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amerricanartwork · 11 months ago

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I saw your lilypad art post, and I got curious: why do you enjoy lilypad? it's not a common RW ship, so I'd be interesting to hear what about it you enjoy!

Hear me out, guys... I must explain myself before I get onto the Lilypad essay.

I made that original comment because, at the time, I wanted to just get the aforementioned headcanons out as soon as possible. Understand, my reluctance wasn't because I didn't want to talk about Lilypad, but rather the exact opposite: I had so many feelings about it, yet had put so little effort into expressing them in a coherent, presentable format that I just knew it'd distract me for the next week or two if I let it rent too much space in my conscious thoughts. But now that little comment has left me with several people asking me to share those thoughts, and, both thankfully and unfortunately, I simply can't resist indulging in thoughts about the characters I love—!

Keep in mind, I haven’t finished Saint campaign yet, and even then I’ve found like less than half the broadcasts in Spearmaster campaign yet, so there’s likely some extra canon info I may be missing that could add to or change some of what I say here. I also apologize if some of what I write here seems really out-of-character. I try not to let my passion for my little headcanons and scenarios make me disregard the canon, but even so, I might slip and think up some weird things occasionally. Nonetheless, I feel like I’ve got enough of the picture to start confidently enjoying this ship, so I’ll talk about it anyway!

As always, feel free to add to these ideas if you can! Without further delay, enjoy this 3381-word essay, with a few initial headcanons sprinkled in, on why I adore Lilypad!

Oh, and just in case, if you couldn’t already tell, major Hunter campaign spoilers below.

Quetzalli on Loving Lilypad

I’m gonna start this out with a preface: I can generally find the appeal in a lot of different ships and the art other fans make for them, but for me to ship something enough to actively draw it and make my own headcanons about it and such (outside of, perhaps, gifts for other people), it usually has to contain a variety of “ship tropes” that I personally fancy. Many of my most-favorite ship tropes tend to be the ones that aren’t just cute, but that carry narrative significance and seem poetic in some way, usually because they can facilitate character arcs in the involved characters. The more of these a ship has, or the more ship tropes I can portray it with without it seeming too out-of-character, and the more I like those specific tropes, the better. This principle is a major reason why I’ve gravitated towards Artimand as my main slugcat ship, but for now, I’m going to focus on which of these I see in Lilypad — in canon content, other fan-portrayals, and my personal headcanons — that, as opposed to other iterator ships, has currently won me over.

I’m gonna describe the main general things I like seeing in this ship. Some of them are more due to fandom portrayals than what’s in the canon, but they all play a big role in my current love for Lilypad.

Synergy

I’ll begin with how I really appreciate just how much synergy Looks to the Moon and No Significant Harassment are shown to have, at least in fan content! I always like seeing pairings where the characters aren’t just romantic, but also work really well together as a team or even just as friends. After all, just because the characters may be romantically in love doesn’t mean they must only show it in explicitly romantic ways. To me, Lilypad strikes me as a relationship where Sig and Moon would make an amazing team in many aspects of their lives, whether it's collaborating on projects, sharing their interests, or trying to maintain order in the rest of their group. And their compliment is just really sweet to me, though I’ll get to that later.

A Shoulder to Lean On/The Lady

One of my favorite ship tropes is “character with a lot of weight on their shoulder who finally gets to lift it off and be ‘normal’ for once when around the other”. I’ve always found it sweet when characters like this, especially ones who are normally very selfless, finally get a chance to indulge and enjoy themselves for once! And once again, this is another thing I imagine in Artimand too, and you could project this onto Trafficlights given Suns’s implied high status, but I think it works especially with Lilypad, given Moon’s role as group senior means she objectively has a lot to manage all the time with no permanent escape from it. Even beyond the whole Five Pebbles rot drama, Moon probably had a lot on her plate just in terms of maintaining order between the rest of the group and setting a good example to the younger generations, especially as the group expanded over time, not to mention trying to find the solution herself. Combine this with how I picture her to be the kind of person who cares a lot about her image as a “proper” and “dignified” leader, and someone who often sacrifices her own desires to promote the group’s welfare, I just find it really soft for her to have someone to lean on, metaphorically (and in a worm-off-the-string scenario, literally), and who better to go to than her best teammate, who knows the power of a good laugh and will stop at nothing to have fun with those he loves? Not to mention, since I headcanon Sig as slightly younger than Moon (2nd gen, specifically), I just find it rather cute in an ironic sense that the older, more serious Moon is soft around the younger, far more chaotic Sig, especially as Moon would go through the realization that she actually kinda likes this little troublemaker!

This also comes back to something I mentioned in the tags of that beepsnort post, which is that one of my other favorite ship tropes is “guy who loves/is good at making people laugh x girl who has a REALLY weird/embarrassing laugh”, and that just works so well with Lilypad! It’s admittedly a very headcanon-based thing for me, but given how I’ve already explained my perception of Moon as very proper and serious, I imagine one of the best ways Sig takes the weight off her shoulders is by being the only person who can consistently make her laugh so hard! And with the beepsnort headcanon it’s even cuter, because of course Moon would be super embarrassed every time she even so much as gives a half-chuckle at one of his jokes, because Sig is relentless when it comes to getting the giggles out of her, and he won’t stop until she’s rolling and shaking on the floor of her chamber, her beepy-snorts filling the room! My GODDD I love this trope so much, and for beings who are inherently such workaholics, I think getting to genuinely relax and have fun for a bit, once she gets over the initial shock and embarrassment, would be something Moon would really come to value.

Inverses Attract/The Tramp

I’ve mentioned it in my last Artimand headcanons post, but one of my absolute all-time favorite ship tropes is the classic “opposites attract”, although I prefer the name “inverses attract”. As I like to portray it, the trope not only involves characters who are opposites personality-wise, but those being opposites of the same core aspect, and ultimately helping balance each other out by offering the other half of the equation to each other (hence the name “inverses”). The trope I just wrote about above is how Sig helps Moon to relax and have fun, but as I try to do with all ships, how does it work the other way too? Well, I really like to imagine Sig learning to be more openly serious and dedicated! Don’t get me wrong, Sig is a hard worker (it’s pretty much the nature of all iterators), but given he seems to pretty strongly reject the quest for the Triple Affirmative, I imagine the next problem would be in him finding a new purpose to strive for. And what better new purpose than in standing by and protecting the group senior he thinks he just might wanna be more than friends with?

It already works because Moon, of course, would work to keep Sig in check and make sure he doesn’t go too overboard with his shenanigans. But just imagine how inspired he’d grow over time seeing Moon work so hard to keep the group together and keep them striving for their purpose, even if he doesn’t agree with it. I imagine it’s why Sig’s methods are still rather controlled rather than purely chaotic, and there’s a reason to his rebellion. Thanks to Moon, rather than slaving away at a seemingly impossible solution until his mind collapses with his structure, he’ll use his talents to, at the very least, keep the local group together as long as possible, because even if they’ll all be gone one day, that doesn’t mean they have to go alone!

It’s why I’m also labeling these two tropes together as “the Lady and the Tramp”, yet another ship dynamic that gets me every time! It’s a specific instance of “inverses attract” where the noble, proper lady finds a taste of freedom and courage from the dangerously charming tramp, who from her finds a new sense of purpose and honor! And in my opinion, Lilypad is most definitely the best opportunity for this dynamic among Rain World ships!

The Fated Couple

Slow-burn couples seem to be pretty popular in many fandoms, but what about a really slow-burn? There’s something just so romantic to me about the idea that Moon and Sig, from the moment they met, have always just clicked so perfectly, and have been by each other’s side so constantly ever since, to the point it seems practically inevitable to everyone (except them of course) that they’ll eventually get together romantically. Of course, there are two main roadblocks to their romance being 1.) their whole objective and purpose for being created is kind-of fundamentally opposed to strong attachments like love (I mean, if Karma 3 is Companionship, wouldn’t romantic love be considered the worst example of that?), and 2.) even if they did reject this purpose, being massive immovable structures with the only humanoid part stuck deep inside a box, a budding romance seemingly couldn’t really go anywhere anyway. In fact, because of these roadblocks much of my Lilypad imaginings take place in the ever-popular “worm-off-the-string” scenario, especially since the next couple of reasons for why I like the ship play a lot into the themes I like to incorporate in this story concept.

However, these issues towards such a romance are also what make it so sweet in the end! Just think of Moon, alone in her chamber, beginning to worry about how she’s actually kinda sorta, maybe, hypothetically, possibly, just a little bit starting to like the carefree and charismatic Gen 2 in the local group as even more than just a work partner and a dear friend, but oh no, that’s indulging in a Karmic Sin, and as group senior she can’t just throw away their purpose like that and set such a bad example to the rest! What’s she gonna do?? And then on the other side, Sig puzzling in his chamber, pining so hard for the group senior yet seemingly unable to confess, because, even disregarding Karma 3 and the fact that giant immobile calculators aren’t about to be snuggling any time soon, why would someone as perfect and powerful as her want someone like him, so dismissive of their core purpose and unorthodox in his methods? Is there even a point in having these feelings at all, when they might very well end up simply fading to dust along with the rest of his structure?

Maybe, they both think, it’d be better to just keep these feelings to themselves and quietly love from a distance. That is, until…

Moon’s Collapse and the Slag Reset Keys

The fourth reason is, of course, the most steeped in canon. It goes back a bit to the “shoulder to lean on” concept, but even aside from that, there is something just so romantic about this on both sides.

Firstly, from Moon’s perspective. There’s no doubt that the collapse must have been very traumatic for Looks to the Moon physically, but I like to think about just how much it’d affect her emotionally, too. I mean, being so painfully destroyed by your own brother, with seemingly nothing that can be done to stop it and no one to help you? And then consider how lonely it must have been in her final moments. The only comfort she does get is from Spearmaster’s visit, and even then she sends him off to go deliver her final words, which has still got to be really depressing. And finally, think about how betrayed she must have felt, trying so hard throughout her operation to help her citizens and the local group and be kind to everyone, only to have it be repaid like this, forced to collapse in on herself, being buried under her own body, unfathomable pain all around, and with not a soul to help her.

So then, think about just how shocking and heartwarming (literally, if you think about it) it must be when that lovable Gen 2, always so playful and carefree normally, is the one to give her a second chance and being her back when all hope seems lost, and using such a unique delivery method no less! I mean COME ON, Sig literally brought her back to life, how could one NOT fall in love with someone who did that for them? It links back to the “shoulder to lean on” idea, in that, for once, someone finally looked out for Moon and gave back to her for all the kindness she gave to the world. Think about this as the moment she truly realizes she’s in love with No Significant Harassment, and how tragic it’d be knowing now, it’s too late to say it. But, even so, if he’s willing to go this far to make sure she’s okay, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance her love at least wasn’t alone.

