#stebs character

[blueteller]

Introducing Character Trope: STEBS (Stoic Traumatized Epic Bastard Softie)

I have tried to look this up on TV tropes, but it does not exist. Not officially, at least. So I decided – I'm introducing new trope. It already exist, someone might as well try and give it a name.

And yeah, this acronym SUCKS, feel free to come up with a better one! But let's talk about what a "STEBS" character is for me, because I've come to the conclusion that it is actually my favorite character type.

First, context. Ever since I've read TCF, I have come across other medias and I was often like, "Hey, this character is basically just like Cale!" – which I feel like, it isn't really fair? I mean, Cale is a great and complex character, but making this comparison constantly makes me feel like I'm undermining the complexity of OTHER characters. Just because Cale shares similarities with other characters doesn't make them copies of him.

So, what exactly is a STEBS?

1) Stoic

This character has a very specific way of acting in non-confrontational situations. It can be respectful, it can be casual, but it is neither extremely friendly nor extremely rude. It's in a calm, pleasant zone, where the character treats others like... well, people. The character doesn't make themselves superior nor inferior, it doesn't matter to them if the other is a beggar or a king. They just are, calm and casual. That's what makes them stoic - NOT lack of expressions or emotions, or lack of humor. It's the way they carry themselves on the regular. This character type makes others feel relaxed because of it, and subconsciously encourages trust and friendship (much to the character's confusion). They will also make a great educator because of it, and will likely act as a mentor or a teacher more than once.

2) Traumatized

Despite the stoicism in their behavior, they actually have a complicated background. Commonly an orphan, even though not always, this person has been through a LOT. But, they don't usually express it. Seeing this character cry or break down is EXTREMELY rare and always a very important scene in a story. It's not that they're not emotional or they always try to bury their trauma, although that does usually apply to them; they're just not vocal about it due to their personality. But oh boy, are they traumatized! Wait for that reveal later in the story though, when it actually becomes plot-relevant.

3) Epic

Despite the character being a stoic type, with a backstory that makes them crave very simple things – be it retirement, respect from their peers, a safe house to live in, a stable job, a family, a specific successful career – they are actually freaking epic where it comes to things they do. They either have great knowledge, memory, or skills in a particular field and they always manage to surprise others with just how competent they are. It can be literal combat skills, magic, being a life-saving surgeon, or even a therapist. But whenever they get their chance to shine, they become a real star.

4) Bastard

A trait that adds a surprising amount of charm and humor to their other traits. Being stoic makes them likeable, being traumatized makes them sympathetic, being epic makes them cool – but being a bastard? It actually just means they're mischievous and have a penchant for chaos. Because this character is meant to make changes in the narrative, like an accidental revolutionary or a transmigrator, they have to possess a cunning streak that might seem mean or selfish at first, but actually never crosses the line into making them despicable. It just makes them an occasional manipulator, but it's usually portrayed in a way that still makes it impossible to make you hate them. In fact, it makes you love them more for it. They are not naive, even if they can be oblivious or silly at times; being a bastard to those who deserve it means being able to get out of sticky situations that would be problematic for paragon heroes. It includes stuff like acting, pranks, cheating, manipulation, shady deals, gambling, stealing, and even criminal behavior, that is actually very understandable due to their specific circumstances.

5) Softie

And if all the previous traits haven't convinced you to love this character yet, the last one surely will. This character, despite having a mean streak, is in fact never mean to innocent people. Actually, they are surprising soft and/or sentimental, especially towards the helpless and children. This character will probably have at least one animal sidekick, at least one paragon protagonist type on their payroll, and most importantly an adopted child - if the previous two don't already fill that spot. This character will make excuses of course, they will claim that they are taking care of others for their own benefits. But you will see quickly that they don't treat others like a heartless manipulator, but more of an overprotective mother-hen. This character, no matter their gender, will eventually become the typical Mom Friend. They will make sure everybody eats well, sleeps well, they get their allowance, pack their lunch before heading out to participate in the plot and probably try to sacrifice themselves for them more than once. They will of course become the mentor figure on top of it, and possibly even be a straight up legal guardian and/or teacher to other important characters.

And this, my friends, is what I call a STEBS character. While it outlines a general, it's not a strict definition, mind you. Even if a character exhibit one trait less than the others (for example not being much of a bastard, or not being very stoic), it still counts as long as you still recognize them as fitting in this "category".

Characters in this category include:

Cale Henituse from Trash of the Count's Family

Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars

Aizawa Shota from My Hero Academia

Kakashi from Naruto

Remus Lupin from Harry Potter

Faramir from Lord of the Rings

Kim Dokja from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

Park Moondae from Debut or Die

Won Hwabu from I Reincarnated as a Legendary Surgeon

And many, many others.

Let me know if you have a better name for this very specific character type!

