#sometimes a character is more of an event than a person. they're like a force of nature

[slyandthefamilybook]

it's not a perfect formula but you can often tell whether a story has merit by removing extant characters and settings and reducing it to its bare components

The Book of Boba Fett is about Boba Fett running a criminal empire on Tatooine -> The Book of Boba Fett is about a guy running a criminal empire in a place

The main draw of the show was that it's about Boba Fett but like. who is he? Who is Boba Fett? He's a guy who looked cool one time in that one movie

I kid, there's more to him than that. Boba was a boy when he lost his father in a war his father is partially responsible for. His father was killed in front of him by people who claimed to be keepers of the peace. There's something there! But that's not what BOBF is about!!

[3hks]

How to Write a Character with THAT *Sad Aura*

Have you ever stumbled upon a character, who, despite radiating wholesome, positive energy, also has a subtle undertone of sadness? It's kind of intriguing, isn't it? If you've ever wanted to write a perhaps more complex character or explore writing emotions, why not check this out?

What am I talking about?

Let's do a quick introduction as to what I mean. I've said this a couple times already, but to the reader, this character feels despondent even though they act nothing like it. This doesn't mean they have to act happy all the time (like my first example); they might act cold, or apathetic, but the point is they don't act visibly sad.

This faint melancholic mood provides a charming, or even nostalgic feel to the audience through ONE character! Isn't that kind of fun?

Eye Expressions

This character will not show sadness on their face--that contradicts the idea of "sad aura". But you know what they say, right? Eyes are the windows to the soul; they do not lie!

When trying to highlight some of this unhappiness, write about their eyes. Talk about how their eyes look oddly dim sometimes when they smile, or how they don't meet their friend's eyes when they laugh. These cues are simple but powerful.

Adverbs

You always have to be mindful of adverbs, but here especially, adverbs (and adjectives) unconsciously influence how your audience views the character.

For example, avoid saying too much of "smiled brightly" or "talked excitedly". If these are the adverbs you purposefully want to use to portray your character, then by all means! However, these adverbs add a happier connotation, which you must be aware of. If you want something more neutral (which I recommend for the most part), consider using lighter adverbs/adjectives, such as "smiled softly", or "offered lightly".

Reasons

A reason is normally needed for almost everything. Here, you want genuine reasons to back up why your character doesn't ask for help, thus forcing them to work through their unhappiness alone.

This could be because they think other people can't solve the problem, they don't want to bother others, they don't think their issue is a big deal, or they simply believe there's no solution.

Physical Hints

And if all this isn't enough, then drop some physical hints! Perhaps your character gets distracted often, tends to hesitate before speaking, deflects concerned comments with jokes, or has a hard time acknowledging reassurances, even when it's unrelated to their personal troubles. These habits suggest the idea your character has more than meets the eye.

Mood Changes

When people are upset, their mood tends to fluctuate. For most of us, we're typically upset for a short period, so we cycle through emotions such as anger, sadness, and even joy during these moments.

However, if your character is consistently sad, not just for a day or two, their mood might shift on different days. Maybe they're really tired one day, hardly speaking. Maybe the next, they are more frustrated, snapping at people or ignoring them. Maybe the day after that, they are overly energetic, bouncing everywhere and talking all the time, providing a bit of whiplash.

Purpose

Similar to having a reason for their reluctance of reaching out, you also want to ensure that they have a purpose for fighting. Why haven't they given up yet? This is especially crucial when considering the real world, where feeling upset leads to a lack of motivation.

So, what keeps them going, then? Do they want to fix their regrets? Do they want to change?

Backstory and Actions

To be honest, I wouldn't consider a backstory an absolute necessity, but I highly suggest creating one. Why? Because you can accurately identify the reason for your character's guilt, regret, and sorrows from the past with an actual backstory.

The events of your character's past always influence their future actions.

For example, if they were a part of a severe car accident in the past, perhaps they only feel comfortable when they are the driver in the future because that means they can control the car.

Conclusion

This character is not especially different from any other character, besides the fact that they are neither obvious nor overly secretive of their genuine feelings.

With that being said, focus on embodying their eye expressions, be careful about which adverbs and adjectives you choose to use--I recommend choosing ones with more neutral connotations for a sense of melancholy, explain why your character keeps their sadness to themselves and why they keep fighting despite it, show mood fluctuations, drop physical hints, such as actions and/or specific personality traits, and make sure to connect their past to their present!

Happy writing~

3hks ^^

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

I sometimes see the opinion that MXTX took the clichéd tropes she'd critiqued in Scum Villain, and played them straight in MDZS. But though a lot of them appear in MDZS, I'd argue that none are actually played straight at all!

The main point of MDZS's tropes is subversion. Yes, WWX has a 'tragic backstory', even an arguably overused one (orphaned by his parents at a young age, forced to live on the streets with nobody to rely on, etc) – but how things differ in how it's used. Tragic backstories are normally used to build sympathy for a character, to make us care and get invested in them. But... we're never actually shown any of those street days, we're never shown and never dwell upon how much he suffered during them. They're only really mentioned in passing and whenever dogs come up! If the goal was to make us feel bad for WWX, this would be very ineffective writing. But what's actually important here isn't that WWX went through tragedies – it's how he doesn't let the tragedies he went through define him. He doesn't dwell on them, the narrative doesn't dwell on them, it's never used to earn sympathy points... because what defines WWX is his choices and how he chooses to act, not a backstory completely out of his control. What gets us invested in him is his personality and the character writing of MXTX, not tragic events used as a substitute for identity.

And this trope treatment fits extremely well with WWX's personality itself – he's someone who 'forgets the pain as soon as the wound has healed'*, but also who actively chooses to focus on the present because you can't change the past; someone who holds the belief that 'gains and losses [should] remain uncommented on' when choosing what to do.

The use of the tragic backstory isn't the only thing that's subverted, either – the other main thing is the 'blackening' of the protagonist, and its impact on the protagonist's fall. After being thrown into the Burial Mounds, on a surface level it does seem like this blackening has occurred: the first thing we see when he returns is his gruesome torture of the Wen cultivators; he's 'forsaken' traditional cultivation in favour of an 'evil but more powerful' path; and frankly, Sunshot-era WWX is terrifying. But MDZS is not a blackening story, and so the events of the Burial Mounds aren't used as a catalyst for that purpose. Though it's true that WWX's not entirely the same person he was before (because how could be be?), underneath it all, his morals, worldview and core** stay the same. Though gruesome, his revenge is directed towards the ones who wronged him, not those past that and certainly not the entire world. His experience in the Burial Mounds doesn't lead to him being some evil, blackened overlord... like everyone says he is at the start! That's subverted, because again, WWX's values and choices are more important to the story than genre conventions.

But the most crucial thing? What leads to WWX's downfall isn't any blackening! It isn't any vengeance or morally dubious actions***– he was praised for those things during the Sunshot Campaign! No, what leads to his downfall is something completely unrelated to that, something which would've disappeared had the trope been played straight. It's him doing what's right by defending the Wens, it's him following his moral code when it opposes the world's, it's him standing up to the injustice of others – not others standing up to the injustice of him. That's the subversion here.

(Also, once again, the fall of Lotus Pier, the Burial Mound, etc, aren't used for sympathy points – and if it was relevant, they wouldn't have been used to excuse any actions, either. Using tragic events as an excuse for doing bad things is critiqued many times in MDZS, through characters like Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. And that's not exactly a trope subversion, but it is a critique of badly handled 'excuses'.)

These are by no means all the tropes MDZS subverts – the nature of guidao vs the usual nature of modao being another very major one – but they're the main ones that feature in Scum Villain.

So, though at first glance MDZS seems to play the tropes MXTX critiqued there straighter, it's not a simple case of using them as cliches, and we see that by how they're used to impact the narrative, and how that differs from what they're traditionally used for. MDZS doesn't fall back into clichés Scum Villain satirised – it's the subversion to Scum Villain's exploration and critique.

--

*Which I know is generally used negatively, to describe someone not learning a lesson from a punishment, but it really describes WWX in general, too. He doesn't dwell on that pain, he does his best to move on from it.

**...heh

***And, because it's often debated – whatever the morality/culpability of Nightless City is doesn't even matter! The events happened at a pledge conference against him that was already taking place. WWX's actions there didn't make people want to kill him because that was explicitly happening beforehand.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

What If? is the question that drives most retellings. This works best with the well-known fairy tales. Everyone knows the original story, so readers will be interested in how you twist it.

You can change

Plot: What if Cinderella didn't go to the ball?

Character: What if Snow White was evil?

Setting/Genre: What if Sleeping Beauty was set on a spaceship?