Now, my thoughts about this from No Significant Harassment’s side (which also kinda turned into a mini NSH appreciation paragraph that links back to the earlier Inverses Attract and Lady and the Tramp segment), I think it’s very poetic to see him going out of his way to take his messenger concept, originally used for no more than a trivial prank and at most a very experimental and unfinished alternative communication method, and turning it into a noble last-ditch effort to rescue the one he loves. It doesn’t just clearly show how much he cares for Moon that he worked to save her when no one else did (and if that’s because the odds of being able to do anything seemed very low to the rest of them, that makes it even more sweet) I think it shows off a lot of Sig’s character beyond just being a jokester. Like, I’d seen this kind of personality for Sig in the fandom content before, but this action and the other broadcasts are what first made me truly realize not just that it is based in canon, but that, more importantly he’s not just stupid or unfocused, he’s rebellious. He doesn’t joke around because he just doesn’t care, it’s because he’s independent, he’s got other places he wants to go and plans that don’t fit into what most of his peers are used to. He makes light of the world because he sees what others don’t, and it’s honestly pretty frickin’ funny how blind others can be most of the time (case-in-point: him making a slugcat from a messenger, which no one else thought to do because those creatures seemed too “dull” and “primitive” to ever be capable of such a thing). So think about how significant it must be when he’s openly taking something seriously. This is where that dynamic of the Tramp, and how Sig would benefit from this relationship is really highlighted. I just adore it when the easygoing, carefree character finally finds purpose in their lover, and springs into serious action like they never were before! And it makes sense too given what I said about them not getting together before: seeing Moon collapse would show him directly that even beings as durable as iterators don’t last forever, so if he’s got these feelings for Moon, he’s got to make a move while there’s still a chance! And what better way to show his love than to bring her back when all hope seems lost? Which brings me to the final aspects I’ll talk about here, first of which is…

True Love’s Kiss

Yes, you read that right. The real reason I love the slag reset keys as a plot element so much is not just because it shows Sig’s secret strength of character, not just because it finally gives reward to Moon’s kindness, but because it is a real fairytale come true!

I know this sounds crazy and probably totally unrelated to Rain World, but think about it! You guys have probably seen Snow White and Sleeping Beauty before, or at least one of the two? Isn’t the whole trope that the beautiful princess, fairest maiden in the land, gets cursed through some means or another to die (or in Aurora’s case, fall into an indefinite sleep), which is only undone when the strong and brave prince, riding upon his noble steed, awakens the princess by giving her true love’s kiss? I already love both those movies on their own for various other reasons, but after my description, is this starting to sound familiar in another way?

I mean, with everything I’ve said about Moon in this post so far, there’s no doubt you could perceive her as the “fair princess”, who through unfortunate circumstances is put to a premature and indefinite death. And there’s no doubt Sig fills the role of the brave prince by working to save her with the slag reset keys, which in this metaphor are undoubtedly the “true love’s kiss” that ultimately conquers all, always longed for, and finally delivered! And hey, given Hunter is the one to carry the keys to Moon, a small yet courageous beast who stops at nothing to meet his goals, Sig even has his own “noble steed”! And even if Hunter is technically the one to actually deliver the green neuron, and the death the “princess” succumbs to wasn’t out of genuine malice towards her, I think the sentiment is still there and the parallel is close enough!

But yes, as strange as it may sound, the fairytale parallel is the main reason Lilypad resonates with me so much! Those classic fairytale-esque romance tropes and that poetic storytelling found in Disney’s first feature-length animated films has always been dear to my heart, and is even more so now that I’m older and can truly appreciate the beauty of them. So now, even in my fandom experiences, ships that win my appreciation over all others are often those that manage to embody those classic romance tropes and themes as best as possible, and frankly, even Artimand loses ever-so-slightly to Lilypad in this regard! Or, as I also enjoy calling them, “Lifeline”, for reasons that are probably obvious now.

And it’s even better when you consider…

Some Things Never Change

Another trope I’ve recently begun to love is the idea that some phenomena in the world never truly disappear, but simply manifest in different ways, sometimes unexpected ones. And given the whole Triple Affirmative quest and the Ancients’ mass ascension philosophy, this idea is something I especially love seeing in Rain World content. Even the canon events show this idea, but think about how wonderfully it would work with Lilypad beyond just the slag reset keys, especially taking up that “worm off the string” iterator AU concept some have explored in this fandom already.

Just think about how sweet it would be when Moon and Sig, operating primarily through their puppets now, get to finally hug and kiss and be with each other so directly now! Think of the way Sig would speak to Moon about how, even after her collapse, she's still somehow beautiful as ever, and Moon returning with how even all the trouble the group has faced hasn't put a dent in his charm! And it's even sweeter when you consider it’s against everything their creators stood for! Think of Moon, after everything she’s been through and how much she’s probably changed at this point, now willing to give some of these “worldly attachments” a chance, because you can never truly get rid of them, but she knows better than anyone that you won’t be around to experience them forever, so why not enjoy it while you’ve got the chance? And it’d make sense too, not just for her own benefit, but for Pebbles and the rest of the group’s sake too! She’s always strove to set a good example for them, and since their original quest has left them with nothing but pain and trauma, why not show them that maybe all these attachments aren’t so bad after all?

I just think it’d be really interesting to see Moon joining Sig in that rejection of the Triple Affirmative, and what better way to do that than by finally embracing that love they’ve felt for each other for so long? Because love never truly dies, it just appears in new people. And maybe they don’t have to spend their whole lives as grand iterators, the vast infinitely-advanced mechanical deities who embody perfection in almost every way. Maybe, even just for a bit, they can just be people, falling in love just as their creators did all over again!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And with that, I think I’m FINALLY done here. HOLY COW, this is easily my longest post yet, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint! Part of the reason it took so long was because I was trying to find the perfect way to express all these ideas without it just spilling out onto the page in some weird half-coherent mess. But eventually I just said “ah screw it, let’s just ramble about this ship and see where it goes!” and my god, did it go far! And I still managed to somewhat organize it, so yay!

But aside from that, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who asked for my thoughts on Lilypad, and everyone who made it to the bottom of this essay! I’ve never really gotten a chance to openly ramble about one of my favorite ships to the rest of the fandom like this, so seeing that some fans, even if it’s ultimately not a huge amount, actually wanted me to do it was such a welcome surprise!

I hope you all enjoyed the drawings and the art! I’ll be around in case someone wants me to write another ship essay or something! And who knows, it’s likely I’ll find more reasons I like Lilypad as time goes on and I see more fan-content and find the rest of those broadcasts! But at least this was a starting point!

Expect more LIlypad content to come in the future, but until now, thanks again for the opportunity!

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torchship-rpg · 1 year ago

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Dev Diary 12 - Destructive Testing

Breaking from the usual format for this one, and it’s going to be a bit shorter, but this is important.

At the beginning of November was Metatopia, a convention dedicated to playtesting roleplaying games. It’s an excellent place to go to break games in order to fix them stronger than ever, and in that respect Torchship did not disappoint. While its parts all worked beautifully, there were some issues with the connective tissue tying it; the game needed a stronger mechanical framework to put these pieces into.

With that in mind, we’ve started a new draft of Torchship designed to be rapidly playtested and iterated, into which all the other stuff we’ve built up can be plugged back. This new draft focuses particularly hard on making sure the game’s fundamental tablefeel is strong, that you always know what to do and where to go next.

Which is to say, fans of my games having big circles in them somewhere? There’s a big circle in this one now too. Torchship now has two distinct modes; an Action mode where you go out and gather information, and a Reflection portion where that information is managed, damage gets fixed, and plans are made. Action takes the form of ongoing narrative play, dropping into turn-based combat when needed, where Reflection takes place in a series of special scenes called Vignettes to represent timeskips, with more impactful ‘Resupply’ Vignettes acting in some ways as bridges between episodes or story arcs.

While it may sound similar to some of our previous games, this isn’t like in Flying Circus where each part of the Routine is a commitment to a certain kind of gameplay before you can go back. You’re able to switch between the two pretty readily; so long as there’s nothing bearing down on you this minute, you can go into Reflection and play out Vignettes, with the number available before you need to go back into Action depending on the in-universe time until the next important thing.

This structure imitates the back and forth you see in many episodes of Star Trek. To use Devil in the Dark as an example, the Action scenes are things like arriving at the planet to meet with the staff, or going out into the cave to track down what’s killing the miners. When they go back to talk about their findings, prep security crews, or bring in new resources, that’s Reflection. It covers your beloved TNG meeting room scenes, the cut to sickbay as we find out what happened to the redshirt, and the montages of inventing or building the tools that’ll solve this week’s problems.

As part of these rewrites, some parts of the game have been modified from previous dev diaries. We’ve simplified the way Harm works; you now have two Harm tracks, Injury and Panic, and a new accumulating penalty called Strain which builds up quickly as you make checks or use medicine to manage the other tracks or boost your abilities. Strain is easy to clear so long as you have supplies available, so it acts to pace out scenes and give less-skilled characters a reason to roll; if you know there’s a lot of a certain kind of work ahead, you might want to save your expert for the rolls which really matter!

(Radiation no longer uses a whole track, but instead consists of a small card the GM can hand you entitled “Congratulations, you’ve been irradiated!” with a list of dosage effects.)

A variety of changes large and small have emerged from these changes. Relationships act as an excellent starting point for Vignettes, while access to meetings have let us place restrictions on the number of checklists out on the field at a time, as you can always call meetings to retire checklists, propose others, and figure out what your next Big Question is about the mission. We’ve created a new XP system where you train skills directly by using them, with the pace of advancement limited on a per-episode basis to encourage you to play wide and learn new things.

Finally, we’ve come up with a neat solution to one of the longstanding problems that original sci-fi games often run into, where players are unsure what their technology can do, resulting in decision paralysis. We’ve added a very distinct CAN & CAN’T field on the info cards which lists exactly what everything does and what their limitations are so you can jump straight in without slowing the game to ask the GM where the boundaries are.

Things are bound to change more over time as the game is refined and tested, but that’s a good thing. Good games take time, revision, and a willingness to recognize and rewrite when things aren’t working as well as they could.

#torchship #dev diary #ttrpg #torchship ttrpg #rpg #oops game broke

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ignitingthesky · 2 months ago

Text

Originally published in anthology Origin, 2022. Format adapted for Tumblr.

Footnotes referencing earlier auto-writing.

Title: Archival Entry #476

[The following is a digitised annotated script of what appears to be a guided sleep meditation podcast. However, no supporting records of the podcast have been found to date. The archival staff theorise that the original document is an unpublished manuscript rather than a transcript as the implied existence of eleven prior episodes remain unsubstantiated save for rumours of a defunct website. The anonymously submitted script was typed and printed, with handwritten annotations in the margins. When digitising this script, the lengthy annotations were converted into footnotes.]

Sleep is healing. Sleep is rejuvenating. Sleep is the inevitable journey your consciousness makes to the bordering verge of oblivion.¹ Sleep well and wake up anew tomorrow, dear listeners… or don’t. Good evening listeners, and welcome back to REMnant, your nightly guided meditation exercise, where we practise visualisation to relax your body for deep, uninterrupted sleep.

As we begin this exercise, you will trust only my voice and my guidance. Before we begin, please find a private, comfortable resting area away from sources of light and noise. You are recommended to use headphones to minimise external interference.

June 15th, 2001. Episode 12: Rebirth.

Let us start with a breathing exercise.

Breathe in. Feel the cool air travelling through you. Feel your lungs expand slowly, feel the dust within rise and settle. Feel the breeze clearing the cavernous space inside your chest, light from a gap timidly illuminating its smooth walls. You know each grain of sand and earth beneath your feet and hum with the wind that whistles through each crack in the walls. You feel drawn to the entrance and nearly take a step...

Breathe out, slowly. Feel the warm air rush from the cavern and out through your mouth. Return to your body, where you have two lungs and a gently beating heart within the walls of your chest.

Inhale. Feel senses out of your reach sharpen. You are opening your eyes to the world I create.

Exhale. Let your involuntary existence secede. You are oblivious to your reality.

Continue to breathe and listen.

