughter and cold sweats. But he STILL does what’s wrong anyway and STILL justifies it being right.

Light is 100% deliberate and purposeful in how he rationalizes himself into doing what is wrong and he does so ONLY because he has something significant to gain: doing what is wrong feels WAY less painful and world-shattering than having to process the mess he’s found himself in.

It’s easier and more glamorous, as well. Be god of the new world and make it better like you’ve always fantasized about, or feel crushed by the guilt of accidentally causing somebody’s death? People think of that as insane, but his thought response is so human and natural, especially as a kid who has no real experience in heavy situations at all let alone like this. He’s immensely privileged and sheltered. It’s just the actual circumstances he’s in that are absolutely ridiculous.

It IS naturally human to do what feels comfortable and not necessarily what is right under immense stress and fear. When you’re scared of punishment or judgement, or how you might even feel about yourself, you WILL choose to do bad and stupid things to avoid it. I’ve done so many stupid things to avoid uncomfortable confrontation from my mistakes, ESPECIALLY as a child.

Light has been thrown into a situation that literally nobody would handle with grace, poise, perfect wisdom and calmness. People will claim that they have moral superiority over Light because as opposed to justifying their actions, they’d instead spiral into immense guilt and self deprecation.

But it’s totally reasonable and logical for Light to fear that considering his entire sense of self is built on the fact that he’s the ideal in his culture and in society as a whole. He doesn’t know immense failure and shame because he works very hard to achieve his best and succeeds at exceptional levels. Having all that torn away is very foreign and painful without experience and practice.

So while he’s still dead wrong and knows he’s wrong, like I said in my other post I made, it’s also REALLY asking a lot of him to deal with this whole situation in a dignified and rational way all by himself considering all the pieces within context.

Most wouldn’t do what Light Yagami does not because they’re not psychopaths, but simply because they are not Light Yagami. It has nothing to do with any condition or mental disorders. It’s just that people can’t and maybe are too afraid/reluctant to empathize with Light because it takes some deeper examination they are not accustomed to.

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 4 - Character Creation Part 2

This Dev Diary is a direct follow-up to Dev Diary 2!

So once you’ve selected your character’s Departments and defined their Identity with Traits, we move on to fleshing out their actual mechanic character.

Personal Information

The first section of your character sheet is the fairly boring normal stuff; your name, pronouns, and age. There’s a few neat bits here (there’s naming convention suggestions, a chart of example neopronouns, and a summary of what the human generational politics look like in 2169) but mostly this is straightforward.

The last section of personal information is to ask what flags your character has on their uniform. A Star Patrol uniform has space on the sleeve for two personal flags, and we offer you a bunch of options along with their meanings, as well as guidance for your own. There are multiple different options for flags of the Star Union, national flags (of nations future and current), and the flags of the political movements mentioned in part 3. 

Flags let you state, right on your sheet, the opinions and identity of your character; they literally wear their perspective on their sleeves.

Some of the flags you might wear; the old Solar Union flag, the Neo-Trotskyite and Cybernetic Democratic flags, the flag of Proxima Colony, and two Lunar cities; the Star Union’s capital of Armstrong City, and the POW camp turned alien enclave Camp Aldrin.

Personality Impulses

Next, characters define their Personality Impulses. This is a short list (12 entries) of narrative triggers your characters might face; things like “Generous: When you make a sacrifice for a stranger” or “Logical: When you lay out and follow through on a plan”. 

You select three Impulses, then cross out three others to create Blocks. Fulfilling your Impulses is the primary way you generate Unity, the narrative resources you use to reroll dice, clear Stress, and power psychic abilities, while Blocks create Stress when you have to do them. 

Your Impulses act as narrative handholds to encourage roleplaying, and as Unity is a global resource, the whole team gets stronger when people enable one another to play to their strengths.

Traits

We brought up Traits when we discussed character Identity, and we might go into it further later, but in short, Traits are special rules you apply to your character to give them flavour and represent their unique characteristics. They can be physical (a heavyworlder’s strength or the Nariene preference for warm climates), developmental (a Spacer’s comfort in zero g, a familiarity with your home climate), social (do you have a dark history? A streak of exes?), and personal (do you work better alone or in groups? Are you an anxious perfectionist or have a short temper?).