Theme: What if Beauty and the Beast was about family love instead of romance?

There's a variation of the plot What If? that asks:

What's Next?: What happens after Cinderella marries the prince?

In this case, you're writing a sequel. The fairy tale is backstory, and your story is something new.

There's also a mash-up What If? that asks:

What if these two stories were combined?: What if the prince in Cinderella was also the Beast in Beauty and the Beast?

Here, the readers are pulled through the story because they want to see how the plot and characters of these stories fit together into something new.

In all these cases, What If? is the question that motivates your readers. They want to see how your changes make for a different story.

With traditional retellings, you have to ask different questions. You want to tell a story with the same plot, characters, and setting as the original--maybe because you love the original story so much, maybe because you're retelling an obscure tale. But then what's the point of your story? What question are you going to answer in a way that can't be satisfied by reading the original tale?

The questions that work best here are:

Why?: In fairy tales, things usually happen "just because". There's very little explanation of why events happen a certain way or why characters act the way they do. Asking Why? allows your story to give an answer that explains confusing or ambiguous points in the original story.

Who?: Fairy tales don't dig very deeply into the psychology of their characters. A retelling allows you to enter into the perspective of one of the characters and explore what it would be like to live through the events of the story. What kind of person acts the way this character does? What fears and hopes motivate them? What do they think about the events of the story?

There's a variation of Who? that asks:

Who is telling the story?: This is your classic POV switch. Your story can have the same plot, setting, and characters as the original, but if you focus on the viewpoint of someone other than the traditional main character--the love interest, the villain, a side character, a confused bystander--you can wind up with a very different, sometimes almost entirely original story.

Almost every retelling needs to answer at least one Why? question. Even if it's a minor plot point, your story should offer a clarification or a rationale behind some element of the original. Asking Who? is a great way to expand upon the fairy tale and make it something more psychologically complex. First-person point-of-view is very helpful in this case, because it instantly adds something new to your telling of the story, even if you follow every beat of the original tale.

What If? retellings also need to answer Why? and Who?, but they're not the driving force in the same way that they have to be for traditional retellings. What If? allows for a twist that's the driving force behind the story, but when you're not changing anything, the depth that Why? and Who? provide is crucial to making your story feel new.

[love-takes-work]

I've seen a fair number of people interpret Rebecca Sugar's (and the Crew's) decision to put Ruby in a dress as subversive, and I want to discuss why that feels like a clear miss to me.

Every time--every single time--I've heard Rebecca Sugar talk about the queer relationships on this show, it comes with this expression of wholesomeness, and often glazed with a sheen of wistfulness, flavored something like "I needed this as a child and young person, and I didn't have it." Much of Rebecca Sugar's work to bring this wedding (and other unapologetic queer relationships) to the screen was framed as an emergency--as in, we HAVE to get this out there for those kids we used to be, because we know they're drowning.

Yes, it's funny sometimes when people make jokes about Sugar deliberately "adding more gay" or "making it gayer" as a big eff-you to the people who spoke against it, but that doesn't sit right from where I'm standing. It took so much strength (and resulted in so much battle damage) to fight that fight, yes. But from everything I can see from the interviews and conversations I've seen and read, this wasn't served up in a "ha-HA, take THAT!" kind of way. These characters having these kinds of relationships should have been a non-issue, and the fact that their very wholesome kids'-show wedding and very sweet kiss and very adorable love for each other was seen as Political when it should have been just two characters in love is so sad to me.

I've seen dozens of people suggest that Ruby is in a dress and Sapphire is in a suit "to fuck with the bigoted censors in other countries" or "to give the finger to gender roles," but again, I think it is simpler and sweeter than that. Rebecca's said that Ruby in a dress is how she feels in a dress. Celebration and exploration of feminine-coded stuff felt wrong to Rebecca for a long time, like it wasn't hers, because she wasn't really a woman and didn't want it forced on her. As a result she was robbed of all the beauty that should have been a non-issue, from what TV shows and toys she was supposed to enjoy as a kid to what kind of person she was supposed to marry and what she should wear as an adult.

Ruby never got a choice about how she looked really. Once she got to choose her presentation for a significant event, this is what she chose. It means so much more to see that than to construct it primarily as a reactionary measure, as if it would somehow foil the sinister censors in more homophobic countries (who, incidentally, are not therefore forced to show Ruby in a dress even though they tried to hide that Ruby was a "she" or that she was in a romantic relationship with another "she"; y'all, they just don't show the episode).

We see plenty of other examples of gender-role-related expectations being casually stepped on and squashed, like when they took the trouble to give traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine "clothes" to some watermelons to make the audience think there was a husband and wife watermelon only to have the wife be the warrior and the husband stay home with the child. With stuff like that, yeah, sure, maybe it's designed to make you think "oh isn't that very feminist of them!" Or maybe it's more "well why do I see this as a 'reversal' when it's just a thing that happened?" This show is full of ladyish beings who fight and have power. And as for Steven. . . .

Nobody has negative reactions onscreen (or even particularly confused reactions) when Steven wears traditionally feminine clothes, and it is (of course) also not presented as a "boy in a dress gag"--it's not supposed to be funny. When they go all in slathering Steven in literal princess tropes throughout the final act of Season 5, we understand that it's because the powerful Diamonds expect him to be Pink Diamond, not because the show is trying to girlify him or embarrass him or even make the audience think positive thoughts about boys in girls' clothes. It's more neutral than that in my interpretation: "these are literally just pieces of cloth, and while some of them have meaning, they don't inherently have a gender." I don't see this as transgressive. It's just in a world where putting on what you want to wear doesn't HAVE to be a political statement. (Though obviously it CAN be, and plenty of people wear a variety of clothes as a fuck-you to whoever they want to give the finger to. I just don't see that as happening here.)

Don't get me wrong; Rebecca Sugar certainly knew about the politics (intimately) and has lived at many of their intersections. She was not ignorant of how queer people are seen in this world. She was silenced as a bisexual person because her identity supposedly didn't matter if she was with a man and planned to be with that same man forever. She was shunted into "omg a woman did this!" categories over and over again, which she wore uneasily as a nonbinary person while accepting that part of who we are is how the world sees us. But what is it like if everything someone like her embraces is seen as a statement synonymous with "fuck you" to someone else?

She is married to a person who happens to be a man and happens to be Black. Her relationship isn't a "statement" about either of those aspects of his existence; her love is simply something that is. She is Jewish working in a society that's largely Christian. Her cultural perspective to NOT center her cartoon around Christian holidays and Christian morals; her choices to make an alternate world in this specific way is simply something that is. Her queer perspective as a nonbinary bisexual person has helped inform the Gems' radical philosophy of "what if we learned to explore and define ourselves instead of doing the 'jobs' we're assigned and being told it's our nature?" Her decision to include queer people in a broadly queer cartoon isn't designed PRIMARILY as a battle against baddies, or to drown out all the relentless straightness, or to deliciously get our queer little paws all over their kids' TV. It's an act of love.

So this is just to say that though I DO understand that sometimes subversion and intentional transgression are very necessary, I do not think that's the HEART of what's going on at this Gem wedding. We got a wholesome marriage scene between two of the most lovely little flawed-but-still-somehow-perfect characters, and I very much want to see their choices as being about them. About how Ruby feels in a dress. About how Sapphire feels about not having to always wear a dress. About them incorporating a symbol of their union into their separate lives so they can have some independence in their togetherness. About them celebrating their love by letting Steven wipe his schmaltz all over them.

There are many choices in the show that ARE carefully constructed to counter existing narratives, you know, giving the Crystal Gems' only boy all the healing, pink, flower imagery; having a single-sex species that's ladyish with all the members going by "she"; featuring many nurturing male characters who cry and cook and raise kids without mothers; pairing multiple fighty ladies with gentler guys; and importantly, intentionally loading up the show with stories, characters, and imagery any gender will find appealing despite being tasked with expectations to pander to the preteen boy demographic.

But it's very important to me that the inclusion of queer characters and the featuring of their choices be seen primarily as a loving act, and way way less of a "lol screw the bigots." I want our stories to be about us. Yes, I know it's a necessary evil that sometimes our stories are also about fighting Them. But every time I see someone say they put Ruby in the dress to "piss off the homophobes" or "stump the censors" I feel a little gross. Like the time I picked out an outfit I loved and my mom said I only dressed in such an obnoxious way to upset her, and I was baffled because my aesthetic choices, my opinions, my choices had nothing to do with her. Yet they were framed like I chose these clothes primarily to cause some kind of petty harm to her, when not only was it not true but I was not even that kind of person who would gloat over intentionally irritating someone.