Imagine for a moment an unformed, flickering light, holding within it the unlimited creative potential of life. Residing within the cavern inside your chest, inside your ribcage, inside your heart, it is housed in the universe inside of you but you cannot interact with it. As you breathe in it brightens and as you breathe out it dims, its life tethered to your own.

You nurture it unwittingly, for the universe outside of you is reflected within. Everything you learn, every choice you make shapes the world within you.

Is this fragile life a child to one day be born and leave you behind? Perhaps, but you are deeply mistaken if you believe birth is finite. With each breath you take the nascent consciousness surfaces briefly, the cries of its birth echoing through your changing thoughts... its carrier dies and you are born and so you die for the next to live.² Your future lives intolerably within you waiting ceaselessly to become your present, each infinite option you may take extinguishing countless of its iterations without care.

But why should you care? Creation necessitates the singular elimination of all other possibilities.³ An artist finishes their painting by discarding all previous drafts - though unsatisfied, though in mourning.

How would you explain the continuity of your selfhood? Even a video fills in with imagination the gaps between each frame, mere snapshots of linear passage arranged in close succession. Each frame birthing the next faster than our eyes can perceive. It is in these gaps that fear arises - what losses do memory suffer, what changes go unrecognised?

We are defined by our continuity and we assume a singular source... Don't stop breathing now, listener. Clasp your hands together and rest, deathly still.

The gaps in our consciousness are as infinite as consciousness itself, but today we are only to speak of the fissure that is sleep. In the following visualisation exercise, escape for a moment your frail, inactive body and give in to my voice... Listen and envision yourself in my place.⁴

When I was a child I was afraid to sleep. Drowning in worn mattresses stacked atop one another, I breathed in and out. In, steadily, and out, the way you are right now. Your lungs expanding…

Do you see the rhythmic whirring of the fan, gentle as softly stirring curtains? They were blue and sheer against the dimly orange lights. The distant sounds of traffic were muffled through the bubble of height. Your room was so far above the cars and the trucks and the speeding motorcycles. Sunken into the warm sheets and curled around a pillow, you were the only child in your world.

But when you were a child you were afraid to sleep. You stayed up every night, straining your eyes open in the dark and fighting for consciousness. Still, you never would catch the exact moment you slip, slackened into that sirenic grip.

Eventually, all succumbs to sleep.

You never dream. It seems as though you are pulled directly from your body and replaced every morning with a fearful spirit. You wake up feeling utterly disgruntled and estranged from your body. How can you know for sure you are the same person as you were the day before?

It is a naive thought that sleep is the only break in continuity that plagues your fleeting life, but it is the only one you cannot ignore. Our memories of the past are distant and uncertain even though we know we are formed by nothing but the past, just as we will form entirely the future.

You complete your morning routine while gazing uneasily at the mirror, memorising each freckle and flaw that you are sure was missing the day before. Even the materiality of your existence is subject to change.

You've heard it disproved: the myth that cells in a human body are entirely renewed every seven years. Some cells like the ones in your heart can never be replaced, while others die and regenerate every day. Could you take reassurance in the cells that stay constant? Do you hinge your identity on some parts of your body more than you do the rest?

You know the body that is yours is not the one that stays the same, just as the shape of your consciousness cannot be quantified in frames. But you doubt.⁵

Every day, we die when we sleep, with each blinking lost, absent thought drifting without pulse in the natural rhythm of death and rebirth. Each night we dream enclosed in the dark, inside the body of a god that is neither holy nor kind, destined to die every moment we surface.

What was the origin - our origin? Our birth, the moment of conception, the origin of existence? or the spark of life, then awareness? Do we begin when we first learn of beginnings, or when we first know of death? Is every change a new beginning? At age 8 so sure of who we are only to tear it all apart at 10, 9, 8, 13, rebuild at 16, restart at 18— What continuity is there for children lost to memory?⁶ Who are we now? And where did that begin?

You're not here today to learn that you can reshape yourself. You're not here to learn how to change. Like everyone else you know, you are helpless against your nature. Change will happen whether or not you try. You will awake different - despite and regardless of your efforts.

Listen and accept, for all you can do is believe me. Change is random, change is predetermined. Is a child, weakly breathing, a result of fate or accident? Is birth freedom or damnation? You are born moment by moment despite yourself, and always will you seek to understand the origin that moments ago was yourself.

In that world inside you, your future sleeps uneasily, restless and shifting and flickering beneath your gaze. If you relax and breathe out, can you imagine emerging from yourself?

A neverending origin story where each change is a new birth, and time and time again we die to emerge and surface only to disappear. As for the past that bears our present, we cling to traces of their passage, evidence of our extinct existence. But our birth cleaved us from one another, and the past lay dead for us to devour.⁷

Your shoulders are still tense, listener, your brows are furrowed and every muscle down to your feet. You will never return to the cavern inside you, and you will never find the light that you seek. The past ejects you while the future eludes your grasp, so all you can do is devour.

You lay awake and cry.

Why can't you sleep? Why can you never sleep, pathetic listener, awake still and listening to me? Though I offer no words of comfort and you have made no amends? Until the desperate outpouring stops, you hide beneath the blankets, foetal and miserable, waiting for tomorrow to birth another you.

End of Episode 12.

———

¹ [Underlined by annotator.]

² All of us like gods with worlds of our own, harbouring a consciousness that inherits the fate of creation and responsibility of conception, again and again, each world nurturing a god that will create a world, within which the same creator will have been born, worlds within worlds, gods within gods, I know I know but how metaphorical can this be when my heart drums in my head with the truth of these words? I need to sleep I need to be asleep

³ [Highlighted by annotator.]

⁴ There was a sound here, some kind of interference or a slight change in sound quality. I don’t know. Maybe I imagined it? Memory is deceiving and right now the only sound is how I read their words aloud to myself and the sound of pencil against paper as I annotate. Whoever receives this - you won’t mind marginalia, would you?

⁵ [Both highlighted and crossed out by annotator.]

⁶ God help us but surely there is continuity! Are we not inextricably connected to our origins? What succession of cause and effect tracing back without end, turtles all the way down… and when I search, never to reach the centre of the eternally expanding gap, unending birth with no severance. as the origin of my originator, unfolding in paradox in search of the beginning like a god within a world of my creation fighting inescapably to emerge from myself

⁷ Our past selves must have borne the agony of our current existence with resentment, feeding and gouging until they could be rid of us, could become us, cursing our inevitable birth, dreading and anticipating the ultimate divorcement where the past become obsolete, the meaningless nature of their consciousness, the separation of a child from the body of its creator that marks us all abject all untethered, what happened to my memories? Not a single face remains nor a single word can be heard. I know only memory of memory, corruptible memory unascertained

#ignitedink #prose:archival entry #old writing #writers on tumblr

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sycamorality · 10 months ago

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misc broadcast headcanons

broadcasts function like online forums or chatrooms. there are three global lines that any iterator can connect to no matter their location. generally these were set up for theories regarding the great problem, but have since become chatrooms for about any topic. it's common courtesy to have a connection and disconnection message display whenever either action is taken.

there are specific chats that can be connected to for certain topics; history archival, bioengineering, structural issues and repair, art, etc. some lines even share game files or links to broadcasts that were formatted in a way that they'd work like online webgames through some smart engineering! it's common to see connection messages on broadcasts for certain topics, but they aren't necessary if you're just gonna lurk. the webgame broadcasts, also known as 'sitecasts', 'interactable broadcasts' or 'online game forums' depending on who you ask - or 'game forums' for the sake of simplicity, have join messages disabled by default but do display users online, unless a user specifically sets themself not to show as online. users are usually shown with usernames set by the iterators - each username has to be unique, however. it acts like an account. generally, broadcast lines with specific topics are moderated by the iterator that set them up, multiple iterators, or via a voting system that allows iterators to vote on banning or muting [whether permanently or temporarily] another iterator that may be causing issues. the global lines are moderated by a few specific iterators built for communications and moderation, but it is usually common courtesy to moderate your own local group on the global lines and force disconnect them if any issue arises. seniors have a senior signifier next to their name, usually either {S}, {SENIOR}, {LG_I1 LOCAL ADMIN} or {I1 LOCAL ADMIN}. these are optional a can be toggled off by the senior iterators themselves if they wish to not display it. seniors can punish their own juniors, but cannot moderate other local groups.

LG in one of the two latter signifiers stands for Local Group, and the I1 is the sector their local group is located in. usually the signifiers with local group sectors are disabled and never seen due to privacy reasons, but on occasion a senior will have their local group's sector in their signifier, for varying reasons. sectors are an upper case letter and then a number. there are different parts of sectors that are usually split apart like I1nw or I1w for directional locations, or just randomly chosen letters like I1y or I1k.

generally, one's acronym appears in broadcast chatlogs.

[I1_LOCAL] ESoF: so what's for this cycle? FoaI: Lizards, lizards, oh would you look at that, a slugcat, ESoF: give me the damn overseer. FoaI: I don't think I will~ CatM: can we stop arguing?

[GLOBAL_02] CONNECTED USERS - [183] - ACTIVE USERS - [27] FiV: Say, how's that going? FoS: Not all too well, I'd imagine, I haven't heard from him in a while. OttS: A shame, for sure! SE: …Says you. SfaS: We can only hope it isn't another case of rot! FoS: Do you really have to bring that up? ShE: i don't think thats appropriate to bring up after last cycle. SE_2: I think I have to agree with Shared Eyes.

ShE, SE, and SE_2 all share an acronym; they have all chosen to differenciate by either adding a letter in the middle or end, or by adding an underscore and a number. while their names are displayed on the chatline, broadcast logs won't show this when archived, so acronyms are made unique.

[WANDERINGTHERUINS] PUBLIC GROUP - all participants anonymous ToPS: oh! what did you find with your overseers this cycle, Peace? SP: A few old pearls that my overseers scanned for their information. I couldn't get much off them, however. NSA: You could purpose a.. slugcat, was it? To retrieve any pearls your overseers find. SP: i could, i could! good idea. i'll consider.

there are also anonymous broadcats where pseudonyms are mandatory and will show regardless. all participants will be shown as anonymous, but the acronyms of their pseudonyms will be shown in chatlogs.

(small note - all the acronyms here are acronyms of some of my iterator ocs!)

#rain world #yea ok ill maintag this i guess #lorekeeper's tome

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curio-queries · 6 months ago

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Run BTS: 065 | BTS School Returns part 3

Original Air Date: 26 FEB 2019 Episode Length: 32:33 Total Parts: 3 YouTube English Subtitles: No Title Song: Idol

Synopsis: Final part of these episodes. The 'students' are divided into two teams for a debate moderated by Yoongi

Production: To this day, i do not understand why they didn't keep to the original teams. It makes absolutely no sense. Whatever. The mint choco debate is our first iteration of seeing BTS perform this act, we'll see it many more times in the future, so obviously, the concept works. Having the guys come up with the forbidden words for each other is a nice little twist. The scoring is so not clear either. They lost points for each time they got sprayed, I think??

Endearment: The guys absolutely do a great job with the debate activity. it's a great showcase of their personalities and the reason why we'll see this again.

Winner: RM, JN, V

Loser: JK, JM, JH

Best Cheater: none

Member Moments:

RM: I feel like the mintchoco debate is one of those silly areas where young RM gave himself total permission to be absolutely ridiculous. and he is thriving.

JN: Jin just absolutely taking the water without attempting to avoid it.

YG: The one downfall of the debate format, they dont actually empower the moderators. so they just get to react to what the participants are doing. Yoongi tries by attempting to lead the designated times for responses to each side, but it doesn't really work.

