#they didnt mean for the narrative things to happen

[noisyghost]

(I started sketching this design nearly immediately after season 2 ended but just now had some time to clean it up so. Excuse me rambling out loud here)

TLDR; I actually really liked the initial design + direction for Warwick-Vander (I <3 human faced werewolves)! But the show design kinda felt like a transitory state between Vander and Warwick to me, so I wanted to try my hand at blending his Arcane design with his in game design. Like a "what would he look like if the transformation kept going" kinda thing. There's a few things I'm not fully settled on, but Im mostly satisfied :)

(rambling under the readmore, its 3 am as i type this lol)

When season 2 first started, I sort of had it in my head that the narrative would have Vander "die" for Warwick to finish the transformation into his final form, forcing Vi and Jinx to finally say goodbye together. Well! That didn't happen lol. I mean. Vander did "die", but whatever was left behind isn't really Warwick. I'm not quite sure what they were going for, either with him or with how Jinx "dies", its all just a little messy when i feel like there was a more obvious narrative conclusion.

Visually i think the final design in the show is cool removed from context, but it doesn't really make sense to me in regards to the story. Like. Warwicks whole thing is that he curbs his violent impulses by killing "bad guys" in the undercity. League lore is a hot fucking mess and I don't even go there so I get that they (the writers) were playing fast and loose but I can see why so many Warwick fans were less than pleased with where the show leaves him, because it doesn't really feel like the same character outside of his initial experimentation.

In my own idea palace, Jinx fakes her death and leaves Warwick to be Zaun's new mascot. Having this literal monster that eats bad guys and saves innocent people in the process become a new symbol for Zaun feels like a no brainer to me. Imagine the iconography they'd make for this thing! And it brings Vanders whole schtick back around; he still "dies" but the Literal Memory of him lives on in Zaun, still protecting the people he cared about most. You get the bittersweet ending of Vi and Jinx having to move on because hes not really their dad anymore, but their memory is what keeps Warwick "human", still with Zaun even if Vi is doing Piltover shit and Jinx is off exploring the world.

Idk! I know the implication that Jinx faked her death is there, but whatever happens to Warwick seems to be like they didnt really have the time to fully explore the ideas they were going for, so a couple characters just got kinda left floating at the end there. If Ekko and Jinx werent going to run away together, I wanted to see Ekko befriending Warwick so they could fight to make Zaun a better place.

I have more coherent ideas than this but it's 3 am when im typing this so sorry if im not eloquent enough to properly explain what im thinking. Ekko and his weird dog that used to be his uncle. Imagine.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hi there! I hope your having a wonderful day!

So i had a question, or more acuratly wanted to ask for some advice. Ive more or less recently started dming, mostly in the form of one-shots for my main group. And ive stumbled across the following issue: while i love the lore building and describing and rp-ing i really struggle with combat. I tend to get overwhelmed and forget about effects and skills, and struggle with coming up with 'battle tactics' (which is what our campaign dm suggested) or make it way to easy because i worry about the players being dissappointed by 'loosing'(eventhough they've mentiones they would love harder combat and would even be okay with a tpk if it was earned)

So do you happen to have any suggestions or ideas on how to practice running and organizing combat and/or scalling or ways to not get so overwhelmed?

(Im sorry if this isnt quite what you do, i just didnt really know who else to ask)

This is ABSOLUTELY what I do friend, every part of the dungeon mastering experience is worth talking about because that's how we improve.

If you're having trouble learning your way around combat you're more than justified: it's a whole second game, and strategic skirmish tactics requires a very different skillset compared to the collabrative storytelling rules you're just now getting a handle on.

First, lets talk about what combat in d&d is even FOR: Fights in d&d are really no different than any other challenge, they're a hurdle you as a DM employ to introduce drama to a narrative and engage your players, not all that different from a locked door or an obstinate NPC that needs to be convinced. The difference is that when you call initiative, you are shining a spotlight on the moment to moment decisions your party makes when time is limited and greatly raising the stakes: Seconds matter in combat, quick thinking matters, mistakes matter.

To use a simple example, recently I ran a road encounter where the party came across a gnomish merchant who's wagon had been attacked by predatory flightless birds. The question wasn't "can the party defeat the birds", I knew they could, the question was " Can the party defeat the birds before they eat this poor gnome who will be a friend/ally to them later"

The reason you're having problem with tactics and being worried about killing your party is that you're thinking about combat as its own isolated thing rather than a dramatic beat as part of a larger story. Most fights in D&D are NOT about attacking the party directly: Instead the baddies have something they want to accomplish (Take, devour, defend, slay) and it's a question of whether the heroes can stop them before they accomplish their mission. Combat only takes 2-4 rounds generally, which is a limited time for your players to put their thumbs on the scale and try to alter the course of events. Tactics are emergent out of goals, so think about what your minions would want to happen and how they would've gone about achieving it before the party comes by to wreckingball through their carefully laid plans.