The queerness of this show isn't a sneaky, underhanded act trying above all to upset a bigot or celebrate someone's homophobic fury. It lives for itself. Its existence is about itself. It's so we can see ourselves in a show, and it's so people who aren't queer or don't have those experiences can see that we exist, we participate, we want very similar things, and definitely are focusing way more about celebrating our love at our own weddings rather than relishing the thought of bigots tearing their hair out and hating us.

It's dangerous to turn every act of our love into a deliberate movement in a battle strategy when their weddings just get to be weddings.

I think there’s this idea that that [queer characters] is something that applies or should be only discussed with adults that is completely wrong. And I think when you realize that talking to kids about heteronormativity is just like air that you breathe all the time, it’s kind of amazing that that is not true in any other capacity. I think if you wait to tell kids, to tell queer youth that it matters how they feel or that they are even a person, then it’s going to be too late! You have to talk about it—you have to let it be what it gets to be for everyone. I mean, like, I think about, a lot of times I think about sort of fairy tales and Disney movies and the way that love is something that is ALWAYS discussed with children. And I think also there’s this idea that’s like, oh, we should represent, you know, queer characters that are adults, because there are adults that are queer, and you should know that’s something that is happening in the adult world, but that’s not how those films or those stories are told to children. You’re told that YOU should dream about love, about this fulfilling love that YOU’RE going to have. […] The Prince and Snow White are not like someone’s PARENTS. They’re something you want to be, that you are sort of dreaming of a future where you will find happiness. Why shouldn’t everyone have that? It’s really absurd to think that everyone shouldn’t get to have that! --Rebecca Sugar

[leolithe]

I haven't visited Warframe Wiki in MONTHS let's catch up a bit and reminisce about Lotus Eaters :D

Seeing "Natah/Lotus/Margulis" together on the wiki in a new quest 🥹.....

the Operator, Drifter, Lotus system family........ I love when they're shown to care for each other. I really hope there's more opportunities for them to just respond and react to each other. After the Hex quest I'm more than certain DE can meet the demand for affection from our OG Tenno family.

We should all be collectively freaking out about the sentence, "The Indifference is affecting the Lotus now".

It is so cruel, for a character who was constantly dehumanized, accused of being unfeeling, uncaring, evil... who all this time, struggled to prove that she cared, that she was as human as everyone... to get consumed by an embodiment of the very thing everyone tried to vilify her for. I am scared for her.

So the Lotus system can hear: their headmates' voices, the Indifference's call, the cries of Void Angels, the sounds of "Devils" that we don't know if they're alluded to as physical entities yet, and the cacophony i can only imagine that is the calls of life. How she hasn't suffered a sensory overload is incredible and heartbreaking.

I'm so, so, so happy DE is explicitly writing plurality into our Space Moms. It cemented the Lotus system as my favourite characters of all time... There's never been a character I met that was this thematically cohesive, this conceptually interesting. She's just so, so, so good.

I think it's so cute that the Lotus system refers to their body as their "shell"....... with how crustacean-like Natah is, I also described her body with words like shell and carapace in my fics before so this just makes me smile big big ^_^

I like this line. I read it as DE not at all regretting the direction they went with in regards to the Lotus' story. She was abused, she was hindered, mocked, and constantly punished for doing the one thing she wanted to do: Love her family, the Tenno. And the system saying this out loud is an unflinching point of confidence, that they know they were deeply wronged.

However, I do admit I would've liked to see a bit of Natah/Lotus/Margulis' reflecting on their past actions and what they were forced to do. This quest admittedly doesn't seem like the best place for an "I feel guilty about the things I did when I thought I was right, or when I was under the control of another" emotional beat, and this kind of subject (a victim's conflicting feelings after traumatic events) needs to be handled carefully and with enough time for nuance. So I'm content with sitting with it for now.

I still sometimes see people struggling with the point that Margulis is straight up just living inside Natah's/the Lotus' body. Like, yes, the Original Margulis was executed before the Old War, and the situation she's in right now (being a Human Mind in a Sentient Body) really is the Ship of Theseus dilemma... but idk i feel like accepting that the Lotus system feels and remembers the pain of the Jade Light is easier than making the "how Natah/Lotus will never be Margulis" speech again.

Besides, I think the "Natah and Margulis are formed from Lotus' perspective of them" theory/headcanon is enough to explain why Margulis is with them... but somehow I don't think plural concepts are well-known to the average person lol

The idea of all 3 of them mourning Margulis' death but not wanting to change it is just. OOOOOOOOUUUGH... my heart....... Margulis chose to die but she was never allowed her death. Margulis chose to die but she can never regret it. The system was shaped by everything they faced, all the good, all the bad, and they know taking anything apart means losing themselves. They don't want to lose who they are... they don't want to lose each other........ WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I read a comment somewhere that pointed out something I missed: The Tenno are all about taking one's pain away. What would they do about someone who wants to keep her pain? Someone who is in the early stages of Rell's situation, face to face with the Indifference? ....... Lotus nightmare sequence please? :3

No, Lotus..... I don't............. :<

I'm very scared to find out what her deal with the Indifference exactly was. I hope it shatters my heart.

I do wonder if DE is gonna mention Rell again now that the Lotus system took up his role. I still hold onto that Copium that Margulis was framed for casting him out, or that there was something from other perspectives that we were missing regarding how these two treated each other... Regardless, I think it would be nice for us to see the Lotus system reflect on Rell and what happened to him.

My Working Theory for the future of the Lotus System is that she'll continue guarding the Origin System from the Indifference, but not without consequence. When Lotus ascends to Godhood and takes up that gatekeeper role, she's gonna be in close proximity to the Void. I think there might be an arc where she accepts the Void and all its flaws into her body, a la Dark Matter in Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon :P

Leave it to a Sentient AI plural system to be The Great Sentient Queens of Multitasking :P

I want to know more about what other people observe about her SO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. I WANNA BE THE ONE OBSERVING HER BEHAVIOURS, I wanna see more of her facial expressions, her little twitches, her posture, her quirks, her attitude changes when she switches. I want to hear more of her singing, I want to be there to comfort her, I want my Tenno to talk to her and I want her to respond in kind.

I just want MORE LOTUS and I now have dangerously high expectations for her writing and the way she's going to be portrayed in future quests. DE is setting up something huge and I can only hope the time it takes for them to finally release it manages to temper my expectations.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I need to end post now. Oh Space Moms. We love you so so so much.

[guess-that-ship]

Guess That Ship Tournament Season 16: Submissions CLOSED!

The Concept: You describe your ship* to me, I pick out the submissions which I find most compelling and pit them against each other without revealing who they are, people vote on them, and their identities gets revealed once they’re eliminated.

Every other season, ships from fanon (something unofficial derived from the canon of a work), fanworks, and OCs will be allowed. This is not the case for Season 16.

Submission Guidelines

*For the purpose of this tournament, relationships do not have to be romantic in nature. (I’m sometimes going to use “ship” as a shorthand, just know I mean “relationships” in general.)

Relationship can be between any number of characters.

Real people are accepted if they’ve been dead for more than 100 years.

Roleplay characters are accepted as long as the description only pertains to the characters and not the players.

Ships based off of fanon depictions of characters (including crossover ships and crackships) and ships involving characters from a fanwork are not accepted.

OCs and OC x Canon are not accepted.

No overtly NSFW submissions. (Mentioning they have sex or are a sex worker is fine, but try to avoid anything more than that.)

Two submission per person. (Do not submit the same ship twice. I cannot enforce this on Google Forms without forcing you to log in. So just be champs and respect this rule.)

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in all of your submissions being disqualified for this season.

Summary Guidelines

Selection Process: I will read through the list of descriptions submitted without reading their names and pick the most compelling submissions. Then, I will check the name to make sure there's no repeats.

Keep it concise, but also bring something unique to the table. Make sure to describe their relationship, not just summarize the events of the story.

Previous submissions for reference. The ideal submission should be 1-2 paragraphs, but you can make it as short or long as you want. Please keep in mind the longer your submission, the less likely it is to get in.

Tips on what to avoid while writing a summary can be found here.

Descriptions should be based on the canon of the source material (e.g. You can say “they love each other” instead of “they’re lovers” if their romantic nature is debatable.). The characters do not have to be canonically in a romantic relationship to be submitted, only that they have some sort of dynamic in canon.

Avoid author commentary. (e.g. "They're canonically x," "I love them," "Play/watch/read this," etc.)

Use canonical pronouns.

Avoid identifying information or setting specific giveaways. (i.e. ninja village, space necromancers.)

The more popular your ship is the more vague the description should be.

Exclusions

Generally, ships that have been accepted into previous seasons will not be accepted. For a complete list, please look here. (No need to look through the whole list, just Ctrl+F to find the ship you want.)