You can do a lot with Traits. You can make up aliens, play as robots, silicon-based life, shapeshifters, sapient computers, genetic augments, cyborgs, and so forth, but you can also use it to represent a wide variety of mundane circumstances like having medical dependencies, being good with machines, or being a plural system. Whatever kind of character you want to make, there’s a Trait for it, and just about any imaginable character will have at least a few Traits to make them interesting.

Traits are self-contained and self-balanced; if they have a distinct advantage, they always have some kind of drawback built into them as well, often a predictable logistical cost or inverse circumstance where you struggle. That means there’s no limit to the number of Traits you can take, and no points cost or anything. If you need ten Traits to represent what you have in mind, go ahead!

Finally, Traits are not fixed. Our rule with Traits is that you can always change your Traits if you justify it in the narrative, so you can always reveal your dark history as a twist mid-season or say “wow, I really got hurt in that disaster, I should come back as a cyborg!” 

The game even has a pharmaceutical crafting system which lets you manufacture these justifications as needed, as well as temporarily embrace many Traits. You can, with a bit of work, make a pill that makes you learn languages quickly, gives you hyperfocus, or grants night vision. 

With sufficiently advanced technology, you could even craft a treatment that’ll make you into a robot. Finally, HRT 2.0.

Relationships

During character creation, you go through and figure out the way everyone feels about one another. Relationships are unidirectional, asymmetrical declarations of how your character sees others; are they best friends, do they have a crush, or are they rivals? These will change over time, but it lets you immediately set up future interpersonal drama, if you want it.

Or you might just all be professional comrades and stay on task, with no space kissing at all. That’s okay. Doesn’t make me sad at all.

Aptitude

Finally, the important part. The stats.

We call skills in this game Certifications, because that’s what they are; they’re a certificate saying “hey you’re qualified to do the thing!” from Star Patrol U. ‘Certs’ are structured as jobs, rather than as individual skills; rather than ‘Medical’, it’s job titles like “Paramedic” and “Pharmacist”, and the Cert covers all the things a paramedic or pharmacist might do. Overlap exists and is totally fine; a missile plotter and a flight planner basically do the same thing, one of them just decelerates!

Certs are ranked; they are Untrained, Novice, Skilled, and Expert, corresponding to a 6+, 5+, 4+, and 3+ success target when you roll dice. You’re automatically Untrained in everything, and you gain Certs through character creation and over time.

We divide Certs into three sections. The first four are the ‘Universal Certs’, which is to say the things everyone does; we called them Wild Animal, Physical Instrument, Social Being, and Cosmonaut. You can fall back on these when no other Cert fits (such as rolling Physical Instrument if you just need something lifted), and you also roll them for the various ‘Shock Checks’ after taking damage; we’ll talk about that later.

The second section is Languages. We treat language aptitude as something like a Charisma stat; it's closer to your rhetorical ability with that language than strictly your fluency. Most characters will speak a number of languages, and you can learn quite a lot of them over the course of a game. Even with a universal translator, learning languages is useful; knowing the language an alien is speaking actually makes the translator work better.

Finally, the departmental Certs cover most of the Certs you’ll actually be rolling during regular play. Every Department has 4 Certs which cover all the things that Department might be called on to do, and characters are generally Skilled at all of the ones in their Department, as well as Novice at the really basic Cert of all the other departments. Every Star Patroller is, at least a little, an Observer, Paramedic, Diplomat, Programmer, Artillery Officer, Soldier, Flight Planner, and Damage Controller. Something something that bit in Capital about the division of labour.

Finally, rounding out the system are Electives, freeform Certs divided into Specialities and Hobbies. They both work the same way (lower success targets by 1 if any of them apply to a check), but Specialities are typically jobs and Hobbies are… well, hobbies.

Specialities let you get really specific about what your character is good at. They’re mastery of particular tools and narrow fields of expertise, letting you really be the best with multitools, be a crack shot with the ACER pistol, or really letting you get into the mindset of a 4N-2F tokamak fusion reactor. Hobbies let you define your character’s interests; maybe you paint, play piano, repair antique electric cars. Somehow, those hobbies always seem to come in clutch when you would least expect it!