JH: Dear sweet beloved Hobi. He's just PERPLEXED every time he's sprayed, but he doesn't try it over to test out his words. bless his pure little heart.

JM: JM leading the betrayal of Hobi by choosing laughing.

V: Tae was pretty quiet for most of it but when he did share his final thoughts during the debate, he got flagged so many times. JM knew exactly what to select as his trap words!

JK: Not JK immediately figuring out one of his words and then forgetting about it later on!

Bonus Content: honestly, not very impressed with this one. it was cute seeing tae literally countdown 30sec before he had to speak.

CQ Rank: 3.5

youtube

(CQ Eval Date: 26 MAY 2024)

Check out this post for my Masterlist of all episodes and descriptions of how I'm evaluating these.

Previous Episode: 064

Next Episode: 066

#bangtan sonyeondan #bts #run bts #ep.065 #jeon jungkook #park jimin #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #Youtube

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scifigeneration · 4 months ago

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ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’

by Rizwan Virk, Faculty Associate and PhD Candidate in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology at Arizona State University

In May 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sparked a firestorm by referencing the 2013 movie “Her” to highlight the novelty of the latest iteration of ChatGPT.

Within days, actor Scarlett Johansson, who played the voice of Samantha, the AI girlfriend of the protagonist in the movie “Her,” accused the company of improperly using her voice after she had spurned their offer to make her the voice of ChatGPT’s new virtual assistant. Johansson ended up suing OpenAI and has been invited to testify before Congress.

This tiff highlights a broader interchange between Hollywood and Silicon Valley that’s called the “sci-fi feedback loop.” The subject of my doctoral research, the sci-fi feedback loop explores how science fiction and technological innovation feed off each other. This dynamic is bidirectional and can sometimes play out over many decades, resulting in an ongoing loop.

Fiction sparks dreams of Moon travel

One of the most famous examples of this loop is Moon travel.

Jules Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon” and the fiction of H.G. Wells inspired one of the first films to visualize such a journey, 1902’s “A Trip to the Moon.”

The fiction of Verne and Wells also influenced future rocket scientists such as Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth and Oberth’s better-known protégé, Wernher von Braun. The innovations of these men – including the V-2 rocket built by von Braun during World War II – inspired works of science fiction, such as the 1950 film “Destination Moon,” which included a rocket that looked just like the V-2.

Films like “Destination Moon” would then go on to bolster public support for lavish government spending on the space program.

youtube

Creative symbiosis

The sci-fi feedback loop generally follows the same cycle.

First, the technological climate of a given era will shape that period’s science fiction. For example, the personal computing revolution of the 1970s and 1980s directly inspired the works of cyberpunk writers Neal Stephenson and William Gibson.

Then the sci-fi that emerges will go on to inspire real-world technological innovation. In his 1992 classic “Snow Crash,” Stephenson coined the term “metaverse” to describe a 3-D, video game-like world accessed through virtual reality goggles.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and innovators have been trying to build a version of this metaverse ever since. The virtual world of the video game Second Life, released in 2003, took a stab at this: Players lived in virtual homes, went to virtual dance clubs and virtual concerts with virtual girlfriends and boyfriends, and were even paid virtual dollars for showing up at virtual jobs.

This technology seeded yet more fiction; in my research, I discovered that sci-fi novelist Ernest Cline had spent a lot of time playing Second Life, and it inspired the metaverse of his bestselling novel “Ready Player One.”

The cycle continued: Employees of Oculus VR – now known as Meta Reality Labs – were given copies of “Ready Player One” to read as they developed the company’s virtual reality headsets. When Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021, it did so in the hopes of being at the forefront of building the metaverse, though the company’s grand ambitions have tempered somewhat.

Another sci-fi franchise that has its fingerprints all over this loop is “Star Trek,” which first aired in 1966, right in the middle of the space race.

Steve Perlman, the inventor of Apple’s QuickTime media format and player, said he was inspired by an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” in which Lt. Commander Data, an android, sifts through multiple streams of audio and video files. And Rob Haitani, the designer of the Palm Pilot’s operating system, has said that the bridge on the Enterprise influenced its interface.

In my research, I also discovered that the show’s Holodeck – a room that could simulate any environment – influenced both the name and the development of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality glasses.

From ALICE to ‘Her’

Which brings us back to OpenAI and “Her.”

In the movie, the protagonist, Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, acquires an AI assistant, “Samantha,” voiced by Johansson. He begins to develop feelings for Samantha – so much so that he starts to consider her his girlfriend.

ChatGPT-4o, the latest version of the generative AI software, seems to be able to cultivate a similar relationship between user and machine. Not only can ChatGPT-4o speak to you and “understand” you, but it can also do so sympathetically, as a romantic partner would.

There’s little doubt that the depiction of AI in “Her” influenced OpenAI’s developers. In addition to Altman’s tweet, the company’s promotional videos for ChatGPT-4o feature a chatbot speaking with a job candidate before his interview, propping him up and encouraging him – as, well, an AI girlfriend would. The AI featured in the clips, Ars Technica observed, was “disarmingly lifelike,” and willing “to laugh at your jokes and your dumb hat.”

But you might be surprised to learn that a previous generation of chatbots inspired Spike Jonze, the director and screenwriter of “Her,” to write the screenplay in the first place. Nearly a decade before the film’s release, Jonze had interacted with a version of the ALICE chatbot, which was one of the first chatbots to have a defined personality – in ALICE’s case, that of a young woman.

The ALICE chatbot won the Loebner Prize three times, which was awarded annually until 2019 to the AI software that came closest to passing the Turing Test, long seen as a threshold for determining whether artificial intelligence has become indistinguishable from human intelligence.

The sci-fi feedback loop has no expiration date. AI’s ability to form relationships with humans is a theme that continues to be explored in fiction and real life.

A few years after “Her,” “Blade Runner 2049” featured a virtual girlfriend, Joi, with a holographic body. Well before the latest drama with OpenAI, companies had started developing and pitching virtual girlfriends, a process that will no doubt continue. As science fiction writer and social media critic Cory Doctorow wrote in 2017, “Science fiction does something better than predict the future: It influences it.”

#science fiction #sci fi movies #artificial intelligence #metaverse #isaac asimov #arthur c clarke #hg wells #open ai #technology #technopolitics #blade runner #blade runner 2049 #Youtube

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chrysalizzm · 2 years ago

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survival of the fittest: predictions for generation two

i said in rancord sub-boosty chat that i would probably write a comprehensive meta regarding my theories for generation two and then it got nuked bc i wrote way too much in one message w spoiler blinders so here it is!

spoilers for generation loss episodes one, two, and three.

given that i started watching genloss assuming it was an allegory for genetic algorithms in ai due to the language of “generations” (knowing now that generation loss, as a concept, refers to “degradation of quality resulting from imperfect reproduction techniques”) i think that there's an element both of refinement and of deterioration here. a couple of elements are at play:

for those unfamiliar, a genetic algorithm is a method by which self-learning ai acquire and refine their pool of knowledge. very generally speaking, ai are trained in “generations,” with each generation learning from its predecessor and improving upon itself to reach its ultimate goal. to this end, genetic algorithms use process of elimination to narrow down the best ai—in other words, natural selection: survival of the fittest. the strongest wins.

in the context of genloss, this seems to align with showfall media’s goal: creating the Perfect Hero for their Perfect Show. it also, perhaps, hints at what’s to come in generations two and three. i get the feeling that we will be seeing new ranboos, each one better equipped for the tasks demanded by the show than their previous iterations, and yet also retaining the knowledge that allowed the generations before them to survive. what are favorable traits within the ecosystem of showfall media? complacency? levelheadedness? the ability to perform unflinching normalcy under hellish conditions? at any rate, showfall media wants the generations of our hero, ranboo, to eventually acquire the skills to be the ideal protagonist and engaging pov character, whatever that may entail. it’d behoove us to keep an eye out for changes in generation two that seem influenced by the erratic and even unstable nature of generation one.

(on a slight tangent: this is also how our brains learn things, and is relevant to trauma formation and retention. we often develop trauma responses to specific things—triggers—because those are what helped us survive traumatic experiences. there is positive reinforcement here: because we survived, we will do it again, and again, and again. parallel to natural selection, our brains prune responses; this is why trauma survivors have altered responses to things that may seem completely normal for people who don’t share those triggers or responses with them. altered response in brain structures, particularly the amygdala (the so-called “fear center”) are part of the observed neurobiological differences btwn those with and without ptsd—but i digress.)

on to generation loss. this has probably already been theorized before so i won’t beat a dead horse, but in the context of knowledge retention and crystallization as mentioned above, i think we’ll also see the next generations deteriorate significantly. this may manifest as more frequent breaks between the narrative of the show and what’s actually happening (e.g. this clip [blood and emotional distress tw] of the showfall media illusion breaking and us being shown ranboo elbow deep in charlie’s blood) and likely more emotional turmoil and derealization on the part of generation two and three. i wonder if generation two will inherit generation one’s cracked mask as a symbolic gesture and as an implicit warning, but that’s just broad speculation (and i imagine that mask is pretty much crushed to bits by now).

also re:the idea of imperfect reproduction causing the phenomenon of generation loss. we have to remember that ranboo is not the only character to be rescripted. charlie has had multiple generations. sneeg has had multiple generations. it’s sort of implied jerma has had multiple generations just by proxy of how long he’d been part of the genloss project. circling back to charlie and sneeg, though: their generations were imperfect. they made mistakes that broke the flow and immersion of the show, and it cost them. the generation that made the mistake was killed, and a new generation—streamlined, scripted, perfectly seamless—was put in their place. i found sneeg particularly rebellious, and also wonder about the importance of that hat and how it seemingly granted him self-awareness. at a guess it was because the hat was a holdover from the previous episode so the continuity error was what fucked sneeg up, in which case the hat didn’t actually have to be put on sneeg for the same effect to happen, but sneeg did hold it together remarkably well—long enough to attempt an escape. i wonder if that, too, was scripted. i wonder if everything we saw, everything we were handed with both hands by showfall and by hetch, was scripted.

ultimately i was super intrigued by genloss and am hyperfixating on it, if you couldn’t already tell. it was an incredible production with an incredible cast, story, costuming—everything. i’m in love with it. thank you to ranboo and to everyone on the cast and crew for genloss and i’m very excited for what’s next.

other stuff that stuck out to me that didn’t quite fit into this prediction:

hetch isn’t the founder, he’s just someone who appears to have control over the production that ranboo specifically was starring in (which is still a lot of executive power). saying that makes me wonder if there are other shows showfall media is in charge of, and genloss is just one of them. i found it interesting that hetch told ranboo to keep his mask at the outset of ep3, and this was the main reason why i personally did not trust him.

according to the genloss bts twitter, there was a “live” ending. that said, i think hetch opening the floor for ranboo to speak directly to the audience was what ultimately swung the vote so far to “die.” i’ve seen people talking about this already: we swarmed the vote en masse for “live” until hetch told ranboo they would just be reprogrammed into the show again, and ranboo begged. they begged us to let them die. look at us. we were never going to be able to say no to them. (i also think ranboo’s death makes for a compelling story in the future regarding my theory of generations, but i don’t know what the “live” ending would have looked like, so this is fully biased.)

thinking about how the show was shaped to culminate to ep3 from the beginning. we’ve seen and heard hetch through it all, and he was the one to break the illusion for ranboo. every last bit was scripted. uhh something something i think ranboo’s rebellion against chat in ep3 was also intended, even if the specific code that he chose wasn’t scripted. it really defeats a person to realize nothing is in their control, you know? the freedom was an illusion after all.

sources

what is generation loss (concept)? how genetic algorithms work human-guided machine learning optimization of knowledge acquisition

#generation loss #genloss #generation loss meta #genloss meta #generation loss spoilers #long post #ranboo #chrys analyzes #this is more concise and focused than the papers i write for school lmao

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rmorde · 3 months ago

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Trigun Manga Reaction

Now unto Volume 1 - Chapter 4

Meryl sums up Vash so well. He gave the bounty to the people that hunted him.