Any submissions from Harry Potter will also not be included.

Notes

I will not vet the ships/pairings for problematic content.

If you participate in this tournament, know that you run the risk of unintentionally voting for your nOTP. The mod does not take any responsibility for any distress that may cause you.

There will be a limit of one ship per media in the bracket. You may submit two ships from the same media, but keep in mind only one ship will be able to get in. (A series or franchise will generally count as one media, but they will be evaluated on a case by case basis.)

Submit your ships here! Submissions will be open until Saturday, June 7th, at 9 PM EDT.

Please reblog this post to spread the word! The more submissions, the better!

[paragonrobits]

i started reading up on Slay The Princess out of curiousity (after a while back I saw some videos of the Apotheosis and Tower routes without any context beyond that the game is deeply surreal and choice-driven) and this was my first time finding out about the nature of the character

uncharacteristically I focused less on the weirdness (and bigness) of the Princess chapters i was familiar with in favor of the Player's true nature because my thought process was

"um

WHAT THE FUCK

what IS he???

what are your HANDS. What ARE you, ohhhhh you're some kind of monster THING forced into this role without really understanding why and the option to break away from it and OH MY GOD I AM VERY INVESTEd NOW'

basically it was a journey that started not with the reveal of the character (I think he's called Quiet) and his true appearance, but his personality: that he is generally somewhat dorky and goofy, that we see aspects of his personality conveyed through the Voices that advise you (particularly as some of them only appear as a result of routes that bring out specific aspects from your choices)

sometimes he kills the princess without thinking about it, and the true nature of the cycle becomes apparent as she becomes something worse, and he becomes worse too (though the aspects of the Advesary, Eye of the Needle and the Razor give a very strong 'BOY I LOVE FIGHTING, RIP AND TEAR BAYBEEEEE' vibe that also seems linked to his actions but also the Princess' new iterations)

but he can also be kind, and rebel against killing what seems to be a random person, and in later routes, a victim of the situation even if she can be a peril to the entire world, a domineering goddess-to-be, or a horrifying monster. And often, if she IS a monster, his actions have made her one

so we see a lot of the character's inner self. But, crucially, my experience in reading didn't show much about what he IS. What he does and thinks, and there's nothing to indicate, outside the weird events, that he's not a human of some kind.

And then we see his hands.

That's... not human. Without further context, you look like some kind of dragon, or SOMETHING; some horrific, grotesque THING.

And then, later, we see him from the perspective of the princess:

You were never human. You're some... THING. Sometimes referred to abstractly as a drgaon (which he can think of as the coolest thing ever) and is apparently canonically some kind of corvid creature, though the specifics seem to shift as much as the princess herself, and I THINK some of the more openly animalistic features seem to be referenced more in the routes where he is played more willing to kill the Princess.

he's from the outside absolutely terrifying; he's absolutely massive, standing significantly taller than the Princess in that particular iteration, and she is normal-sized there (and probably goes a long way to suggesting that her more overtly large versions are even more massive because they're so big from his perspective), and he moves almost on all fours, meaning that he is absolutely MASSIVE being that big even on all fours

He's some vaguely bird-like monstrosity, with a terrifying face, huge claws on his taloned feet and dragon's hands, with a nasty dagger in his hands. He's jittery and weird in a deeply unsettling way, going silent and talking to himself in intense intervals almost at complete random, and everything about this becomes even more unsettling when you've seen his interior view, a deeply conflicted person who only really knows he's supposed to kill a princess to save the world, and he's done this TOO many times to understand what's going on; that deep down he wants to be a knight of some kind, or to be the hero, and it suddenly becomes a whole lot more full of context when you see what he looks, and acts, from the outside.

So this winds up feeling a LOT, at least in my reading experience, of a fictional trope known as the 'tomato in the mirror'; jokingly, a character looks into a mirror and sees they were a tomato the whole time. But more seriously, it can and will be played far more dramatically and refers to plots where the character was never human to begin with; some other kind of creature, a monster in human form or unaware of its origins.

A great example being the Alan Moore run on Swamp-Thing, who was usually depicted previously as a dead man come back to life in the form of swamp-like vegetation in the shape of a man. In this stellar run, though, it is instead reinterpreted that he was NEVER the man he thought he was; that guy is straight up dead, and Swamp Thing simply has his memories, but was never HIM; he was never human, but something else entirely.

Its the deeply evocative, compelling narrative visual of a character who looks into a mirror and, through their eyes, we the audience sees that they were never human; some scaled or grotesque thing, shambling and lurching through the world, recoiling at the horror of their own face. And after spending so much time in his mindspace, it creates a powerful feeling for the character we play as in that game.

And somehow, while the romantic angles seem deeply compelling on their own, especially as the true nature of the Princess becomes more clear (and that you are not so different), this somehow made me REALLY ship them in theory, specifically our player character being written to be a compassionate knightly archetype that rejects the weird cycle they're trapped in (at his best) and genuinely loves the Princess even if he doesn't really understand the context (or for tragic and screwed up reasons, as with the Broken voice) in the proper route results

that on its own is fine, but probably not something I would find compelling, but it becomes DEEPLY compelling in a way that hammers the OH SHIT I LOVE THIS I LOVE THEM??? buttons because of this:

its very easy to imagine him seeing a mirror properly for the first time, realizing that he's not looking at some other monster (Though, perhaps he is, in a sense, or feels that way after violent routes), he's looking at himself. That's not some other creature. That's him. He's looking at his own face, and seeing it.

It's very easy to imagine him just carefully touching his face in mingled shock, fascination, horror and disgust, feeling feathers and sharp beak where the narrative didn't suggest any such thing, and being forced to ask himself, in miserable horror and the blood on his hands stinking worse than before: "what AM I???"

and something about that, in combination with the routes where a way is found out, and a love starts to appear between him and the Princess despite them being stuck in a cycle of death and torment, generally as a result of them trying to escape it one way or the other

so all in all, this is probably gonna make me want to take a look into actually playing the game, even if i've already experienced the stuff that's most rewarding to see blind, but this also counts as a commentary on spoilers not necessarily being BAD because this got me super invested in a way that playing the demo before didn't really do for me

also: why the heck are the monsterfuckers quiet on this guy (pun intended, given that his NAME is apparently Quiet, or the Long Quiet)

he's like. the IDEAL monstrous romantic figure. He's a huge, incredably powerful and overtly monstrous thing; he's very strong, so huge that even fully quadrupedal he towers over a seemingly ordinary looking woman, and in quite a few routes he's something of a romantic himself who falls for the Princess even if this is objectively a TERRIBLE idea, and is pretty silly in a lot of his interior dialogue.

i'm not even into romance or the whole monster BF vibe as a general thing (though i think i probably vibe with it a bit more than regular romance in general) but after this settled into my brain i spent a few minutes mentally shouting 'WHY THE FUCK IS HE NOT MORE POPULAR ON HERE??????'

i mean uhhhh besides that a lot of this is locked behind playtime in a game which specifically encourages people to go into it blind but i mean, come on. I don't even like romance and this has my brain buzzing with the possibilities, what are the people already into this concept gonna do??? (and also maybe they are and i just dont follow people into this game)

[ordinaryschmuck]

Win or Lose is Pixar Perfection

If we ranked Win or Lose in the same level as Pixar's film line-up, it would be in my top ten. Actually, make it top five. Maybe even top THREE. In fact, it might just be my absolute favorite thing that the studio has made in YEARS. And that is NO exaggeration.

The premise is simple, yet perfect. It's about a team of softball trying to...well, live life. Yes, there's a championship and a game to win, but only three characters really care about that. Everyone else is focused on the struggles they're going through as individuals, facing the trials and tribulations of being a child, a teenager, and even an adult. This is a series that's perfectly made for everyone of any age, with themes and stories that are simple enough for anyone to understand and even relate to. And it accomplishes that feat by having every episode focus on the perspective of a different character.