Another example: An enemy force is attacking a castle the party are guests at, looking to secure hostages in preparation for a coup attempt by a rival noble. While the villains' over all job is to capture pieces, the initial wave of badguys are primarily concerned with slowing the party down to prevent them from interfering with the other attackers around the castle, meaning they'll fight defensively, potshots from cover and barring exits.

When you refocus the badguys' goals away from killing the players and towards things that push the plot in a particular direction (especially one the party would generally like to stop) you’ll have a clearer idea of what the enemies want to be doing, which not only helps you decide how they act, but also pick what enemies go into a fight.

If you're feeling totally overwhelmed another option would be to switch to a game system that focuses less on crunchy combat. It's drastic but everyone has game systems that fit better with their particular DMing style, especially in the early days when you're first developing. I'd highly recommend Forged in the Dark, or Powered by the Apocalypse systems, as they still have the punchy action-forward storytelling of d&d without having to manage much on the mechanics side.

[richardsphere]

Coming from someone more on the other side of the fanbase here... Please know that this is all intended to be sincere, and not as any dig towards your personal enjoyments of the show. Im taking the original question in good faith and am answering in as good a faith as i can. -- I think there is a misunderstanding in the question being asked. None of this has to do with the Antikuma, plain and simple. nor even really if she is or isnt traumatised. But that the things that made Mari's stanbase continuously cried "but she's traumatised so its fine for her to be a hypocrite in X manner" were explicitly confirmed by later seasons to be for non-trauma reasons. Now i as far I recall, The show never portrayed her as traumatised. ( even if the dream exists, though i do not remember it, a single dream does not a trauma-arc make) Or at the least, that the trauma didnt influence those of her behaviours that her fans used the trauma to excuse ad nauseum. Mari's defenders used Chat Blanc as an excuse to say "No she does respect CN, she's just traumatised and cant trust him because of the trauma". It was a thing mari's stans inferred (and at the time, couldn't be adequatly disproven) because it allowed them to easily explain Chat's side-lining without making their favourite character look like an inconsiderate hypocrite. But then the show went on, and had Marinette explicitly state that no. It wasnt trauma, it was that Mari is guardian and Chat is not allowed to expect to be anything but Sidekick number 4 (after Rena, Bunnix and Viperion). No partnership, no negotiation, just subordination without respect or agency. Chat Blanc Trauma would definitly have been part of a better show, and it makes for amazing fanfic fuel. But it just... isnt (meaningfully) cannon. The sum total of influence that Chat Blanc has on the cannon plot is a singular moment (an outright plothole) where they have CN suffer a flashback to a timeline he has no way of knowing about so they can write him out of his own story. As far as the narrative is concerned Chat Noir, a character who does not remember the events in question, is more traumatised by it then Marinette. That is all that CB amounts to. as far the show is concerned, Marinette isnt traumatised by CB, Adrien is. Everything the fans use the trauma to excuse was simply Thomas going: "girl power means boys arent allowed to expect basic human dignity, respect or a voice in matters that directly effect them". The antikuma has brought this topic back into conversation because of the suit going pale creating a similar white-cat visual, but it didnt cause the realisation that the Trauma either never cannonically happened, or didnt cannonically influence LB's multi-season mistreatment of her supposed partner. What matters to the people saying that isnt if the trauma was real, what matters is that as far as LB's chat-based hypocrisies are concerned it might as well not exist. -edit i accidentally posted this unfinished. Once more, i want to emphasize that this is not intended as a dig towards anyone specific, just as an observation and clarification as to how/why the people whom are saying that are doing so.

ok but why the fuck did tumblr fans suddenly decide chat blanc never traumatized marinette in any way? like genuinely how did you get that from watching this show? we saw her having a nightmare with him in it— i forgot what season it was— but like… a gazillion things happened since that time. she fought her boyfriend’s dad and saw him go to the afterlife hellooooo? if anyone’s her prime source of trauma it’s gabriel now and it’s very much made clear in the intro. why does marinette have to think about chat blanc every second of her life damn?