[space-blue]

Cute fish-man enforcer: a comprehensive artist's reference collection

I've heard people simp for him already, so I gathered screenshots. Also, to note : his ears flick, and he has third eyelids like a Na'vi Metkayina.

I caught the third eyelid in 2 different shots.

Anyway, make great art of the fish twink. He's also the first one to rush to the captive Zaunite's help, and reacts after Vi to Cait's bloodlust. He saved Mel during the attack on her speech, and rescued his enforcer buddy. He has zero lines but it's pretty obvious he has a good heart despite a snooty resting face.

if you know what his name is, drop it in comments so I can update the tags.

pretty boi

[vinnybox]

Cleave thinks he can get under Steb's skin. Steb is only mildly inconvenienced, but unbothered by the efforts.

[stebfishie]

Steb smelling.

Small details I noticed; him using his third eyelid to cover his eyes, thus blocking out his vision, which would further enhance his sense of smell.

(edit; I see it as the flehmen response.)

[srslylini]

The people praising Arcane seem to always only focus on specific stuff so I want to ask anyone to praise this:

1. Sevika's story, please go on. Praise it. Tell me how good she was after episode 4, I am waiting?

2. The firelights. Go ahead tell me how much we saw them and how the Tree came back and was tied into the story, tell me how they got screen time and how their story got told?

3. Ekko. Tell me how good it was to make him ignore his home after he went to Jayce to get it fixed. Tell me how great his character arc was after they got rid of everything else he liked.

4. Mel. I want you to praise how much screen time she had and how the black rose didn't come out of no where. I want you to tell me it didn't feel like they wrote her out of the story and I want you to look me in the eyes and praise how well they treated her in the last act. You know, with Jayce apparently only seeing her as a sex object. Women really won.

5. Praise the Robots.

6. Go ahead tell me how good it was to kill off all the suicidal characters.

7. I need to hear people praise the time loop/travel. It was so good and made so much sense and time travel isn't mostly a weird way to not resolve anything.

8. Talk nice about the side characters, please. Maddie, Loris, Isha, Steb, Lest. You know all of them were so necessary and weren't only there for one thing and then got killed or just never to be seen again. Praise how good their writing was, go on.

9. Go ahead and tell me how well they handled Vi's character. How they didn't just completely ignore her. Praise how they made her an alcoholic for 3 seconds and then she was just able to stop, isn't she an inspiration?

10. Go ahead, tell me how well they resolved anything that happened in the first 3 episodes. The Grey is just never mentioned again outside of it being used in the last war. Tell me how the people of Zaun just supporting Piltover is worthy of Praise.

11. Vi and Ekko never interacting was so good, wasn't it? So perfectly in character for Vi to rush right past him in the finale. That was perfect.

12. Praise it how good it was that Caitlyn just completely forgets her mother in the end, you know the reason the first 3 episodes happened. Praise it how her father is off hand mentioned in episode 8, never to be seen again. You know... the parents, her reason to go nuts like this. Damn that was good

13. Jinx getting to apologize in prison to Caitlyn. What a scene am I right?

go ahead, there is so much to praise, it must be tiring only focusing on one or two things

[galoogamelady]

Hi Galoo! I love your art, especially the way that you stylize likenesses to fit your style but at the same time keep the original character recognizable. Any chance you have any tips or a tutorial on that?

It helps to have a firm idea of what your character looks like: collect pics of their faceclaim, notice if an actor/person has features like them - even if it's just a detail like a nose or eyebrow shape. If you draw the same person a lot, this will become easier. If you can sculpt them in 3D, even better. When I want to emulate a style, I like to first look for characters that are similar to mine in that style. They don't have to look exactly like them, juts close enough that I can assess how certain features are shaded, what details they like to emphasize etc. Arcane has all sorts of characters but most humans have a similar kind of painted face texture.

It's way more difficult to do this when there are absolutely no characters to reference who look at least a little like yours. You can tell I didn't have too much to go on with a few of these Buttons...

[doesephs]

steb stayed silent so ginger cunt could manipulate the traumatised lesbian bedtime sketch

[malotte00]

[sparkythefirefly]

Steb and Scar appreciation post because they don’t get enough recognition 🩵🩶🩷💚

My babies <33

[zenonart]

[mechanical-artery]

might color this later

[jo-gakky]

If you'll allow me to be self-indulgent for a second- Was thinking about reuniting with Steb after a serious attack and just resting forheads while making sure he's okay🥺

(also im working on the Steb requests and hnggg i LOVE drawing him so MUCHHH!!!)

[adashulaz]

You can see how hurt Steb is, but it's most likely not physical.