The concept of changing perspectives for each episode is brilliant and something that can ONLY work for a TV show. If this was a movie (And thank goodness it's not), the story wouldn't have worked as well. Not only would certain bits and scenes feel more repetitive than they are, but we either wouldn't get to see much of everyone's perspective to fit that hour in a half time limit Pixar's forced into, or we would have a mish-mash of everyone's perspectives switching out from one to the other. And the finale, while still very good, shows how chaotic the ladder option would be. So by making it a series, it allows the writers to really FOCUS on each character and VISUALLY tell us what they're experiencing. This plays into the show's theme of acknowledging the importance of others' perspective on things, getting to see how one character viewed an event in the story vs how someone else did. Like how Frank saw himself fully in control of his classroom while Kai and Rochelle saw him as a bit of an awkward doof. Or how Laurie saw Yuwen as completely dismissive over Rochelle claim that he liked her, only for Yuwen's episode to reveal that he panicked in saying he liked Taylor. Heck, even Ira's episode showed how in control and cocky Yuwen was in this situation, despite how panicked and nervous he really was. Everyone's perspective tells a different version of the same story, sometimes revealing stuff we wouldn't know just from one character's point of view. Frank's episode made it seem like Kai and Rochelle were the ones cheating, with Kai's anger seeming unjustified given the circumstances that she was caught doing something she shouldn't. But after seeing who Rochelle was REALLY trying to help, it makes Kai's frustration all the more understandable as she wasn't trying to cheat, she was just literally caught in the middle of Rochelle's scheme. Speaking of, I love how Rochelle's episode perfectly compliments her mother's, despite it actually contradicting. Rochelle believes she's the adult of the family, thinking Vanessa does nothing but goof off and focus on her phone and followers. Meanwhile, Vanessa views herself as the ultimate girlboss, doing her best job to take care of her kids and make sure they do a better job than she did in life, actually going as above and beyond as she can for them while keeping a self-image of confidence and positivity. And their perceptions of themselves only shatter when they start to see the truth in the other person and how serious the current situation became. It's very true to life in that regard. How WE experience things is vastly different to how everyone else does, and Win or Lose captures that idea MASTERFULLY, showing us how each character sees the world, the people around them, and, more importantly, how they see themselves.

Every episode feels like a mini-movie, with concepts and themes that feel like they could have made up for a feature film if Pixar wanted to. I mean, the first episode tackled the idea of anxiety, something Pixar JUST DID with their box office smash Inside Out 2. Yet they do it in a way that's different and compelling enough to make it stand out on its own. Anxiety is a complex emotion that can be told in a variety of ways, and Laurie's anxiety being represented by a giant sweat blob that encompasses most of her body and weighs her down to the point where she can barely function. It's good that Inside Out 2 showed that Anxiety is a necessary emotion in life, but I don't knock Win or Lose down for showing the emotional turmoil one faces when anxiety becomes too big of a burden to bear. They show off that idea perfectly, the same going for other characters and their anxieties. Like how Frank visualizes himself in a suit of armor to deflect criticism during the game, only for that same trick to pop up and get in the way of his own happiness because he put up too much of an emotional safeguard. Or how Yuwen's real self living in a heart that's literally as fragile as cardboard or Dan keeping all his rage and big emotions inside himself until he becomes a balloon about ready to burst.

But my personal favorite is Kai, who looks lighter than air when she feels happy and content, only to be dragged down to Earth when facing criticism from her father. And when the feeling of failure encompasses her, she literally sinks into the Earth to the point where it's hard for her to so much as take a step. That scene where she sinks into the field because something became too much for her...I felt that. I think MOST of us have felt that feeling at least ONCE in our lives. And the visual representation of such a feeling can ONLY be perfectly shown through animation.

Win or Lose is a typical slice of life story, and those don't necessarily NEED to be animated. You're showing the successes and struggles of someone's life, and it can just as easily be done in live action if needed to. But Win or Lose, with the themes it tries to tell and the emotions it had to convey, NEEDED to be animated. Having Rochelle act mature for her age is simple enough to do, but by having her physically GROW into an adult sells the idea better and makes it cuter as we see more about how she sees herself. Or how Ira is shown to be an imaginative kid is further emphasized by showing how often sees the world in crude, cutesy, hand drawn animation. By being animated, the stories, themes, and emotions in Win or Lose are made stronger, even through something as simple as showing Rochelle suddenly screaming on an island when she realized she forgot her phone. I feel like we've ALL been there at one point in our lives and the animation captured it perfectly.

Speaking of perfect, Win or Lose has the Pixar standard of PHENOMENAL animation. It's not as heavily detailed as some of Pixar's films, but it doesn't need to be. It's a TV show and that means a shorter budget and simplified designs. And while the character designs can sometimes look TOO simple (Looking at YOU, Coffee Girl), the show looks great in the way it makes 3D characters look almost 2D. I made a mini-post once about how such a feat isn't easy, and you can see the love and effort that went into making every character move and act as if they're from a 2D cartoon, making this one of the most fluid and expressive Pixar productions to date. And that's not getting into how it frequently mixes mediums like with Yuwen's inner self and Ira's imagination. Just the sight of seeing something 2D interact with something 3D is nothing short of impressive.

What's also impressive is the central theme of the show. Yes, there's the idea that you need to acknowledge everyone's perspective on things, but there's the one that the show explicitly stated in the beginning: Sometimes, winning is how you look at it. Everyone in this show is looking to be the best that they can be. Either it's having the best relationship, being the star player, or simply being the best person, perfection is what everyone strives for. And, unfortunately for them, it's what leads to their downfall, both in how they react to things not being perfect and how their strive is what led to them getting hurt. Like how Yuwen's anger at his relationship with Taylor reaching a bump in a road lead to his heart getting broken or Kai's constant training and disregard for herself led to getting a sprained ankle. These constant strives for success and victory led to more turmoil, when in reality, life isn't about being better than the rest. You just need to try your personal best. If you fail, that's fine. You gave it your all, and that's all that should matter. That and learning from your mistakes, of course. Which I think almost everyone does by the end, making better choices for their lives and being better for the ones they care for.

Now, with all this PRAISE that I have towards Win or Lose, are there any problems? Well, there's only ONE huge issue I have, and it's nothing against the show itself.

Yes, I'm talking about the infamous censorship that Kai's character gotten in the show's early stages, where they went ALL IN on her being trans and struggling with gender dysphoria. Disney went ahead and said "FUCK THAT" and forced the writers to make Kai as straight and cis as possible. To which the writers and animators said, "Fine, we won't EXPLICITLY make Kai trans...We'll just use a ton of symbolic subtext to the point where it's very obvious that she IS trans so that fans and audiences can tell what we wanted from the start." And they got away with it like a bunch of CHAMPIONS! Still, it hurts that the original plotline got cut because there is so much MORE to have done with that part of Kai. It's obvious from the get-go that she didn't want to be the best softball player, she just wanted acceptance from friends who see her from HER. That works best if the character is as explicitly trans as possible, and, now more than ever, kids like her deserve to see themselves represented like that. Pixar did the best with what they could, but there's no getting past the Mouse when he says no. Just ask The Owl House and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

As for the actual SHOW, I've got nothing aside from a few nitpicks. Like, it feels weird that Laurie never really faced any consequences for cheating at the game and purposefully hurting herself to get on base. She sees it as a personal victory and no one really catches her or brings her down for it. I also don't like the idea of Frank getting with Vanessa. Yes, it was the obvious choice the second they both talked, revealed they were close to the same age, and talk about how Rochelle likes Frank and Frank likes her as a student, but they have NOTHING compatible with each other. Though, to be fair, the show seems quickly acknowledge that in the short time it made them canon as Frank seems awkward around her and she seems...too much for him, but I'm still not sure if that's INTENTIONAL or not. Maybe if it was revealed that it was Vanessa Frank was talking to on the dating app or something I MIGHT be more leniant as it shows there's more to Vanessa than it appears, but as is, it's still messy. Same going for Yuwen and Dan's stories and how rushed they feel. I can give Dan SLIGHTLY more of a pass because it is the finale and most of the climax DOES circle around him. We just breeze by events to get to the championship and it feels like there's less buildup to his big blowup in comparison to the others. And given what happened with Yuwen, I feel like they rushed through a LOT with him. Both the events that led to him getting his heartbroken and then getting over it felt like we skipped important events because we have more going on with everyone else. His arc doesn't get the proper attention it deserves, which is a shame because I think what they do with it is GOOD. I still like his arc all the same, despite the poor pacing, with my favorite bit being his inner self yelling at Yuwen for making this big mistake, asking him "What are you doing?!" That still hurts and is incredibly effective, but I just feel like everything else could have been BETTER.

Aside from all that, it's next to perfection. I can count the amount of complaints with Win or Lose on one hand, and that's an impressive feat for anything, be it a show or movie. I can't find any major issue with it other than MAYBE the art style isn't your thing, and, even then, that's more subjective. I love the HELL out of this series, it made me cry FOUR times when watching it, and I hope the team that worked on it got all they praise they deserve for watching. And while it may be a show about softball players, I'm still going to mix metaphors and say it's another HOME RUN from Pixar.