AND he also gave food to Kuroneko.

I must say tho. How did they get salmon? I get that the Plants can produce them. But... how? Do the Plants produce them as raw whole fish? Live fish? Neatly sliced fish? The production of water and energy is really easy to imagine. However, specific stuff like this bewilders me.

Also, I like the '98 a little better because the townspeople are more involved - showing remorse and gratitude at the same time.

Another incredible double spread. I like the massive scale of the ship is drawn. But I'm distracted by Meryl and Milly's hands here. It's so funny how to communicates so much fury and incredulity.

WAIT. WHAT?!

So, the tracking device stuff happened way earlier?!

It's interesting how these sequence of events were re-arranged in the '98 with minor changes. Yet even with that, the "spirit" of the characters stayed true.

Meryl and Milly are competent with their jobs. It's just that Vash is a bit "very much" and they constantly have to adapt to the string of unfortunate events shenanigans he always inevitably get involved in.

LMAO!!! This never gets old. But why is the other kitty not here too?! I guess the reddish brown one is a'98 original.

Another interesting double page that makes me wonder... How does it look in a book format? Wouldn't there be some warping in the middle that may affect the full picture?

I'm curious because I'm reading the Overhaul version atm since the official English release, apparently, is not exactly stellar with the translation (Hopefully not John Werry level). Anyway, the pages are cleaned up so the art is great for the double page spreads.

Oh. I like the composition of the info dump in here. Have the travel route arrow on the map connect Text Box 1 to Text Box 2 is quite clever.

Wasn't able to say it before but Tristamp Tonis broke my heart. Compared to his '98 and manga counterparts... It's not fair! Plus his ruined relationship with Vash...

AHAHAHAHA. So silly! Poor Vash.

After coming off from Tristamp, seeing this in the manga and remembering how it was in '98... holy fucking shit Tristamp Vash had it worse. So so much worse. That poor iteration of Vash didn't even got the chance to breathe or be appreciated like this by the people on screen. It was just one long trauma conga line.

Or maybe it was a problem in pacing? Tristamp went hard and fast with its story pace (practically JJK style) unlike here in the manga and most definitely unlike '98. The latest Trigun adaptation left no room for filler-y stuff like this... I wish they did tho.

But augh... thinking about it, maybe it's for the best that Studio Orange didn't because Roberto would definitely feel like a Milly replacement and earn more fan ire (which would totally be understandable imho). The production will be tougher too since it means more animation to do especially "anime physics" character acting which, as I mentioned before, is rough to do in 3D.

However... Vash deserved a lot more comfort in Tristamp not to mention even more character dynamics between Meryl, Wolfwood, and Roberto. Sigh. It's the JJK Pacing Dilemma all over again for me.

I remember this too from '98! And it is still funny. I can still hear the VA's "drunk" voice.

AHAhaha...Ha... One of the things that flew over my head as a kid and then finally understood as an adult.

But I wonder if there are ulterior motives here too? Like trying to tie Vash down more to the town - perhaps a good night with a woman would make him hesitate to leave? Not that he ever would as obviously seen in the panel and the next.

Idk. Maybe I'm reading too much into it now.

Sigh... Another sweet Tonis moment. Tristamp Vash was robbed!

I shouldn't laugh but AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!

OMFG AND VASH PULLED A NIGHTMARE FACE BECAUSE OF IT TOO!!!

Idk. '98 faithfully animated this but the manga seems funnier to me. Can't explain why.

The kid has more spunk in his intro on '98 tho with his backtalking to Vash.

Really really good shadowing...

I'M SORRY WHAT?! WAS INTO SODO- Wait wait wait.... Let me check something...

So, in the OG JP Dub it was implied. Maybe. Who knows if the translation was accurate?! However, in the ENG Dub it was not. Just a general "He always trying to get at me!"... I always thought that he just meant that the "Uncle" is physically abusive and not sexual.

OKAY! Now it makes sense why this kid was worried that his story was "too impossible" to be believed. He straight up used the term "sodomy". Children suffering from such threats or abuse won't usually say it so formally (?) like that (or as I believe but I'm not knowledgeable on this). It was a red flag of a lie. Hmm... small change but quite an impact.

Huh... If you ask me, I think dish duty is much better than the cashier. Customer service gives me the hives.

However, '98 I think made the right call to have Meryl and Milly work the cashier. It suits them especially since they used it as an opportunity to bully Vash!

#trigunbookclub #trimax journey #this is a fairly calm chapter with lots of set ups instead - a lull so to speak #again the timeline/sequence of the manga was followed more closely by tristamp while '98 shuffled things around #however '98 and manga share the levity while tristamp is a bit more heavy on the plot and angst #it's not bad tho just different

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viperwhispered · 6 months ago

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Those fic writer asks kinda got me thinking about my fic writing process, too (as inspired by diodellet's reply).

So, ramble time.

I guess I would mostly describe my writing process as sort of top down iterative thing?

Like, I definitely do messy first (and even second) drafts. I put down general ideas, some bits of text if I do already have some ideas for a particular scene, but mostly I try to get the basic structure together. What happens next, what's happening in this scene (and what's the point of it), stuff like that.

So the first draft might have some actual prose to it, and even prose that makes it to the end of the editing process, but often the sentences are shorter, or cut off, or have like three different alternatives. But in there might be some more refined exchanges (I tend to be kinda dialogue first a lot of the time), or bits of description there. Almost like points of (relative) clarity in the mud.

Typically, if I don't know what I want to do at a spot exactly, I leave it open to figure out for later and move onto the next bit. Of course, sometimes I need to figure out a direction before I can do that - for example, whether someone would be antagonistic or amiable in the previous scene certainly can affect what would happen after, and stuff like that. But in general, I jot down what I can, and leave difficult bits to be something I come back to later.

Now, I wouldn't say there's necessarily a definite point where I could call the first draft done and perhaps move on to the second. Like I said, it's very much an iterative process, and different parts of the work tend to get worked on at different times, depending on when I find solutions to my questions.

Typically, however, when I feel like I've got the structure down, I start focusing on the parts I've marked (I do a lot of comments but also formatting etc. to note the things that still could do with some work). Basically, it's multiple passes of going through the notes, dwindling them down.

Like, for any given part of the work, the structure would be something like: what's happening here in general > alright what's being said or done here > alright how exactly are they saying or doing it > what's the best word choices here.

Of course, in practice, all these levels muddle together, and different parts of the work will be in different stages. But as I go through the passes of the work, ticking off my notes, sorting out the parts that I've identified as needing work, I usually go down more and more into detail, until the final pass(es) are about particular words, sentence flow, or things like that - things very specific to that particular location of the work, rather than the larger, more overarching things.

So, depending on the length of the work, it may be that I only read through the whole thing once I feel like the structure is down. Then I go through the pinpointed things, until I have no more notes left, and read through the whole thing when I post it.

Again, not a hard and fast rule, and of course sometimes when looking at a particular, it is helpful and important to "zoom out" and look at the whole, and remind myself of everything that's happening around the particular spot I'm at. But in general, I don't really read through the whole thing, from beginning to end, all that much. Partially because I'm trying not to tinker endlessly, partially because I'm trying to make sure I don't end up just working on the first part of the work and neglecting the end of it.

So, it's been quite some time since I did long, multipart work, but I definitely did plot things out in advance, at least to get a general idea of what was coming, then again did multiple passes, adding more and more detail, going deeper and deeper from the level of general story or themes to the level of the text itself. For a shorter work, maybe most of it comes out at once, but even then if I'm stuck on a particular point I do try to just mark it up and move forward to get back later.

Years ago, on some forum, I remember describing the writing process as finding a big bead or pearl (a central scene, motive or idea) and then working on finding the complementing things around it to turn it into a proper necklace. Lately, however, I've been more willing to allow myself to just do that one big pearl: make it a drabble, just post the concept without prose, whatever.

In a way, it's kinda freeing, not telling myself it has to be long and "proper" to be worthwhile. There's always gonna be more ideas coming than I have time to write, after all, and especially nowadays I really want to make sure I'm doing this for fun and not for any sort of must or should or have to.

I say, pretending I don't feel the impending deadline for that fic that I've been kinda thinking about writing for my birthday - I had soo much time left when I first thought of it and now there's like couple weeks until my birthday. Time sure has been sneaking past me.

ETA: oh yeah, I wanted to mention it somewhere but forgot, there have also been those times when I've kinda just splurted out fic straight onto a discord channel. Definitely less refined than what I'd consider my "proper" way of writing, but I guess this is to say that sometimes I have been known just write without the edits and revisions and stuff.

#ner talks #dunno if this is of interest to anyone but it was kinda fun to think about

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comedianflagwriting · 1 month ago

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Writing/Roleplaying Basil from OMORI Guide

I am a writer and when I was in the Homestuck fandom, the roleplay guides were a great tool for assisting me in writing the characters and helping to have all the information in one place! I’m going to try and deliver that same level of help I got from there to this fandom! @derselord is my inspiration for this guide and I will be laying out a format similar to theirs. Be sure to check them out because I felt their character analysis was amazing.

It is also important to note that the characters in OMORI leave a ton of room for interpretation and with the release of the manga I will make a part two to this with it in mind. I am going to try to go off of the physical facts as much as I can but I will have to draw conclusions from other less cut and dry events and dialogue.

Disclaimer: These are my interpretations and opinions. I am but a random person behind a computer so if you disagree with anything that's completely fine! There is no right or wrong way to write or express a character, especially (Emphasis on this) in fanfiction! :)

Let’s get into it.

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

Personality/Character Analysis

First, we will look at what OMOCAT has to say about her character, then we will take a look at Fanon Basil, and finally some random likes and dislikes that people may forget.

Basil’s personality as stated by OMOCAT is supposed to come off as sweet and gentle, which is something we noticed right off the bat in the game. You enter the park and instantly meet up with Mari and are introduced to a flower-crown wearing boy who is bashful and humble, often talking down his skills in photography but still has a wholesome cheer to his hope.

“The first iteration of him was calm and gentle- the type of character that has everything under control- a little more of a perfectionist, but all of those traits ended up on Mari instead. The next Basil iteration was Rowan, who didn’t have that calmness. He was just pure angst, supercharged with anger, and easy to cry. That type of character. That didn’t work well for me either, because I thought he was super annoying. So I made Basil by mixing parts of both Flower and Rowan. He seems angelic and caring from his appearance, mannerisms, and the way he’s thoughtful. But there’s still that angst underneath, which comes out through his nervousness. Even though he doesn’t admit it, it’s still there…” (OMOCAT, artbook.)

In this statement from OMOCAT as seen in the end pages of the artbook where she discusses the game and characters alongside the other artists in the ‘artists interview’, we can see from her eyes what kind of person she intended for Basil to be. His whole thing is looking sweet and gentle but having a very angsty side to him that he doesn’t like or want to admit despite very clearly being there. It’s like he is a coin and on either side is Flower or Rowan but with the lack of having it all together and an attempt to appear calm despite being a very nervous individual. She goes on to say that in response to The Truth Basil was completely unable to blame Sunny and had a dissonance of not being able to see him as a bad person. She also mentions when making a statement on how the friends are supposed to be set up, Basil’s description is “Basil… Basil is someone who you can always count on and will do literally anything for you.”