also the antikuma thing… i’m not gonna lie, chat blanc didn’t even cross my mind till i saw people making connections. that’s just chat in a grey suit i’m crying y’all decided he’s reminiscent of chat blanc on your own, dont be mad at marinette for not thinking of him 😭

[applepixls]

theres something to be said about the accidental symbolism of the horns in double life

grian got ponder originally which is a doo doo dudooooo kinda pattern and then got seek which is the same pattern but with a scratchier sound and offered it to scott

their stories then mirror in both having previously done a series with their partner and this time (somewhat) rejecting them (and later being tortured by them) only scott fully rejected pearl to live across from cleo while grian still kept scar around but tried to be secret soulmates with bigb. and ultimately scott and pearl did the whole sacrifice for the other person to win thing, reprising grian and scar's 3rd life ending same pattern, different sound.

(theres also something to be said here about how they are similar people, you can see it in the quiet agreement to stand around and get butted at by goats and in the bit where scott punches scar, sees grian take damage and "*he knows" and he knows he knows he knows and scott realizes what grian realized, that grian is once again trailing reluctantly after scar to keep him safe but also knows he shouldn't tell scar cause grian hasn't. they're both very intelligent in similar ways and it shows)

later on grian got another ponder (which he offered to scar instead of the seek he initially gave him) and mentioned how there was a reply to it (sing, du dudoooo) that he really wanted (and later jimmy and tango got)

so more narrative comparisons. the two soulmate pairs at that point have matching horns, grian and scar are ponder and jimmy and tango are sing. notoriously jimmy and scar are the two that everyone was scared of being partnered with because they die and take damage a lot. the thing i find interesting is how different their narratives are grian and scar had already been partnered and worked together previously, meanwhile, jimmy and tango had barely spoken prior. you'd expect that the two who were already friends and found out they were partnered (or at least grian found out) in a more or less positive way would choose to be friends, no? and you'd think that the two who didn't know each other and met by dying would have an awkward stumbling dynamic and possibly resent (in character) each other, right? but turned out it was the opposite way around (because of personalities blah blah blah). its not super related to the horn patterns I'll admit but something about the way.. its almost as if grian's horn says this is how it is (this being like rejecting scar because of their past) and the ranchers horn being like what if it doesn't have to be (something about clean slates, seeing people in new light, reintroducing yourself, taking all the best of a person despite a bad circumstance like yknow. killing them when you first meet. don't know anyone else whos accidentally blown up someone when they first met cough cough 3rd life cough)

please feel free to add your thoughts

[drbtinglecannon]

It's actually kinda sexy of Caleb & Evelyn to haunt the narrative so thoroughly while never having any speaking lines or even appearing on screen outside of 400yr old repressed memories, delusions, and/or hyped up folklore

We don't even know for sure if Evelyn was a Clawthorne, or what she looked like, or how the fight between Caleb and Philip went down, or Caleb's reasons for leaving without Philip, or what their half witch half human baby looked like, or how long after Caleb left before Philip found him again, or what Evelyn did when she discovered her dead lover's grave was robbed, or how quickly after killing Caleb did Philip decide "I can make a new Caleb that's Better™"

We have scraps to give us pretty good ideas for most of these, but nope they really just haunt with no reward. Like yeah babes give us nothing!

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

i know that ep12 with its sunbathing scene at the market place is known as one of the most romantic scenes in the show and i dearly love it too BUT HAVE U EVER LAID EYES UPON THE RIVER SCENE AT THE START OF EP12 BECAUSE AAAA

[comradecowplant]

so Ivanova is nearly killed off, saved by actually killing off sweet baby space legolas, and now she's left anyway? AND my boy lennier is going off to "find himself" too? mkay.

[skrunksthatwunk]

just finished the original devilman manga. wuh!!

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

so i googled my current favourite play that i'm absolutely obsessed with and ended up on the english wikipedia site bc my browser is set to english and. it's so bad. the fucking plot overview leaves out basically everything that happens ever except for the end result. several key figures aren't even mentioned. "this guy dies for freedom" well, yes, but actually no, plus you're implying his sacrifice is actually worth it. that's not true. in some other section a dude is mentioned who claims this play is basically star wars. that someone familiar with the play but not star wars could look at a star wars poster and tell you which characters are narratively similar/equal to characters of the play. i am baffled. i have never, not once in my life, ever seen someone be so wrong. dude must have read an entirely different play. i'm tempted to dig up the english version and read it just to see how fucking wrong he is. he is *so* incredibly wrong. jesus fuck. how could you possibly say that

[themyscirah]