[ranchstoryblog]

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma Bonus Thoughts and Impressions

Guardians of Azuma is finally here! I hope everyone had a good time playing over the weekend. Though we did our best to condense our thoughts into our reviews, sometimes things are hard to fit in or enter into spoiler territory that we want to avoid. That’s what this post is for! So here’s some more casual/off-the-cuff impressions and feelings into the new game from Ranch Story’s crew:

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I really can't stress enough how much I prefer the "hang out" system to the typical "give everyone gifts every day." It's just a much more natural feeling way to get to know characters. Only issue is that RNG has made some activities almost never pop-up. I used points to unlock that head-pat interaction and it has literally NEVER appeared.

RNG aside, put this system in Story of Seasons. Reimagine Rune Factory Frontier with it. It's fine if gifts stay an option, but I hope I never have to memorize a list of favorite gifts for everyone in town ever again.

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I also kinda like how farming is so different in Azuma. RF's farming always kind of just felt worse compared to mainline Bokumono, so maybe going in a new direction with the town management style could be something?

I still enjoy regular ol' Story of Seasons-style farming more though.

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There's still some LOD pop-in on Switch 2, unfortunately. Though it occurs on objects MUCH further away from the camera than on Switch 1, and the entire game looks better and feels smoother. Also, one of the most egregious examples of noticeable detail changes happening during a cutscene that was featured in our review has no issues now.

Nitpicks aside, there's an immediately noticeable, tangible improvement from playing on Switch 2.

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Having romance candidates as a day-one DLC doesn't feel right with me, even as someone who married Pilika during my review play-through. I really hope that this kind of thing doesn't end up normalized.

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I don't know if I missed it or what, but I didn't realize lock-on was a thing until I had almost finished the main story. Just press in the right stick.

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Using the bow as your main weapon feels kinda OP!

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It's kind of weird not being able to go into any houses. It's not like characters don't have their own homes outside development zones or anything either, since plenty events take place outside what is labeled their house. You just never get to go in. Seeing what else Hina brought with her from Rigbarth could've been fun.

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First person camera would've been nice. Let me get a good look at all these fun little decorations.

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There will be possible spoilers related to romance/story/postgame below the Keep Reading link.

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The duels on dragon-back are so cool! It's a shame they're not really a big part of the game.

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Pleasantly surprised that you can just say "I'd rather stay as we are" when asked about having a kid, instead of having that forced upon you as a matter of fact after getting married. I know some folks have voiced a preference to just not have one for past games in the series.

I hope that's a genuine choice you can make though, since part of the post-game dungeon's introduction involves your child. I'll have to test that at some point.

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Speaking of, your kid shows up REALLY fast. Pilika was found to be pregnant on Autumn 2nd and it only took until Autumn 7th to actually see 'em. There's a timeskip, so you get to see them as a grown kid right away:

Yes, the default names included Sora and Riku, I did not change those.

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While it took about 40 hours for the main story, it's probably worth noting that there's a bit more to do after that. After beating a kinda long post-game dungeon, my time is sitting at 68 hours, though I still have one last "???" under Adventure Log.

[buckley-diaztruther]

ive found the more that i read fics and the more I think about it, i really prefer the version of events where eddie doesn't have his own hoe phase before getting with buck. there's a couple reasons to this, one being that I hc eddie as being demisexual. but also because (and somewhat related to this), I don't think Eddie would. Not because it's bad or wrong or that he'd feel ashamed, but because I believe once Eddie is aware of his feelings, he's not going to want anyone but Buck.

there's no need or drive to "experiment" or "practice" because he can do all of that with buck or he can do it by himself. but his heart is gonna be set on buck and if he can't have him then I can easily see Eddie just deciding on playing it solo for the rest of his life.

another aspect which is somvery entirely my own feeling and not one I think is a hard rule, but i get frustrated sometimes with the way media (especially fanfics) take a person coming out as like. a switch flipping from celibate to promiscuity. and while that is such a real and valid experience for so many people, it borders on feeding into the stereotype that queer people (especially gay men) are all whores (i use this word affectionately). like every gay man just has to go out and slut it up every weekend at the club because that's what they all do.

and sometimes i just want to see the equally real and important experience of people who come out and then just. keep living life like normal, but happier because they're living their truth. whether that's bc theyre also ace-spec or just. don't prefer casual sex. and maybe that's me projecting as an ace-spec individual, but also. who doesn't want to see themselves represented on screen?

to me it'd be nice to see and it also, imo, fits eddies character better with what we know of him. sex has always been an obligation or an avoidance tactic for most of his life and that doesn't mean that he is ace-spec but I think it gives a believable reason for why Eddie wouldn't want to just. throw himself out there and see what sticks. and while these opposite can also be true, that his coming out means he can actually enjoy sex for what it is rather than an obligation, Eddie has just never struck me as someone who does casual (he's a nester) and when he tries it does not go well.

it circles back to the "im your first, not your last" concept and the amazing fics that have come from it with buck spiraling about being Eddie's "first". those fics are always great but in the ones where eddie does start sleeping around and dating at bucks insistence, it just felt so wrong to me. because it's turning dating and sex into an obligation for eddie again, something he's only doing because buck told him to. and sure maybe he enjoys it but I think it'd be a similar feeling to how buck used sex as his only option for getting affection or connection with other people to the point that it kinda felt like self harm. and forcing yourself to "get out there and experiment" when you aren't already enthusiastic about it is gonna end up similar, except it's hurting eddie, buck, and potentially whoever eddie is temporarily with because they'll inevitably get their heart broken the way 🤢tommy🤢 said he knew he would.

this has turned into such a huge tangent with tons of projection and im so sorry but also please tell me I'm not alone in this is literally feel ill thinking about it sometimes bc of how hard I relate to eddies journey

[zepumpkineater]

Pumpkin, I’ve come from far and wide in search for general 2BDamned or Sanford headcanons. I’ve heard and seen your rambles of character interactions, headcanons, etc.

If you have any I’d love to know them on Sanford and/or Doc I’d pretty much live and die to see them. /lh

-ChickenAnon

I gotta be at work soon so I think I'll only write one, and I suppose I'll begin with Sanford.

Sanford, to me, is a lot more complicated than he seems on the surface. That can be said for the entire madness cast, but I think it's true for him especially. Sanford is often characterized as a dumb, psychotic meatheat in fandom, which I suppose isn't the farthest from the truth that it could be, but I do think it's an exaggeration of some of his more obvious traits.

Yes he's loud when he's fighting, but there's a ton of nuance in his dialogue in M:PN in particular. One exchange that always stuck with me is leading up to the Ghoul fight, when waiting for the elevator, Sanford and Deimos have a brief back and forth. Deimos asks why these Nexus Core guys don't just lay down their guns and give up, especially considering their leader is dead and has been dead for some time now. Sanford's only rebuttal is a simple question: Would you? I think it's very poignant that Deimos doesn't have a reply to that particular question.

Sanford is the kind of guy who lives moment to moment, day by day, not stopping for too long to think about the bigger picture. He sees all the violence and bloodshed as a means to an end. He fights for something he believes is worth fighting for, one of those things being Nevada itself.

Sanford knows that he's just one guy. He knows that sometimes he's in over his head. He knows he's survived against impossible odds, and he knows he should have died a long time ago. He knows he can't save the world by himself, he probably knows this world doesn't want, or deserve, to be saved. But he lives in it all the same, and he has at least one person worth giving a damn about. His relationship with Deimos, whether you interpret it as romantic or not, is a rare and special thing in Nevada.

That level of connection with another person in a callous world such as Madness' is a rare case. A bond like that is few and far between. And it's something that will make even the most haggard, beaten, tired people get back up after being knocked down for another round. It's something that'll make a man grab a gun and face an army down head on.

He doesn't have some grand plan for the world, no secret agenda or sequence of events to begin mending the many rifts and cracks that plague this broken world. He'll leave that to people like Doc, people who at least have some kind of idea what they're doing in that regard. He just knows he'll kill who he has to kill, destroy what he has to destroy, torture who he has to torture and fight what he has to fight as long as it means something in the end. He doesn't always enjoy it. Sometimes he stops and looks back at the trail of bodies, mangled corpses and destroyed facilities and wonders if it was all worth it.

But then he looks forward. He imagines that future that he's been fighting for, for who knows how long at this point. A world where people don't have to solve every problem at the end of a knife or at the barrel of a gun. It won't be perfect, there will be new and unique problems, but it's better than...Whatever this is.

Sanford has stared down the face of a God, an Employer, who may as well be Death itself and lived. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know why, but he doesn't have time to stop and think, to consider the consequences of it all. All he knows is the path forward. He knows he's a pawn in someone elses' game, he knows there are bigger forces at play, he knows he's just one small piece in a much larger puzzle. He's not stupid, he's painfully aware of what's at stake, but that keeps him moving more than anything else.