From this artist's interview, we can infer that Basil is a very caring individual who will do anything for his friends and has a very difficult time with understanding that people really can do bad things. An interesting thing to note is that he does seem to have this view at his core that doing a bad thing can make someone a bad person. This may explain why he is so uncomfortable with the thought of having what he may see as “undesirable traits.” He himself does not want to be a bad person. He truly wants to be a good person and aims to do what a good person would do but he often ends up going too far with it that it ends up hurting himself or others.

This shows when he doesn’t want to believe Sunny is a bad person for what he did. Sunny made a terrible, diabolical mistake, sure, but at least for you and I with a bird’s eye view and the power of literally seeing inside of his mind, we know he isn’t a bad person and is haunted by his mistake.

This leads to the thought that Basil, who has these flaws and this internal insecurity, probably has an even deeper insecurity that he is as a whole a bad person. He knows what he did, he knows he has “undesirable traits”, and he doesn’t want to admit that to himself. This is a constant internal conflict for him and may be seen from an overly nice persona to mask it.

It’s not even that he tries to hide this monstrous identity and that he’s some great big evil, it’s more that he just is unable to accept the fact that having some bad traits, trauma, or flaws isn’t actually enough to make him a bad person. The fact that he tries to hide that is at least thoughtful for the people around him, but like he does with helping others, he takes it way too far, and this leads him to being an incredibly avoidant character who has a hard time talking to people about things that are really bothering him.

Examples of Basil being avoidant and the lack of knowledge from his closest friends.

Kel, without knowing, gives him a way out of many situations. One such example is that “He has a weak stomach” and believing he went to the bathroom on Three Days Left because he was sick. Basil takes this and runs with it without mentioning that it was actually a panic attack. Then, Kel goes on to say that “He’s always had a weak stomach” implying that this is not the first time this has happened.

RED FLAG: AVOIDANT

It also shows it has happened since their younger years which only pushes the idea that Basil, who is already an anxious character, has likely had this issue for a very long time, and has not told Kel about it at all. Not even when they were closer.

"Huh? Y-Yesterday?

W-What do you mean?

A-Ah... Oh, right...

Yes, I feel much better now." -Basil when being asked how he is feeling after his 'stomach ache'

Kel wanted to hangout? Basil says no?

RED FLAG. AVOIDANT

Polly tries to talk to him but he is cold and locks himself in his room?

RED FLAG- you get the point.

Aubrey seems to know more about his state than Kel and is a little more intuitive about these situations, likely from their friendship before meeting the rest of the gang and perhaps from her own experiences at home. She could sense a huge difference in him after The Incident (Which would obviously cause him to be even more nervous). It is also mentioned that he “Went to the bathroom and she found the album on his bookshelf.” Which once again goes to show the bathroom is a safe space for him. She to some extent knows he has these tendencies but does not know how deep they run judging by her bullying. I will post a separate thread on her discussing her bullying and why it was so heated other than the obvious reasons soon. Basil has a similar issue with Aubrey as he does with Sunny by still looking at her from the lens of their childhood and refusing to accept that she was a bad person. This can be seen from the Japanese version of Omori where he referred to her as “Aubrey Chan” (I believe, do correct me if I am wrong) during an argument at the park. He also tries his best to approach her despite her clearly being angry showing a clear detachment from the reality that is their current situation.

Sunny is an entirely different ballpark. While it can be argued that the incident led Basil to hermit himself and become more isolated, it can not be ignored that he has a habit of bottling his feelings and hiding his issues from his friends. Sunny was the friend he talked to the most towards the end and they grew to be best friends and shared a lot of common interests. Basil states in game that he likes taking care of things and that he sees Sunny as “the baby of the group” and that he needs to be taken care of. This could be due to Sunny’s own anxieties, reserved nature, and calmness. With someone who is quiet and calm and doesn’t really push people to reflect on themselves such as Aubrey, Sunny was likely the friend he could tell anything to without being judged.

“Yeah! We talk about how cool and composed OMORI is all the time... Or about how AUBREY is so caring about everything…” (HS Basil during a picnic. This is kind of a sad but funny dialogue because I am sure at one point this was true but it’s also Sunny being a lil goof in his head. Then again this is hikikomori route so Sunny hasn’t exactly been outside to see the insanity.)

He appreciates all of the traits his friends bring, but Sunny and him share a special bond that feels safe. This is why I can see them growing close because both of them have that inner turmoil but neither one of them is judging the other for it (to their face). This also leads to conflict as resentment can (and did) begin to boil over from their lack of being completely truthful and upfront with each other.

This is a difficult thing for him to do anyway due to his worries he will be perceived as a bad person by himself and others. If Basil begins to think his actions are bad, then that causes him to have to work circles on whether or not someone else is bad, and the cycle continues leading to a confusion on how he really feels because he’s too afraid to actually feel those things.

He avoids Sunny and Kel and rejects hanging out with them and is pretty curt with the “no thank you” statement. It is in his mind that not only does he think he’s a bad person but he thinks Sunny believes this too and doesn’t want to place a burden on him. This is a common trend seen in his character, the word burden shows up constantly with him.

"But somehow... whenever I try to help... I always end up burdening you instead."

Alright dude, a little guilting but I'll let it slide.

Anyways he isn't someone to blow up a lot and he's not going to freak out. Until he does. And when he does, it usually ends up pretty intense. It’s hard to properly gauge what his emotional explosions would be like considering we see him at one of the objectively worst times in his life, but from what OMOCAT has to say about his character and his history of repressing his true emotions that he, unlike Sunny at the current time of the game, knows are there, I can’t assume it will be good. There is just too much baggage that he tries to carry and he swings from one extreme to the other and it usually takes a lot to bring him to his breaking point, but even before that point, the issues he harbors internally only get worse with time.

“Hey... I'm really sorry to bring this up, but...Something has been really bothering me…” -Headspace Basil trying to vent to Sunny but being really gentle about it.

Fandom VS Canon VS Interpretation

Basil is seen as kind of a wimp. He quick to cry, leans heavily on other people to unhealthy degrees, his emotions are extreme and everyone in the group notices, and is typically sad and pessimistic while loving flowers and talking sweetly and innocently about little things he likes. This, however, is not exactly Basil. Basil does depend on people to unhealthy degrees but he doesn’t make that known because he isn’t exactly proud of it. To some people, such as Sunny given the situation, he absolutely becomes desperate in an attempt to navigate the problem together given Sunny is directly involved and there isn’t anyone else to talk to about it. This isn’t how he is with the others though. He will hint, tip-toe, and unconfidently try to convey that he’s worried he is bothering someone with his presence but will not outright talk about his feelings unless he is at his complete limit which may come as a surprise to the person he is flipping out on. I do subscribe to the idea that he’s quick to cry though because Rowan was quick to cry and in many of his emotion profiles he is crying be it from anger, sadness, or even happiness. He doesn’t tend to cry in front of people though, he is more of the type to lock himself away in his room or the bathroom and try to organize his thoughts. He also isn’t always sad and pessimistic and most people who are suffering from mental health disorders are not either. It is seen from a majority of the flashbacks that he enjoys poking fun at his friends, having a good laugh, and enjoying the small things. In the current time, there aren't a lot of things to laugh about but this should be noted from the game.

"Hehe...

Don't worry about it. You'll find out soon enough.

Shhhh... Don't tell anyone, okay?" -Basil being devious about poker.

A big thing also is that the friends all react to him very differently. Sunny can tell when something is off but doesn’t know how to approach it (though in the end it’s hopeful he will have a better idea of what he needs to do). He is very careful with Basil and the two of them seem to be able to talk about anything. Sunny is scared of him though. I think he sees the darkness inside himself and because Basil is so close to what happened he can feel that uncomfortable feeling. He is definitely scared from the way Basil reacts when he is under intense stress and his frantic back and forths. This can be seen when he tries to leave the room. Note that it was not always this way as Basil stated he could go to Sunny about anything.

Aubrey can also tell and is seen to be very gentle with him until you meet her in the present time and she’s not happy… at all. It should be noted that her emotions can definitely get in the way of this, but shouldn’t be dismissed that she is the one who recommended the group should stay the night at his house on One Day Left. She noticed him when he was acting strange after The Incident and tried to hangout with him to the point of begging to come over, and in Headspace, she cries at the thought he may be in danger and is worried to tears. I know Headspace isn’t reliable but I do believe it is an important detail because she cried on two separate occasions and was one of the last to forget about him. This shows me that Sunny knows they were close and that she would be worried if Headspace were to be taking place for real in the timeframe he is imagining. I personally believe that based on their closeness as children they were once very close and that’s why it really hit Aubrey hard when she thought Basil was a nutcase who scribbled out the photos. It would definitely hit hard for someone you really trusted to turn out to be a big goober. In the end he didn’t do that but he also did the other thing so I guess it balances out. However she did push him into the lake so there’s that too. That’s a lot of angry feelings for one person to have about another and typically it shows how much they meant to you before for you to feel so betrayed. Similar thoughts to her relationship with Kel and Sunny but that’s for another post.

Kel on the other hand, our sweet summer child, is often oblivious. He does notice when things are off and he is afraid to make them worse, but he really does have a habit of missing the big things. He doesn’t realize that Basil is having issues even to the point of stating,

“You just focus on going back to being your happy, carefree self!” On Three Days left. He is completely unaware of what is actually brewing underneath but is also a very ‘To Your Face’ type of person and likely assumes that is how his friend will be and that his friend will be honest with him.

One last thing to touch up on in the analysis that’s very important is his codependency on other people. He wants people to like him and to care about him but he also isn’t used to it and as a result doesn’t know how to do it to a healthy degree himself. He has his grandmother and Polly, the latter of which he is cold to. His parents had dumped him off at his grandmother’s and Polly who had been there for either two years or three months depending on which dialogue you want to go off of, had only seen them one time and Sunny never.

Which is odd because they had spent a ton of time together. Like a lot.

From this, it can be gathered that he has some intense abandonment issues. He also may have gained a lot of (seen in general) feminine traits such as his enjoyment of hygiene (reminding Kel to wash his hands and telling his friends to white their feet off on the mat), gardening, photography, and wearing hair clips and dressing like his grandmother picks out his clothes. He is gentle and incredibly effective. Why? This guy was raised by a gardening grandma and grandma’s (most) don’t really enjoy when someone is messy or dressing weird. Seriously, my grandmother cried every time I cut my hair and would put me in these little outfits. I don’t know, this just makes sense to me.

He is also used to having his birthday missed as he assumed his friends had forgotten and was delighted to know they had surprised him instead.

“(2/18 - MY BIRTHDAY): It's my 12th birthday today! I thought my friends forgot, but they all surprised me with a strawberry cake. I feel so lucky... This year is looking to be a good year!”

He is a person who is terrified of losing anything which is why photographs are the perfect way to showcase this character. He loves his photography because he loves his friends and wants to hold them close and take care of them just like he takes care of his flowers. He is passionate about his hobbies (up until you meet him in the RW) and although there is this soft sweet side to him, there is also a side that is in VERY deep turmoil and pain that he hides.

“It's hard to remember now, but... I think... at the time... I took photos of what I was most afraid to lose.”

In summary from this little spot, Basil is often boiled down to a few different traits but in reality is insanely complex!