This is technically a Diana's age poll but I framed it partially around Julia's rescue because that's the event I need to contextualize and whether or not Diana is a thing yet is p important for my purposes. I would keep the Pérez run and postcrisis continuity in mind when answering this bc that's when this is relevant but I'd keep in mind that even though Diana is very young there (like early 20s) we don't know I don't think if she ages differently as a child (esp as a themysciran AND being made from clay) and in some versions she is older than she looks and was made earlier

Edit: I accidentally logic-ed this out in the tags lol 🤦‍♀️but feel free to still vote however you want. Going to publish this anyway bc I think I made some good points later in my tags

[1tsjusty0u]

just realized that . like besides all the efforts to stop the calamity the characters in the botw cutscenes dont. do anything.

[betawooper]

im typically indifferent when someone interacts with my posts here or on my art ones in my sideblog, but when it comes to literally anything transfem yoo joo-related and someone likes the post or leaves nice tags, i lose my mind for a while /positive

[legogender]

thinking abt garmabros (-1hp -1hp -1hp)

[molluskmirage]

the boogeyman effect following Bbh from purgatory 1 has been a very fascinating phenomenon.

there is alot of residual and lingering opinions of Bad from both characters and fans and its been interesting because having watched Bads pov he really didnt do anything more then what others did in purgatory. Q!Phil is mad because Bad terrorized his team but bad had far less kills then Tubbo, and plenty other teams were around terrorizing others Fit slaughtered Tina and soulfires farmers (most of which then never returned)

Q!Tubbo is mad for ‘day 12’ for a poor decision Bad made, but Bad was carrying the team mostly alone for many many hours the whole 2 weeks (the most out of anyone on the team) I think he could be forgiven for not having the clearest decision making skills running ragged and getting killed.

Q!Bagi feels betrayed by bad and has been more comfortable around tubbo since p1 but tubbo murdered her before she could say a word in p1 and Bad asked for her consent first before doing so.

Q!Etoiles is salty about the 2v1 but he and Fit started it by attacking tubbo alone who then had to run to bad and it was a 2v2 before then becoming a 2v1 as Fit backed away injured

Q!Phil has also mentioned that bad has not taken responsibility for his actions and this is echoed a lot in fan spaces but Bad is constantly taking on blame for things he may have only been adjacent too. He’s said he’s killed a lot of people, he jokes that he’d do it again. He doesnt often show remorse for his actions which I think is more what some are after but he does acknowledge things he doesn’t pretend it never happened. He told Pepito he was a monster. And anytime some express anger towards bad he respects their feelings (that doesn’t mean he’d chose to act differently or feel remorse in such actions but he doesn’t tell anyone theyre not allowed to feel that way)

its a fascinating subject to me because this effect has carried over so strongly within the space despite the fact Bad didn’t even have the highest kills in p1 for soulfire (it was Tubbo by quite a margin) yet Tubbo is often unnamed as the wrongdoer. Bagi set up Bad for death, while it didn’t come to fruition she still did that to Bad. Bad could not do anything but run when red team took on the bounty system which was excruciating to watch. Red also showed no mercy when the boats arrived and killed Bad the sole player for blue leaving his body in a zone that would kill a naked player.

Bad did do wrong he spawn killed Jaiden. However his stalking home bases and killing others in general was no different then all of the other skilled players repertoire. Bad had to play offensively for his team the majority of the time as he was one of the few that could, yet the boogeyman effect holds onto him and warps even his own members perceptions after the fact. Q!Tina as an example very enthusiastic about letting Bad loose in p1 too then scolding him for actions he took under her instruction.

The fan narrative has been the most acutely difficult to manage as the effect is almost to mystic proportions and finding disdain for even mundane actions Bad takes and reading into those as disingenuously as possible always set on more then retribution but truly an end to his character. Which again having watched Bads POV I havent been able to discern anything remarkable that any other character hasnt also partook in.

The difference I have noted is that Bad will always consider himself in the wrong regardless if his actions had justifiable reason behind it. Dapper told Bad to win in purgatory. After purgatory Bad put himself and Dapper down as ‘oh thats just something Dapper would say hes just bloodthirsty, but narratively Dapper has committed self harm in order to protect his siblings and other islanders ((an issue Dapper unfortunately sees in his father and perpetuates himself)) believing he is nothing more then a tool to help those he loves, he would not risk his siblings lives for bloodthirsty humor. Bad knows this but when faced with the hate others saw in him he waves off both his and his sons merit buckling down. Bad and Dapper have dark humor but are always making gifts and finding ways to help others. There is nothing on the island Bad is more set to protect then the eggs and this thought with Dappers message, Q!Bad really thought he needed to go all out to protect them, even still he held back a lot and would 2nd guess because he wanted to be absolutely certain of the egg’s safety.