He doesn't know when exactly it happened, or what choices or sequence of events lead him down this path, he just knows that one day he was marked, marked with a terrible curse. One day, at the behest of whatever cosmic forces pull the strings in this grand, impossibly large game, Sanford was doomed to live.

[yanderefarm]

an actual announcement (real (not clickbait))

i just wanna say i love you guys you're great!!

but there are a few things that have been getting me. i love getting asks and attention from everyone and i love interacting with you!! so i really never want to close the ask box bc i wouldn't be able to talk with everyone freely anymore. but despite not reopening my requests for fics i have over 100 asks again. some of these are just people throwing ideas at me to share. some of these are requests that i did ask for with talking to the characters. but there are still requests just always coming in.

i honestly wouldn't mind so much beyond just feeling guilty that i cant get to everything but sometimes it can kind of come across as rude? some people can treat creators like they're ai bots they're commanding to fill in a story.

during my little April fools event I received multiple asks that i had to delete that either acted rude, were plain weird, or were weirdly misogynistic. this isn't entirely new for me. I've had to delete multiple asks for similar reasons in the past but it was weird that there were so many in such a short amount of time.

the rudeness specifically stuck with me because it hit on something that's bothered me for a while. while i haven't been able to post frequently lately there's always been some subtle behavior since the very beginning treating me like just a machine you can input demands into and get whatever you want from and if it doesn't work exactly how you want just keep pushing it until you get exactly what you want. that's what i mean when I say it's like they're talking to an ai. and i know it's not just me that this kind of behavior happens to, I've talked with other people who run similar blogs I've just seen first hand other people responding to asks that had this kind of behavior.

the easiest way for you the asker to fix this? just add a little more friendliness to it. instead of being like "A getting tortured by B" you can literally just add "hey bunny! have you ever thought about (blank)" just adding a little touch like "hey" or "how are you" or even "ive been thinking about" adding a little personality to whatever you're sending with emojis or little additions like hey or even just telling the person you're talking to hi would go a long way.

part of this is something I personally need to work on myself. unfortunately i need to be more strict with my own boundaries. my requests are closed so from now on I'll be deleting things that are blatantly just requests. I'm sorry I feel really guilty doing this but it is something I need to do. I'm also not going to put effort into answering things that aren't supposed to be requests like they are requests. if you share an idea or a brain worm and i end up writing a whole thing out of it that's because i wanted to. i also need to stop trying to force myself when i dont want to it leads to me never answering anything because I want it to be better than I have the energy for.

im sorry if this leads to more lackluster answers and responses. im sorry if i end up deleting your ask. you guys do mean the world for me but this is more about setting my own boundaries and sticking to them. i cant feasibly do over 200 requests.

[mewguca]

I saw your post on moon back in February, and was curious what are your thoughts on the other iterators?

Not really sure how to summarize them, but I'm also a huge fan of Five Pebbles, and I don't really care that much about anyone else.

Well, VANILLA Five Pebbles. I cannot stand him in Downpour. I feel as though Downpour unintentionally reinforces misogynistic stereotypes by infantilizing FP and forcing LTTM to parent him. I also hate how it infantilizes him unrelated to LTTM's treatment; characterizing someone who felt like a real human person into an overly emotional teenager throwing a temper tantrum after killing his sister is... A choice. Did you know that in Vanilla, in Hunter, he calls her his friend? But in Rivulet, he won't even speak to her. We see more depth and maturity and character growth in one campaign than we do in the entirety of Downpour, and that's really saying something.

I wish he had grown in Downpour. No, sacrificing his heart while he's already dying and typing out two sentences to Moon isn't growth. He's not being challenged; he's working completely within his comfort zone. Moon types up a five-paragraph essay and he leaves her on read. Okay.

anyways downpour haterism aside I really like his Vanilla characterization and how he serves to parallel Moon. He's the Yang to her Yin, the Push to her Pull, etc etc. So desperate to escape from his struggles (and depending on interpretation, to give everyone that escape) that he's willing to risk everything. He hurts his neighbor and himself in the process, blinded by ambition and desperation. So entrenched in his struggles that he is being consumed by his failures from the inside out. The allegory for mental illness is certainly striking.

He acts selfishly, but he's not uncaring. He's worried about his sister, but he lacks the means and the strength to properly reach out to her. Perhaps he feels he does not deserve to. His isolation is one of shame and guilt, rather than one of rage and pride. He's quiet.

Ironically, this all brings Moon closer to the jellyfish in the net. As she stops trying, she gains a new perspective and perhaps a newfound appreciation for life and the world around her. She connects with the smallest of creatures, sharing her knowledge freely and passionately, happy to make connections. She, like the jellyfish, flows limply through the net. Meanwhile, Pebbles, still very powerful and capable, tangles himself further. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot help himself, and he seems further and further from the Solution every day.

NSH is someone we don't see much of in Vanilla, and I haven't really read the broadcasts for Spearmaster in a while. There's not much to say; she seems interesting. I like the sense of humor, and I feel for their dedication to their dear friend. I also liked their emotional intelligence in Downpour, and it makes me wonder if it's something they picked up talking to Moon, since she has so much of it. I also liked his conversation to pebbles; I remember that. And I remember liking their dynamic with SRS.

Seven Red Suns is a Character That Exists,

Chasing Wind is my little blorbo oh my god. They're so normal and mundane I love them. You should re-read the broadcast pearl dialogue with them sometime... They're a bit of a gossip, maybe? But they're not particularly catty or anything; they're just A Guy who talks about current-ish events. So endearing... IM BEING SERIOUS YOU DONT UNDERSTAND (also why are they browsing sliverist lines? are they nosy? hm? fascinating!)

We don't really know anything about Unparalleled Innocence. Through context clues, we can reasonably assume they're a part of the same Local Group as FP, LTTM, NSH, and CW, but they don't speak in the conversation about Erratic Pulse or in any other broadcast pearls. We only hear about them secondhand from CW, and who guesses at their intentions. It's interesting that some people have treated UI like a villain or a mean person from that one line of dialogue; we literally have no idea lol. maybe they didn't really think about it. shrugs. less interesting than CW imo

okay sorry I will talk about Suns. They're like... Okay in Vanilla? I guess? It's neat to highlight that Iterators in different Local Groups communicate amongst each other and form friendships with one another. I'm glad they included that detail. Um... Downpour Suns is. A Person who Exists? I feel like the Downpour logistical issue of "too many writers with differing takes on the world and characters" is at its peak in Spearmaster campaign, and unfortunately Suns is perhaps its biggest victim. NSH is handled better, and LTTM and FP both have excellent Vanilla characterization to fall back on. What does SRS have? Two conversations? Both of which serve to confuse and complicate the narrative and character presented in Spearmaster. (SPEARMASTER IS A TEMPORAL ANOMALY)

Vanilla Suns is a teasing friend whom FP looks up to, whilst Downpour Suns is a passive mentor who simultaneously infantilizes FP and is also the only one to take him seriously, apparently. They're close enough that they send illegal information to each other, (Or at least Suns does because apparently Downpour FP just browses Sliverist chats for fun and somehow can't find it??? himself?????) But they're distant enough for this incident (that is STILL FP's FAULT??? unless he's meant to be a completely naïve fool who does whatever others tell him to but I really don't think DP is that uncharitable) to completely shatter their bond FOREVER. Missed opportunity here tbh; perhaps we should've seen FP reaching out to his other connections, too.

you may notice I'm speaking a lot about what SRS does and not as much who they are. what is suns like? idk! the game doesn't seem to know, either! they get attached to their messenger and that is Cute I guess. idk. It's not even that I dislike SRS; I just don't care. It frustrates me, because I can see the potential (see faeling's posts about them for a compelling intention ) and I think it could have been very nuanced and messy and interesting, but the execution we got falls very short, sadly. sorry SRS.

Sliver Of Straw is more of a Concept than a Character, but that doesn't make her any less fascinating or compelling. I think if we knew more about her, ironically, we'd have so much less reason to care. I love the idea that she was just a silly guy who messed around (downpour lizard betting). I also like the idea that LTTM was one of the few people who knew her (because she wasn't particularly noteworthy before the broadcast) as it makes it all the more tragic. LTTM is missing so much, and she can't really communicate with anyone anymore. Who will remember the real Sliver Of Straw now? Likely no one.