Finally, advancement is structured so that you’re always improving your core departmental Certs at a fixed rate, freeing you up to explore other Certs and Electives at your leisure, so don’t worry about ‘wasting’ points on characterful choices; you can have both.

That’s it for what actually makes a character, but you aren’t done there. You have to make a program and the rocket that goes with it!

[chaztalk]

Ginny’s character is so badly written that even hinny shippers can only think of 2 defining traits that set her apart from the rest of the females characters (I guess?) are “liking quidditch” (not playing quidditch, just “liking quidditch”) and “cracking jokes”. Absolutely no chance that there are any other girls with those in the HP world. No girl can joke or like quidditch like Ginny /s

Yeesh…

Anyway, people can like watching things that they don’t participate or play in. I don’t play American football, but I like watching it. Even so, Hermione willingly played 2 on 2 quidditch at the Burrow, so I think one can make an argument that she likes quidditch to some extent. Even if that’s not the case, there’s a much more obvious reason why she’d like quidditch simply to watch Harry play.

About the jokes. I don’t know if this is a hot take or not, but I believe anyone, literally anyone, can crack jokes. It’s not difficult to do.

Oh yeah, and about what they said about if they switch Hermione’s name to Ginny’s name, ithd characters would no longer be OOC. Unless Ginny, for some unknown reason, is wearing a brown bushy-haired wig, that makes zero sense.

🤡🤡🤡

[zorua-adorable]

Alright, Zeref feels and thoughts time.

First, I find it so interesting that it is because of him that Fairy Tail even exists; like, both the show and the guild. It’s just so interesting that the final villain made actions so long ago that ended up putting all the pieces in place to lead to this reality. He has affected the world in such a strong way, that the ripple effect affected so many of the characters.

Another thing I enjoy about him is something I consider to be his core, most defining trait: how deeply he cares and loves. Cause think about it. He loved Natsu so deeply that he was willing to break rules of literal gods just to get him back.

And he in turn gets cursed in such a way that turns his caring nature against him. So he probably falls into a lot of self-loathing and now wants to die. But another part of that curse is that he now can’t die, so now he returns to breaking god rules just to find a way to create something that could kill him.

And he thinks he's finally made his masterpiece - while also getting his brother back at the same time. But he’s nowhere even close to being ready to kill him, so now he’s just gotta wait it out. But he still cares so deeply so he keeps killing things, so he has to lie to himself and pretend he doesn't actually care; which as we see in his introduction on Tenrou and his first appearance in Zero that he is absolutely shit at doing so, even after all this time, because it goes against his nature. (And at some point I guess he decides creating an empire is a good idea because he’ll hate the job of running a country so much that he’ll forget to care for a while.)

And then one day he meets Natsu again but he’s like “fuck, you’re not ready to kill me.” And the actions of Grimoire Heart seems to make him lose some faith in humanity (and in retrospect, maybe he’s extra pissed at Hades because he recognizes him as Precht and is upset he’s using magic to do evil shit when he’s the one who taught him magic, idk).

But he also notices that Natsu also cares & loves deeply and draws strength from his love for his friends & guild and won't stand for his guild being threatened. So he's like “if I do some evil shit to his guild, maybe I can draw the strength necessary to kill me out of him.” And if that doesn’t work, he has another plan kind of in the works cause he’s dabbled in time travel before, so what if he tries that again but instead of to revive his brother, it’s to kill himself before he becomes immortal (or whatever his plan was there; it’s been a while).

And back to how deeply Zeref loves, it makes him such a great parallel to Natsu. They both love and care so deeply that they are willing to break the rules for those they care about. They’re such good foils in that I feel they are almost the same; by that I mean the main difference between them is that Natsu has a support system in Fairy Tail, and Zeref did not have one back then and now can’t have one due to his curse. Like, I think that Zeref is who Natsu would become if he lost everyone he cared about; I think he might follow that same path and break rules made by gods to bring them back only to be put in a position where he can’t be around them anymore for their safety, leading him to once again follow Zeref’s path toward self-destruction.