Fanon- He's either Flower or Rowan essentially. Find baaalance

Canon- He's a nervous Flower but with Rowan lurking underneath (generalized)

Interpretation- Whatever else you believe/headcanon

Bonus Personal Head canon: I headcanon him as having some light scars after the encounter because they were slinging sharp shears all over the place.

Random Facts and Things to Remember

It is stated by HS Aubrey that Basil is a very considerate person who wouldn’t just wander off without telling anyone. This shows that at least in the past it could be assumed that he thinks of his friends first before taking on an action such as disappearing for long periods of time.

He rejects hanging out with Sunny and Kel

He wasn't the one who scribbled out the photos and was crushed by it

He was neglecting his hobbies when we meet him in RW

In the beta it is stated his favorite food is Tofu

He AND HIS GRANDMA have a staring problem.

Snow makes him sad

H-Huh? Oh... It's nothing!

Sorry... It's kind of silly.

I don't know why... but snow makes me really sad.

He is NOT an honest person. This isn’t to say he is a huge liar liar pants on fire, but he definitely lies. For example, he will NOT tell Aubrey that you think dying her hair pink is a bad idea if you answer “no” when prompted. This is actually kind of sweet.

What do you think, SUNNY?

Hmm... Maybe we shouldn't tell AUBREY that.

“Don't worry... I know I can always tell you guys anything.” -Basil, who is lying.

I do think he genuinely meant he could tell his friends things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will. Aubrey had to press him to actually answer.

HS Aubrey mentions he would not like a gambling joint.

Kel mentions he has a weak stomach

He does not like his shots being terrorized by Hector and his shenanigans

He knows that you need a good poker face when playing the game

Kel in HS outs him for being good with a camera and puts him on the spot. He doesn’t seem to like this or have the confidence to take a photo and mumbles: “Kel… why…”

He likes spiders because they help him with his garden and Kel once again offers him up and puts him on the spot to try and calm a terrified Hero. He is once again doubtful of himself but talks at lengths of their benefits anyway.

He says “ah” All the time.

He likes things that are cute. He’s called Sunny and Mari cute as well as Aubrey. Sorry Kel.

Dude is pretty mentally strong for going so long like this but is also a very haunted person

Was planning his suicide since before we see him

It is mentioned he is a very forgiving person

Aubrey straight thinks he is helpless and needs defended (HS) In RW he needs defending from her lol.

He's somewhat outgoing and a little too optimistic but it's usually a front. Not always, but usually. He just has an innocent outlook. Picture a traumatized stuffed animal.

“Ah! I'm sorry, AUBREY. I just thought you looked cute! I'll show you when it's ready.”

(Not a fact but funny thing is he’s called her cute, Hero straight outted Kel and told Aubrey that Kel used to think she was cute, and Sunny thinks she’s cute. Possible love triangle? Jk…. Maybe. NYAHAHAHAHA)

On Writing and Roleplaying (finally)

He does stutter when he’s nervous. Absolutely and this can be shown. Just don’t go too far! His stumbling and stuttering doesn’t always happen and typically only comes from when he’s flustered or upset. This can be shown in either the dialogue itself or from a description of the dialogue. He usually only stumbles on the first couple of words and sometimes he will pause in a sentence if he feels like he is revealing too many emotions and will turn it back around to make it pleasant or less suspicious halfway through.

He also repeats himself if he is really bent out of shape and has a very child-like way of arguing when he’s upset which showcases the lack of development from the last four years and the impact on his psyche. Another thing to note is he hides his feelings behind a smile and is very hellbent on making it work. A

"But... tomorrow... you're going away.

H-HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!?!?

That's mean, SUNNY. That's so mean!

here are you going!?

S-Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

I don't... want to be... alone... not again.

You... can't... leave me... again...

No... You wouldn't leave me. That's not like you, SUNNY!"

__________________

"H-How are you doing, SUNNY?

Is everything okay with you?

... Okay... N-Nevermind, then."

His delusions stem from him force-feeding his brain things that he knows aren’t true and pushing cognitive dissonance down his throat. This seems to stem mostly from him secretly believing that bad traits can cause a person to be a bad person which then turns into a need for his friends to not be seen as a bad person and then deluding himself from there. He does not want to admit that someone is bad. He even hesitated on asking Kel and Sunny for help with the photo album likely because of this exact reason. When writing from this perspective, just try to make sure there is actually a reason he is losing his mind and try to see the grounds that cause this problem. The main root of it is abandonment and not wanting a friend to be “bad” and cause them to disappear. It’s the same reason he doesn’t want to be seen as a burden because he believes people will not like him if he shares his secrets which creates an endless cycle of pushing people away. People often project their own worries and he is no exception to this.

He appears to be very close to his grandmother and it seems she was attentive to him. There’s only so much an elderly parent-figure can do though and it was likely he didn’t want to bother her with his issues either. She seemed like the only person who truly cared so my heart hurts for him that she passed away.

"H-HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!?!? That's mean, SUNNY. That's so mean!"

Basil crying in my opinion is absolutely not out of character and I am all for pushing characters to their limits and making them surprising but truth be told, he really doesn’t just spill his guts out to people the majority of the time. It is mentioned he talks to Sunny privately based on the game and based on Aubrey’s knowledge of him she probably knows more than most would think as well. Kel is the only person I’d be doubtful he’d be super open with but they both do have a good relationship. Kel is the person who puts him on the spot because he believes in him to a very high degree. This is usually counteracted with Basil being completely unsure of himself and vaguely putting himself down.

He seems to be an easy crier if you go off of HS portraits. Again, HS is not reliable but I do feel like the developers did have the character’s natures in mind for the majority of their HS writing though of course they are Sunny-centric since it’s in his head and he wants it to be that way. He is very sentimental and it honestly seems like he is easy to get his feelings hurt but isn’t the type to admit it until he’s at a breaking point. Just make sure you have some good conflict here if he’s like, exploding.

I thought he had tears in this one but I was wrong. You can't convince me he isn't a happy crier though.

Look. See those tears welling up?

Bro is an angry crier

Look at that stream. He does wear his emotions on his face despite trying to claim he feels a certain way. LOOK AT THIS!

You are not fooling anyone but Kel bro.

"Psh… nothing wrong over here! Just… enjoying the winter weather… Aaaah, it’s so nice…"

Bro has a blushing problem so be sure to add that if you want.

He isn’t super obsessive in the way many paint him out to be but that doesn’t mean he’s completely innocent from this tag. His beliefs and behaviors show that he does in fact get very in his head about things and kind of assumes the worst about himself which leads to him apologizing for trivial things likely in the hopes of getting reassurement, which his friends often provide. If he were a real person, this would become a regular thing as people like being reassured and if hinting and apologizing gives them that sense of comfort, they will continue to do it. He does seem to think at the current time of the game that everyone hates him and is to such a point that he is outright asking. Repeatedly.

One thing that I don’t see addressed a lot is how he would feel towards Kel being Kel got Sunny out of his house and spent all that time with him while Basil (despite isolating himself) wasn’t able to get Sunny out. I do wonder what’s going on in his brain about that because he was super angry on One Day Left and there is bound to be resentment. He does get annoyed, we see it very rarely, but it can be seen not only during the obvious Sunny-Basil fight but also during his small remarks when being put on the spot. It seems he rejects the idea that he has any skill in anything and isn’t the type to enjoy that kind of situation.

Ahhh... Okay, I'll try!

Look at his face when he says he will try to convince Hero that spiders are not something to fear as per the request of Kel.

He is very unamused and this is also his sad sprite. I enjoy the explanation mark at the end of his statement paired with this frame lol.

Here’s the one with the photograph thing when Kel put him on the spot.

Agh... Why KEL...

S-Sorry... I'm not all that good... Or even trying to be really!

I just take photos for fun!

B-But... I'm not trying to sell myself…

Wanna see the faces? Lol. Here.

Completely mortified

Attempting to be pleasant and recover

*Sweats nervously praying he did that right

He is DEFINITELY the passive-aggressive type so when he gets into general arguments, he wouldn’t be the type to lay out the insults but would rather start off by being incredibly passive. It’s more of the hinting/tip toeing behavior commonly seen. He is also more likely to take things out on himself, bottle up his annoyance, and then harbor resentment if the issue persists. Such as with our boy Sunny. RIP Aubrey, she’ll probably get a couple of those small quips but he’s also the type to feel HORRIBLE about feeling ill on others and is seen to be incredibly forgiving. He is definitely the type of person to make a lake joke I think, but it would be out of the blue, one singular time, when everyone least expects it. Stuff like that.

There was definitely resentment between both him and Sunny there which I personally believe to have been mostly repaired by the end of the game. He still cares about him to a very deep level but, just as Sunny, there is some anger. This is mostly from, once again, abandonment. When writing scenes with them, a good tip for post good ending fics is to think in the way he thinks and create a little bit of uncertainty between them because they both need to have a good long talk and they both tend to keep things from the other that they fear would hurt feelings. Basil tries really hard to make things seem like they’ll be okay but Sunny isn’t a dummy and sees through this. Basil knows this, he chooses to continue hoping anyways. There’s just this thing in both of them where they know each other too well to the point it can be uncomfortable because they can tell when the other one is hiding something.

One good thing to note is be sure to show off his good traits and harbor a depth to him because all in all, it’s who he is. Some guy who is friendly and sweet but who also has a lot of emotional baggage and turmoil following him around. He is actually pretty funny but he’s usually very unassuming with it like when Aubrey called Kel a prick and he didn’t disagree or when when Kel called Aubrey stubborn and he dismissed it.

He is also compliment heavy to the point it can get uncomfortable. He finds these very unique traits that are specific to the person he’s complimenting and he makes it very well known to them when he can. He also seems to be more of a touchy-feely type of friend with the hand holding, hugging, and brushing hair thing. Kel is also in this box. He’s the type of friend that hugs you and you’re confused on why he’s doing that and a little uncomfortable but you just roll with it because that’s just who he is.

He is the type of person who wants people to care as deeply as he does but does not give them an avenue or a chance to do just that and then begins to wonder why they don’t while knowing in the end it is from his own actions.

He does try occasionally to bring up his problems mostly to Sunny but is very hesitant to do so.

He fakes his smiles but is also TERRIBLE at it and just looks kind of scary in the process haha.

His friends mean the world to him and he is willing to destroy everything unintentionally for them. He also battles with a deep inner conflict that causes him to think irrationally at times. Very sentimental and sweet this guy cries with most emotions when they are intense but you usually wont see it because he will go into a private space so he doesn't feel like a burden. Keep this in mind when writing emotional scenes. He’s also either completely straight and sharp to his point before backpedaling or he beats around the bush so he can awkwardly bring up whatever is bothering him.

Basil does NOOOT like confrontation. Not at all. Remember when we looked at how he will take Kel’s assumptions and run with them? He is very hesitant when approaching something that bothers him (of course unless he’s at his limit and even then he teeters back and forth on what he wants to say and how he feels) and he will actively avoid it for as long as he can unless he truly believes he can talk through something. An unfortunate thing was that in his situation with Aubrey, there wasn’t a whole lot he could say but he did try. He’s not completely against trying and he will attempt for as long as he can if he feels there might be some hope, but in regards to his feelings and emotions specifically, he’s pretty bad with confronting them even though he really wants to. This is a parallel to Sunny who does not want to confront his problems and throughout the game has to work to finally allow for the necessary actions to be taken for the greater good of everyone and himself. A lot of Basil’s issues do boils down to a flaw of wanting and not wanting something at the same time and not seeking avenues to mend them. He didn’t want to tell Aubrey about the photo album but he did want to talk to her about getting it back. We do not know what it is he was going to tell her the two times he tried to talk to her, but he’d have to say something if she had given him the room to talk. He didn’t want to be out on the spot about his panic attacks and he did not reveal any of it to Kel but did to Sunny once Sunny saw firsthand. It seems to be that he is very much a one on one person where he would rather talk to an individual about a problem than to talk to a bunch of people at once about the same problem that may affect everyone. Once the cat is out of the bag with him, he seems to immediately go into repair mode and try to either elicit comfort out of someone or backpedal completely. He’s very complex in this manner. I think it looks kind of like this.