He wasnt without reason yet with the boogeyman effect looming over his reasons never seem to be able to hold a candle to the more popular characters, and he often concedes a lot to it. He says it with a laugh, tease, and is sassy with it but still he concedes to others perceptions of him as he doesnt want to override others feelings. It can be a bit exhausting as things are blown out of proportion to what they were in originality but on a social breakdown of how things and information travels its very very interesting and I have been enjoying the dive even if it stings sometimes with reflective thoughts.

[mao-likes-2-draw]

it’s inexcusable!

recipe for turnabout fanart because its entertaining as hell. this dialogue is like my roman empire. WHAT DO YOU MEAN. (ace attorney fueled rant under cut)

we know already phoenix literally doesn’t tell anybody anything (like the class trial or edgeworth’s disappearance) so obviously he wouldn’t tell people “my ex girlfriend tried to kill me and i ate glass for her”???? and he clearly isn’t over what happened in T&T. desiree looks scarily like dahlia and he gets flustered by her!!! thats insane!!!! nearly every romantic relationship is meant to mirror feenie & dollie, whether in a good light or a bad one. and he sees whats happening w/ viola and tigre and it makes him especially angry because he’s been in a similar situation. not to mention the POISONING thing?? the poison was the murder weapon in this case and obviously the coffee poison is meant to foreshadow godot and blah blah blah BUT HE DIDNT EVEN SAY MURDER!!! HE SAID POISONING. clearly still affected by dahlia!! and obviously because his full name is Phoenix Doesn’t Tell Anybody Anything Wright, maya is really confused and concerned.

i really just love how dahlia looms over the narrative 🫡🫡

[pachimation]

redrawing my very first chiscara comic/art i ever did for chscr day!!

old comic under the cut!!

lol a bunch of sappy semi serious stuff below bc i cant help but be a bit genuine about this ship today :’3

i cant possibly put into words how important this silly little ship and its community mean to me haha,,,, this comic was made in 2021 but i didnt really get serious about chscr until late 2022 after a bunch of pretty bad interpersonal stuff happened and i needed an outlet,, COINCIDENTALLY a certain someone was announced to be playable around then and i was already thought chscr was Pretty Neat™️ so i ended up diving headfirst into the ship. it also gave me a good excuse to work on more comics too!! i’d done a pretty big zhongven comic earlier that year in the summer, but in terms of lore there was only so much i could have worked with at the moment.

childe and scaramouche have that perfect combination of silliness and angst and violence that could be explored or expanded in so many ways and i love love love seeing other people’s interpretations of their dynamic and relationship. they’re so complex,,,,they’re narrative foils,,,they’re narrative parallels,,,they’re trans allegories,,,they’re flies in the spiderweb of the games lore,,,they’re my stupid little meow meows,,, they’re just two losers i want to see make out,,,

in a nutshell, they’re everything to me. well, i hope i get that kind of sentiment across in my own comics,,,,

and i cant get started on all the people ive met through chiscara or the way that having something i can call “my thing”, as in, the thing that i like and that i will spend a lot of time and effort (and money, but lets not talk about that) to surround myself with because it makes me smile. its stupid to say, but being a nerd about these two stupid guys who have never had a single canon onscreen interaction in some random game has made me a much happier and confident person that i could have ever imagined back in my freshman year of college,,, when i say i dont know who i’d be if i hadnt gotten into chiscara, i really do mean it lol

i’m actually surprised i’m making it to over a full year of regular-ishly making art, especially for the same game and ship! thats never happened before and my art has improved so much over this past year!! more than anything else, i’m happy! i get to be excited talking about these characters with my friends and i love to see art of them pop up on the tl. i make stickers of them and decorate my phonecase with them and have little figures of them in my room that i look at when im up late at night working on schoolwork. sometimes just the thought of finishing a comic or daydreaming about a scenario or seeing what my mutuals are up to are some of the few things getting me through a tough day.

,,,,so believe me when i say, to both childe and scara and to everyone else as obsessed with these pathic losers as i am, thank you! i’m having a lot of fun!!!

(also i just found out tumblrs copy/paste doesnt work on my ipad??? idk if this ends up legible i may or may not have deleted smth by accident and im not in a mood to proofread haha)