On a meta level, I also love how we repeat the actions of the Iterators in-game. We theorize, we speculate, we mythologize—even deify—but none of us have any certainty. None of us know the real Sliver Of Straw. It's so much fun and so wonderfully poetic.

anyways yeah. sorry I don't feel like editing this so you get my poorly-worded 8 AM thoughts . hopefully you got something here. sorry for being so vitirolic. also please do not take my opinions as gospel im just some guy

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

You said you wanted to talk about power sets and I have to say- have always been a bit confused about Seers. I've done so much research (because one of my ocs is a Seer of Heart) but I've really come up with nothing (I'm NOT the best at classpect stuff, the whole passive/active thing goes Right over my head for example). So! I guess I want to hear your thoughts on it (or if you want something more general, hearing your thoughts on the passive/active thing would also be nice)

so seers are the passive counterpart to mages, and they're both combined under the similarity of "sees the future."

Thing is, "the future" in homestuck is a mutable concept, being laid down by the actions of the players. this is the split between the seer's powers and the mage's powers: the mage's "prophecies" always come true, because the mage's ACTUAL ability is to CHOOSE a future. mages, an active class ("exploit their aspect to benefit themselves" according to calliope) actively use their aspect to collapse the possibilities of the future into a single course of events that Definitely Will Happen. because players are 3d beings experiencing time in cross-sections, this appears to be prophecy, rather than active determination.

on the flipside, then, Seers are the actual prophets, because their powers allow them to see the branching paths of the future (along with letting them just, like, regularly "see" things associated with their aspect - terezi can see brain ghost dirk, and kankri jumps in on the cronus/meenah conversation right as something pale is happening, implying that he's able to sense relationships developing so he can cockblock them.) passive classes "allow their aspect to be used by others" (according to calliope), so that's what seers do: they see the branching paths of the future through the lens of their aspect, and by doing so, serve as guides for the rest of the party - Rose, after god tiering, is constantly leading her party down the "most fortuitous path," and terezi, whose mind powers are associated with consequences, behavior, choices, and karma, is a master manipulator, able to see the branching webs of outcomes from even minor changes in behavior.

That all being said, Aspect is tied to fundamental personality, and Class is tied to character arc. The Seer character arc is hubris, followed by a fall from grace, and then with self-inflicted "blindness" to cope with the shame and guilt. For example, Rose's need to be the smartest person in the room made it easy for Doc Scratch to manipulate her; this led to her mother's death, which Rose coped with by drinking herself stupid. Terezi's overconfidence in herself as a master manipulator led to her eschewing her personal feelings and painting herself into a corner where the only viable option was to kill her BFF Vriska, the guilt of which she coped with by throwing herself into a toxic relationship with Gamzee, which was a loss for the forces of justice and karma, but a big win for the clown (plus all the stuff with her literal vision). And Kankri is currently suffering from both at once, his insistence on being the team's "spiritual leader" making him widely disliked, and his insistence on celibacy a self-induced "blindness" to his clear feelings toward latula and cronus - feelings which make him act really shitty to mituna, and make him step between cronus and meenah right as meenah's about to make Cronus reconsider some harmful behaviors.

Heart, meanwhile, is associated with feelings, intuition, motivations, the soul, and the self. Its players are characterized by vulnerability and sincerity - its players have very strong emotions, sometimes overwhelmingly so, and are also naturally gifted at understanding other peoples' inner selves, able to see them for their best... and for their worst. There's generally two ways for an Aspect to manifest "at its worst" - toxic overabundance, or "inversion," where it starts to exhibit the traits of the opposite. A Heart player at toxic overabundance is needy and fawning, demanding attention at the same time as they enthusiastically allow those with stronger desires to walk all over them, in an attempt to please the strong desires they sense - Dirk often flips between critical/controlling and needy/desperate; Nepeta lets Equius walk all over her; Meulin has TWO awful, shitty boyfriends who do horrible things to her. At inversion, they become misanthropic and manipulative, using their influence over emotion and desire to engender terrible outcomes - seeing only the worst in others, they actively work to ensure the worst sides of others are provoked into the open. At their best, then, a Heart player is able to separate good desires from bad, just wishes from selfish ones, and encourage the best in people while helping them deal with their worst.

So a Seer of Heart would start out arrogant - perhaps a Mean Girl type? Someone assured in not only their ability to engender their desired emotions from others, but entitled to those emotions. "You know you love me!" is the "vibe," so to speak. Heart players are naturally capable of sensing motives and emotions; a Seer of Heart turns that up to eleven. They'll be perfectly assured that their ships are the best ships, that their read on people is the correct read, that they'll be able to tell how others feel and how they'll react. Also they might be able to see ghosts because of Heart's sway over souls.

When something finally happens that shatters this arrogance, they'll fall into willful self-blindness to cope with the guilt and shame. As Heart is what they can see, that means they'll deliberately try to obfuscate their ability to sense feelings, motives, and emotions - perhaps literally isolating themselves and becoming a NEET/hikikomori, perhaps replacing their brain with a computer, etc. etc.

Once they overcome this and figure themselves out, they're going to specifically be great at, tbh, therapy and life coaching. able to literally see all emotional conflicts and the ways in which people will emotionally respond to certain situations, a Seer of Heart is going to be amazing at helping others understand themselves, their own feelings, and the feelings of the others on the team. they'll be insane diplomats, too, able to grok at a glance what all parties on a negotiation desire. you can't lie to a seer of heart!

[guess-that-ship]

Guess That Ship Tournament Season 15: Submissions CLOSED!

The Concept: You describe your ship* to me, I pick out the submissions which I find most compelling and pit them against each other without revealing who they are, people vote on them, and their identities gets revealed once they’re eliminated.

Quite a few things have changed this time, so even if you're a regular, I recommend you read through the rules carefully!

Every other season, ships from fanon (something unofficial derived from the canon of a work), fanworks, and OCs will be allowed. This is the case for Season 15.

Submission Guidelines

*For the purpose of this tournament, relationships do not have to be romantic in nature. (I’m sometimes going to use “ship” as a shorthand, just know I mean “relationships” in general.)

Relationship can be between any number of characters.

Real people are accepted if they’ve been dead for more than 100 years.

Roleplay characters are accepted as long as the description only pertains to the characters and not the players.

Ships from fanon and fanworks (including crossover ships and crackships) are accepted. (If the fanwork is lesser known or on a smaller scale, please do not submit any ships from it without permission.)

OCs and OC x Canon are accepted. (Please do not submit other people's OCs without their permission.)

No overtly NSFW submissions. (Mentioning they have sex or are a sex worker is fine, but try to avoid anything more than that.)

Two submission per person. (Do not submit the same ship twice. I cannot enforce this on Google Forms without forcing you to log in. So just be champs and respect this rule.)

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in all of your submissions being disqualified for this season.

Summary Guidelines

Selection Process: I will read through the list of descriptions submitted without reading their names and pick the most compelling submissions. Then, I will check the name to make sure there's no repeats.

Keep it concise, but also bring something unique to the table. Make sure to describe their relationship, not just summarize the events of the story.

Previous submissions for reference. The ideal submission should be 1-2 paragraphs, but you can make it as short or long as you want. Please keep in mind the longer your submission, the less likely it is to get in.

Tips on what to avoid while writing a summary can be found here.

Descriptions should be based on the canon of the source material (e.g. You can say “they love each other” instead of “they’re lovers” if their romantic nature is debatable.). If you are writing a description based on how they appear in a fanfic or your headcanon, it is considered as fanon and should be labeled as such in your submission.

Avoid author commentary. (e.g. "They're canonically x," "I love them," "Play/watch/read this," etc.)

Use canonical pronouns.

Avoid identifying information or setting specific giveaways. (i.e. ninja village, space necromancers.)

When submitting OCs, please make sure to at least put a name somewhere. (e.g. "John and Bob by anonymous" or "OCs by Joey.")

The more popular your ship is the more vague the description should be.

Exclusions

Generally, ships that have been accepted into previous seasons will not be accepted. For a complete list, please look here. (No need to look through the whole list, just Ctrl+F to find the ship you want.)

Due to them winning S14, ships containing the characters Mira Marchand and/or Delnys Raethran from Trials & Trebuchets will not be accepted in S15. Ships containing them will be allowed again in S16.

Any submissions from Harry Potter will also not be included.

Notes

I will not vet the ships/pairings for problematic content.

If you participate in this tournament, know that you run the risk of unintentionally voting for your nOTP. The mod does not take any responsibility for any distress that may cause you.

There will be a limit of one ship per media in the bracket. You may submit two ships from the same media, but keep in mind only one ship will be able to get in. (A series or franchise will generally count as one media, but they will be evaluated on a case by case basis.)

There will be a maximum number of fanon ships and OC ships accepted into the tournament. The maximum number will depend on the bracket size, but for a bracket of 16, the maximum number will be 3.

Submit your ships here! Submissions will be open until Sunday, March 9th at 9 PM EDT.

Please reblog this post to spread the word! The more submissions, the better!