Issue- He will talk to one person at a time rather than the group of friends in their entirety. He doesn’t seem to enjoy being the center of attention and he talks to each character differently.

Emotional confrontation- Either very tip toe through the tulips and hesitant to reach a conclusion or an emotional explosion after holding everything in

Internal issues- completely hidden (such as his suicidal ideations, panic attacks, anger) unless confronted and then he has no clue how to approach the confrontation and goes back and forth on how he feels because he doesn’t even know. Is quick to point out what has been pissing him off or hurting his feelings. Will state exact causes but will also break down and be confused why someone would do something mean like that.

External issues (photo album)- will try to talk it out and if it has to do with someone first and if that fails he is prone to giving up. He does seem to find a small bit of strength if there are people on his side but he is still not confident in himself.

Another thing to keep in mind is how back and forth he is. Cognitive dissonance does this to people and can be seen during the Sunny Basil fight when he’s not only verbally going back and forth on what he believes and how he feels, but his moods change at the drop of a dime as well as his expressions. It was so terrifying when I first played through. Can you imagine being in Sunny’s shoes? He was switching so fast and didn’t know what to believe. It was a pivotal moment for him. This can be expressed in writing in a myriad of ways. One thing to avoid is to make him too straight to the point and one-lane focused.

At the end of the True Ending we can see Sunny and Basil’s nothings disappearing and some may speculate Basil’s didn’t entirely disappear. A part of me is cool with this theory because he didn’t really get a lot accomplished on his end other than waking up to Sunny smiling at him. I think BOTH of them still have a long way to go but I think Sunny has finally started and is able to begin healing whereas Basil is pointing in the right direction but still needs to walk for a bit. Keep in mind when writing post good end fics that this kind of thing will leave lasting imprints forever and that people can heal but still have hurdles along the way. There are also always times people do fall down after doing good for awhile and returning to having issues. Basil is a very back and forth character and with the way the friends were so gentle with him as a child it could be thought he’s had some issues for awhile and they are aware and treat him accordingly. Be sure to reflect on this because when everyone just goes back to normal or hates each other without any of the lessons from the game it feels off in a way. Create some nuance! Give them mixed feelings. (If you believe that is what they would feel)

Talking to Characters

He talks to of the characters differently and I feel like it goes something sort of like this.

Mari- He compliments her a lot and looks very highly of her. He does seem to enjoy talking to her and Hero and it gave me the vibes of someone who had to grow up a little too fast and was comfortable talking to the older kids and understanding their wish to keep everyone from arguing with each other. He sees Mari as someone who has everything all together and that’s something he wants for himself. He’s very inspired by her.

Hero- There isn’t a whole lot of dialogue between them but I feel like it’s on par with Mari. Hero is calm and has a humble side to him that I think Basil would really enjoy. He seems to like that Hero watches over them all so they don’t get too rowdy such as when they were fighting over the Polaroid in HS which I’m sure I’d likely based on a true event because it just makes sense. I think these two would have a similar mood structure for a generalized calmness and humbleness but they also don’t have a lot of common hobbies and Hero is skilled and trophied whereas Basil hardly believes he can take decent photos. There’s more confidence on Hero’s end than there is Basil’s and that would cause a difference between them.

Sunny- Sunny is one of Basil’s closest friends leading up to the incident and he refers to him as his best friend. He deeply cares for Sunny and wants to make sure he’s taken care of. Sunny is shyer and quieter than Basil, and being that Basil has his anxious tendencies and prefers quieter hobbies, it is likely he has picked up on this and wants to make sure Sunny is heard and understood. It’s what a good friend does after all and it’s something Basil would want out of a friendship too. Sunny listens to Basil talk at lengths about his hopes, dreams, worries, and fears and they used to spend a lot of time together! He also always looks for Sunny’s opinions but generally only speaks on it if his opinion isn’t going to hurt someone’s feelings. (Aubrey’s hair, for example.) he’s a huge supporter and can seem to pick up on things very easy by seeing patterns and assuming based on expression. An example of this is Sunny’s crush on Aubrey. He picked up on this from Sunny asking to look at the picture of Aubrey and noticed a pattern in wanting to see. After the good ending, Basil is probably worried constantly about how Sunny feels about him due to the whole eye poke thing and likely still has a lot of hurt feelings to navigate through. They will definitely remain friends though. There is this deep understanding they have of each other but with their personalities being conflict-avoidant, it makes it so difficult for them to be able to fix a conflict the two of them share. Basil wants to but can’t by himself and Sunny is trying to run away from it. Basil takes it very personally and is incredibly hurt because who wouldn’t be and Sunny is terrified. Sunny picks up on Basil’s small issues easily but isn’t vocal about them like Aubrey is. He’s more of a physically be there and Basil seems to understand this and is alright with it. An example is Sunny following Basil into the bathroom or his bedroom and knowing something is wrong but being unable to say anything. In the end, Sunny had gotten the shears from Basil after popping him in the eye with his fist or something, and the two of them had a HUGE fight due to all their boiled conflict finally just exploding. This is something I feel would be common between them with smaller conflicts on a smaller scale because while they are there for each other, Sunny is terrible at talking about it which is something Basil wants and will try to force out of him because he’s making himself panic. The thing that tends to chill Basil out is talking through things essentially and Sunny’s not good at it. I feel like this would be something Sunny learns he needs to fix because at the end of the fic he finally does just that.

Kel- Kel is different when Basil and is one of the people that I feel is really fun to write for when it comes to dynamics here. The two of them are close and Kel often cheers Basil on buuuut he is loud, confident, and excited about it. I like how Basil gently talks to Sunny and cheers him on, Kel talks to Basil and SCREAMS that he’s awesome. Kel is a Chad for this. Basil, however, not enjoying being the center of attention, gets slightly irritated or nervous in response but generally caves under pressure unless he’s really unsure of himself. I feel he and Kel would have some of the best laughs but otherwise, there is a huge disconnect between the two of them. He definitely does see Kel as being an awesome person though because despite not liking being put on the spot, Basil sees the good intentions. Sunny is also very close to Kel and I occasionally wonder if there was ever a hidden nervousness around that seeing as Basil and Kel are so different and Basil is shown to be very wishful he had the “good” traits other people had. I don’t see a lot of deep talks between the two of them but I do see a lot of laughs, cheering, and an occasional very deep conversation about other characters or situations. There is just this fundamental disconnect where Basil seems to think Kel will not understand the issues he is having OR that he does not want to tell him out of embarrassment or worrying about burdening him. He does better when people pick up on his cues such as how he picks up on Sunny. The thing is though, Kel is very supportive and does have a depth to him that he occasionally brings out such as the graveyard scene. He’s just a very hyperactive person which I think freaks Basil out a little bit.

Aubrey and him have my personal favorite dynamic because it’s soooo messy. Basil and Aubrey grew up as neighbors and share a dysfunctional family dynamic and she was the one who introduced him to the group. There will be some personal interpretation here based on the contents of the game so keep this in mind. Aubrey was the person who picked up on Basil’s cues such and Sunny knew this. You can tell because in headspace, despite her HS counterpart being in love with OMORI, he didn’t wash out how much she cared about Basil. This is supposed to parallel her RW character too. She cried over him being missing, was one of the last to forget about him, talked about how she missed when he brushed her hair, lamented he wouldn’t like the Last Resort and was offended at Kel’s poor drawing, and picked up on his behaviors when he was sad. What this tells me is that prior to the incident these two were very close. Sunny either didn’t want to delete that from her character or was unable to dismiss it because it was so fundamental. Basil doesn’t usually explicitly say what’s bothering him unless promoted and Aubrey was the person that prompted him and noticed and for that she was a special person to him. She is capable of being very rowdy and loud just as Kel is, but the difference is that she also enjoys the calmness of small things, shares hobbies with Basil such as arts and crafts, and sees a side to him that he doesn’t like to share and is more than happy to comfort him. This is why I can see her drastic change being so believable because she felt like everyone abandoned her and when Basil was one of her first friends and in her mind avoided her and scribbled out all of the photos, she was blind sighted with rage and pain and thought it was more of a situation of him not caring, not wanting to be around her, being a huge nutcase, and her being completely wrong about his character the entire time than it was her just hating him to hate him. She mentions at the lake how he is the worst of all for what he had done and pushes him away. She immediately regrets this as she mutters “shoot” under her breath and in the walkthrough guide the art shows her crying as they carry him away. She is so distraught at her actions that she locks herself in her room and opens up to her old friends about their story at the end of the game. Aubrey hates rejection and when she felt rejected she took it completely to heart. She tells the group they should stay at his house that night and tries to talk to him when he locks himself away. This shows that she genuinely feels awful about it all and realizes her error in that he did care about her. How do I know it’s not just about the photo album and has more to do with their friendship? It’s obvious because she never even learned he wasn’t the one that did that. She begins crying because she feels awful and is finally humbled to the point she actually has to think about it all and approach it from an end she didn’t want to out of anger. She assumed Basil didn’t want to be around her but didn’t realize the depth of it. It was never about her as much as it was about all the other things she wouldn’t have even begin to know to think about. Her staying at his house that night is clear she knows something is VERY wrong and wants to be there to be safe. She knows a side to him that only Sunny also seems to really know and that is why she is so gentle with him (in the past) and so supportive of him. People get their dynamic as one extreme or the other so much that I feel it’s very important to talk about them because there are so many small details that are so easily missed. I feel like Aubrey and Basil’s friendship has a lot in common with Sunny and his honestly. Sunny was more in his head and Aubrey was outward. She also never hits him with the bat, even in the manga she kicks him over instead which is still diabolical. In the game though, Kim is the butt who hits him (dang it Kim) and Aubrey is more of the person who isn’t really actively doing that but does let the bullying happen.

It should also be considered that despite this she did call him names and was very cruel to him and it inspired others to do the same so I presume there is a chance she isn’t his only bully since she told Hero other’s joined in on calling him a creep and stuff. This all comes down to her wanting to not only push him away but being so resentful that he wronged her and Mari that she wants him to feel bad about it and no longer cares what he has to say to her because she feels like he is only going to lie and didn’t want to be around her when she was hurting anyways. In Aubrey’s mind she went out of her way to be around him after the incident but he didn’t want that and scribbled their history away. It’s very nuanced! They say hate is one side of the coin as love and I think that her deep friendship with him from the past is made so obvious for this exact reason. This can be said for Sunny as well who was incredibly troubled by his opinion on Basil but eventually came through and realized that he mattered so much to him that he’d do something he’d been running from so that he could fix things. I love coins.

Thanks for reading, I used the Wiki and the Omori Quote goats.dev website!!! Thank you to the people responsible. Please check out my fanfic! There are Petals All Around Us and Loser Committee on AO3, I will cry. They aren't perfect but I've really gotten into them and I have enjoyed learning how to write for these characters. I will have more character things so follow me if you wanna seeee!

-CF

#omori #character analysis #rpguide #writingguide #omori basil #I don't use Tumblr that much but I hope you like this

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