Steb and Maddie were introduced at the same time, they approached Vi and Loris together. Maddie being much more open and talkative compared to Steb. And now, we know that Maddie is a Junior Officer when we first meet her and it's safe to assume the same for Steb. It's also safe to assume that Steb and Maddie are close due to their shared rank, they probably started training to be an enforcer at the same time based on this assumption. This would make them close, probably friends. Maddie is very clearly friendly while Steb doesn't seem to be the same, typical friend stuff imo, but she probably approached him anyways because she wanted or needed a friend.

A friend that she could fall back on incase people learn that there's a spy or a friend that she could push the blame onto incase that happens. Steb, someone who seems to keep to himself, would be the perfect person for that. It helps that most enforcers seem to be human compared to not, the idea of a spy would immediately cause people to point fingers at non-human enforcers like Steb. Maddie would know that, Ambessa would probably tell her to do something like that so she could keep her spy, and so she turned Steb into someone could either fall back on or stick the blame on. Either way, Steb is a backup plan for her. But first, she would have to establish a bond with him. So she did, making it seem like they truly were friends, best friends even.

When Maddie revealed herself to be a spy during that fight, it would hurt Steb. Maddie, possibly his only friend, betrayed him and played him like a cheap kazoo. It would sting, probably more than inhaling the gray. All because Maddie made it seem like they're friends, close friends at that. But now he's on his knees, most likely about to die after watching Maddie kill their captain/commander. That hurts, that hurts more than anything because Maddie clearly doesn't care about him or anyone else hence why she's a spy.

Not only that, but Steb probably feels ashamed. He can barely look Caitlyn in the eye, he immediately looks away from her the second they make eye contact. He probably feels like he's at fault for this, how could he not notice that his friend was a liar? Maddie was his friend, someone he knew well so how could something like that slip under his radar? Steb knows that Caitlyn most likely feels just as guilty for trusting Maddie but for Steb it would be worse. He knew Maddie longer, he should've picked up on the signs. It didn't matter how small or invisible, he should've picked up on it. Now his captain/commander was going to die because of him not picking up the signs.

[vinnybox]

What's he chirping about??? Probs breakfast in bed

Magma doodle I adjusted in Clip stu :]

[stebfishie]

Steb body references.

[srslylini]

the way Arcane wasted character in season 2 is actually insane. They gave us good character design but no good character. Especially the new ones. Is there honestly ONE, one you genuinely cried over?

I cried over Mylo and Claggor. I cried over Vander in season 1. I cried over Powder screaming and sobbing after Vi in act 1 of season 1. I felt deep emotional pain over all of this because they gave me character and an understanding of the world we are in. And they did all of that in 3, THREE, episodes.

What did they do with Isha? Well I sure didn't cry when she died. Her character, while interesting just wasn't fleshed out at all. What I felt when they killed her was how idiotic the writers were for that because okay? like huh. They had 5 episodes with Isha and somehow managed to not make me care enough to cry. Not because Isha's potential wasn't there but because killing her was stupid and pointless, just to further another characters pain which could happen way more naturally without introducing a character to die.

What did they do with Loris? They tried to make him Vander (which okay weird why do that? especially if you want to bring Vander back anyway like uhm? what was the sense of introducing Loris as a Vander stand in and then bringing Vander back??). But he WASN'T Vander because they never showed him to be. They just told me he was. Which doesn't work. okay, he died. Did not care. The only thing I felt was rage again because it was so unnecessary and dumb, they could have made a lot with this character.

Maddie. Well Maddie is a whole other thing, isn't she? She was introduced in a way that already raised a lot of eyebrows. But in a "she is a cop" way and not she is on Ambessas side way. There is so much questions coming up with that. Had she been on Ambessa's side from the very start? Even when we first saw her on screen? Did she come with Ambessa? But how was she an enforcer then? Did she always live in Piltover but how did she then turn towards Ambessa? When she made that fist sign, was the plot between Ambessa and her already going, or did it happen after that? Why were we not shown any of this? this is NECESSARY to understand her character and why the end happened. We should have been able to feel betrayed as well but like? I did not feel betrayed I was just like "okay well, that happened off screen I guess."

Steb had not one talking line, like why was he here, was I meant to feel bad when he ran into The Grey, I can't even tell, help.

And then the side characters of Zaun, especially the Jinxers. The one woman who then died with Vi's hand in hers while wearing the uniforms of Piltover. Did not feel sad. Felt absolute huge amount of unfiltered rage. Her character should have MEANT something. I feel they tried to make her mean something but they failed there too.

Lest?? LIKE LEST COULD HAVE ALSO BEEN USED IN SUCH AN INTERESTING WAY. She just never came back. Okay. Great, at least she didn't die but like? Was I meant to get invested? Was I meant to care? Usually I should be able to tell if I should care about a character in a show or not but in Arcane s2 they tried to make me care and failed or if I cared well then they failed, too

anyways just the side characters especially were a huge disappointment this time around.